Terrenity - A Regenerative Village Research and Education Initiative
This is a publication for modern village builders so we can troubleshoot why there aren’t more regenerative communities already.
I have been an ecovillage researcher for 6 years.
As an anthropologist, I’ve been self-studying, traveling to, and living in ecovillages for that long, and a lot has changed since I first sold everything and set out on the journey.
As a paid ecovillage consultant and researcher, a renewed sense of responsibility to this project has welled up in me. I feel an incredible pull to share the resources I have collected and continue to document my learning journey.
Get ready to scuba dive into the world of regenerative village building with this newsletter.
1. What you can expect as a reader
Posting Schedule: Weekly Terrenity posts on Sunday at 10:10am because in my imagination you will be able to curl up with a tea and read your weekly resource.
Posting Frequency: 4 posts a month, with 2 free posts and 2 paid posts.
Free Posts
In a given month the 2 free posts will be any combination of these types:
Community Hacks Series — assessing common pitfalls in community building and providing different “hacks” and tools to avoid them.
Case Studies — a look at particular communities, how they work and what they did right, with a focus feature on communities you can live in
Opinion Pieces — When you read me for awhile, you’ll notice I have pretty distinct opinions on certain topics of village building
Paid Posts
If you are a paid subscriber, you can expect:
Deep Dives - A monthly detailed post on a technical aspect of village building (business, legal, etc.) with resources and custom templates. These in-depth articles are based off the Community Alchemy guide.
Village Builder Insider - At any given time, I am working with and consulting several regenerative villages. Here you get monthly bite-sized project updates with my methods for village design and 3 lessons I learned each month. I answer the questions of paid subscribers in these posts.
+ BONUS audio recordings of articles for paid subscribers and a paid subscriber chat
If you would like to receive these goodies, take 32 seconds to subscribe to a paid subscription right now.
It’s $5/month but only $30 a year, which is a 50% discount. I offer this as a gift to all my early supporters, who will get grandmothered in as the publication changes.
You can unsubscribe in one click.
2. We need to build the villages of tomorrow, today.
I can’t keep hoarding my resources, nor can I deny my natural inclination to be a writer. So here we are. There is a unique urgency to build more regenerative and sustainable communities in which we can live, and to be able to do that, we need to demystify the process.
Terrenity is committed to sharing learnings, insights, and experiences in the realm of village building to create a better future for all of us.
Subscribe today to stay informed and inspired.
3. Be my (virtual) community
I hope to create a space for passionate community builders and seekers who are deeply passionate about regenerative community design, whole systems thinking, indigenous worldview, sustainable living, innovative green tech, and all of the applications of these fields in the ecovillage world.
We will now be sharing its learnings actively on Substack newsletter, where readers can expect unique insights to village building tools, reviews and summaries of ecovillage literature, community/coliving case studies, and recommendations to products, courses, and services that help you build your village faster.
I say “we” because this Substack is open to co-authors and collaborators. If you want to write about ecovillages, intentional communities/coliving, coordi-nations, and regenerative design, then you are in the right place.
Email proposals to hello@terrenity.org
4. Why subscribe to this podcast/publication
My giant drive of resources is just sitting there, waiting to be shared in an organized way
I have developed some tools and templates that will be helpful
With Regen Tribe we have databased over 280 new exciting regenerative village, network state, and eco-cohousing projects. We have also documented a bunch of orgs, service providers, and cool people I will be recommending.
I can help you connect with the projects or the tools you are looking for. Potentially you don’t have to build a community by yourself and can connect with existing projects/initiatives.
5. The story of Terrenity
Mid-pandemic I sold almost everything in my California apartment, packed my suitcase, and headed to Mexico. Even though I had an amazing job working in native plant habitat restoration at a 44-acre wildlife park in the middle of an urban city, I was craving more. I was craving community. About 4 years prior, I had discovered the word ecovillage, and was fully obsessed.
My background in Anthropology equipped me with a particular thirst to understand human culture in order to design our future. I set out with my camera and my notes to visit different communities, understand them, and receive the soul medicine that I knew community had to offer.
Terrenity is a project for ecovillage seekers and builders. The project also involved nonprofit consulting for ecovillages in Guyana and Uganda.
As I traveled, I collected research, made observations, and studied community life while living it. Along the way, I connected with an exciting startup working on regenerative neighborhoods, Regen Tribe, and became a co-founder of that project. Putting all my energy into that, Terrenity fell to the wayside for a short time.
I saw, and still see, ecovillages as one way to provide a radical alternative to some of the broken, extractive systems that we live in. Effectively, we can redesign society at local scale. We can live not just a more sustainable life, but a more meaningful, connected, and cooperative one.
And this isn’t just happening at local scale anymore. Initiatives like the network state movement, decentralization, and web3 are making possible new innovations in village tech and other alternative society options.
I am excited to merge all of my learnings over the last 6 years into this Substack. Everything I share will aspire to a next level of quality and usefulness, so please, join in. My goal is to become fully self-sufficient as an ecovillage writer and researcher, and my pledge is to help you build (or find) the community of your dreams.
