Primal Commune

Is there one?
I've seen others mention that they'd want one, but sadly, I've found that none exist.
Would it be a place where people live permanently, or like a retreat location for primal people to meet and recharge their batteries?
What do you think a Primal Commune would look like?

More importantly, what would it take to start one?

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I would love to start a free-range elk & bison ranching commune in the Southwest somewhere (maybe Colorado?). It would definitely be Primal-friendly. My vision would be a semi-permanent community (some permanent and some temporary inhabitants) where the operational tasks and incomes of the ranch would be shared by all the permanent residents, with seasonal or provisional work available for people passing through or deciding whether they want to move in. Each individual, group or family would be provided a living space and a private garden, with freedom to change living arrangements by mutual agreement as desired. There would need to be some sort of vetting process for new members where unanimous consent of the existing residents would be required for anyone new to move in permanently.

The idea would be that everyone gets their basic needs provided through the ranching income, in exchange for a few hours a week of work on the ranch from each person. We'd maintain community recreation and work-spaces that anyone could then use to pursue their own projects doing whatever interests them, with a small fraction of any income derived from these projects contributed to the communal pot and the rest going to the creator as personal income. The ranch could provide secondary income through sustainable lumber harvesting, selling surplus garden products, beekeeping, etc.

I'd prefer to work on a unanimous-consensus model for decision making so it would be important to keep the resident population low-ish; not sure where it starts to get unwieldy to make decisions that way, but I would think not more than 100 people or so.

If you can't tell, I've thought about this before. :)

Gather, Phamily! Let us dance 'round the fire and free our spirits!

Ah, the Rainbow Gathering. Good memories!

You want a minimum of 500 people to prevent genetic degradation and ensure some semblance of economy. But that's not Paleo at all.

That's what I'm talking about Uncephalized, that sounds feasible. Perhaps if the ranch isn't too far from a city people could still hold down part-time jobs for extra income, and then the rest of the time focus on ranch work, play and gardening. If each person of a 50 person community volunteered 5 hours a week to the community, that would be 250 a week. I have no idea what kind of man-hours it would take to run a community, but that sounds reasonable.

I like the co-housing/eco-hamlet model rather than a comune; you have your own private, self-contained space, but share communal space and sometimes facitities like laundry. I'd love to live in a little group of 3 - 5 families, preferably home-edders too, growing and raising most of what we eat, producing our own electricity, growing timber for fuel, and earing enough money to buy what we can't grow by raising high quality meat, CSA, self employed trades and timber products. A lot of co-housing places have vegan or veggie commual meals and have a high number of vegan, I would need people to be meat eaters even if they insist on eating grain and bean (one which needs a large amount of processing and the other dons't grow well in the UK) then that's thier choice, I'll eat meat fish, eggs and veggies that I grow myself thanks :D

We are selling up and trying to make this happen, though it is such a pain to find people that will actually go for it rather than like the idea then put obsticals in the way as it's not exactly what they want that we will probably go it alone, and hopefully get enough land to get others to join us later.

Unfortuanlty we need to live within an hour of step-sons dad (well it would be unreasonable to move away) so we are a bit limited on where we can go :(

I have thought about this quite alot too.

You hippies can leave me alone, but I would drive to your commune and buy your meats and other goods. Then leave like "those people are looney... good meat though."

[QUOTE=iniQuity;1016527]You hippies can leave me alone, but I would drive to your commune and buy your meats and other goods. Then leave like "those people are looney... good meat though."[/QUOTE]

Yep, and I hug trees too (problem is though I'm getting to the point of trying to up-root them like an angry bear now)

[QUOTE=Knifegill;1016453]Gather, Phamily! Let us dance 'round the fire and free our spirits!

Ah, the Rainbow Gathering. Good memories!

You want a minimum of 500 people to prevent genetic degradation and ensure some semblance of economy. But that's not Paleo at all.[/QUOTE]My "commune" would be more like a ranching village and would not be isolated from surrounding communities. So no worries about inbreeding. :D

[QUOTE=Sambo712;1016511]That's what I'm talking about Uncephalized, that sounds feasible. Perhaps if the ranch isn't too far from a city people could still hold down part-time jobs for extra income, and then the rest of the time focus on ranch work, play and gardening. If each person of a 50 person community volunteered 5 hours a week to the community, that would be 250 a week. I have no idea what kind of man-hours it would take to run a community, but that sounds reasonable.[/QUOTE]Totally. You've got to be near an urban center or you throw away all kinds of income opportunities selling your high-priced organic mountain honey and free-range elk and FSC-certified lumber at the local markets. Of course the number of people-hours needed to maintain a community or a ranch is roughly proportional to the population/size so that kind of takes care of itself. People tend to be inclined towards taking care of their own homes, families and neighbors without much outside prompting anyway, so the business side would be the only part that would need to be actively managed.

[QUOTE=iniQuity;1016527]You hippies can leave me alone, but I would drive to your commune and buy your meats and other goods. Then leave like "those people are looney... good meat though."[/QUOTE]I'm fine with you thinking I'm a loony, as long as you are giving me your money willingly. :)

Hey, Uncephalized, I'd like to come live/work with your group. :)

I can garden, and I'm a helluva cook. My husband is, at heart, an appliance repair person (basically anything. If it's broke, he can usually fix it).

Let us know when this materializes.