Cynthia Tina (CynthiaTina.com) is co-Executive Director of the Foundation for Intentional Community. She helps connect people to intentional communities as a coach for seekers and marketing consultant for growing projects including ecovillages, cohousing, learning centers, and permaculture communities.
Cynthia thinks that we need to do more to protect the earth and to figure a way to regenerate ourselves and the world in which we live. A culture of sharing is one of tighter, more supportive connections and one that requires less.
Cynthia made me think of how this could apply to community that I live in. On street are about 20 houses. Each of these house has at least 2 cars (some have 4), so that is about 60 cars on our street. Yet most of the cars are parked most of the time (this was true before the Coronavirus lock down as well). Also, each of our houses have fairly small yards. Yet most people on my street have a lawn mower, edger, and blower. We probably only need one for the entire street. If we had a community of sharing, we would have mechanisms in place to make this happen.
I was particularly interested in getting Cynthia’s views on how intentional communities could provide a framework to help test out systems that could be the basis for creating communities off of earth. Many intentional communities try to be power and food self sufficient. This is a step towards a community that would need to also be self sufficient for water and many other goods. Many intentional communities practice voluntary simplicity and value “bread labor” the idea that everyone needs to physically participate in the running of the community. But the most important system that intentional communities develop is in human organization. Effective ways to make group decisions.
I described to Cynthia the vision that Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has for space. Jeff points out that the Earth is the best place in the solar system for humans, BY FAR. In fact, in my view, it is difficult to imagine the earth getting so bad off that another place in the solar system would be better than just creating the enclosed settlements here on earth.
We need to protect the earth. That is what Jeff Bezos hopes to accomplish. Move all the earth harming activities off of the earth and save earth for life (human and otherwise). “Space is for working. The Earth is for living.”
Cynthia would go to space if it was safe, affordable, and environmentally friendly. And she had not heard about NASA’s plans to go back to the moon in 2024 before I approached her for the interview.