Mission

Manitou Arbor Ecovillage is an eco-spiritual community dedicated to caring for people and the Earth by living and demonstrating a sustainable culture appropriate to our bioregion.

Ecospirituality

Manitou Arbor promotes no particular religious tradition while respecting each individual's personal spirituality.

We have a faith that people can come together, to live, to neighbor, to celebrate. We have a faith that despite our different beliefs, we recognize that nature offers opportunity for profound spiritual experiences, personal growth and healing, and an awareness of wholeness and holiness in all of existence.

We recognize that contemplation upon, prayer within, or simply experiencing nature opens oneself to a greater awareness of our connection to all things, and an encouragement to right living.

Because we are all different, we will nuance the details of our deep beliefs about the root source of this spiritual experience differently., Therefor, as a community of diversity and inclusiveness, we offer this simple statement of who we are: "As members of an eco-spiritual community, we aspire to honor the sacred in all that is, and live responsible lives of justice and compassion."

Please read our statement of Covenant as well. It much more clearly reveals our spiritual hearts.

Vision

Manitou Arbor Ecovillage is envisioned as a community which learns, works at, and teaches the skills and technologies of a viable village culture appropriate to our historical moment and bioregional context. It is to be ecumenical, multi-generational and culturally diverse.

The community imagines the development of neighborhood living units, which are ecologically designed, energy and materials efficient, and aesthetically pleasing. Technologies emphasizing renewable energy generation, energy conservation and earth-friendly materials (that is, "soft-path" technologies) will be incorporated into the buildings and systems. Structure and architecture will ensure a blending of privacy and community. A village commons and commonly-owned facilities will exist alongside the private residences. It will be a pedestrian friendly village.

The ecovillage will own or have stewardship over a significant amount of land. We intend to reserve and restore our agriculturally suitable lands so as to ultimately provide a significant portion of our own food. At the same time, we desire the sustained preservation of the entire property, including the restoration of the biodiversity and health of our forests and wetlands, as sanctuaries for native, endangered, and useful plants and animals. We desire to integrate a caring community with our biological surroundings in respect for all members of the Earth community.

We wish to be involved in agriculture, both farming and gardening. And we envision other developments of appropriate businesses or cottage industries, and a local, alternative economic system. Ecovillage members may have different sorts of involvement in these activities. We believe that flexibility and freedom of choice as to one's type of participation and commitments to community enterprise and activities is appropriate . Still, some form of commitment to the community services is assumed.

The ecovillage will be governed by a shared democracy. In governance, as in other activities, we strive to create a culture which encourages the connections among ourselves as true neighbors: in sharing goods, talents, prayer, and celebrations. We hope to achieve a balance of community interaction and individual freedom and integrity, which will nurture the healthy growth of both persons and society. And we desire to engage in some form of social justice outreach in projects of service to the broader community.

We hope that Manitou Arbor Ecovillage will grow to serve not only as a successful community of neighbors and friends, but as a demonstration to others that a spiritual, sustainable way of living is possible in our current age.

Values

At the core of our values lies foundational concepts such as respect, integrity and a sense of the sacred. Respect is meant to include all things: all human individuals and all elements of the creation. Integrity is meant to guide and focus that respect; it is integrated, holistic, working together as persons and the larger community of life. All this is empowered by the sense of the sacred: that all in essence is sacred, invested with some aspect of the divine. This sense of the sacred makes respect a powerful concept and, indeed, a requirement of right action.
A second tier of values then arises: kindness, compassion, and the need for social justice. All these become behaviors and responsibilities of the spirit. Although personal freedom is highly valued, it must be mindful freedom, always nuanced with responsibility. Non-violence becomes a method of the heart in matters of action.

In order to empower both person and community, we realize that we are stronger together than we are alone. We, therefore, value our interdependence, our community orientation, and our governance and social methods of cooperation and dialogue. To bring the greatest strength to our synergy, we value diversity in person, beliefs, talents, and the diverse wisdom that the natural world itself can bring.

And we need other aids to our empowerment: knowledge and education, so that we might team and better share what we have learned; and beauty/aesthetics, so that our souls will be light enough to carry burdens when they come.