Vision & Mission
Terra Futura Eco-Community Vision: We are passionate and optimistic people who are growing in our understanding of ourselves and others. The way in which we live and treat each other–with intuition, vulnerability and personal responsibility–is the wisdom we offer the world. We value inspiring our world toward resilience, Earth care, and People care.
Terra Futura Eco-Community Mission: Create and sustain a community of like-minded individuals, drawn together by our passion for each other, the Land, and a shared future.
Terra Futura Community Values
As we find ourselves the unexpected founders of an eco-community, we realize that we have the immense honor—AND responsibility—to create the environment, set the table, and wholeheartedly welcome all who would feel called and aligned to live in this community. We have been influenced and inspired by so many different teachers, mentors, and ideas that inform our values. Our intention is that our values would, in turn, form the beginning—but not the end—of an ever-evolving co-created community.
We, Jack and Kelsey, are inspired by the tantric teachings on polarity of the divine masculine and the divine feminine bringing balance and wholeness. So instead of the decidedly unbalanced masculine process of whipping up a number of core values, mission, vision, and the like, we decided to be inspired by the feminine power of intuition. Kelsey felt called to purchase a deck of vision cards, thinking we may use them someday. The very next day, we realized we needed to create some guiding values for our project that would help inform our Terra Futura Culture Norms—which we would use to create the community HOA’s legal Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions.
We each chose a number of values (some we shared, and some were unique), and put them together intuitively. Our intention is for the potential future community member would find alignment and an emphatic “f*ck YES!” to these values.
Optimism - Growth - Self-Respect - Passion
We identified that these are the qualities of the potential residents of Terra Futura Farm. These are the values that we will be looking for in the application process and will inform how we create that process.
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People who live their lives manifesting the world they want to see. They honor the sacred place of grief, failures, setbacks, and discouragement. They do not avoid uncomfortable emotions and are careful not to project “toxic positivity”. However, they believe the best in themselves, in others, and about the future. They are Utopians who believe that they can be a physical manifestation of the dreams they have of what may be possible.
Example: We may have residents that believe the fall of consumer capitalist society is nigh, however that does not make them want to head for the hills or give up on helping their neighbors. They can admit that an effective and true reformation of society would create less human suffering than a violent revolution or collapse.
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People who admit that they are “a work in progress”. They are committed to doing the deep work, and have demonstrated evidence of the internal work of healing childhood wounds, correcting limiting beliefs and behaviors, and regularly change their mind about issues after hearing narratives that challenge their originally held beliefs.
Example: In a community group event, one resident, Priya, approached another resident, Vicente, and let him know that a comment he had made had hurt her feelings and asked if he would consider refraining from comments like that in her presence in the future. He responded, thanking her for that perspective and said he would take some time to honor that request and get back to her at a designated time to discuss what was coming up for him in an honest and humble way. Vicente noticed feelings of defensiveness, avoidance, or appeasement, but did not act on them.
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People who are growing more and more aware of their divinity and deservedness of honor for their uniqueness and what they have to offer the world. They honor their own boundaries, are accountable for their actions, and are working to be unafraid of kindly requesting their desires and boundaries with those around them.
Example: In the example above, both Priya and Vicente demonstrated self-respect. Priya spoke up for a felt need that was not being met. Vicente demonstrated self-respect by not immediately caving and giving an apology that was not well thought-out and representing his true self and intention in the world.
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People who have that joie de vivre–who have a drive, electricity, and magnetism that fuels their life toward their “soul assignment”. Their vibrancy draws others toward them and inspires those around them to dream and live bigger. People who innovate and inspire as if it were their first language.
Example: A resident, Naomi, does not merely comment or complain about how people aren’t disposing of their compost in a timely manner, but she takes it upon herself to offer to residents to pay her children $1 per bucket pickup on their morning walk. She makes the case to the community that timely pickup of compost ensures the cleanliness of the community and helps with fruit flies and unpleasant smells.
Wisdom - Education - Intuition
These values speak to the mission of our community. We value the deep wisdom we gather from our self-reflection, the research that interests each of us, and the perspectives we listen to from others. We honor the innate, spiritual magic of intuition that guides us, our bodies and hearts.
We have an embodied, praxis-as-pedagogy model of education where we are all learners who live out our values and passion and heal the world in our mere being-ness. We also honor traditional and modern discourse and sharing of knowledge, wisdom, and intuition. Our hope is that in addition to hosting speakers, healers, teachers, and facilitators, the way we live, eat, farm, and treat each other would be, itself, an education to the world.
Resilience - Environment - Activism
We believe that no action is without consequence. How we spend our evenings, where we buy our groceries, how we raise our children–every action has an effect on our global and micro-watershed communities. What draws Terra Futurites together are our shared values of resiliency in the face of adversity, working to demonstrate a way to live on this sacred Land and honor all the creatures that live on Her, including humans; and work to create a world where all are free.
We feel it is important to define activism. Our particular cultural interpretation of activism is neither overly militant, nor overly withdrawn from society. We want to do the deep work in our partnerships with communities, organizations, and leaders who all work toward the collective well-being of our future on the Land together.
Examples of this are partnerships with Indigenous and Black-managed businesses and collectives in addressing material decolonization and reparation. To this end, we develop relationships with government officials, progressive business leaders, and effective non-profit groups to reframe and challenge how we as a society relate to Land “ownership”, food production, local economy, housing, and more.
What’s with the name?
Terra - fr. Latin, meaning Earth, Land; the Roman Earth Goddess, equivalent to Gaia, or Gaea
Futura - Future, Futurities, Inheritance, Legacy