August 1st 2010 - anyone heard?

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Permalink Reply by Aileen "The Gypsy" on September 27, 2009 at 12:00pm

I tried googling them but didn't find anything

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Permalink Reply by Aileen "The Gypsy" on September 28, 2009 at 6:38pm

When I looked it up Lysistrata showed up talking about ancient Greek things...

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Permalink Reply by Jan Tchamani on September 29, 2009 at 5:59am

Hi

The ancient Greek and Roman philosophers e.g. Plato - an interesting bunch of people - have had a deep and lasting influence on attitudes to women in all the cultures that came under their influence, including ours. The belief was that women were 'deformed men' and vastly inferior. The religion taught that women were created by the gods of 10 types: the sow, the horse, the monkey, the sea, the dust of the earth, the evil fox, the obstinate donkey, the weasel, and the bee. 10% of women were good - the bee women - because they were hard working and limited themselves to domestic activity.

Lysistrata was a Greek woman who organised a campaign of peaceful non-cooperation because the women were sick and tired of the men making war and bringing general mayhem and destruction to the lives of their community. It worked! The men brokered peace with their enemies.

Lysistrata is a role model of how women can influence the affairs of men, and lovingly but firmly guide them into productive activity, good for people and good for the planet. Since sex was the only weapon women in those days could wield against men - they were viewed as sex objects - that was the one they used. Nowadays we have more in our armoury. For me and my friends, I think it will be establishing radical projects and communities - such as Red Tents and Moon Huts - to show that with the focus on nature, love, peace, harmony, creativity and therapy, we can become human beings deserving of survival, even after the oil runs out.

I'm at the beginning of working with a friend to establish a community outside my city where we can live like that. We're hoping to build a red yurt and offer day and weekend therapeutic and creative events to everyone - men included. It's just in the earliest planning stages. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that we get what we need to get going!

x Jan

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Permalink Reply by Aileen "The Gypsy" on September 30, 2009 at 2:59pm

Jen,

Ok thank you that explains a lot :)

Where are you wanting to start your community? I was talking to my fiance the other day actually about living in a sustainable community... if only :)

Keep us updated! You should make a website or blog to keep everyone updated and most links and stuff, just an idea. I would help if I could. I'd like to visit when you're finished.

Aileen

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Permalink Reply by Jan Tchamani on October 1, 2009 at 10:29am

Hi Aileen

Thanks for your reply. It's great that you and I - and so many others - seem to be picking up on this vibe of alternative communities. We're based in Birmingham, England, and the surrounding area. In the US there's an organisation called Woodland Owners that from what I can see on the web is a strong movement. There's also 'Women Owning Woodland' that I found the other day. What we're going to do first is get a presentation together and invite some friends and acquaintances we think will be interested and try to put together some kind of co-operative. Raising finance is going to be a big issue to begin with, of course.

My website is http://redtentengland.com, but I haven't mentioned the project much as yet, apart from to highlight the event where we're doing the presentation, which is in November. While we want people to get interested, there's a danger in launching it all officially too early on - sometimes that can make things 'miscarry', if you see what I mean.

I'd love to hear if you and your fiance decide to go down the same road. There's strength in solidarity, isn't there?

All the best,
Jan

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