Author: Chris Roth
Chris Roth edited Talking Leaves: A Journal of Our Evolving Ecological Culture for eight years, and has edited Communities since 2008. A resident member of Lost Valley Educational Center/Meadowsong Ecovillage in Dexter, Oregon, he has lived in intentional community and on organic or permaculture farms most of his adult life. Among other activities, he currently leads nature walks at Mount Pisgah Arboretum and assists at Solsara workshops. Contact him at editor [AT] ic.org. Articles by Chris Roth include: Festivals and Gatherings (Issue # 142) Community in Hard Times (Issue # 144) Ecology and Community (Issue # 143) Searching for Republicans...and Other Elephants in the Community Living Room (Issue # 140) How Ecology Led Me to Community (Issue # 143) Health and Well-Being (Issue # 145) Family (Issue # 146) The Butterfly Effect and the Art (Direction) of Circumstance (Issue # 140) Exploring Family (Issue # 146) Together and Apart; Eden Within Eden (Issue # 146) Thoughts on Power (Issue # 148) Education for Sustainability (Issue # 147) Power and Disempowerment on the Ecobus (Issue # 148) Getting Elder All the Time (Issue # 149) Crazy About Community (Issue # 150) Hopeful New Stories from the Old World (Issue # 150) Intimacy: Past , Present, Future (Issue # 151) On the Road with Communities (Issue # 151) Right Lively 'Hood (Issue # 152) The Growing Edge, Additional Permaculture Resources, and Herbal Medicine from the Heart of the Earth (Issue # 153) Permaculture 101 and Attending to Zone Zero (Issue # 153) The Economics of Happiness (Issue # 154) Common Ground in an Uncertain World (Issue # 154) The Lighter Side of Community (Issue # 155) Group Works (Issue # 156) An Ecovillage Future (Issue # 156) Endings and Beginnings (Issue # 157) Gratitude, Loss, Rebirth, and Community (Issue # 157) Cycling toward Sustainable Community (Issue # 157) Conmunity Wisdom for Everyday Life (Issue # 159) The Encyclopedic Guide to American Intentional Communities (Issue # 159) The Rhythm of Rutledge (Issue # 159) Affording Communities (Issue # 158) Youth in Community (Issue # 160) Health and Quiet (Issue # 145) Confessions of a Fallen Eco-Warrior (Issue # 161) Gender: Is There a “There” There? (Issue #162)
The Community’s Garden Orchestra
Posted on July 14, 2015 byEngaging in collective food-production is like making our own music together: it’s both difficult and rewarding, especially with diverse players involved.
Food and Community, #167 Contents
Posted on May 25, 2015 byFood and community are both at the core of our experience as human beings. Food brings us together and helps us understand and define who we are in groups. It highlights our interdependence and brings up core issues such as how we make decisions, how we relate to one another and the earth, and how we balance individual and collective needs and preferences. In “Food and Community,” our authors share stories and explore issues from locavoracity to global consciousness.
The New Communities
Posted on February 26, 2015 byOur new format features 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper, as well as color throughout the issue—better reflecting both our ecological values and the richness of life in cooperative culture.
Community for Baby Boomers, #166 Contents
Posted on February 20, 2015 byWhat role can baby boomers (born 1946-1964) play in a new resurgence of intentional community living? Where can they find and offer support to meet their and others’ needs over their final decades of life? How can aging baby boomers regain the sense of community that defined much of their generation as youth and young adults? What gifts do baby boomers offer to younger generations? In “Community for Baby Boomers,” our contributors explore these questions and many more.
Technology on the Path to Reality: Snapshots from the Pre-Post-Digital Age
Posted on December 29, 2014 by1 Comment
Misadventures with a cell phone help the author dial into more enduring, meaningful adventures and relationships not dependent on an electronic-communications hamster wheel.
Technology, Nature, and Community
Posted on November 21, 2014 byHow does modern technology affect our ecological and social literacy? Are computers and their kin suppressing or enhancing the awareness, skills, and qualities essential to our nature as humans?
Technology: Friend or Foe?, #165 Contents
Posted on November 14, 2014 byIn our issue on “Technology: Friend or Foe?,” authors examine the impacts of modern technology on their experience of community. Has the digital age brought us closer together, or moved us apart? How has it impacted our relationship with the rest of the living world? What does “appropriate use of technology” look like, and what is “appropriate technology”? We explore the full range of sentiment from technological optimism to technological skepticism.
Community Conversations, #164 Contents
Posted on September 3, 2014 byIn our “Community Conversations” issue, people both within and outside of intentional community discuss questions like: What does community mean to us? Where do we find it? What are its benefits and challenges? How do we deepen our experience of it? What is the purpose of community, and how do we talk about it? Their stories form a rich, diverse tapestry in which community and conversation prove to be inextricably intertwined.
Business Ventures, #163 Contents
Posted on May 31, 2014 byIssue #163 explores the fertile ground where cooperation and commerce intersect. How can we earn a living while still upholding our values? How can we bring cooperative principles to business activities? How can we nurture our communities, neighborhoods, and towns by creating sustainable livelihoods that serve the greater good? What obstacles do we encounter, and how do we overcome them?
Gender: Is There a “There” There?
Posted on March 4, 2014 byThe intensity of community living can bring issues of gender, sexual identity, and gender relationships to the fore as nothing else does.
Gender Issues, #162 Contents
Posted on March 4, 2014 byCommunities #162 looks at gender, sexual identity, gender relationships, and much more.
Confessions of a Fallen Eco-Warrior
Posted on January 14, 2014 byA communitarian stops counting nanowatts, and starts counting blessings.
Affording Communities
Posted on March 7, 2013 byTogether—but only together—we can afford to keep publishing Communities.
Cycling toward Sustainable Community
Posted on December 7, 2012 by1 Comment
After 6,500 miles of pedaling and 100 community visits, a couple documents the promise of intentional community and cooperative living.
Gratitude, Loss, Rebirth, and Community
Posted on December 7, 2012 byEndings and beginnings grow from one another and make personal and group renewal possible.
An Ecovillage Future
Posted on September 7, 2012 by1 Comment
For the health of our species and the planet, we need ecovillages.
The Lighter Side of Community
Posted on June 7, 2012 by4 Comments
This Hollywood movie offers both surprising insight and fond parody while taking viewers far from the beaten path, into the world of intentional community.
Common Ground in an Uncertain World
Posted on March 7, 2012 by1 Comment
A journey through various flavors of spiritually eclectic community brings
us face to face with cursed seeds, the White Brotherhood Team, mystery,
and stardust.
Permaculture 101 and Attending to Zone Zero
Posted on December 7, 2011 by1 Comment
The editor provides a refresher on our theme and suggests some new Zone Zero guidelines to help keep permaculturalists in the game for the long haul.
Right Lively ‘Hood
Posted on September 7, 2011 by1 Comment
Finding meaningful, socially and ecologically responsible work cannot be done in a vacuum. Right livelihood depends on networks of relationship.
Hopeful New Stories from the Old World
Posted on March 7, 2011 by1 Comment
Ten European ecovillages show the way to a brighter future.
Getting Elder All the Time
Posted on December 7, 2010 byCommunity can be balm for the discomforts of aging, just as elders’ wisdom and caring can soothe the growing pains of youth.
Power and Disempowerment on the Ecobus
Posted on September 7, 2010 by7 Comments
Some saw this radical environmental education program as a “cult,” others as an intensely focused experience of challenge and growth. Had participants lost their individuality, or gained a new sense of self?
Education for Sustainability
Posted on June 7, 2010 byAuthor: Chris Roth Published in Communities Magazine Issue #147 I’m listening to the rain fall on the roof of Karma, the passive solar residence at Sandhill Farm where I’m staying… Read More
Together and Apart; Eden Within Eden
Posted on March 7, 2010 byReviews of two great books on community living, one on life in a convent with surprising insights even for the most secular, and one on the history of utopian experiments in Oregon.
Exploring Family
Posted on March 7, 2010 byWhat do Hopi Indians, John Keats, lost loves, intentional community, and family have in common? For better or worse, they’ve combined to befuddle, enlighten, dismay, and inspire our author.
Health and Well-Being
Posted on December 7, 2009 byAuthor: Chris Roth Published in Communities Magazine Issue #145 This year’s discussion on health care policy in the United States has focused attention on ways to assure broader access to… Read More
Health and Quiet
Posted on December 7, 2009 byNoise and quiet can both affect well-being profoundly. Gordon Hempton’s One Square Inch of Silence offers ear-opening stories and perspectives, practical suggestions, and simple, radical wisdom.
How Ecology Led Me to Community
Posted on June 7, 2009 byThe author recounts some of the off-beat marching orders he received from an eco-oriented “different drummer”—and how, instead of becoming a hermit, he became a communitarian.
Searching for Republicans…and Other Elephants in the Community Living Room
Posted on September 7, 2008 byAn informal survey raises several compelling questions: Can communitarians
learn to focus on larger-scale politics as much as on internal politics? Should they? What’s proper political etiquette in community? And have you ever met a communitarian who is not left of center?
