Hunter-gatherers only spend about 4-5 hours a day hunting and gathering. There is much larger emphasis on dreamtime, on ceremonies, on being on the earth than in the modern world. Folks in the modern world are dying from a lack of connection with the dreamtime. One of the reason some intentional communities fail is because they don’t spend enough time in the dreamtime. There is a need to become aware of the group’s relationship with the earth. The community is not just about what the people want, it is also about what the earth wants.

A large amount of time needs to be spent counselling each other, resolving conflicts, healing each other and listening to the strange, difficult and seemingly irrational issues which arise between people. These difficult issues are in fact the living soul of the community which is trying to awaken. They are the essence of community and without them there is no community. Folks may need to process and work on their shadow, dreams, relationships, and need to follow their bodies.

Often their might be one particular person refuses to collaborate or seems to be a persistent ‘problem.’ This person may be the one we need to listen to most deeply; they may have the secrets that one needs for the community to evolve and which will guide the community into the future

Sometimes folks might feel that they are the victim and someone else is oppressing them. We need to work on our conflicts and troubles, and recognize that each of us is partly an oppressor and also partly a victim, each of us is partly obsessed with control and partly an interanimistic being. We may need to listen to each other deeply and share our feelings including our pain and grief, whilst still caring for ourselves and others and remembering who we are.

When we act like this we may end up doing things which seem completely unusual. Life becomes a mystery theater, something which is like a mixture of art, drama, politics and ceremony. There needs to be a space for frightening emotions such as rage, fear and ecstasy. It is impossible to expect that we can go into a community and just get on with each other without looking at our d reaming processes. We might have the pain of ten thousand years of history to process. All this is quite practical, the dreamtime is relevant to how to fix your roof or plant some potatoes and how to communicate with the local council.