Creating Pocket Communities

I find myself sometimes in a mind loop and today's mind loop is "pocket communities."  Just ask a few of my friends and we all know this mind loop well! :)

So, why this fixation of mine?  I've been talking about soul groups and soul mates and raising consciousness so that we move into an inner state of unconditional love and unity.  A pocket community is about living in community in a way that has the feel of tribal connections where neighbors/community is like family watching over each other and sharing in like minded activities and space.  Interdependence where people help each other in healthy ways during ones every day life is very appealing right now since our world has had a sense of separateness that seems unnatural to me.  The thought of a variety of ages living together supporting each other with shared values and shared space where all adults interact with the children, the young visit with the elderly, and like minded people share like minded activities is very attractive.

A friend of mine introduced me to the term "pocket community" recently based on a movie she watched.  Our group of friends have been talking about how important community is and how living with a sense of belonging and joy is also important.  We've been fantasizing about how fun it would be to live in the same neighborhood or condo building where we could meet up daily to talk about our days, take walks, and share meals and ritual. We've also fantasized about working together on joint projects which some of us are now doing.

I've had a nice taste of it with my soul sister who lives down the hall in a condo building we both occupy.  We see each other most days and regularly exclaim that living in a dorm type of situation is the ideal setting for us!  Its the best of both worlds--we have our own privacy since we each live in our own units yet  we don't have to leave the building to see each other.

Creating conscious community with people you know who are like minded in philosophy would be ideal. I'm sure many of you can relate to the neighbor who doesn't want you or your children to step on their lawn or the neighbor who thinks that children should not be seen or heard.   Or how about the Mrs. Kravitz type of neighbor, like the old TV series Bewitched, where she's looking out the window finding a piece of gossip to pass along to make her life more interesting or yours more miserable.

My dorm sister and I talked about creating a conscious "pocket community" on our regular morning walk.  We brain stormed about all the people we know and concluded that most of our friends would not want to move from their current homes despite the appeal of living by their closest friends.  Even my lovely group of friends who love the idea of being in a community together and have talked about it over the last couple of years, when it got right down to it, would probably not want to move.  So how do you create a "pocket community" without actually living by each other?

Creating your own virtual pocket community


Creating your own virtual pocket community takes some planning.  There are a couple groups of friends that I get together with on a regular basis and shoot for getting together at least once a month.  We usually have a rhythm to our gatherings.

• We rotate homes.  This way each of us gets a chance to experience the beautiful community energy within our own homes.

• We have a potluck or rotate who cooks. We talk as the food is being organized.

• The meal involves interesting conversations around what we're seeing going on around the planet.  We like to identify the global challenges but this is only so we can come up with solutions on how we can help usher in change.

• We focus on how our own careers and daily lives can help create change.  It can be as simple as not taking things personally and acting different in the face of challenge to doing things a little differently so that people begin to slowly change the way they see things.

• We all see ourselves as agents of change by "Being" the change we want to see through daily acts of kindness and carrying energies of love and compassion.  

• We talk about our personal lives and what's going on with them.  None of us feel we have the answers for one another but are there to listen and support each other or offer suggestions if the other person is wanting it

• We sit in a circle after dinner and ask that each of our Higher Selves work together to bring in energies that will help us most at this time.  The idea of pocket community, living in joyful interaction with one another have been shown to us during this meditative group time.  These beautiful energies come in to help us feel and think differently in our lives so we can eventually create something in our every day lives that duplicates the energies coming in.

• We all recognize that each gift each of us carries is equally as important as the other person's gift.  They all help create meaning and purpose to each other's lives.

Creating community is becoming more and more important as we move into a time of collective change.  Supporting each others visions and dreams and sharing in daily routine and ritual is very important to creating a sense of safety and security as we move towards creating a new planetary system of equality, unity, and oneness.  Each  pocket community we create is a template for global family and support since we're all interconnected.