Cedar Moon :: Communities Directory

Formed: 2003 Established: 2003

This page last updated:5/19/2009

Cedar Moon

Portland, Oregon,

United States

Cedar Moon is a community dedicated to growing movement for healing and resilience in the world.

We are co-stewards with Tryon Life Community Farm of seven beautiful half-wooded acres surrounded by a 650-acre forest, all inside Portland on a bus line half an hour by bicycle from downtown. (TLC Farm is a nonprofit sustainability education and demonstration center--see www.tryonfarm.org) We are blessed with the opportunity for the work of our relations with each other and the earth to be shared with thousands of visitors. As we learn the skills and practices of growing respect, responsibility, and joy, they resonate out through our communities.

We were born in fire. Our evolution on this land between 2004 and 2006 was galvanized by the campaign to prevent the land we occupy from being bulldozed for a high-impact housing development. We have faced the stresses, conflicts, and tensions this high-pressure environment caused, as well as the "standard" ones all communities face, and have developed a clear focus on community process to deal with them.

It is a lot of work to live here. Members pay the equivalent of market-rate rent, and are expected to contribute at least five hours to the community and 10 hours to TLC Farm every week (many do much more). We have weekly meetings, alternating between business "meetings of the minds" and relation-building "meetings of the hearts." We share evening meals and rotate cooking, cleaning, and maintenance chores. We encourage low-impact density and so have relatively little individual space (though a great deal of shared, communal space).

And yet the rewards are tremendous. We live deeply interwoven with all our relations. We encourage each other to discover our evolving niches in the ecology of change: political action, deep spirit, earth-rooted wisdom. We reduce our ecological footprint, learn the resonance between autonomy and cooperation, grow into wisdom and compassion, and jam rhythms and harmonies and sutras into the long, warm evenings.

Members are encouraged to use alternate forms of transportation (we have a car co-op), minimize energy use (no central heating), and eat local, organic, unrefined food. Our regular community ceremonies (from circles around dinner to high holidays) reflect our eclectic backgrounds, but are earth-based and heart-felt.

If your soul yearns to work closely with others in an integrated lifestyle catalyzing the emergence of a new world in the shell of the old, contact us!

Status: Growing strong

Website: http://cedarmoon.us

Contact:

Cedar Moon
11640 SW Boones Ferry Rd
Portland, Oregon 97219 United States
Phone: 503-244-1776

Links:

Cedar Moon

TLC Farm

Community location is placed at the center of the zip/postal code, city/state, or city/country (not based on street addresses)

Former/Other Names: TLC Farm, The Farm

This page last updated:5/19/2009

Visitors Accepted

(With clear agreements.)

Visitor Process: Please note the distinction between TLC Farm (the nonprofit education center) and Cedar Moon. To visit the demonstration projects and/or schedule a tour of the land, see www.tryonfarm.org for drop-in and contact information. If you'd like to consider joining Cedar Moon or living here temporarily, please contact us directly and tell us why you're interested, how long you'd like to stay, and when.

Network Affiliations:

Fellowship for Intentional Community

:: Northwest Intentional Communities Association

Statement of Housing Non-discrimination:

No Answer Provided

Population Members(adults and children): 22 Non-member Residents: 3 (ranges from 0 to lots: seasonal worktraders, interns, visitors, subloetters, etc.) Open to new members: Yes	Government Decision Making: By consensus (Full consensus on all decisions except one: if half of the community asks a member to leave, they must do so.) Identified Leader: No Leadership Core Group: No	Labor and Money Financial Style: Members have independent finances (We also have community cottage industries.) Open to Members with Pre-existing Debt: Yes Labor Contribution: Expected (20 hr/mo to the community, 40 hr/mo to the non-profit) Join Fee: No (There is a standard refundable security deposit) Regular Fees: Yes (Members contribute a variable amount for room space, depending on size and amenities of private space; this ranges from about $200 to about $350 per person, all of which goes to mortgage and maintenance payments. Members also split utilities (~$50/mo) and food costs (~$100/mo).)
Land and Buildings Other (Inside the city, surrounded by a forest, a working farm.) Area: 7 acres (2.8 hectares) (Co-stewarded with TLC Farm) Land Owned By: Independent land trust (not controlled by the community) (Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust (OSALT): www.osalt.org) Number of Residences: 2 (Two large houses, plus outbuildings and temporary structures, and room for more.) Cohousing: No	Food, etc. Percentage of Food Grown: 21-50% (Intend to expand rapidly over next few years) Share Community Meals: Nearly all dinners Dietary Choice or Restrictions: Diet is up to each individual (All commonly purchased and prepared food is vegetarian, organic, and relatively local, and we attempt to accommodate individual allergies or special diets; however, there are no restrictions on supplementary diets.) Dietary Practice: Primarily vegetarian (A significant number of omnivores, and some vegans, as well as strong interest in raw foods.) Alcohol Use: Seldom used Tobacco Use: Seldom used (Never in houses.)	Social Factors Common Spiritual Practices: No (We have community ceremonies, but various individuals follow their own paths day to day. At the same time, a spiritual connection with the earth in general, and this land in particular, is encouraged.) Which Spiritual Traditions(s): Native American :: Buddhist :: Paganism/Earth Religions :: Eastern :: Jewish :: Ecumenical (includes "all religions") :: Eclectic (integrates pieces from many religions) :: Other Educational Style(s): Home schooling :: Private school at the community :: Private school off the property :: Public schooled

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Comment from mynameiscurtis on 11/7/2007 (Reader Rating: 8)

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I lived at Cedar Moon as a sublet in Oct. 2007.

The community is very young but has already been surprisingly successful at its mission. If you have the opportunity be sure to ask for the oral history of how the farm was saved. As a very short and unexciting version: Just three years ago the small group of about 15 residents managed to prevent the land from being turned into twenty-three country homes--this involved very difficult court battles with the current land owners and the developers that owned an option to buy the land, rallying the local Portland community via grass-roots organizing, cash-less local political lobbying & an amazing media campaign all while raising $1.6 Million from some three-thousand individual donors (they seriously made such an good case for their existence that they got a little bit of money from near-every conceivable source) and one nice bank - done within a one-hundred-day countdown to their forced eviction.

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