Eye Key Farm :: Communities Directory

Forming Formed: 2006 Established: 2005

This page last updated:7/4/2011

Eye Key Farm

Bloomington, Indiana,

United States

Eye Key farm is on 77 acres located six miles from the B'town Farmers Market! "Ai" is Japanese for love or harmony, and "ki" means energy, or the universe. The founder (who was an organic farmer) of the less-violent martial art of aikido has translated the meaning as “the way of harmonizing with the universe.” In fact, permaculture (“PC”) instructor Peter Bane has described PC design as “doing aikido to (or on) the landscape.”

We would like to apply PC and aikido principles in order to create an organic and sustainable paradise. Of course, we hope that our homestead and intentional community will be in complete synergistic harmony with the surrounding environment, to support wildlife habitat and as many human lives as comfortably possible. Ideally, there would be extremely minimal inputs obtained from outside sources, and all surplus outputs could be sold locally for profit. We do not want to generate any landfill waste. While we do want to be as self-sufficient as possible, we want to give back and interact with the community with some frequency.

We will immediately be planting orchards and other beneficial trees to be used in polyculture “guilds.” Other early priorities will be to establish garden beds, erect greenhouse(s), and a “green roof” on the house. We hope to have ponds/swimming holes, dairy goats and alpaca, and to be growing every type of food imaginable!

In the near future, it would be helpful to have WWOOFers or anyone who would like to trade labor in exchange for on-site resources, produce, or bartered goods. (In addition, we could offer bicycle repairs, private instruction in aikido, or fitness training, or share other skills.) We would like to eventually construct eco-friendly structures from local, non-toxic materials such as cob, strawbale, earthbag, adobe, etc.

We are still interested in developing the Monroe County Synergism Institute (a nonprofit, educational research center for all people to learn about sustainability). Perhaps we could obtain a grant or other funding for this?

We appreciate your interest and welcome any help or advice you may have to offer. We're presently investigating how letting people camp, rent, or live on the land will affect our mortgage, taxes, and/or liability.

Contact:

Indiana United States

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: Monroe County Synergism Institute

This page last updated:7/4/2011

Visitors Accepted

Visitor Process: Email.

Affiliations:

Statement of Housing Non-discrimination:

Our community does not discriminate in regards to housing based on race/color, national origin, religion, sex/gender, family status (i.e. having children, not having children, or being pregnant), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, ancestry, source of income, age, creed, personal appearance, political affiliation, HIV infection, military/veteran status, unfavorable military discharge, gender identity or expression, receiving public assistance, or being the victim of domestic abuse.

Population Members(adults and children): 2 Open to new members: Yes	Government Decision Making: By consensus Identified Leader: No Leadership Core Group: No	Labor and Money Financial Style: Members have independent finances Labor Contribution: Expected Join Fee: No Regular Fees: No
Land and Buildings Suburban Area: 77 acres (31.2 hectares) (~ 50 wooded, ~ 27 pasture) Land Owned By: Other (We do.) Number of Residences: 1 Cohousing: No Answer (Someday possibly.)	Food, etc. Percentage of Food Grown: 1-5% (Hopefully 75% soon!) Dietary Choice or Restrictions: There are some dietary restrictions (Please, nothing factory farmed brought on-site.) Dietary Practice: Vegetarian only (We are vegetarian - visitors, WWOOFers and others wouldn't have to be.) Alcohol Use: Used occasionally Tobacco Use: Used Occasionally	Social Factors Common Spiritual Practices: No Which Spiritual Traditions(s): Ecumenical (includes "all religions") Educational Style(s): Home schooling (Waldorf is nice!)

Click an image to see it full size.

Become an Editor Current editor(s): shamonkey, shwag

Comments from Directory Readers This community selects which reader comments to display (more info). You can add yours below.

There are no Reader Comments on this community.

Add Your Comment on Eye Key Farm

We encourage comments from those who have first hand experience with a community so that others may benefit from your experience. Please share information you think will be useful to other users of this site, in a clear, concise, and polite manner. Each community can choose to display all comments, display selected comments, or not to display comments (more info). Communities will be shown email addresses of those who comment so that they might communicate with you if they choose.

We reserve the right to edit or delete any comment.

You must be logged in to add a comment. Login here or if you have not yet registered on our site Register here.

More Info on Display Options

Communities can choose one of three options for how reader comments are displayed.