We all lived together in an eco-village in the Scottish Highlands. Tucked high up on a south-facing hillside, overlooking a long-stretching loch that mirrored the sky, we were establishing an alternative community, working towards a self-sufficient, zero-waste life.
This was my home for some months, as it was for many others, though at the time my foreigner’s identity was defined not by citizenship, but rather by my ascetic nature. Since graduating college, I wandered many parts of the globe, taking refuge in human solitude and wild landscapes. My spiritual identity had become somewhat obscured by a strict personal observance for Thoreauvian ideals. I misinterpreted individuality as nonconformity, and nonconformity as resistance to societal influences. Rather than identifying with impenetrable spiritual truths, I accepted the material human picture as true identity. By moving my life to the eco-village, I sought to find fellow environmentalists with whom I could empathize. Along the way, I happened to discover a boundless spiritual identity.
The project of ecologically centered living was evident from the get go—community demonstrated itself as a progressive force, like a medley of multiplying qualities that gather momentum as they are learned and taught. But having grown up in Christian Science, what became clear to me along the way is that community is impossible, if it is comprised of no more than manly motives and womanly objectives. Just as Life does not serve human rivalries and hatreds, nor deals a holy hand into battle until bloodshed won, so too is one’s identity not dogmatic or dichotomized—but entirely divine.
