The Unschooler Convergence Forum

So, there's been much talk of us converging on eachother and living with/near eachother. There's been much talk of starting group houses, taking over apartment complexes, running away on a boat, starting villages, starting temples, etc... and then there has been much talk of "but but but..." So my thoughts are this: This is not something that will happen overnight. more likely this is something we're going to devote good chunks of our lives to creating, and die happy cause our kids, or maybe our grandkids, get to grow up in the sort of place we're imagining. But for all the talk of how and where and who and what it "should" be, this shall be a page for how and where and who and what it already is, and why you should add yourself to it. Or, more bluntly put, if you live with other campers, or audodidacts, or free thinkers, or peaceful warriors, or meme-crushing crusaiders, or... um... really neat folks the rest of us would like... then jot yourself down on here, and add one more to the list of places our dreams are starting to take root, in whatever form that may be. (oh, and feel free to include interesting names for your humble abodes, whether or not you ever actually call your home by a name.)

The Temple of Myrrh

Also know as the dwelling of Zack and Morgan. We're living in Olympia WA. We have a cozy (in other words really small cause we be po') little apartment in a complex called "Butler Cove" which we invariably call "Butler's Cove" even though the sign clearly doesn't have any s's on it. we're right near the entrance to Butler Cove, putting us all of 30ft. from a bus stop in either direction. That bus is the 41 line, which runs every half hour, 6 days a week. Ten minutes away on the bus at one end of the line is Evergreen State College, or "those dirty stoner hippy college kids who're always protesting something" as the locals like to say, I'm thinking I might take classes there at some point. Anyway, at the other end of the bus line, about 15-20 minutes away, is downtown Olympia, featuring several new and used books stores, a library, some decent concert venues, some places to eat of varying qualities, some parks and allyways full of really trashed gutterpunks who are ammusing to watch, and mostly couldn't harm a butterfly if 3 of them ganged up on it. There's a terrific food co-op a little more than a mile from our house, on the bus rout most of the way. me and morgan have been living exclusively off co-op food, it's good, it's organic, it's cheep, and it's almost all in bulk bins. There's a cute little Unitarian Universalist Congragation right across the street from where we live, (Right across the street and through a few bushes), it seems like a really nice congragation. let's see... what else... Transportation: The bus system is great, almost all the lines meet at a not-terribly-mosterous station down town, so transfers are pretty easy, and you can get prettymuch anywhere. you can catch local busses up to Seattle very cheep and without that much hastle, and I suspect you can do the same to get down to Portland. Speaking of which, we're close to seattle and portland, but not in either of them, which I think is a plus all around. let's see... what else... Olympia features access to prettymuch everything nice about a city, with a distinct lack of skyscrapers, supperhighways, and 5 square mile WalMart stores. If you don't like busses you can bike, it's a small enough area that you can get places pretty easily, and there's bike lanes all over the place. That's one thing I really like here, people are out and about everywhere, not locked in SUVs starting straight ahead with the windows closed and the sterio pounding going 2 miles an hour down the 5^th lane of a 10 lane highway. There's people biking and walking all over the place. it's good for meeting people, and people watching, and not getting run over. We actually got a lift walking back from the food co-op the other day, from an evergreen student late for class, who desided to give us a ride (without us asking) anyway. That's just damn cool. And then she gave us her number and said she'd introduce us to people since we're new in town, which is even cooler. Anyway, in terms of other practical things, there's plenty of places you can get work, since it's rather easy to get around to different places. monthly bus passes are $25. hum... what other things have I forgot to mention... it's a fairly cheep area to live in, but nice, it's a pretty liberal political area, you know, where odd-balls like me won't get linched... weather wize, it is a bit rainy, but on the other hand, it doesn't stay overly cold for very long in the winter, or overly hot very long in the summer. oh, and there's lots of tai-chi, other martial arts, yoga, massage, accupuncture, chiropractic, and the like to be had. And along with Evergreen there's also a Community College.

Quo Vadis is here:

http://www.quovadis-gathering.org