Reflections on the power of community.

By David Takahashi

There were a lot of approaches I thought I might take.  The one I am settling on takes into account the basic building block of community and it asks the question ‘What can we do together, that we cannot do alone?’.  I also kept sensing this other question bubbling up: what would nature do?

Let’s start with a story:

A long time ago, there were three sisters who lived together in a field. The sisters were very different from one another in their size, shape, and appearance. The youngest sister wore velvet green with beautiful tendril ribbons. She was only able to crawl at first but with the help of her oldest sister, she was able to stand up. The middle sister wore bright yellow and loved to run across the field when the sun was shining. The oldest sister had silky hair and wore a green shawl, she stood very tall and straight always guarding her younger sisters. As different as the sisters were they shared a love for one another and knew that they could not survive apart.

Now, one of the community questions is what can we do together, that we cannot do alone?  Let us say the three sisters are corn, beans, and squash.  Each alone will perhaps struggle along but put them together and you have the foundation of a sustainable, companionable, and nutritious diet.  The corn provides a trellis, the beans provide nutrient fixing, the squash provides a living mulch: each provides nutrition.  1+1+1 > 3!  This is the community that nature has provided if we have the eyes to see.  Nature has learned to maximize the cooperative use of the limited common elements of earth, air, and water.

So, now let us reflect on our Boulder.Earth community.  It is not hard to find the 3 sister organizations that together will be able to do what the 3 alone are not capable of.  In doing so, they will be sharing that limited resource we call funding.  Instead of a winner takes all zero-sum game, we can learn to build on each other’s strengths and find our strength in the relationships and companions that we nurture.  In doing so, we will be working with nature.  In doing so we will discover the new math of doing together, what we cannot do alone!

Photo: The Lexicon of Sustainability