Creating Loving Community

Many of us feel a yearning for social relationships deeper, more permanent, more meaningful than those characteristic of our era. We long for a sense of common interest, mutual understanding, and trust which we vaguely associate with people and places past.

Since its inception in 1972, Magic has been a context for exploring the kinds of community which are possible in the modern world. We have sponsored experiments in communalism, cooperative householding, neighborhood association, consumer cooperative, barter economy, worker self-management, and public service enterprise.

Out of these experiences we have generated an approach to community which is centered upon shared values. We offer Creating Loving Community workshops for people who want to develop an ethos of mutual interest in the places where they live, work, and play.

Workshops range in emphasis to accommodate participants' objectives. Some are more focused upon couples and intimates. Others are designed to provide guidance for people who contemplate sharing a household or joining with others in a co-housing venture. Still others are for people who want to create more effective workplace teams.

Workshops may be conducted at Magic, at client-selected sites, or in other settings. They may entail repeated meetings, or a single session of a few hours to several days.

Whatever their particular theme, activities, or format, Creating Loving Community workshops are founded in the idea that loving, in the sense of assiduously seeking to identify and further common good, is key to living well. Through the workshop activities, participants are given opportunity and tools to assess what they offer and ask of others, and to learn how to alter behavior to sustain the kinds of community to which they aspire.

We offer Creating Loving Community because we have enjoyed so many of the benefits of stronger community in our own lives. We perceive that by learning to more often make common cause, humans can both survive and thrive.

Further Reading

Please check the following on-line works in our Publications Catalog: