Abundant Dawn Community

Abundant Dawn

ABUNDANT DAWN is a rural community in southwest Virginia, USA. In summer 2007, we are ten adult members.

Abundant Dawn Land Covenant

Fundamental to the vision of Abundant Dawn is our commitment to live close to one another, cooperate and share resources so that we may live more lightly and joyously on the earth. These covenants express our agreements related to our use of the land we hold. These principles are basic to our community, and we expect those who join with us to commit themselves to these principles.

As we live here and care for this place, our decisions and actions reflect our intention to understand what nurtures this land and water and act in accordance with our understanding. We intend to keep the land as one whole piece and, if we sell it, to sell it as one whole piece. We maintain a balance of forest and open meadows on the land, and endeavor to sustain a hospitable home for a diversity of wildlife. Our forestry practices aim to enhance the quality of the forest, its beauty and usefulness. Likewise, our farming and landscaping practices are designed to enhance the health and quality of the soil and water. We cluster our homes and other buildings in several designated areas, holding in view the integrity and harmony of the landscape and the living systems of which the buildings become a part. We honor the land, its air and water, its plants and animal life, as it sustains us and allows us to open to spirit through its wonder.

We are the stewards and human inhabitants of 90 acres of hilly and diverse land, nestled in a bend of a river in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We're 28 miles from a state university, an hour from a small city with an airport, and five minutes from a small but culturally diverse town of about 500.

We have recently put 70 acres into a Virginia Conservation Land Trust to protect the land. We continue to work on our land plan and guidelines to care for the environment, as we build our dreams here.

We are committed to living thoughtfully-with beauty, economy, conviviality, and care. We love this land, and we try to treat it well. We study and practice environmentally sound building methods and gardening practices, and in one building area have a constructed wetland for our gray-water treatment. We eat together regularly, help each other out, and enjoy each other's company.

While our adult members currently include single, partnered, and married individuals, we welcome diversity of lifestyle. We strive to listen to each other as we make consensus decisions and work out our living on this land. While we have no unified spiritual path, we strive to honor different expressions of spirituality as a way to honor our diversity as individuals. We enjoy celebrations of all kinds during the year, such as Thanksgiving and Solstices, and many other occasions to gather for ritual as well as play.

We aim to build a community culture in which we can trust one another. That trust is built largely by our making and keeping agreements with each other. Periodically we hold a meeting to review tasks each member has agreed to do, to keep ourselves accountable.

We ask full members to commit to a self-selected minimum length of membership. Because we want membership commitments to be thoroughly considered, we neither ask for nor accept them from provisional members. We do not accept lifetime commitments.

We've come through a period of transition in which we have begun to simplify our policies and re-focus on finding flexible ways to meet everyone's needs. Our visitor program is back underway; if you contacted us in the past and were told the visitor program was closed, please contact us again. 

We have succeeded in putting a large portion of our land into a conservation easement, and clarified our plans for having homes on the remaining land in three potential clusters. We are excited to be building two new homes in our existing cluster.

In addition to growing in structures we have grown in membership with two new families in the last year. We are enjoying having children on the land and in our gatherings. With new membership the community's gardening enthusiasm has returned and we are entering an ambitious growing season.