The primal need for connection and where to post article.

I think my last post about the need for connection should be on the communities forum. I'm assuming this post will also go on the communities post.
There is a need state the difference between the communities forum and the communitas forum.
Communities is a broad classification and includes almost any gathering of people for whatever purpose.
Communitas is a restricted grouping and only applies where there is a felt sense of close connection. In communitas the individual willing surrenders will to a group of individuals. A recent clear example is the video and television series, A Band Of Brothers. In that series Easy Company moves into that magic space called communitas. The individual members of Easy Company willingly surrendered their will to a group called Easy Company. They were bound together by the knowledge they were prepared to die for each other. Whatever it took to keep their buddies alive was their commitment.
It is unfortumate in some way to look at a war situation as an example. That is perhaps only because our understanding of the magic that occurs in communitas can be comprehended by 20th century people in a war situation. Our industrialised society - based as it is on individualism - has no understanding of this magic.
Go back to Chaucer and Canterbury Tales - somewhere around 1370 - and the pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. This group did not know each other before they started the pilgrimage and were not dragging their personal history with them. As they talked to each other they revealed themselves and slowly developed a deep connection. In addition they were talking in old English which is almost like a musical hum or mutterings in a cantilena. The sound itself is hypnotic. I invite you to imagine a hot summer day, the plodding of the horses, the bucolic Kent countryside, the cadences of the speaker casting a spell over the pilgrims, the shared commitment to a pilgrimage, the understanding and acceptance of everyone as they are, no pretense, heart meeting heart.
Communitas then, is something of much greater impact than community. It is as Victor Turner describes -
"a place and moment “in and out of time,” and such an actor - as the evidence of many pilgrims of many religions attests - hopes to have there direct experience of the sacred, invisible or supernatural order, either in the material aspect of miraculous healing or in the immaterial aspect of inward transformation of spirit or personality."
We all, perhaps, have touched upon communitas when we meet a stranger in unusual circumstances and are suddenly bonded as though we have known them for eternity. Walking along a road in California, hitching a ride, a car stops, we get in and are plunged into a 'knowing' of each other that is indeed, 'in and out of time'. What we are doing here, on this very forum, is nurturing that lost soul connection - seeking to re-emerge in a caring and conscious world.

I just changed the forum description

Thank you Forbes for your comment. I didn't realize that there could be some confusion, but you're right. The fact is that I setup this forum before you came on board, so there was no "communitas" forum nor project so there was less chances of confusion.

I have just renamed the forum "Community" to "WeChange community".

So, we now have

  • the "creating communitas" forum which is the hub for your project. The topic for that forum is both communitas, and maybe communities in the wider meaning.
  • the "WeChange Community" forum which most specifically deal with the community we are building around this web site. We can discuss technical issues, organization, site development or anything else directly related to the web site and its community of users.
  • the other three forums purposefully do not have a specific topic set. I hope that the description set in http://www.wechange.org/forum are clear enough. Please note that while any topic can be discussed in those forums, each thread can be linked to a specific project hosted here. For example, your last post "That primal need for connection - specially for women" provides some interesting information (so it's in the "Information" forum), but at the same time, it is linked to the Interpersonal Relationships project.

I hope that clarifies the matter. Tell me if you think some forum descriptions should be adjusted or if I should add a page in the site introduction section.

Btw, your post is nice and interesting (as usual). I took the liberty to use most of your post to create a sub-page to your main project book: http://www.wechange.org/creating_communitas > http://www.wechange.org/creating_communitas/difference_between_community... . Feel free to edit that page as much as you want. Your project main book is the ideal place for such one-pagers about communitas.

Thanks,

A.