Here's a photo of a sculpture outside our earth lodge. It was created
by a sculptor friend of ours, David Hubbard, who lives in the
Washington, D.C. area. This is our extended hand to welcome you to our
community. We are a community dedicated to the expression of art, music,
poetry, dance, the study of the
Dreamspell calendar, Native American
traditions, sacred ceremonies, and giving voice to the joys of our
hearts. Our community is still rather small in number and we are
currently active in seeking new members who are attuned to our visions
and goals. We are listed with the
Federation of
Intentional Communities and adhere to the principles of
permaculture and ecovillage development of the land.
We are situated on 100 acres of mostly forested land in the Blue Ridge
mountains of southwest Virginia. We are within an hour's drive of
Roanoke, Blacksburg, and Radford, all having universities and a much
larger population than our rural Floyd county. Our county has only one
traffic light and yet boasts a large number of intentional communities.
Some of them are Abundant Dawn, Access, Heart of Gold, Left Bank, Light
Morning, Riverflow, Tekiah, Travianna, Woodsong, Turtle Rock, and
Zephyr,... Floyd county is a growing center of alternative living.
Part of what draws us all here is the clean air and pure water. The
county has no water flowing into it, only out; it is the headwaters,
hence our name, High Flowing. There are a number of streams, springs,
and ponds on the property. Native blackberries, strawberries, blueberries,
and winterberries are in abundance. We have a small orchard of peach trees
and an organic garden. A 2 1/2 acre pond is home to various fish and
doubles as our swimming pool. A smaller pond downstream is a nice
stopover for local wildlife. Deer, turkeys, grouse, whipoorwills, and
turtles are among our native population.
This is the inside of one of the buses that are on our land. All
together we have 5 buses in various stages of being lived in or used
for storage. 3 of them have woodstoves and can be used in the winter
months. The one pictured here is a 1948 International and is featured
in a book called "Rolling Homes". It has 3 removable skylights, many
windows and beautiful woodwork throughout. Our other living spaces
include an art/music studio built around an old schoolbus painted
turquoise with a loft bedroom, a refurbished cabin near the 2 acre pond,
and 4 trailers set up with wrap-around porches. We also have a 50 foot
diameter underground earth lodge. It is based on the Mandan Indian
design used before the turn of the last century in the central plains.
This space is used primarily for ceremony and special events. There is
another underground structure that is our sweat lodge. This is smaller
and is also used for ceremonial purposes. Our present building plans
call for the construction of a new music studio and straw bale insulated
living dwellings on a designated south facing hillside. We soon hope to
start the construction of our communal "water center". This will be a
building that will house a kitchen, laundry area, composting toilets,
hot tub, and showers. This will enable us to build our living spaces
free of the necessity and expense of water and sewage hookup. We also
intend to keep the personal dwellings "off the grid", that is, free of
electric company hook-up. A small solar powered setup could suffice in
providing all the power that is needed. Other alternatives include the
possibility of wind and/or water generation of power. We are currently
studying these other power generating sources and hope to implement
them sometime in our future.
