Interning at Light Morning
It is only with the heart that one sees rightly.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
During the warmer months of the year, from April through October, we welcome visitors and interns to Light Morning. Visitors stay for about a week; interns are here for three weeks (and sometimes longer). Both participate in the rhythms and routines of our daily life. Internships, however, provide a structure and a focus not available to visitors.
One clue to this distinction between visiting and interning is found in the words themselves. Visitors focus mostly on what’s visible. They want to see what this way of life looks like, try it on for size. Interns pay equal attention to the internal. They study not only the what and the how of the lifestyle, but also the why.
During 2011, there will be two three-week internships. The first will begin on Monday, June 6, and run through Sunday, June 26. The second will be from Monday, August 1, through Sunday, August 21.
Plan to arrive during the daylight hours of the Saturday or Sunday preceding the Monday start date, and to depart on the Sunday following the completion of the course. Please be here for the full three weeks, as we’ll be covering a lot of ground, and both the beginning and the ending of the internships are especially important.
The Riddle of Sustainability
What is sustainability? In these times of escalating instability–environmental, social, political, and economic–how do we encourage the long-term health and vitality of a community, a bioregion, a planet? Light Morning internships are a hands-on way of exploring this crucial riddle.
Our experiences suggest that any deep study of sustainability takes place in three arenas. In the first arena are all the intriguing complexities of pioneering outward sustainability–”How do I grow enough food to feed my family for a year? How do I build shelters that are simple, durable, and mortgage-free? How do I gather and store heat from the forest, light from the sun, water from the roof above my head and the ground below my feet? How do I lessen my needs?”
The second arena is no less daunting–”How do I nurture sustainable relationships?” Some paths, such as child-raising, are followed more easily by two than by one. Other paths, like the one Light Morning is on, call for a somewhat larger crew. But whether the family unit be twelve or two, the odds against it being sustainable are substantial. Yet outward sustainability can only be built upon the strong foundation of sustainable relationships.
The third arena is less tangible, for the essence of sustainability is “invisible to the eye.” One approaches this essence by asking a seemingly simple question–”Might there be within me a guiding force, as generic as the shape of the human hand, as unique as a fingerprint?” This subtle force goes by many names. It has been called a path with heart, a psychic blueprint, a personal calling, a sense of personal destiny. What each phrase implies is that we can’t “go it alone.” Only as an inner guidance system can be quickened, clarified, and made functional will we learn to read the riddle of sustainability.
Light Morning internships, therefore, actively explore these three, interdependent facets of sustainability–the outer, the inner, and the interpersonal.
Learning Styles
Most of us learn by watching, by doing, by listening, by sharing, and by asking. Interns are encouraged to both observe and participate in this amazingly complex “simple lifestyle.” They listen to our stories, dreams, hopes, and fears. And they share their own. They also practice the fine art of crafting questions. For as Sam Keen once observed, “What shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think to ask.”
There are unavoidable limits, of course, to how much territory one can cover in the brief span of three weeks. Light Morning is a garden of forking paths. Within each of the three arenas of sustainability, interns are confronted with decisions–what to pursue and what (at least for now) to set aside.
Daily Life
Here’s a quick sketch of the shape of our days. Breakfast at eight, lunch at noon, supper at six. Two blocks of time are available for work projects, one in the morning (9-12) and one in the afternoon (1-4). There are opportunities for shared meditation (before breakfast and supper), for dream work (over breakfast), for other sharings (during meals, while working, and after supper), as well as for occasional solitude and play.
On Sundays we ease off this routine, step back from all the fascinating work projects, and host a pancake brunch for friends and neighbors. It’s a quiet, sabbath-like interlude in the rhythm of the week.
It perhaps goes without saying that all of the above (the work and the play, the sharings over meals, the built-in opportunities for dream work and meditation, the paradigm-shifting transition from a cash intensive to a labor intensive economy), all these become the vehicle for the internship.
Interns also use Light Morning as a sounding board. Some of their experiences here will trigger an inner resonance. The awareness of this resonance can ripen, over time, into the realization that it is “only with the heart that one sees rightly”–sees where to go, what to do, who to be. Resonance, then, is a form of guidance.
What We Ask
Time and Money We ask our interns to contribute 3 to 5 hours a day (5 days a week) to help with the labor needs of this labor intensive lifestyle–working in the garden, helping with meals, doing housekeeping or firewood or building, working on special projects. We also ask for $3 to $5 a day to help with the community’s financial needs–such as land taxes, garden seeds and supplies, the food we’re not yet able to grow ourselves, furnishings for the guests rooms, etc. This is not a fee for the internship itself (that’s offered free of charge), but rather to help cover some of the expenses involved in hosting visitors and interns.
The labor contribution of 3 to 5 hours a day is an average. Some days you may work a little more, other days less. The financial contribution of $3 to $5 a day is for the three weeks you’ll be staying with us. Both figures are kept intentionally low, as we want to make Light Morning’s internships available to all those who are drawn to them. There is also a range for both the labor and the financial contributions. This enables you to be somewhat more generous with one or the other, depending on your circumstances.
Meals Joining us for meals is perhaps more of an assumption than a request. Most of us like to eat, and mealtimes are a special opportunity for deepening friendships.
Meditation Bring with you a meditation practice, or the desire to explore one while you’re here. Each day some time is set aside to quiet the body and the mind. As we move more fully into the moment we’re more likely to remember what we came here for, why we choose to walk this path, and how to take each next step with at least some measure of grace and awareness. Your practice needn’t be lengthy; fifteen or twenty minutes a day is fine for starters.
Choices
Which of the three-week internships you choose will depend on a number of factors, including your schedule, our schedule, and what accommodations are available. Rivendell, our community shelter, has several guest rooms, some reserved for visitors, others for interns. There are also rooms in two outlying cabins, as well as some lovely secluded tent sites for those of you able to bring camping gear. The earlier you confirm that you’ll be coming, the wider your range of choices.
So if you’re drawn to explore Light Morning (and yourself) by interning here, please let us know, using the Contact page on this web site. We’ll send a few questions for you to ponder and respond to. First re-read Visiting Light Morning, especially the section on the logistics of a visit. Hopefully you’ll also be able to read some of The Renewal Pages in our Journal.
Thanks for your interest. We look forward to seeing some of you soon.