1Sphere 1People Homestead

A developing intentional community in SE Arizona divider

Mission Statement

1People Acres seeks to provide an enriching environment where personal needs can be economically met, freeing the individual to pursue their creative interests or otherwise "follow their bliss."

1People's 18 acres (bordering BLM's 57,000 acre Riparian Area ) is more than we need. The basic idea is to share, preferably with "like-minded" compatible others. We are, as should be obvious, of a non-profit mindedness (though not yet legally incorporated as such). Those living here will share the many benefits and potential improvements, but also the necessary evils, like property taxes (until we're officially non-profit), utilities (until we're off the grid), repairs, and whatnot.

As a general guideline, we propose that humans should "leave room for nature" and not appropriate more than 20% of Earth's surface and resources for their use—including their domestic animals and plants. Viewing Earth as a "planet for the taking," is inimical to human (and most other organisms) survival in the long run. Accordingly, we have limited human use to 20% of the land on the east side of 1People's 18 acres.

Preserving even a few acres is problematic, however. The land is zoned TR-36, allowing one residence per commercial acre (36,000 sq. ft.) which would allow up to 21 residences. It is prime land for development, situated between the San Pedro River and the St. David irrigation canal. We are still taxed for not using the land now valued at about $400,000. A consortium is buying up land around us to put in a development of high-end housing and would like to see us gone and appropriate everything for human use. Our 15 years of wildlife habitat restoration would be wiped out. If we don't sell out, the development may never occur.

While we own the property, expenses such as mortgage, insurance, property taxes, utilities, maintenance, and improvements prove to be a sizeable annual investment on our part.. Opening up and inviting others to join us has two main benefits: our goals are to provide for the wildlife as well as to create a nice place for economy/environmentally minded people to live—a sort of economic-cooperative, clustered community. If we can, through modest rent paid by others, get a small return on our investment, we can continue to not use most of 1Sphere 1People Homestead and prevent its future over-development. Instead of denuding the land for the construction of 21 McMansions, we would rather put in another artesian well and create a wildlife oasis to partially compensate for the immense loss of riparian habitat that has so far occurred in Arizona. But we could use some help—a bit of money and some boots on the ground of those with a common interest in preserving and restoring wildlife habitats.

Our development plan for humans includes two major structures that celebrate major themes: to celebrate western civilization: a temple to Athena (we're playful pagans) with a small learning library and discussion area that evokes ancient Athen's Academy that was built in an olive grove dedicated to Athena, the patron goddess of philosophers and other wisdom seekers. So, yes, we'll have to plant olive trees around our temple too. We celebrate Athena as metaphore. Also attached to the temple, to celebrate science as an outgrowth of Greek inquiry, a fine astronomy observatory that makes use of our clear night skies. That should take care of the West, so as for the East, we're planning a meditation hall. The western enlightenment can be summed up, in the words of Pascal, as "Therefore endeavor to think well," while the essence of eastern enlightenment could be "Therefore endeavor to be mindful," which doesn't require seated meditation at all, but a couple of thousand years of experience suggests that it doesn't hurt and tends to go best in a mindfully designed area, so a meditation center it is.

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