Yesterday we have visited the
Center for Purposeful Living. It is located in Winston-Salem, Walkertown exit off Business 40. Fifty people live in the community. They call it 'Intentional Community'. Serving others is the
purpose and the
method of working with one's consiousness. The goal is to become a
totally responsible person.
Their methods of inner work are based on the esotheric psychology of Alice Bailey (with greetings to Madam Blavatski naturally) and probably (my guess) to
Live Ethics of Roerikhs. The community was build more than 20 years ago. It doesn't appear to be very active right now on the outside. They closed the facility for the terminally ill people whom they cared for years. The community was initially based on this idea of caring for terminally ill when it was founded in Boomer, NC. They also stopped operating California Buffet in Winston-Salem, and only do catering.
There is a shop on the grounds where the community members work with stones and crystals polishing them and making jewelry. We have met one young Russian woman named Irina in the shop. Irina gave us round glass balls with interesting design that she made. Irina has a baby that was born there three month ago.
Several of the people from the Center for Purposeful Living went this summer to the Russian community of
Kitezh not far from Moscow. Russian orphans live in the extended families (large families!) in the village of Kitezh. The village was build for this purpose specifically. Kitezh now has a satellite village of Orion. The houses are
round over there "so that kids would not hit the corners" builders say :) We have a book in the library about Kitezh written by one of the founders (in English) -
Kitezh : a community approach to raising children in Russia. Check it out!
We were very happy to visit the
Center of Purposeful Living and to share the meal with our new friends.
