- P12 -

History and Purpose Throughout human history people have banded together to help one another increase the odds of survival and wellbeing and to pursue their spiritual ideals for themselves their loved ones their clan and the greater community. For the most part each subsequent generation started their life standing on the shoulders of prior generations. Those born during the Baby Boom years who came of age during the 1960s and 1970s especially those born in the United States had opportunities to experience an unprecedentedly improved material standard of living and unsurpassed opportunities for education and freedom to choose their way of life. Large numbers of that generation were drawn to intentional communities where in the tradition of the first settlers of Plymouth Massachusetts material physical and intellectual resources were pooled and a spiritual ideal attempted.