Wild Minds Weekly: What does community mean to you?
1 min read
“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” - Kurt Vonnegut
Smoke curls off a dried leaf as Django and I try our best to start a fire using nothing but a magnifying glass and the power of the sun.
Ten minutes and several scorched leaves later, we're called to a community circle to discuss the vision of the community at Wildernest Farm.
After their school was devastated by a typhoon, our dear friends Boley and Chi came to the UK and became one of the earliest members of Wild Minds Community at One Tree Farm.
They ran Learning Freely, the self-directed learning sessions on One Tree Farm until Chi sadly passed away in June 2024, leaving behind two wonderful children, Django and Teal.
Boley has come back to their land on Siargao, a small island in the east Philippines, to rebuild and continue the mission they both started.
Wildernest Farm is home to Siargao Wildlings, a nature-based, self-directed learning school where children follow their own curiosity and learn more about themselves and the world around them. The children's learning flows naturally from experiencing the environment around them, rather than a teacher writing on a board.
Breaking away from the mainstream system isn't just difficult in isolation - it's meaningless. When typhoons destroyed their first school, it was the Cropsnotshops community that gave Chi and Boley a place to find their feet again, and, together with One Tree Farm, supported Boley and the kids after the loss of Chi.
After their many experiences living in communities around the world, they realised what was missing from their school in Siargao. They needed a living, breathing community as the foundation, a vibrant web of real-world learning.
As community members work on their craft, from carpentry to farming to music, children naturally discover and explore these possibilities. Every new project, every skilled hand at work becomes a gateway for learning.
It takes a village to raise a child.
So in a world that's constantly pushing us to isolation, what does community mean to you?
To your freedom and interdependence,
Rob
Wild Minds Community
PS.
You can follow Boley's journey at @altered.natives or @siargao.wildlings on Instagram.
Wild Minds Premium members recently had an intimate Q&A with Chay (@cropsnotshops) about building resilient communities. If you'd like to join our next conversation and be part of a community of people breaking free from the mainstream, click here to join Wild Minds Premium.
