Last week ABC Radio National’s programme Life Matters discussed and introduced Ester Perel (and her book ‘Mating in captivity’). She, like many of us, was bought up on the idea that there is one person who is going to give us what once an entire village used to provide – companionship, support, children, family life, respectability. This person would be our best friend, trusted confidant and passionate lover. She reminds us that what we need is an entire network of connections and multiple attachments with people and not one person who is going to answer all our needs. This gave me another wave of enthusiasm for our ecovillage project and got me writing the following in the ABC’s guestbook:

“Really interested to hear your Friday talkback programme today on the ‘Urge to Merge’.

Dave, my husband, and I are both entering what I think of as the '3rd trimester' of our lives. Before children, during children and after children.....so can look back and look forward as well.

My ambition is to develop an ecovillage which is really just an holistic, sustainable residential development which looks to address some of our social, environmental and economic issues (www.scev.org)

Since we put up our website, we have attracted, just through word of mouth, nearly 500 people who have added their name to our database for project news.

I envision living in a community where the village design facilitates community interaction AND balances our need for private space, whose structure supports people through all stages of their life and provides a safe and rich community for bringing up children as absolutely basic for supporting the ‘urge to merge’ and .....contributing to its success. So much better if in addition to our partner, we can easily find a sounding board in consequential daily activity and thereby dissipate our need to offload everything on to our partner.....which is not really sustainable, is it?

Both my daughter Margo entering her '2nd trimester' and me entering my '3rd trimester' are excited by the idea that we can set up structures that will support our respective marriages, giving a balance of separateness and togetherness. This we hope will lead to sustainable marriages/partnerships and give us more ease and fun in our daily life.”