Start – TePeWu Community

Community

Better life in the wild

Sylwetka osoby kobiecej w wielobarwnej sukni w stylu witrażu, otwierającej klatkę w kształcie dzwonu, z której wylatuje ptak o tęczowych skrzydłach.

We want the space of freedom to be so large that we can get lost in it or meet freely, each person in his or her own way. The only conditions for exercising this freedom are to care together for its expansion and strengthening, to care for each other’s inhabitants and to help others in solidarity by building their spaces.

Artel

The work free from capitalism

We build Artel so that we can function and earn a living in a community focused on the common good, equal satisfaction of needs, self-governance and solidarity with other sentient beings.

Our political and moral thinking tells us what to aim for and what to avoid, and our practical thinking tells us how to realise this in concrete realities.

The Village

End-Of-The-World Anarchism

Far from confusion and internal struggles, we are working on the anarchism for the Iron Age.

We create stories together about a world where anarchist life is bigger, more beautiful and better than what we see around us today. And then – to work.

Where do we come from…

“TePeWu” stands for “Mutual Aid Society” – an idea and a community gathered around it, currently mainly online.

The TePeWu Association (officially registered on 15 December 2023, in operation since 1 January 2024), represents the community in public law and manages its infrastructure.

The Village is an online community, open to anyone who wants to discuss ‘Iron Age anarchism’ and possible community responses to the All-Crisis. It has the potential to become a meeting place for future community members and a seedbed for new projects.

The Artel Co-operative is a structure that aims to develop and implement technology within an economic paradigm free of capitalism. Artel represents the tangible and goal-oriented aspect of TePeWu. In 2024, Artel is not intended to make money – it operates on the principles of a gift economy. From 2025 onwards, Artel will undertake profit-making activities for the benefit of the TePeWu community.

…and where we are going

The following core objectives were adopted at the inaugural community meeting on 30 December 2023.

For ourselves: to cultivate freedom, solidarity, help and care for each other in a space safe from harmful interference. To each person according to their needs, from each according to their abilities.

For our surrounding: helping others to face the challenges of civilization collapse.

For the world: to reduce the suffering and death of sentient beings, especially as a result of planetary all-crisis.

Once I posted links to our website articles in “Practical Deep Adaptation” group on Facebook, Robert Benson commented with certain valuable questions. I decided to quote and address them here, for the benefit of other readers, not wishing to interact with copromedia space.

Two questions that comes up for me from reading all of this: who/how many is ‘we’ when referring to the founding meeting, etc.?

As I write it, we have five persons committed to the community, three of which are officially members of the association. One of our goals for 2024 is to increase our numbers to reach a minimum amount of seven, needed to convert the association to a chartered one (with more possibilities, including business activity which is then allowed).

is this envisioned to be or become a physical community in terms of multiple people/households more or less geo-located together, or only an online (is ‘virtual’ still an appropriate word for such, he wonders aloud) community? If the latter what if anything have you envisioned as common more practical goals – a 1st breakdown of your high-level goals defined at one of your links?
Along with that, again if online only, how might you see it differing from the DA Forum web presence as it is currently formed for example?

TePeWu is intended to be a hybrid community, in the sense that evolved during the pandemic. Some of us (currently 2 persons) are running a facility, where our technical equipment is located, along with official seat of the association, and living quarters. The plan is to move to another place mid-2024 (funding permitting) so we can host more people short-to-medium term, run events and extend our workspace (some equipment has to be stored now).
So, some people will hopefully decide to move in and stay or rotate slowly. Others may be working remotely with occasional visits. There will also be fully remote supporters who may, with time, decide to start their own communities, wherever they live. To weave the network, which is the real power behind our concept.

Seeing our community as a hands-on R&D instance is probably the most comprehensive perspective. “Solvitur Ambulando” is one part of this attitude. Another is my deep belief that there are no failed experiments, as long as we learn something from them. Following millennia-old tradition, we even have our own historian (Ludka) to keep track of the journey from the day 0. 🙂

Other groups have tried applying these principles of group organisation and governance over the decades and the failure rate is very high if longevity is any measure (My impression. I am no scholar in this topic.). What have you learned from those attempts, or what is different from your approach that make you feel your chance of success is much greater?

In the Old Village forum I wrote once:

When industrial civilisation, along with a vast multitude of sentient beings, dies – transforming the Earth into a planet unfit for our lives – we face fear and despair. We believe that anarchy – liberation from power imposed by violence – has the energy and depth to provide us, and those who come after us, with a compass and a map to survive the Great Extinction (if any humans survive it).

To this end, we turn away from the noise and chaos of big-city anarchism that has wounded, drained energy and discouraged so many of us. We look away, towards the end of the world. Where the birds turn back and the dogs bark through their asses, and no one ‘does’ anarchism. We will envision it – and then put it into action.

We are not heroic persons. We are persons wounded and many times wandering, but still full of hope and desperation in the pursuit of goodness, beauty and freedom. We are incapable of giving up.

We learned (individually and collectively) that our personal (and interpersonal) dynamics is the key. Apart from straight malice (which we hope to filter out at the “front door”) the greatest threat lays in coping mechanisms each of us developed to survive various traumas. Long-lasting communities put a lot of time and effort to manage this aspect. That is why we included Social Permaculture as a prominent aspect of or praxis.

1 thought on “Start”

8Petros

January 11, 2024 at 14:55

Once I posted links to our website articles in “Practical Deep Adaptation” group on Facebook, Robert Benson commented with certain valuable questions. I decided to quote and address them here, for the benefit of other readers, not wishing to interact with copromedia space.

Two questions that comes up for me from reading all of this: who/how many is ‘we’ when referring to the founding meeting, etc.?

As I write it, we have five persons committed to the community, three of which are officially members of the association. One of our goals for 2024 is to increase our numbers to reach a minimum amount of seven, needed to convert the association to a chartered one (with more possibilities, including business activity which is then allowed).

is this envisioned to be or become a physical community in terms of multiple people/households more or less geo-located together, or only an online (is ‘virtual’ still an appropriate word for such, he wonders aloud) community? If the latter what if anything have you envisioned as common more practical goals – a 1st breakdown of your high-level goals defined at one of your links?
Along with that, again if online only, how might you see it differing from the DA Forum web presence as it is currently formed for example?

TePeWu is intended to be a hybrid community, in the sense that evolved during the pandemic. Some of us (currently 2 persons) are running a facility, where our technical equipment is located, along with official seat of the association, and living quarters. The plan is to move to another place mid-2024 (funding permitting) so we can host more people short-to-medium term, run events and extend our workspace (some equipment has to be stored now).
So, some people will hopefully decide to move in and stay or rotate slowly. Others may be working remotely with occasional visits. There will also be fully remote supporters who may, with time, decide to start their own communities, wherever they live. To weave the network, which is the real power behind our concept.

Seeing our community as a hands-on R&D instance is probably the most comprehensive perspective. “Solvitur Ambulando” is one part of this attitude. Another is my deep belief that there are no failed experiments, as long as we learn something from them. Following millennia-old tradition, we even have our own historian (Ludka) to keep track of the journey from the day 0. 🙂

Other groups have tried applying these principles of group organisation and governance over the decades and the failure rate is very high if longevity is any measure (My impression. I am no scholar in this topic.). What have you learned from those attempts, or what is different from your approach that make you feel your chance of success is much greater?

In the Old Village forum I wrote once:

When industrial civilisation, along with a vast multitude of sentient beings, dies – transforming the Earth into a planet unfit for our lives – we face fear and despair. We believe that anarchy – liberation from power imposed by violence – has the energy and depth to provide us, and those who come after us, with a compass and a map to survive the Great Extinction (if any humans survive it).

To this end, we turn away from the noise and chaos of big-city anarchism that has wounded, drained energy and discouraged so many of us. We look away, towards the end of the world. Where the birds turn back and the dogs bark through their asses, and no one ‘does’ anarchism. We will envision it – and then put it into action.

We are not heroic persons. We are persons wounded and many times wandering, but still full of hope and desperation in the pursuit of goodness, beauty and freedom. We are incapable of giving up.

We learned (individually and collectively) that our personal (and interpersonal) dynamics is the key. Apart from straight malice (which we hope to filter out at the “front door”) the greatest threat lays in coping mechanisms each of us developed to survive various traumas. Long-lasting communities put a lot of time and effort to manage this aspect. That is why we included Social Permaculture as a prominent aspect of or praxis.