When I first met Scott Jurek (pronounced, “yurek”) he had already been coming to my yoga classes for several months. With a strapping 6’2” frame and dark curly hair hanging halfway down his back, he wasn’t easily missed as he passed by the front desk of the studio. His silver bike helmet and auto-lock biking shoes were standard attire despite rain or shine. In class I noticed a high level of concentration and focus unusual for a beginning student. One morning after class I approached Scott to say I hadn’t seen him in several weeks and wondered if he had been out of town. He told me he had been in California competing in a race.

“Oh, and how did it go?” I replied off-handedly. “I won,” he said matter of factly. ‘Wow,” I said with surprise, “that’s great”. “What kind of race was it?” “It’s called the Western States 100,” Scott replied. “Is that a marathon?” I asked, my interest building. “It’s an ultra marathon” he clarified. “So that’s like 50 miles right?” I asked slightly incredulously. “An ultra marathon is anything over the standard marathon distance of 26.2 miles, this race was 100 miles,” he explained. “100 miles…and you won?” I gasped dumbfounded.

Needless to say, humility was not lacking in this student. Wanting to know more about this 100 mile race, I searched the internet for more information. The search revealed numerous articles from national newspapers and magazines telling about this extraordinary athlete winning this extraordinary race. Not only was the Western States 100 considered the most prestigious ultra marathon in the world, but it’s also the oldest and most difficult. It starts in Lake Tahoe and goes west over the Sierra Mountain Range ending outside Sacramento via 100 miles of mostly rugged trails through high elevations and soaring temperatures. Amazing, I thought as I read through the myriad of references; then the real shocker came. Scott Jurek has won the race every year for the last five years in a row! At the age of 29 Scott is already a legend in the world of ultra marathons. What I didn’t find out in the mainstream media, but from Scott in person, is that he is 100% vegan and has been since before his amazing winning streak. Maybe the mainstream media considered this too shocking for the meat eating public to digest.

Since my wife and I, are always trying to educate our students about the benefits of a vegan diet, I must admit I immediately saw Scott as a potential poster boy for the vegan movement. After all, who could possibly argue that there wasn’t enough protein in a vegan diet after learning about his amazing physical feats? Excited about this prospect, I asked to interview Scott about his training, competing, and diet in order to educate and enlighten our readers. What follows is the interview.

Well, I always loved cross country skiing and trail running so it was kind of a natural transition. On a whim one of my running and skiing buddies decided to enter a 50 mile trail race and won. He was so jazzed about it that it got me interested enough to give it a try. I placed second in my first competition which was a 50 mile trail race, and I was hooked. I love exercising in the outdoors and this was an opportunity to run for miles through beautiful countryside. Also, the trail running scene is much more laid back and enjoyable compared to your typical road race which takes place in or around a city. The popularity of trail running has skyrocketed over the last decade because it leaves the crowds, cars, smog, and pavement behind.

I was nineteen and my diet at that point had not changed from what I was raised eating. I grew up in Minnesota eating a fairly Standard American Diet (SAD) which could be loosely categorized as “meat and potatoes.” However, my mother was very much a home maker and made most everything from scratch. So we ate fairly well rounded, minimally processed meals, but they were always based around meat. I learned how to prepare meals at home and continued to do so when I went off to college. That is where I met Leah my wife, who introduced me to the benefits of a more holistic vegetarian diet. Over time, influenced by Leah’s diet and Andrew Weil’s books: Spontaneous Healing, and Eating Well for Optimum Health, I started to make a transition away from meat and dairy. The turning point came when some friends lent me the book Mad Cowboy, by Howard F. Lyman. This book really opened my eyes to the factory farming nightmare and how unhealthy it was for me, the animals, and the environment. I was so inspired after reading this book that I committed to cutting out all animal products from my diet from that point on.

I definitely noticed many changes, but these changes aren’t immediate. It’s not like you wake up the next morning and feel ten times better. The changes are more gradual and you can see them better once you continue down the path for a while and then look back. In regards to competing and training I noticed my recovery times had shortened, that I was less injury prone, and had a higher level of energy. Above all, the major changes were in my relationship to food preparation and intake. I became very concerned not just about veganism, but about proper nutrition. I’ve come across many vegans who are still drinking soda pop. The point is you can be vegan and still have an unhealthy diet. So I really got into the origin of my food to the point of grinding my own flour to bake my own bread. The changes were both profound and subtle on every aspect of my life.

A big block for me, and I know this is the case for others, is gaining a sense of confidence in your diet choice. Especially in the case of an athlete, there is always the fear, or doubt that can creep up about whether you are getting what you need to perform optimally. It takes a lot of experimentation and time to build this confidence because there is not a lot of support from the world at large. So many more people are still eating animal products that they immediately doubt you and your diet without them. That can get in your head and make you doubt yourself and all the work you’ve done especially when you’re 75 miles down the trail and feeling less than wonderful. These mind games are always going to be a factor so one has to be diligent in making sure you are getting the right nutrients, protein, sleep, etc. in order to minimize internal conflict and build self confidence.

I run an average of about 120 miles per week on trails with lots of elevation. When I’m getting ready for a race I do some weekend intensives like running up and down Mt. Si, three times as fast as possible. This gives me over 12,000 ft. of vertical gain in the course of 24 miles, it’s very convenient. Then I’ll run a 35 mile trail run with 10,000 ft. of elevation the next day. This helps to simulate the impact of a 100 mile race on my body. In terms of diet I just try to eat as much wholesome nutritious food as feels right. I love to prepare food and I love to eat. I don’t count my calories, but I have before, and I know I’m getting between 5000 and 8000 calories per day. My favorite foods are greens, especially dinosaur kale which I eat raw in my salads. Lately, I’ve been incorporating a lot more raw, unadulterated, fruits and vegetables into my diet which feels really great.

Life to me is all about learning. The choices we make are in effect the lessons that we learn from, and what we learn accumulates as experiential wisdom helping to shape our future choices. I want to maintain this state of learning so I can be open to the lessons that come. Some people become vegan for a particular reason and they hold on to that reason alone. The reason for me started with my individual health. The impact of my original choice has expanded beyond my individual health to include the well being of people, animals and the environment. This is in line with my holistic philosophy and keeping aware of the bigger picture. I come from a family that has hunted and fished for generations and I respect the past, but now I have a different vision for the present and future that has big picture implications. Similarly, when I started running ultra marathons it was about maximizing my performance and having fun. I’m still having fun, but now the races have become a forum for me to connect with nature and people who are concerned about the health and well being of themselves and the planet. As a result of my success, I’m in a position of influence and these people look to me for inspiration. The choice to become vegan has changed my life and now those changes are rippling out to help change other lives and ultimately the world. I’m thrilled to have a positive impact on the world beyond myself. It’s what makes any personal suffering worth while.

Definitely, there is something really magical that happens. In fact, its these little glimpses of what I call epic experiences that keep me going. I think this is a common experience for athletes of all kinds it just differs in how they describe it. For me it’s when all the craziness around me, the pressure to win, the physical pain and psychological suffering build to an almost unbearable intensity, that I’m forced to dig deep within. It’s at these junctures that something opens up and allows me this indescribable experience, and suddenly I feel not just unstoppable, but unlimited. Running these races has becomes a vehicle for reaching these states within myself that I haven’t learned to access in any other way. I’ve come to see these races as a spiritual journey condensed into a period of roughly 24 hours. The demons of your own mind come out to torment you forcing you to come face to face with the deepest sense of self. In order to overcome the many obstacles over the course of 100 miles I’m forced to find the part of me that won’t succumb to the suffering, but instead will rise above and be victorious. To do this I really have to dig deep.

A Concise History of the Global Ecovillage Movement
by EC Mare

Utopian Foundations

The “ecovillage” is the latest conceptualization in a long history of utopian visions: model living situations that have the potential for bringing out the best in human nature. It seems every age has its own version of Utopia, which literally means ‘nowhere.’ Sir Thomas More set the stage in 1518 by publishing the first Utopia, an ironic satire of Elizabethean England at the dawning of the Age of Colonialism. His story subtly ridiculed the pretentiousness, avariciousness, and pompousness of the colonial gentry and noble classes by depicting an ideal society in a fictional new land that achieved social stability, peace and justice by adopting values of simplicity and egalitarianism. In Utopia, captured military invaders were paraded around in gaudy gold jewelry and elaborate clothing while the native population was unadorned and wore unassuming plain linen cloth.

Many more utopian visions were practiced, preached, or experimented on in Europe, and especially America, in the next several hundred years: the Puritans, the Luddites, the Zionists, the Amish, the Quakers, the Mormons, New Harmony, Oneida, Amana, Walden and Walden Two, etc….the list is quite long, and includes varied purposes – religious, secular, co-operative, political. All of these groups were revolutionaries or reactionaries of some kind that sought to address the excesses and problems of their times by setting themselves apart somewhat from the mainstream and adopting and following creeds and values believed to be qualitatively superior to the status quo, often creeds and values of a spiritual nature that framed human potential in a higher, more resplendent light.

America’s First Ecovillage
The 1960’s and 70’s saw a resurgence of utopian ideals. Sparked by a deep dissatisfaction with the prevailing institutions of economic materialism and global domination, responsive people took off in droves to create a better, purer lifestyle for themselves in the refuge of the countryside. This ‘back-to-the-land’ movement was a crude predecessor to the current ecovillage response. But rebellious idealism is not enough in itself to form a secure foundation for sustainable living situations, and so most of these early experiments failed, primarily because of inattention to establishing a viable economic base. The lesson: Any utopian attempt at improving upon the status quo must recognize the reality that it is occurring within a larger context, and so must find a way to integrate an internal economy within the larger economic process, or be short-lived. This is what makes the ‘ecovillage’ distinctive.

One of the most long lasting and successful of the 60’s genre of intentional community is The Farm, in Tennessee. The people that would grow into The Farm originated as participants in a series of political activism, free love, and consciousness expanding lectures at San Francisco State University in the late 60’s. Affectionately called “The Tuesday Night Class” – hosted by the legendary Stephen Gaskin – this lecture series eventually attracted up to several hundred dissenters at a time. Reaching critical mass, the people soon realized that in order to see their vision manifest they would need to escape the city and find a land base of their own. Eventually they accumulated a fleet of converted school buses, painted them white, and took off in a caravan to scour the nation in search of a site to ground their community. After a year of travel, 320 “hippies” finally procured land in the highlands of southern Tennessee; but it was not easy! Because they were considered the highest concentration of “communists” in the country at the time, they were doggedly pursued by J. Edgar Hoover and The F.B.I., who repeatedly intervened in attempts to thwart their efforts at purchasing property. But the Farm is still there after 32 years, has grown into full ecovillage status, and is actually currently expanding.

The residents of The Farm succeeded where others failed, not only as a consequence of their undaunted spirit, but because, significantly, they established as community policy the edict not to seek or accept help or welfare from the government. Thus they compelled themselves to be self-reliant, to take matters into their own hands and accept responsibility for their actions. The situation was very difficult at first – seeking productivity from land being tilled for the first time – but they endured; they were held together by the strong community glue of a common spiritual focus and the belief that they were doing something worthwhile for the world by setting an example others could follow. Today The Farm boasts some 40 businesses, half of them non-profits, with over 85% of wage earners working for businesses inside The Farm. The Farm is also home to the Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA) and the world’s first Ecovillage Training Center (ETC).

The Ecovillage is More than an Intentional Community
That consciousness surge from the 60’s that produced The Farm was a broad swell of alternative ideas that went way beyond envisioning cooperative, intentional communities – but also included and was informed by such interrelated topics as ecology and environmentalism, ecofeminism, organic farming, renewable energy sources, the re-integration of traditional cultures, the concept of sustainability, etc. In the coming decades, the idealists and visionaries educated themselves and began to write, expanding and refining their ideas and articulating strategies for cultural change that touched on all aspects of life. Eventually there were so many new concepts and ideas floating around from such diverse sources that a clearinghouse was needed to collate and integrate the emerging vision.

In the Spring of 1983, the first issue of the journal In Context appeared, calling itself “A Quarterly of Humane Sustainable Culture.” Editor Robert Gilman, an astrophysicist by trade, stepped forward to accomplish the formidable synthesis. That first issue preordained its eventual climax, sporting the subtitle “Being a Planetary Villager.” In Context lasted for 13 years before evolving into YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, in the Spring of 1996. All through that time, Robert Gilman provided a sounding board and gave voice to the growing ‘sustainability movement’ and its multitudinous dimensions. By issue #29, in the Summer of 1991, the term “eco-village” was first formally and publicly introduced. The ecovillage concept was the ultimate visionary sustainable synthesis and came with a definition: It is:

• a human scale
• full-featured settlement
• in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world
• in a way that is supportive of healthy human development
• and can be continued into the indefinite future

After 8 years as editor of the world’s premier sustainability journal, Mr. Gilman produced that elegant and aesthetically pleasing title comprehensive enough to contain all the brilliant emerging concepts – “ecovillage.”

The Ecovillage Movement Self-Organizes Globally
About the same time that In Context was forming their definition, in 1990, Ross and Hildur Jackson created Gaia Trust in Denmark, an association devoted to furthering the movement toward sustainability. Ross had achieved success as an international money manager, and after a self-described spiritual awakening, decided to invest his resources into planetary healing. He concluded that “…more than anything else, the world needed good examples of what it means to live in harmony with nature in a sustainable and spiritually-satisfying way in a technologically advanced society.” And so, Gaia Trust commissioned the sustainability experts at Context Institute to “survey the field” and produce a report identifying the world’s best examples of emerging ecovillage models. Their precedent setting report, Eco-villages and Sustainable Communities, appeared in May of 1991. The report concluded that there was a vast assortment of different kinds of sustainable community being attempted but that there did not yet exist anywhere a fully functioning “ecovillage.” Perhaps more important than its primary goal of gathering a directory of communities and their characteristics, the report was also the most concentrated intellectual effort to date for theorizing and conceptualizing the nature and characteristics of the as yet unrealized, ideal sustainable community – the ecovillage.

By September 1991, enough momentum was building to convene the first global gathering devoted to discussing a strategy for developing and spreading the emerging ecovillage vision. That first meeting was small – just twenty people – and included some of the most respected social innovators in the world. Hosted by Gaia Trust in Denmark, that meeting set the stage for the forging of links between thinkers of seemingly diverse interests that found they could enthusiastically come together on a piece of common ground.

In 1994, a similar but larger meeting was held in Denmark that solidified the growing momentum with the informal establishment of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN). Funded by Gaia Trust, with a full-time secretariat, the ecovillage movement now had a central office and a staff with daily business to attend to. That initial organization of GEN – the network of sustainable community models aspiring to the ecovillage ideal – consisted of a seed group of nine members: the Findhorn Community, Scotland; The Farm, Tennessee; Lebensgarten, Germany; Crystal Waters, Australia; Ecoville, St. Petersburg, Russia; Gyurufu, Hungary; The Ladakh Project, India; The Manitou Institute, Colorado; and the Danish Association of Sustainable Communities.

>From October 7-13, 1995, the global ecovillage movement took a major leap forward with the convening of an international conference: “Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities: Models for 21st Century Living,” at Findhorn. Genuine widespread and growing interest in the ecovillage vision was attested to by the fact that 400 people were in attendance, with some 300 interested others needing to be turned away. For a solid week – in typical Findhorn style – there was a continuous procession of speakers, presentations, activities, meditations, music and wholesome food. Some of the sustainability luminaries that give keynote addresses were: Robert Gilman of Context Institute, Max Lindegger of Crystal Waters, Albert Bates from the Farm, Margrit Kennedy of Lebensgarten, Helena Norberg-Hodge of The Ladakh Project, John and Nancy Jack Todd from New Alchemy Institute, Rashmi Mayur from the United Nations’ International Institute for a Sustainable Future, and the environmental minister for the U.K. The utopian ecovillage vision had grown into being more than just a good idea – it was now an internationally respected, credible intellectual response to addressing the real social, economic, and environmental concerns at the dawn of the 21st century.

Behind the scenes at the Findhorn conference, GEN was officially organized into three regional sub-networks to span the globe – with administrative centers at The Farm (the Americas), Lebensgarten (Europe and Asia), and Crystal Waters (Asia and Oceania), with the head office still based in Denmark. The regional secretariats got right to work fulfilling the larger mission of GEN – to promote and support models of sustainable community living.

The Global Ecovillage Network Defines Its Purposes In the aftermath of the Findhorn conference, the global ecovillage movement was inflated with a burst of new enthusiasm; it was like a potent seed had been planted in the global noosphere and was now beginning to sprout. The melding of so many minds working on so many different aspects of sustainability – with the associated brainstorming, the setting of agendas, the networking, and the sharing of stories and information – all provided a powerful impetus taking the collective mission to a new level of purpose.

Many lessons and affirmations came out of the conference. For one, an understanding that sustainable communities – ecovillages by definition – are the appropriate scale from which to begin organizing the birthing of the new culture; it can’t be done as solitary individuals or at the abstract level of ‘societies.’ Another was the realization that in order to become successful and viable, ecovillages must not become insular, exclusive, or sheltered but must interact with and functionally integrate with the surrounding culture. Another was the affirmation that ecovillages – and sustainable communities in general – must be the “necessary yes,” a positive solution to mounting global problems, in contrast to organizations like Greenpeace, which are the “necessary no;” the ecovillage movement was seen as taking all the no’s and turning them into yes’s. Another important realization was that the goal of ‘sustainability’ is not enough in itself – sustainability is only about stabilizing runaway global phenomenon through applied negative feedback. The ecovillage was envisioned as the living context from which human and planetary potential could leap to new heights unforeseen – with abundant love, diversity, cooperation, and creativity – in short, a dramatic leap in quality of life. Another important lesson to come out of the conference was the need to include the ‘South,’ the home of a multitude of traditional villages and villagers; it is not enough for rich northerners to go on talking about and experimenting with ‘ideal’ communities if they are isolated from and ignoring the vast majority of the rest of the human population. It was understood that this was a global solution, answering global problems, requiring a truly global perspective and participation, with a unification of the efforts of the North and South.

Much activity was also initiated as a result of the increased energy and visibility generated from the conference. In June of 1996, GEN was invited to the UN “Conference on Human Settlements,” in Istanbul. In 1998, the first ecovillages were officially named among the United Nations’ top 100 listing of “Best Practices,” as excellent models of sustainable living. “Village Design” courses began being offered at the Network’s premier models, and the Ecovillage Training Center was set up at The Farm. A “Community Sustainability Assessment” self-audit was created (available on the GEN web page at www.gaia.org). The audit was created to ensure that the power in the movement would remain with the qualified ‘villages’ by explicitly stating the definition of the elements of an ecovillage. It was discovered that some people were using and profiting from the ecovillage name, because of its semantic appeal, without first investigating and applying fundamental principles. Finally, an energetic effort was launched to form partnerships with villages in the South that continues to strengthen to this day.

The Ecovillage Movement in its Present Stage of Development
All of the preliminary planning and conceptualizing by so many competent, qualified, and well-informed people has begun to blossom. Today the Global Ecovillage Network is comprised of some 100 members (individuals, communities, and organizations) in GEN- Europe and Africa, 80 members in GEN-Oceania, and hundreds of identified ecovillages in the Americas (although most of these are intentional communities that are far from reaching ‘village scale’). GEN has sprouted a new sub-regional office in South Asia that is currently communicating with 40 ‘ecovillages,’ and has included the Sarvodaya people’s movement in Sri Lanka, with 10,000 member villages. Just imagine: All this growth in just over a decade, since that first meeting of just twenty people in September 1991. GEN is capably fulfilling its mission to support and promote models of sustainable community living.

A key thrust of interest in GEN now, at this dawning of the 21st century, is in the arena of education. All ecovillages are, essentially, demonstration sites of sustainable living, and education is a real potential source of income for these often economically challenged communities. Some of the projects currently being conceptualized and implemented are: a curriculum for a new format of education to be taken in modules at different ecovillages around the world, the wish to create a common global university – “Gaia University,” and the development of “Living and Learning Centers” in the South. In 2000, GEN launched “Living Routes,” based out of the ecovillage Sirius in Massachusetts, whose purpose is to bring American university students into ecovillages as part of their formal education. Other initiatives currently in the works are: ecovillage tourism, an ecovillage design consultancy, complementary money systems, and ecovillage e-trade.

The global ecovillage movement now stands poised to make a noticeable difference in the world. It is a utopian vision, perhaps, but it is realizable – it is being realized. It grew as a direct response and solution to the accumulated problems confronting humankind as we approach the “limits to growth” on a finite planet. Many highly educated, experienced, informed and concerned minds contributed to and nurtured its gestation and birth, and now its present stage of development. It is a highly decentralized, grass-roots, organic movement that is encouraging and supporting fundamental change with a broad base of increasingly popular support that is based locally, with people committed to living in a particular place; yet, it is truly global in nature, and the solutions it posits are appropriate and workable in any type of living situation: urban, suburban, rural, North and South. It is indeed the seed base for the emergence of a new planetary culture. As Ross Jackson, founder of Gaia Trust points out, the ecovillage movement “…unites North and South in a common agenda that cuts across all cultural, racial, and religious differences. It is a remarkable fact that the builders of ecovillages often have more in common with each other than with their respective local cultures, no matter where they come from. A common, global vision is emerging that has the power to change the world.”

Chris Mare designed and completed the world’s first B.A. degree devoted to “Ecovillage Design.” He is currently finishing up his Master’s in Whole Systems Design at Antioch University Seattle. Mare recently founded the Village Design Institute
(see www.villagedesign.org for more info).