The Meadowsweet Commons is an experiment.

When I first started blogging, there was really only one way to do it. You wrote up a post, published it to your “weblog,” and it appeared at the top of a chronological list on your front page. Friends and readers could leave a comment if they had a question to ask or an insight to share — and that comment would get tacked onto the bottom of the post. It was all very linear. One stream of posts stretching away into the past, and a million inlets of comments feeding in, stretching off into the future. New developments in social media — like Twitter and Facebook — have given us tools to update, share and “like” to our hearts’ content, but their news streams are still little more than condensed versions of the linear weblog.

This suits mainstream Western culture just fine. We like progress, we like “forward thinking” — heck, we like streams. But sometimes, all this streamlined social media can make us feel less like part of an evolving community, and more like we’re stuck on the Information Highway during rush hour (complete with impatient jerks and frustratingly inexplicable traffic jams). With all our rushing headlong into the future, we can get careless, even a bit callous. We can take too much advantage of the anonymity of the online world, and we can forget that even words left in haste can have a lasting impact on the shape and mood of the virtual spaces we visit.

As a Druid and nature lover, I’m enamored with the lazy cycles of the seasons, the spiraling patterns of seashells and fern fronds, the meandering paths through the forest underbrush and the wide open spaces of the hills and meadows. I’m also a bit of a romantic, I admit. I daydream of a time before supermarkets and strip malls, when folks bumped their way through the bustling confusion of the town market, or gathered together for casual chitchat and socializing among the green lawns and gardens of the local park. In the turnings, comings and goings of local community, there are often more opportunities for spontaneity, synchronicity and coincidence; and more chances for daydreaming, contemplative pauses and even unexpected solitude.

The Meadowsweet Commons is an experiment in nonlinear online community, modeled on the idea of the old village commons. The “commons” were traditionally understood to be the resources and public spaces “held in common” by a local community, where civil society took root and civic engagement thrived. The commons are a shared gift, one that a community gives to itself through cultivation and preservation alike. An almost liminal space between the private fenced-in properties of individuals, and the wilds and wildernesses beyond the edge of town, the commons make up a public sphere that is essential to the sustainability and flourishing of the community. Even today, we can speak of infrastructure, language, music, art and culture, protected parks and historical sites, and the internet itself as part of the “commons” of modern society.

The Meadowsweet Commons builds on this idea to establish an online community space where individuals are welcome to share their thoughts and ideas in continuing conversation with each other. But this is not your ordinary blog comment thread. It’s meant to be a little bit messy, and require a little bit more initiative. While many of the topics will be sparked by blog posts from Meadowsweet & Myrrh, members of the Meadowsweet Commons are welcome and encouraged to start their own topics as well. In fact, comments left on blog posts will not be posted in a linear comment stream like on a usual blog; instead, they’ll appear here in the Commons, where they can take on a life of their own, spinning and meandering out to spark new conversations among members. And the relationship goes both ways — conversations and essays that members of the Commons share in this public space may be featured as community highlights or guest posts on the blog itself.

Most importantly, the Meadowsweet Commons is what you help make it. Members can announce their community news, share their ideas and insights, promote their own services and products, and share reviews and recommendations about resources both online and in their local real-life communities. When you bring a sense of engagement and enthusiasm to your interactions in the Commons, you’ll be less likely to take for granted the social context of your presence here in this virtual space. You’ll be more likely to spend time forging connections and getting to know your fellow readers and writers, and as a result, you’ll get far more out of your time here than you would from your typical, old-fashioned weblog!