Outside the binary: my life as a relationship anarchist in a spiritual ecovillage

I can remember being snuggled on this sofa with all my friends at a youth group when I was around 12 and my friend, Jane, asking me, “Which one do you fancy?” In essence, she wanted me to pick one, but I didn’t want to choose. I didn’t want to label anyone. I wanted to have connections with all of them and that desire has stuck with me since.

The world is so binary. Everything is “this” or “that”, but why must everything have a label?

Freedom is central to my life choices, particularly when it comes to relationships. When people ask me what my relationship status is, I simply tell them: "I don’t have one." I have multiple connections.

My philosophy is often misunderstood and many take me for a commitment-phobe who wants nothing more than casual sexual interactions, but that is far from the truth. My deepest and longest connections run over 20 plus years.

In this day and age, more people are choosing to question the “norm”, but, even in today’s progressive society, when the term “relationship anarchy” is mentioned, many are unsure of what it really means. At first they might find it daunting, perhaps even a little pessimistic, but relationship anarchy is quite the opposite. It’s all about having an organic approach, rather than following a linear relationship trajectory.

I think of us humans like ants, all in a colony moving around, bumping into each other, collaborating in the present moment before moving into the next. Ants don’t agree to be in a relationship with one another. Their connections just form naturally and they’re constantly changing.

A great way of illustrating this idea is the relationship anarchy smorgasbord designed by Maxx Hill. It works a bit like a buffet table. There might be some friendship, some intimacy, some co-parenting, some spirituality, or perhaps something else, but you take whatever you fancy in that moment and what you pick one day might be different to what you pick the next. Different relationships bring different flavours and, with relationship anarchy, you get to choose what you fill your plate with.

Though Findhorn has no connection to my practice of relationship anarchy, much of what we do here revolves around being present and this lifestyle strongly resonates with the principles of my practice. The Findhorn Community offers the opportunity for those who wish to, to explore a path of personal development, grounded in mindfulness, sharing resources and living cooperatively.

There isn't such a thing as a typical day in Findhorn because everybody's lives are so different. There are hundreds of us living here. Some people are retired, some people work full time, some people have children, some people rent a house, some people buy them, some people live in shared houses, some people work within the community and some work outside. There are teachers, doctors, solicitors. Everybody's play and rhythm is different, but we do have rhythms within the community like the Solstice Spiral, where we walk a candle-lit spiral, reflecting on the past year, and manifesting our hope for the next.

But, as much as I love it here, I also spend time in the city of Leeds for work. The community of Findhorn is quite progressive, but in the highlands of Scotland, it's like being stuck in the 1980s. Gay is not understood, never mind relationship anarchy. It's very traditional and I need to be around queer culture too.

Both Findhorn and Leeds offer me different things so moving between the two is necessary for my well-being. I have this dance between both worlds.

Leeds and Findhorn give me a balance of forward-thinking queerness and a collaborative spiritual community. I appreciate that not everyone will understand my choices and I don’t expect them to, but the way I live my life truly reflects my philosophy.

People say love is the ultimate value but I don’t think that’s true. Freedom is the ultimate value, because love without freedom is not love at all.