We dedicated our new space and are opening our doors in 2021. It was a long journey through the pandemic plague of 2020, as well as the challenges of construction and climate.

It has been a gift to be able to dream and co-create a new community space together. Here are a series of photos from 2016-2019 as we shared ideas and developed a collective vision.

Founding Intentions: Balai Diwata was borne out of our collective vision for building a shared living community that embodies our visions for the world - forming a system of care with one another, sharing our human and financials resources, and forming a permanent relationship of family together from this day forward.

The principles and values that we want to practice and make visible in the world as we live together are:

• Mutual relationships with the highest commitments to listen appreciatively, speak with care, express gratitude, honor our differences, and assume good intentions;

• Communal living and stewardship that reduces our impact on the natural world and allows us to practice sustainability on a daily basis;

• We live with people we love bound by friendship, not blood, demonstrating kinship through kindness and compassion;

• Equitable sharing of responsibilities, supporting and caring for one another and our families and stewarding our shared resources;

• We get to negotiate and resolve tensions, disagreements and conflicts by naming the hurt, understanding the impact and intention, and try to forgive and make amends with trust, fairness, consensus, and commitment to community;

• We model habits and practices of nonviolent communal living that our children and a younger generation will learn from and shape their own values and practices.