A New Season at Lakefront 🌼
Settling in as a new group double in size, implementing a sociocratic governance system, and enjoying the Swedish summer weather!
Dear friends,
It’s summer at Lakefront, and something has shifted. Not just in the air — which is now fragrant with blooming fields and the scent of barbecues on warm evenings — but in the heartbeat of this place.
We’ve grown. Since returning from the Island, our community has doubled in size. We are now more than twenty souls weaving life together by the lake. With that comes a new energy — vibrant, sometimes chaotic, sometimes deeply grounding — and a sense that we’re standing at the threshold of a new chapter.
To support this growth, we’ve gently but intentionally stepped into more structure. We’ve crafted a new weekly rhythm to hold us: community dinners on Mondays and Wednesdays are anchoring points from before for shared nourishment and connection. On Monday evenings, our house meetings are now guided by sociocratic principles. It’s a living experiment — organizing ourselves into circles that meet weekly, giving clear roles and responsibilities, and a sense of shared governance and decentralized decision-making. There’s beauty in the clarity it offers — and also growing edges. Some of us find relief in structure; others are already feeling the rub of rigidity. We’re in it together, feeling into what fits and where we still need to soften or stretch.
Wednesday evenings have become a sacred space for our relational field — and just last week, we held our first Forum, a very special form of community practice. It was raw and real, offering a shared witnessing that left many of us moved. There’s something ancient and necessary in being seen like that — beyond roles, masks, and stories. It’s said that this practice is what made communities like Tamera and ZEGG not only last, but thrive for decades.
Outside, the land is alive. Yellow rape flowers stretch across the fields like sun-painted blankets. The lake calls to us daily, a cold and clear exhale after our daily mid-day workouts on the lawn. Meals are spilling out onto the terrace, sun-warmed and laughter-filled. People sunbathe, read, dance barefoot in the grass. We’ve had a few impromptu tennis games, a beautiful barbecue with friends from the last Elevate gathering, and the beginnings of our gardening dreams — herbs, vegetables, and even lemon and lime trees taking root.
But with growth also comes complexity. We’re in that tender phase where the original pulse of the project is stretching to welcome new rhythms, new voices, new edges. Some days feel beautifully fluid, like we’re one organism moving together. Other days, the friction of structure vs emergence hums beneath the surface. And that’s okay. We are not just implementing systems — we are adapting, listening, twisting and turning until it feels true to us.
There’s no script for this. Just a deep longing to create a way of living that is more alive, more connected, more human. And for that, there is learning. There is constructive tension. There is joy. There is a field, a lake, a shared meal, a feeling that maybe — just maybe — we are building something that can truly make a difference in our world.
If you were to visit now, you might see us having lunch on the patio, pomodoro co-working with 5min dance breaks on the lawn, debating the pros and cons of consent-based decision-making. You will most likely run into some of the inspiring people that have come from across the planet for one of our week-long summer residencies to reimagine the future of our world. You might hear someone laughing from the kitchen while someone else plays guitar or paino, someone planting some new herbs in the garden and someone sorting all the sports and arts equipment we just received. You might witness tears in a circle, or a dance party breaking out in the middle of an otherwise ordinary Tuesday.
It’s not perfect. It’s alive. It’s emerging. And that feels like a really good start.
With love from the lake,
The Lakefront community