The tools for living together can't be learned apart.
So we're spending a week on a working farm in Alentejo, Portugal — gathering technologists and community builders around the same table.
// touch grass brings three things:
- 01a stack of tools for actually running a community, from rosters and money to an AI assistant;
- 02a real look at the jurisdictions and communities already doing it, and what it takes to start your own;
- 03and a week on the ground at Traditional Dream Factory, a real and growing community in Portugal.
event details
Logistics
- 📅Dates:
October 18-25, 2026 (1 week) - 📍
- 🍛Meals:
3 vegetarian meals included daily - 💰Cost:
€550-€1200 per person
(includes meals & varies by tent option) - 👥Capacity:
Limited to 30 participants - 🎒What to Bring:
Sturdy shoes, rain jacket, water bottle, hat, and your laptop
// touch grass is a week of practice.
We're not just talking about community — we're getting practice at running one. // touchgrass gets hands on with software that can carry the daily work: who's cooking, what got decided, where the money goes.
The necessary technology isn't just digital, it's also social. Most communities don't fail for lack of money or infrastructure. They fail at the social layer — and that's the layer you can only practice with other people.
We gather to practice somewhere real. A working farm in Alentejo with its own weather, water, neighbors, and constraints — and for one week you're inside it, not reading about it. You leave with the tools in your hands, a clear read on the communities and jurisdictions already doing this, and the people you practiced alongside.
your hosts
The people bringing the tools, holding the week, and doing the dishes alongside you.
Sara Bee
Co-creator, // touch grass
Sara holds the programming on social technology, bringing practices from Microsolidarity and eight years of living in and growing community. Her home community is Elkenmist, a regenerative farm and gathering space in the US Pacific Northwest. She arrives with a wide toolbox of practical community skills: group process, grant writing, accounting, catering, dish washing, and lettuce planting.
Ron Turetzky
Co-creator, // touch grass
Ron is a co-founder of Bread Cooperative and of a co-living community by Central Park, and the author of colive.fun, a solidarity app for running a co-living household. He runs a co-living lab in New York, teaches an industrial agrarian course on how to practically form and sustain communities, and has lived in both urban and rural communes. A founding engineer in web3, he builds coordination tools from inside the practice—as someone who steps into the actual problems they're meant to solve.
Joining us on the land
Joshua Glass
Wilderness Immersion Guide
A facilitator and guide for Deep Nature Connection, Josh will lead our group in an immersive and practical experience of connecting to the natural landscape of Alentejo.
Tonya
Traditional Dream Factory Host
Our host on the ground, Tonya knows where things are, how the site actually works, and the rhythms of TDF so we can arrive comfortably to our community-for-a-week.
^ These cuties
To borrow a phrase from David Abram, we will bring into our temporary community a recognition of the "more than human" animals and plants (and spirits!?) that live at TDF.
what we'll practice
Three threads, running all week, with experienced practitioners to learn them from.
Social Technology
We'll practice the skills a group actually runs on: making decisions, moving through conflict, saying the hard thing, passing on what we know. We'll work with techniques from Microsolidarity and Authentic Relating, practiced with each other rather than studied in theory.
History as a teacher
Commons, co-ops, and communes have been testing alternative living styles for centuries and hold deep knowledge for how to live in community for the long haul. We'll study the record, then use speculative fiction to write forward from it, turning what they learned into futures worth building.
Software That Serves the Group
Most software is built to capture attention. What a community is the opposite: software that carries the facts so nobody has to hold them all. Tools that can manage rosters, know who's cooking, and what got decided. We'll get hands-on with the full stack— colive.fun, an AI assistant for the daily admin, and financial tools that help a group hold its own money, land, and future without asking an institution for permission.
What Isn't Built Yet
Buying a house with four friends is still harder than buying one alone. We'll consider systems that value both labor and financial contributions, so that ownership doesn't have to be denied to those without capital.
Landscape as Teacher
Every community is shaped by the ground it stands on: what the water does, what the soil will grow, what the summer demands. We'll learn this one by walking the site, working with our hosts to learn the farm and the ways of the place. Our venue will not be scenery, but a real working aspect of our week together.
Where you can actually do this
Wanting a community is one thing; siting one is another. We'll get practical about jurisdictions and feasibility— what different places make possible, the requirements and considerations behind them, and the real communities already living it—so you leave with a sense of where and how you could start your own.
Intentional Connection
We'll cook and eat together, sit long after dinner, sweat in the sauna, and leave whole hours unscheduled. Nothing will be rushed here, and space will be made for the emergent.
the rhythm of the week
Seven days, structured loosely enough to let something unplanned happen.
Mornings on the land
Movement, outdoors, and breakfast. A check in with the farm and animals. Bodies before screens because it changes what you build later in the day.
Midday sessions
Hands-on time with the tools we've brought: walkthroughs, live runs, teardowns, skill-shares, and hard questions put to people who actually want to run a community.
Evenings together
Shared meals, fire, sauna, music, and games. The unstructured part, where most of the real collaboration quietly gets worked out.
A day in the wild
One day out of it entirely: a guided experience with facilitator Joshua Glass. You come back with a different set of priorities.
Nothing here is finished, and that's the point. What we learn using these tools together goes back into them—and out to the communities they're for!
things you might want to know
Ready to join us?
Attendance is by application and capped at 30 participants. Registration is all-inclusive of accommodations, meals, and programming.