I have never considered myself a very fearful person and I attribute that mostly to my faith. My closest circle that I've grown up with could tell you that the very few times they have shared a truly fearful moment with me have seen that I have the whackiest, battiest physical reaction to it: I laugh. Hysterically. Uncontrollably. Maniacally?

It makes the person witnessing my Harley-Quinnian meltdown absolutely horrified, then insanely frustrated with me. I mean, when you think you're about to get murdered, it is advisable to try to stay as silent as possible! I thought maybe, deep down, it meant that I was possibly truly fearless. I could laugh in the face of fear. Or maybe I'm just bonkers. Kelly here with a perspective from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

As any caregiver could tell you, you do not know true fear until you are charged with the fate of a loved one. I remember the first moment this feeling came over me, I was pregnant and using the barcode reader at a Babies 'R' Us blissfully, but somewhat dissociatively, picking out wants and needs among the pastel aisles. The items at the beginning were all little clothes, all so adorable, I wanted them all. The items got larger as we went along so the decisions got harder. Most items I simply viewed without scanning, bigger decisions needed to be chewed on a bit first.

By the time I turned the next aisle I saw the only items in the store that I had not previously considered at that point: the car seats. All I had really considered up until that point was that I was having a baby, they are fragile, and car wrecks seem very dangerous to babies. I had already decided that I was going to do my homework on this.

But now I was looking at the car seat section. So many. I vividly remember the sight to this day: my eyes following the columns and columns of car seats, up past the center displays of them, up the Costco-sized walls of them, up to the heavens. I remember my eyes welled up with tears as my eyes reached up to where they were dangling from the distant ceiling. Thousands. Hosts of them. Was this a spectrum of child road safety displayed in black canvas and grey plastic? Ugh. Gives me the heebie jeebies just writing about it.

I must not be the only expectant mom who has had this experience, because when you walk out of there with your packet of exciting instructions on picking further registry items, there is lots of literature that leads you to parenting advice websites. Soon after I was logged in and updating our family members with what fruit-size the baby was that day. And doing other homework, and I had lots!

I dug into certain subjects (I've always been a night-before crash studier). I learned so much. I was listening to podcasts, TikTok child experts, etc. Further down the road, Colt taught me how to communicate with him. The more I learned how to communicate with him, the more I learned that he would tell me what I needed to do, and what he needed from me. The listening was always rewarded with positive outcomes. We began to trust each other. Trust began to relieve my fears.

The thing about living in such close quarters with each other, and so close with nature, is that it awakens in us our primal fears. The fear of winter is not as extreme as it once was, but there is still some there. When a safe space is created, it is built by listening and trust. Listening and trust then become part of the fabric of the place, a fabric orb that surrounds us to keep us safe. The safety is then, in turn, protected by fear. We all want everyone to feel safe because it will be returned when the individual needs to feel safe.

No emotion in the village travels as fast as fear. It's a primitive response. It is for the health of our group. Twice I have felt fear because of others making points that I hadn't considered. They were not unfounded fears because no fear is unfounded, we all have a right to our fears.

One of the things I think that binds us, is that, while it can momentarily cause rifts, is an openness and willingness to hear and empathize with each other's fears. We have to confront each other's fears as well as our own. If someone is afraid of something, I want to acknowledge that fear and to understand the root of that fear. I'm not saying that we are constantly fearful, we are just a grittier, more unbuttoned microcosm of the outside world. I feel that at DR, we are more empowered, more encouraged to share our fears.

I think many people these days shelter their fears, simply by closing themselves off from others. That is not an option here at DR. Fear can be mitigated through conversation and understanding; that's how we learn to keep ourselves safe.

There's also the fear, for me and I assume many that learn to settle into a community, of making someone else feel unsafe. It feels like the ultimate taboo, but mostly amendable through hard conversations. That's what we are trying to do here, and it's hard work. But it gets us 93% of the way. I trust the angels for the rest!

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• October 17 - October 20: Ecovillage Weekend (6 spots left)

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Kelly Brandt manages Skyhouse, DR’s boarding house.