Creating Kin's Domain John Trew
Creating Kin's DomainAge: 40 years
Country: Ecuador
State/Province: Loja
City: Loja
About Me:
I'm JT—a writer, father, and community member at Finca Sagrada, a 250-hectare regenerative intentional community in Ecuador's Valley of Longevity.
My wife Lexi and I are raising our growing family here (soon to be three little ones), building an adobe home with our own hands, and learning what it actually means to root into place across generations.
I came to the Ringing Cedars books recently, but the vision Anastasia describes has been pulling at me for years—I just didn't have language for it. The science of imagery, in particular, has transformed how I approach everything: writing, community building, fatherhood, the future we're creating.
At Finca Sagrada, I lead content development and support our Kuntur Wachana reforestation project, where we've planted over 20,000 native trees in partnership with a Swiss conservation nonprofit. It's work that feels aligned with what Anastasia describes—healing the land while the land heals us.
I write about consciousness, regenerative community, and the practical (often messy) work of building alternatives to the dominant culture on Substack. Currently exploring how legal structures and networked funding models might help kin's domain settlements actually take root in the West.
I'm here to learn, connect, and find others holding similar images. If you're dreaming of land-based community, navigating founder transitions, or just want to talk about what's possible—reach out.
Based in Vilcabamba, Ecuador.
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I’ve been researching church structures for regenerative communities for about two years, and recently completed a three-part series exploring how these legal frameworks might protect kin domain settlements.
What you’re describing in Portugal aligns with what I’ve been tracking and writing about on Substack: the 508(c)(1)(a) designation in the US (and similar structures in other countries) creates legal protection for communities organized around spiritual principles – including relationship with land, ancestral connection, and living outside conventional economic systems.
The key insight isn’t just “use a church to avoid taxes.” It’s that these frameworks recognize spiritual authority as sovereign – which means communities can operate according to their own principles rather than state-defined categories.
A few observations from my research:
What actually works:
- Churches that don’t register with the state (508(c)(1)(a) in the US, similar structures elsewhere)
- Land held in perpetual trust by the spiritual body, not individuals
- Governance based on coherent spiritual principles, not bylaws mimicking corporate structures
What doesn’t work:
- Using church structures purely as tax avoidance (courts see through this immediately)
- Trying to retrofit spiritual language onto projects that are fundamentally real estate developments
- Starting with tokenization or complex financial instruments before community coherence exists
The RC movement specifically:
I only encountered the Ringing Cedars books about a month ago, but it became immediately clear that the kin domain vision is already spiritual in nature – it just hasn’t been articulated in legal language that protects it.
The vision Anastasia describes – family land held across generations, children born into continuity, ancestral memory embedded in place – this is not “alternative lifestyle.” It’s a cosmology with land practice. That means it can be legally protected as such.
I wrote about this in the third article of my series here: https://trewregenerative.substack.com/p/the-bridge?r=64wpo
But I want to be clear: the legal structure is secondary. The primary work is coherent community identity – knowing who you are together, what you’re protecting, and why it matters across generations.
If that exists, the legal protection becomes straightforward. If it doesn’t exist, no legal structure will save it.
I’d be interested in connecting with the Dutch group you mentioned to understand how they articulated their spiritual foundation and what’s actually working on the ground.
trewregenerative.substack.com
Part III of III: What becomes possible when we reinstate trust
