Shaker Village with Memaw & Pepaw

We took a day trip to the Shaker Village near Lexington.  I'd seen a PBS documentary on Shakers, so was interested to learn more.  There are only three Shakers left in the world, and they all live in the New England area, but the non-profit organization that ran the village did a great job helping us understand their beliefs and what living in the community would have been like.  The Shakers believe that God is both male and female, so Jesus Christ was the male representative that came down to earth and their prophetess, Ann Lee, was the female representative, thus the Second Coming had arrived and they were living in the Millennium.  

The buildings were neat because almost every room had these lines of pegs on the walls.  They were used to hang clothes, baskets, tools, candles, etc. 

Alice and Myra had absolutely no interest in listening to any of the programs, though they were able to sit through the singing and dancing presentation.  The Shakers didn't have set sermons or programs, they just all met together and sang and danced (thus why they're called Shakers) as the Spirit moved them.  For the last song in the presentation, the presenter asked for volunteers to help her do a Shaker line dance.  Only one little kid went up to help her--I'm not sure what I was thinking, I'm not usually one to volunteer for things, but I jumped up and helped her out.  We did the dance to the song, 'Simple Gifts,' which is probably the most well known Shaker hymn.  I was glad when it was over!

The Shakers believed in celibacy and communal living.  When you signed up to be Shaker, you signed over your rights to all the property you'd accumulated, including slaves.  The Shakers were way ahead of their time in that area.  If there was a slave that was signed over to the Shakers, they would, first of all, free the slave, then the slave could either join the faith or they would help the slave get over the Ohio River to a free state.  If the slave chose to stay, they would be equal with all others--eat and sleep in the same areas as everyone else.  Women were also equal to men when it came to positions of leadership in the church.  Above was a typical 'family' house.  Men lived on one side, women on the other, with as many as 80 people living there at a time.  Children lived in separate buildings.

At the height of the Shaker movement, there were actually more Shakers in the Kentucky/Ohio area than in New England, which I thought was interesting.  Above is a picture of the Shaker's 'tree of life' symbol.  Overall, a really fun trip!