Idea:

To live in a community where we can practice sustainable living. Where we can be selfsufficient with food, have no carbon footprint, where we can build our own house build from sustainable materials and where we can be part of a community that can support eachother with cooking, childcare, carpooling, and other shared things.

We would like to bridge the Urban and the Rural, Nature and Culture, Home and Work…

Purpose:

To walk our talk of sustainable living. To experiment with how a new social structure can look like, that caters for the modern persons needs, without compromising the wellbeing of our planet.

Key People:

International: Daniel, Jonathan, John Milton, Rasmus, Benjamin, Kathrine
Colombia: Carolina

Income potential:

Not much direct income here

Status:

Idea stage – connections to Findhorn, ClearVillage, Global Ecovillage Network

Inspired by:

Findhorn
Tornsbjerggård
Camphill
Gaviotas

Idea:

To create a learning center, based on an experiential and practical learning style, building human capacities to deal with the uncertainty of our times. To have a physical location where we can offer trainings, retreats and host processes. A place where we live sustainable a place that invite the diversity of the Colombian Society.

Purpose:

To empower people to make a difference in their lives, their communities and the world towards creating a more life affirming system of infuence, through concrete tools and a translocal network.

Key People:

Internationally: Sarah and Maria, Debbie Frieze, Margaret Wheatley, Vanessa Reid
Colombia:

Income potential:

Depends on the activities, but has potential when the place is found and ready.

Status:

Idea state and there are many good connections and cases to draw on.

Inspired by:

Axladitsa, Greece
Kufunda. Zimbabwe
The Shire, Canada
Santropol Roulant, Canada
Berkana Exchange

Some time ago Michael sent me the catalogue of Esalen, an alternative educational centre in California USA.

This is what they write about people who come to esalen “They come for the intellectual freedom to consider systems of thought and feeling that lie beyond the current constraints of mainstream academia.”

Here is the catalogue as well

EsalenCatalog2009b-JulyDec

This TED talk gave me lots of good ideas for what we might play with in Colombia. It is about how clever and competent nature is in solving design questions that we are far from solving.

Some of the ideas I got was combining this approach Biomimicry with learning journeys to Colombia with Nature experiences focussed at improving a specific need and at the same time building the inner capacity and leadership in the participants to be better at bringing these new ideas forward.

Janine Benyus has started this website called Ask nature, where the idea is to gather a database of a large number of design achivements in nature, and when you are designing something yourself you can ask nature how it does.

Check out: www.asknature.org

So what does a home look like according to nature?… hmmm…

Janine Benyus has a message for inventors: When solving a design problem, look to nature first. There you’ll find inspired designs for making things waterproof, aerodynamic, solar-powered and more. Here she reveals dozens of new products that take their cue from nature with spectacular results.

Live in harmony with the nature,
Learn from the nature, and
Recover the health in the nature.

Konohana Family is an organic agricultural community which is almost 100% self-sustained, located at the foothill of Mt. Fuji, living as a big family of 47 people (as of November, 2007). There are 11 children, 4 teenagers and 32 adults.

In 1994, the original 20 members moved to Fujinomiya city, Shizuoka Prefecture, hoping to live together and help each other beyond the generation gap and the family relationship. We founded
“Konohana Nouen (Farm)”, that is the original form of Konohana Family. The name of “Konohana” comes from the Goddess of Mt. Fuji, “Konohana sakuya hime no mikoto”.

Since the foundation, the Family has established an original life style based on the spirit of harmony. Everyone plays a great role in the community where he or she can make the most of his or her ability.
Following a natural flow of energy, each member works for the good of the whole group, making sure that what needs to be done is done.

Download a PDF file with the full story of the konohana family:

Konohana family

And some of their views on Sustainable Organic Agriculture, New Harmonious Society, Natural Therapy Program etc.

If you want to practice your japanese here is their website.

Images of tree houses. Wood that is curved, not straight. Big leaves. Fat rain drops that behave like mini-sun-prisms. Huts. Group processes.

Syha

Outsiders-in Insiders out

Here is an idea for what the purpose of our home can be. When I did my internship I lived at Axladitsa for 6 weeks experiencing a learning center like this. It was also a home, a farm and place to gather, for people who had something om their heart – people who cared.

So here a little bit about Learning centers and  a link to Axaladitsa and to Kufunda – a amazing learning village and strong community in Zimbawe, where they are really pioneering how to organize a community in a lifeaffirming way, using many ancient social technologies in a conscious way.

Berkana Exchange: Learning Centers.

The Berkana Exchange is an ecosystem of learning centers, grassroots-based initiatives, individuals, regional learning communities and movements all working to create healthy and resilient communities. Participants are developing the capacity to solve their most pressing problems—such as community health, ecological sustainability and economic self-reliance—by acting locally, connecting regionally and learning trans-locally.

Why “trans-local”? We believe that large-scale systems change emerges when local actions get connected globally—while preserving their deeply local culture, flavor and form. There is no universal solution for the challenges of poverty, hunger or environmental destruction. But there is the possibility of widespread impact when people working at the local level are able to learn from one another, practice together and share their learning with communities everywhere. We do this by gathering face-to-face, engaging in communities of practice, learning exchanges and regional collaborations. We share stories, create new experiments and build relationships that help us better serve our communities at home.

Kufunda:

We are a learning village whose purpose is to inspire the co-creation of strong life affirming communities in Zimbabwe and beyond by living and sharing the wisdom, practices and social systems that are required for such communities.

Axladitsa:

Axladitsa-Avatakia is a home place, an olive farm and a place of collective inquiry , learning and retreat – a place for Living Wholeness.

Axladitsa-Avatakia is a practice and catalyst for exploring the relationship between the power of place and work/mastery through real-time collective inquire, research and practice - as contribution to the next level of our human evolution.

It is also a place that really touched me deeply and one of those places in the world where I really feel at home. I think that has to do with the setting of the place close to unspoiled nature, to the way it is hosted by its two stewards, and to the intention that runs through all tasks and all work here… a level of high consciousness in all that you do. It is truly of place of power.

Gaviotas is a village of about 200 people in Colombia, South America. For three decades, Gaviotans – peasants, scientists, artists, and former street kids – have struggled to build an oasis of imagination and sustainability in the remote, barren savannas of eastern Colombia, an area ravaged by political terror. They have planted millions of trees, thus regenerating an indigenous rainforest. They farm organically and use wind and solar power. Every family enjoys free housing, community meals, and schooling. There are no weapons, no police, no jail. There is no mayor.

The United Nations named the village a model of sustainable development. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has called founder Paolo Lugari the “inventor of the world.”

Visit Gaviota’s website en inglés

A 25 minutes video about Gaviotas y Paolo lugari (en inglés).

It is an concept that allows you to build a house completely off grid – where you are completely selfsustained with heating, water, sewage, energy and home production of produce. It is build from sustainable recycled materials.

Exploring what community means, I have gathered some examples of what communities can be. It can be all from communities of practice to communities organized around a shared interess to people simply living next to eachother.

Here is a little list of communities:

• EcoVillage: I found a nice definition of ecovillages on the Gaia Foundation website:
  “The ideal ecovillage, which does not yet exist – is a sustainable human settlement which is in harmony with all aspects of life, including the cultural, ecological and spiritual dimensions.”

• Findhorn, Scotland -  the mother of Ecovillages and a role model for how to co-create your community with nature.
• GEN – Global Ecovillage Network -  is a global confederation of people and communities that meet and share their ideas, exchange technologies, develop cultural and educational exchanges, directories and newsletters, and are dedicated to restoring the land and living “sustainable plus” lives by putting more back into the environment than we take out.
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