ECOVILLAGES: Living in Harmony
It would be very nice living in harmony with Mother Nature
honouring her cycles, respecting the soil, the plants, the
animals and the human beings. It would be nice living in
harmony with all beings and still save the planet for future
generations, and enhance social and spiritual content whilst
still enjoying ourselves. It is what most of us may dream
of and wish to be possible in our own life one day. But can it
be really possible?
The ecovillages started all over the world are there to prove
that it is possible. They are showing positively that concrete
sustainable communities are a possible different way of living
in harmony.
Some of them started some decades ago (Auroville, Findhorn,
Damanhur) and they have very solid structures. Visiting
them really means "touching" with your hands a
sustainable living based on cooperation and solidarity, and all
still are free, comfortable and happy way of living. In
1998 the first ecovillages were officially named among the
United Nations' top 100 listing of Best Practices, as excellent
models of sustainable living. The United nations launched
its Global Environment Outlook 2000 report, based on reports
from UN agencies, 850 individuals and over 30 environmental
institutes, concluding that "the present course is
unsustainable and postponing action is no longer an
option."
Why not try to live a better life, stopping being alone in
front of the television, when it is possible to live happier,
with love and joy together with others, meanwhile getting more
meaning…doing something to improve the planet? That is
what I began to ask myself 6 years ago. And the answer I have
been given stronger and stronger has been: WHY NOT! Since
then I have been visiting as many ecovillages as possible.
And I have been confirmed and amazed that not only it is
possible to live a better "alternative" life but there
are also many different "colourful ways" between which
to choose the one which suited me . I have left my full time job
and I have started to dedicate my time to working on this
project.
I have been to Auroville in India. About 1500 people from all
over the world are living in what it was a desert soil with
great problems of erosion and now unbelievably it has became a
real garden full of vegetation. They are building an ideal town
"that no nation could claim as its sole property" (see
their "dream" ) in a very big area next to the town of
Pondicherry. I have been Findhorn in Scotland where I have
started my path to transformation joining their very touching
experiences and classes. I have understood I needed to learn to
really love. I have visited the CAT (Center for
Alternative Technology ) in Wales and I have understood how is
fascinating to produce energy with sun, water, wind power, and
how easy to safe energy with little more care in our normal
attitudes. I have visited Damanhur , Lumen, La Comune di
Bagnaia, Il Popolo degli Elfi, I Cavalieri del Sole, Upacchi
etc.
When I developed a clearer idea of the village I wanted to
live in, I began to involve other people with my project,
sharing with them my "vision". It was surprising
how many people I have met which are looking for an alternative
to their own style of life, and who would like to do something
for the health of the planet. We started to meet together
and to talk about it. Although we shared enthusiastically
the vision of a "village" and basically we all were
moving from similar starting points, we had to realize that we
were not really ready to change our life at once and jump to a
new "paradigm" style of living. Digging deeply
within ourselves we discovered each of us has a very different
expectation from the village. We still needed to
"clean" ourselves in order of get rid of the old
"paradigm", rules, expectations. We then needed
to learn to handle many new "tools" very useful for
living in a group, as we realized that the skills on using the
television remote control would not help trying to communicate
with real people.
We needed to learn to be able :
- to really listen to other,
- to except and to live next to "diversity",
- to cope with conflicts ( Conflict Resolution ),
- to live in groups with cooperation and solidarity,
- to make consensually decisions ( Consensus Method ),
- to except and to be ourselves sincerely without fears,
- to live in, with the truth,
- to grow vegetable with Permaculture,
- to move our style of life toward a sustainable one.
So we started to study and experience our "tools"
to be able to use it in the village. Now, after 3 years,
even if we are aware that we have still a lot to improve, we
feel much more comfortable with the idea of starting a
village. We see the village as the chance to go on with
this path we have started. We have our web site ( http://www.sostenibile.org)
and a mailing list (with around 100 members) to keep in touch,
exchange information and "store" and share what we
have achieved.
What do we need next? We need a place to really start:
A big house with land around to grow organic vegetables.
We have been visiting many places and we were very close to
starting in Castellammare del Golfo in Italy but still we
haven't found "our place". Whoever can help us
to find "our place", to buy it or to rent it, we would
be very glad to receive any suggestions. We would like to find
it next to the Etna volcano in Sicily in Italy.
Bye
Fabrizio
If you would like to contact us:
Villaggio EcoSolidale
C/o Fabrizio Santori
Via Monterosso 126
60045 Sassoferrato An
email : ecosolidale@tiscali.it
web site: http://www.sostenibile.org
Useful Links: Global Ecovillages Network:
http://www.gaia.org England Ecovillages Network:
http://www.sustainable-cities.org/
http://www.iclei.org/europe
http://www.sustainable-cities.org/partner.html
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