Reflections from project initiator, Hari, after the first event organised at the Ecovillage.
Written by Hari
I decided to organise a month-long gathering as a way to launch the ecovillage project on the land and bring a boost of humans and life and activity to the place. I designed the event with influence from rainbow gatherings and burn gatherings. I first went to a rainbow gathering soon after arriving in Portugal and it had a big impact on me - feeling at home and able to be a more authentic me, and glad they are for a full lunar month so that it is possible to go a bit deeper connecting to the other humans there, which felt refreshing compared to festivals where I find they are a lot of effort to set up and are so intense, but then finish after a few days.
I wanted to combine this with ‘burn culture’ - the principles and ethos at burn gatherings such as burning man and other burns - because I like that they have a written set of principles and take more responsibility for exploring psychedelics and ethical open sexuality, which I feel is missing at rainbow gatherings. This comes in the form of a support space, where volunteers hold support positions so there is always someone looking out for the group and a safe, cosy space that anyone can always go to for any kind of support. The positive sexuality culture shows in the form of workshops about consent, boundaries, communication and respect. Also there are workshops to explore touch and sexuality, making it a transparent part of life which we can explore and play with in a positive energy.
I have been to a few burn events in the UK and Portugal and I adapted some of the written principles from the UK burn ‘Burning Nest’ which is held near Exeter.
I added the emphasis of no alcohol or drugs, except if organised as a ceremony to benefit the group. You can read the invitation here
The gathering was 29 August- 3 October - from just before new moon until just after, similar to a rainbow gathering. This allowed us to raise the energy as the moon grows, with a peak of activity at full moon and then time to bring the energy down as the moon waxed and integrate our experience and look ahead to our next steps.
I had a wish for people to stay on after the gathering if they felt attracted to the project. To encourage this, I held several visioning sessions in the ‘vision tent’. This was a space where I set up a table where several people could sit around and look at the maps and plans I had made so far about the land and the project. I facilitated some visioning exercises where each could take some time to reflect and write about some topics such as: ‘What is your vision for an ecovillage’, ‘what are your skills and passions’, ‘what is your life situation - responsibilities, assets, financial situation’, ‘What is your connection to Portugal, are you interested to live here?’.
We took turns to share what we wrote and the writing was added to a board, so that gradually most people had their vision profile on display.
I also designed a kind of ‘ecovillage simulation board game’ where each person could set themselves up on the map of the land as if they were joining the project, including a playing piece to represent the first home they would bring eg a campervan, tent, yurt etc, placed in a location on the land that they like and could imagine living on to start with. We also set ourselves up with an amount of paper money from a monopoly board game, representing the amount of money we have, or might be available to us.
We went through a simulation of how the finances would work - mostly going through the steps I imagine of setting up a cooperative to own the land as a group and asking people to make a joining investment in return for shares in the coop. Mini shares certificates were given and each player could keep their ‘assets’ of playing pieces, money, shares etc in a wallet ready to come play the next round of the game later.
The intention was that we play through a simulation of the first stages of starting the project, and then move through the following years, sharing ideas of what we would like to focus on at each stage and exploring how things could work.
It was interesting to discover several details about structure, such as how investment could be made, and how the decision making and legal structures could work. Also we discovered a lot about each other's priorities and desires, for example some would like to focus on running events first, while others would focus on building houses.
We didn’t manage to play the game much further than the initial stages, but it was a good test and I can see how it would be a good activity to base a more detailed workshop event on, and for going deeper with people who are serious about joining.
Another focus for the gathering was to start a natural build project to create a common house for the Winter. I suggested a structure of working three mornings per week on this project and invited people to help if they wanted. I had more help than I anticipated, and often it was difficult to make use of everyone for the building project, as I was learning as I went and often the bigger work was the thinking part, which only needed one or two extra heads. On these days, the enthusiasm for work was directed to pull out the driftwood from the river, to be used as firewood in the Winter. On other days, we had a bigger group working on the natural build together. (See blog posts about the natural build)
The gathering was structured as a co creation event, where participants offer some sort of activity, workshop etc for the group to enjoy. We had a board where people could write up their offerings and ideas, and a whiteboard schedule where people could add their sessions. We had a great range of activities, including contact improvisation dance, ecsatic dance, massage workshops, many music jams and singing circles, equinox ceremony, cacao ceremony, womans circle, consent workshop and love temple, yoga, acrobalance, playfight, tantric polarity workshop. We had morning meetings to plan the day and sign up for cooking. Food was done communally, like at a rainbow gathering, cooking twice a day in our outdoor kitchen. Two or three people signed up to cook and meals were vegan and people could eat extra things in their own spaces.
There was a principle of not sharing unhealthy or addictive food in the common melas and spaces to avoid tempting people who want to eat healthy and to avoid influencing the children towards unhealthy food. This included sugar, highly processed foods, coffee and caffeine tea. Again, people could eat what they want in their own spaces.
Mostly, people shared that it was helpful to support them to look inwards at their addictions and view their consumption more consciously, being able to decide what to consume with awareness and in their own energy.
I felt proud of everyone and myself for respecting the boundary and facing our addictive patterns. I did find I ate less sugar and unhealthy snacks than normal, and find more contentment in the nature and group energy.
I was really grateful for the quality of meals and the care and love that everyone put into cooking. I found that I didn’t cook much, as I felt I already had a lot of roles, and was glad to give up some roles to the others. Cooking is often my ‘go to’ role as it is what I know well, after cooking in cafes and for retreats and events, so it was nice to leave it in the capable hands of the group.
I mostly worked on the building project, which I found took more of my energy than I expected. Partly because there was much thinking to do in between the building sessions, to plan the next steps and keep the building site tidy and source the materials for the next steps, ready for the next session. I found this went quite smoothly, though it was sometimes a challenge to manage the group of workers.
I learned to let go a bit of efficiency, as of course it was nice to give space for chatting and connection in parallel to the work. Though in contrast I also learned to be more clear and direct in what help I was asking for. For example, I first felt some stress when I could see people were talking more than working and not giving the attention to detail for their task and so were doing it badly. My first reaction was that I would let it go and fix it after, but I learned to ask them to pause and let me show how it could be done better and sometimes asked people to please focus more or stop the work, which was hard to say, but I felt was heard and appreciated overall.
I sometimes had a challenge in letting people take initiative, even though I wanted to allow their enthusiasm to flow and allow them space to be creative and learn. I could sometimes feel it difficult to trust that they would do it well enough and was aware that it might give me extra work to tidy up or repair the job after them.
I learned more how to allow them to try smaller things until I saw if they had enough skill and focus to have autonomy for bigger tasks. Sometimes I needed to say that I didn’t feel confidence in them, and tried to find time to guide them or suggest they work with someone more experienced. This was difficult because I could feel bad to criticise others, and sometimes I could be irritable, but people were understanding and I think we mostly did well to find the balance. Some people were amazing and took initiative and had a lot of skills and knowledge, and everyone learned from each other.
It was also amazing that there was lots of enthusiasm to take on the regular tasks such as buying food, feeding the chickens, collecting water, preparing firewood, managing the compost toilets, and looking after the garden. These were roles that I could ask others to take, signing up for days or weeks and checking in morning meetings if any roles needed filling.
At times I could feel overwhelmed when people had lots of questions or information for me at all times of the day, so I saw the importance of spreading the delegation and responsibilities between members of a core team.
Overall the gathering was a great way to experience what it would be like to have around 20 adults, plus children living on the land and working together as a community. We were only using a small area of the property, which I imagine will become the events area. So when I imagine this kind of group, but living in 10 home plots spread out across the property, I get a good feeling that it can work well and be a wonderful way to live.
Thank you everybody!
Hari 2022
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