- O
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Dear friends,
In 2009 I started following the research of a Scottish ecovillage called Findhorn Foundation.
Each year, Findhorn offers a five-week course called Design for Sustainability based on a Gaia Education curriculum. Five components to the training are taught in tandem in order to understand how the success of one depends on others. These component are:
Leadership Training
Economic Design
Social Design
Ecological Design
Worldview
The course also weaves in Transition Training which offers insights and key responses to the issues that will support local efforts, towards resilience, to thrive.
I am eager to learn from the experiences of leaders from ecovillages around the world and believe there is great strength in learning the 5 components simultaneously.
Currently, I live with my partner Martin in a lifesharing community called Camphill Ballytobin where we garden, cook, preserve foods and care for our friends with special needs.
We are hoping to move to Alabama in 2016 to start the next chapter of our lives together. We are inspired by the amazing growth of projects happening in Alabama, and we hope to soon root ourselves there with open minds and useful skills. We want to be part of the movement to:
-Live into an example of sustainable living on Alabama land, and teach others how to design a lifestyle in harmony with the principles they value
-Align our economic and ecological values
-Offer space for groups of many backgrounds to engage in deep inner listening to imagine and create commonly held visions
-Teach young people the principles of sustainable design
-Expand our worldviews and those of our neighbors in order to create a more inclusive society
-Deal with conflict and diversity as an invitation to growth
My hope is to carry out this vision in partnership with other organizations and programs and people, like the Episcopal Church and especially Camp McDowell programs (Bethany Village, Farm School, Summer Camp, Folk School, etc), Sawyerville Day Camp, the Alabama Public School System, the communities of Common Ground and Wild Hydrangea, and the Druid City Garden Project, the Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network, and many, many more.
I’ve been raised and nourished by a strong community of people in Alabama; my dream is to put down roots to build a community that is even stronger, that has deeper connection to the earth, that is more nourishing to more people. As I think about going home, I think, “What does the Alabama you know need to sustain us on the land? For the land to be sustained beyond us? For our communities to better find common visions? To be a place where deep listening, healing and transformation is a norm? What is needed now?”
I believe that the wisdom I will take from this course will help me not only to think on these questions, but to come up with new questions, too.
This course has called my name and I deeply sense that being physically engaged with this group at Findhorn is important, meaningful work that will open a pathway for my career and lifestyle that may in turn impact you!
To make this possible I’m asking for your help. I believe that this course will make me a wiser, more skillful leader. I believe attending will connect me, and my community, more deeply to our best selves.
My greatest motivation is to actively engage in this opportunity for the purpose of sharing - especially for the communities in AL that raised me.
If this speaks to you, I am grateful for any amount you can contribute. Thank you!
More about Findhorn:
Within The Findhorn Ecovillage, sustainable values are expressed in the built environment with ecological houses, innovative use of building materials such as local stone and straw bales, beauty in the architecture and gardens, and applied technology in the Living Machine sewage treatment facility and electricity-generating wind turbines. Sustainable values are also expressed in the community's social, economic and educational initiatives.
Findhorn’s founding principles are:
-deep inner listening, and acting from that source of wisdom
-co-creation with the intelligence of nature
-service to the world
https://www.findhorn.org
In 2009 I started following the research of a Scottish ecovillage called Findhorn Foundation.
Each year, Findhorn offers a five-week course called Design for Sustainability based on a Gaia Education curriculum. Five components to the training are taught in tandem in order to understand how the success of one depends on others. These component are:
Leadership Training
Economic Design
Social Design
Ecological Design
Worldview
The course also weaves in Transition Training which offers insights and key responses to the issues that will support local efforts, towards resilience, to thrive.
I am eager to learn from the experiences of leaders from ecovillages around the world and believe there is great strength in learning the 5 components simultaneously.
Currently, I live with my partner Martin in a lifesharing community called Camphill Ballytobin where we garden, cook, preserve foods and care for our friends with special needs.
We are hoping to move to Alabama in 2016 to start the next chapter of our lives together. We are inspired by the amazing growth of projects happening in Alabama, and we hope to soon root ourselves there with open minds and useful skills. We want to be part of the movement to:
-Live into an example of sustainable living on Alabama land, and teach others how to design a lifestyle in harmony with the principles they value
-Align our economic and ecological values
-Offer space for groups of many backgrounds to engage in deep inner listening to imagine and create commonly held visions
-Teach young people the principles of sustainable design
-Expand our worldviews and those of our neighbors in order to create a more inclusive society
-Deal with conflict and diversity as an invitation to growth
My hope is to carry out this vision in partnership with other organizations and programs and people, like the Episcopal Church and especially Camp McDowell programs (Bethany Village, Farm School, Summer Camp, Folk School, etc), Sawyerville Day Camp, the Alabama Public School System, the communities of Common Ground and Wild Hydrangea, and the Druid City Garden Project, the Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network, and many, many more.
I’ve been raised and nourished by a strong community of people in Alabama; my dream is to put down roots to build a community that is even stronger, that has deeper connection to the earth, that is more nourishing to more people. As I think about going home, I think, “What does the Alabama you know need to sustain us on the land? For the land to be sustained beyond us? For our communities to better find common visions? To be a place where deep listening, healing and transformation is a norm? What is needed now?”
I believe that the wisdom I will take from this course will help me not only to think on these questions, but to come up with new questions, too.
This course has called my name and I deeply sense that being physically engaged with this group at Findhorn is important, meaningful work that will open a pathway for my career and lifestyle that may in turn impact you!
To make this possible I’m asking for your help. I believe that this course will make me a wiser, more skillful leader. I believe attending will connect me, and my community, more deeply to our best selves.
My greatest motivation is to actively engage in this opportunity for the purpose of sharing - especially for the communities in AL that raised me.
If this speaks to you, I am grateful for any amount you can contribute. Thank you!
More about Findhorn:
Within The Findhorn Ecovillage, sustainable values are expressed in the built environment with ecological houses, innovative use of building materials such as local stone and straw bales, beauty in the architecture and gardens, and applied technology in the Living Machine sewage treatment facility and electricity-generating wind turbines. Sustainable values are also expressed in the community's social, economic and educational initiatives.
Findhorn’s founding principles are:
-deep inner listening, and acting from that source of wisdom
-co-creation with the intelligence of nature
-service to the world
https://www.findhorn.org