"There is a movement in the world, a movement of which most of the world is still unaware." "There are people who are acting on the realization that it's time to create whole new models for living together, social models for creating and sustaining a high quality of life." "Thousands of ecovillages and intentional ecological communities have been created worldwide, and their organizational structures are as diverse as the people who founded them." "Join us now in a journey to ten different ecovillage communities in eight European countries." "Hidden in the mountains of Northern Italy lies Damanhur." "The history of this extraordinary community began in 1975 with a small group of twelve people." "Thirty five years later, their plan to create a completely new society is recognized the world over." "The community is known now as the Federation of Damanhur, and includes small satellite villages." "In the year 2005, Damanhur was recognized by the United Nations as a model of sustainable society." "In 2010, the population of the Federation of Damenhur reached 1000, with those of similar interests living together in small communities of twenty to thirty people" "What I like most about Damanhur is the people." "Damanhur is a community that was created in order to build really meaningful relationships between humans." "It's a network of solidarity that allows one to express the best of oneself, to unfold and live out one's own talents, and that provides richness for others as well." "People come to Damanhur to give something." "More to give than to ask for something." "But in reality, in a natural way you get more in return than you asked for." "Above all you get the brotherhood, which unites the people." "I live in Dengara." "This community deals with the exchange with other communities in the world." "We accommodate a lot of people from various ecovillages and together we explore their virtues." "Now for instance, we have built a straw bale house." "This was the first experiment in Damanhur of that kind." "We have a lot of houses in Damanhur that are built ecologically, but this kind of experiment is a first." "In one of these communities, called Primastella, the focus is on farming." "Another is Magila, where sustainable energy systems and practices are explored." "A third village consists only of houses built above the ground, in trees a tree village, where biofeedback with plants is explored." "Sensors measure the electrical resistance between roots and leaves." "The electrical signals are sent to a synthesizer and are transformed into music." "Research in the acoustic interactions between humans and plants, a form of communication, is a focus of this village." "Anaconda Papaya is a teacher in Damanhur." "One of the distinguishing trades of our school is the travel aspect because we believe that by moving physically, you also move inwardly" "Therefore since the children are very small" "Already from when they are one, two years old" "We travel with the children in different environments" "Of course as they grow older they go more farther and farther" "This is very important because it has to do also with learning from experience rather than on books" "It's experimental, experimential learning" "So typically every class of ours has several traveling projects every year based on the studies" "So we go as far as United States or Africa, or different countries in Europe" "It's a very important part of our work." "Damanhur has it's own constitution and its own currency as well, called the credito." "Falco Oberto Airaudi is the founder of Damanhur." "He speaks about the vision of Damanhur, and about presenting a positive example for the world." "The vision of Damanhur is a vision that wants to be infused with magic, although it is typical for these times to be completely disenchanted, and without hope." "But WE want to hope." "Today many humans don't have dreams, and we want to take care that everybody has a dream." "Existence without dreams doesn't make sense for us." "If a person's focus is only on living, only on existing and nothing else, that's really a big defeat, a state without purpose." "A stone could do that, but an individual, a human being, should have the ability to look into the future, to have dreams, hopes and desires, and to bring them down to earth, make them real." "This is our vision, and for us it is linked to the dreams of the world." "In ancient times they said:" "The world must be dreamed, because if it is not dreamed, it loses substance." "Damanhur seeks to be a positive example, it is acting to give others the possibility of dreaming." "We live in a difficult time." "We, as well as others, are constantly challenged and treated in unfriendly ways, for example by religious forces." "I often feel that this is a great opportunity for building our strength." "If we would have been ignored, we might have lost ourselves, because we might have rested on our success." "When did humanity have great success?" "When there has been pressure." "Think about the big religious movements, they often originate from persecution." "Think about how new social systems have come into existence, they often have their roots in revolution." "We have the ability to change and to show others that it is possible to change." "And although we are a small reality, we are able to accomplish things that even big nations have not accomplished." "And if we can do it, then others can do it as well!" "Damanhur is internationally known for its temples of humankind." "The temple complex is an underground work of art, built by the citizens of Damanhur and dedicated to universal spirituality - to the union between the human being and divine forces." "Through varied artisitic expression, they tell the story of humanity, from the beginning and into the future." "Built completely by hand, the temple's rooms enclose thousands of cubic meters on different levels, and are connected by miles of corridors." "This location is one of the most important energy centers on our planet." "Energy lines, called synchronic lines, are the energy rivers that link the earth to the cosmos, transporting thought, dreams and ideas." "Four of these synchronic lines meet in Damanhur." "The temples of humankind symbolically represent the inner space of every human being, and the profound journey of discovery to the inner self." "This is the labyrinth, which is dedicated to the union and the harmony of all the divine forces of humanity, of all times and all peoples." "Each window is dedicated to a god or a goddess." "The history of humanity is depicted on the walls of the central naves, from a primordial time of unity with the earth and the cosmos, through dark ages of suffering and wars, to a possible future which is awakened, and more balanced." "The hall of water is dedicated to the goddess, the sacred feminine principle." "The halls of the earth are linked to our planet and to the masculine principle." "In the temples, everything can be read like a book." "The images follow a precise code of form and proportion." "Every color, every shape, every detail has significance." "The Hall of Metals, linked to Time, connects life and the beyond." "The workshops of the artists who created the temples are located in Damanhur Crea, a center for innovation, health and research, which is open daily for visitors and the public." "Every year, Damanhur attracts thousands of curious and interested visitors." "They come to see the temples - which invite meditation - and to participate in numerous courses and events." "Schloss Tonndorf is located in eastern Germany with fifteen hectares, an old castle, a collection of buildings a forest, grasslands, gardens and orchards amid the beautiful, cultivated landscape of Thueringen." "The community has more than fifty residents, twenty of whom are children." "Schloss Tonndorf is a community rich with children." "If someone asks why we came together here, everyone in the community would probably give a different answer." "My answer is that I want to live a purposful life, and that means something different to every person." "To me it includes things like growing our own food, building houses in a healthy way, giving birth to children in a beautiful way, seeing them grow up here, thinking about the ways that they learn," "how we ourselves learn." "How we quarrel, make decisions, do business together" "An adult who wants to join the community gives 10,000 Euros to the cooperative." "This money is returned if the person wants to leave." "So you are not forced to leave your money when you leave the project." "The people who stay here try to return this money as soon as possible." "It's even easier than it is for a married couple to buy a house, if they contract with a bank for a big loan, and later might have a conflict and need to sell the house." "You don't have these problems here." "So everyone who lives here is a co-owner of the place, and co-decides with the others;" "we use consensus here." "At the same time, everyone is a tenant who contributes to our own legal form, the cooperative ... with money, with service ... depending on the possibilities of the member." "From what we receive in rent, we finance renovations, new construction, and all other expenses." "We have formed different groups: a building group, a finance group, a garden group and so on... and those groups speak with each other." "They discuss questions and solve many problems by themselves." "Other issues can be brought to the plenum, which meets weekly and seeks to decide matters by consensus." "We usually succeed with that." "We have craft businesses here on the place." "For example, we built an apiary two years ago, and one of our members is keeping 100 different types of bees." "These beefolk fly around, benefiting the place, and the honey is sold here." "There are people who make sparkling wine with elderblossoms... little by little we see an increase in the number and diversity of products that we can make here." "Together we opened a catering service here and extended the kitchen so that we can cook for up to one hundred and fifty people." "This summer we'll start to provide school meals for the Waldorf School in Erfurt." "Almost everyone who lives here wants to work here - there are still some who work outside – teachers, social workers and others." "But in general everyone would rather spend more time here." "It feels quite strange to spend a full business week outside of the place then only participate in the community happenings during the weekends." "So it's very likely in the future that the midwife will be doing her birth preparation courses here." "And that Anette fulfills her wish to care for old people here." "And that other people will also earn their living in the community by bringing their work here." "We have a great interest in self-sufficiency, and are succeeding with that in a few areas." "Behind me you see an orchard meadow, where last year we succeeded for the first time in providing enough apples for the whole year." "We took the last apples out of our cold cellar to make room for the new harvest." "That was really a beautiful moment!" "We make applesauce and apple juice from our apples, and we have a lot of stone fruits as well." "Last year we started a vegetable garden, and now we can provide vegetables and salad for half a year." "We founded a food coop and buy 100 percent organically produced food, so the nutrition here is 100 percent organic." "We cook once each day for everyone who is here, at lunchtime." "We cook vegetarian and often even vegan." "Yes, visitors always ask, what kind of community are you, and there's really only one answer." "We don't have a common dogma." "In the community there are many different spiritualities, many different attitudes ... there are non-spiritual people here as well as very spiritual people." "It's exciting to accept people just as they are!" "For a few years now we've had an info-cafe that's open every first and third Sunday of the month, so every two weeks we invite people from the outside, especially from the neighborhood." "This got around without any advertisement and on these weekends we normally have between 15 and 30 visitors." "It's a good connection with the neighbors." "All these people who visit speak about us afterward, what they saw and heard, and it helps to relieve the prejudice and rumors that often surround intentional communities." "Personally I am a human who looks very optimistically into the future and so sometimes I am subject to some criticism." "Some people say, "he is unrealistically optimistic, it didn't work out again."" "But that doesn't disturb me because I know that this optimism gives me power, and it doesn't need statistical verification." "On the other hand, there is always the opposite ... in every community there is someone who embodies your opposite and that helps you to see your reflection more perfectly." "My opposite is very cautious, all the time worrying and seeing risks in everything ... so there exists a perfect balance." "Now and then I give weekend seminars for people who want to live in community and who are just starting out." "I recommend that people who watch this movie try living in community." "Once I heard a nice presentation by an American woman on the topic of living in community." "She used Noah's ark as a metaphor about the different learning possibilities." "One thing she said was to make this leap ... that at some point you have to jump into the ark, otherwise you will live your whole life just talking about it and holding onto the idea, and in the end you will still not know how it might have been." "That would be a pity." "Here in this country, in Eastern Germany, there are so many beautiful places that are still affordable." "But in any country there are possibilities to buy a piece of land and put something on it and try to live together with people." "I do not know a more beautiful challenge in this time, except traveling to the stars to get to know other life forms." "It is a very deep, persistent and challenging experience." "I see how children are fostered here, that they almost develop sibling relationships, although they have only a single father or mother." "There is no such thing as an "only child" here, and it is easier for single parents not to feel isolated ... everyone is integrated in this kind of social surrounding." "There is a strong connection between children and adults that doesn't depend on whether they are related by blood... this connection is based on friendship." "I find that healthy, it feels natural." "I don't know whether this is the will of God or from evolution over millions of years of living together, but I think that we as human beings are meant to live together and not be isolated from each other." "Even with all of the difficulties and troubles that you might experience in community on account of your origin, your social conditioning, and the inner pain that we carry, it's worth it." "In Sieben Linden they use the analogy of sharp stones in a river that slowly get washed smooth by tumbling around with each other." "This is a picture that I like a lot!" "I am Maine from Finca Tierra." "I founded this place 10 years ago." "What were my reasons for that?" "First, for health reasons." "I thought to myself, I want to be somewhere where it is still possible, to live with fresh air and fresh water, where other people can come and live with me." "Another reason was that I come from a chaotic family and I wanted to found my own family, out of individuals who are free from old patterns or at least are willing to let go of them." "People who want to live a new vision in peace and within a community where we can feel good." "It had to be in nature because that was a big desire of mine ever since I felt the comfort of my grandmother's garden." "Yes, and then I searched for such a place pretty much worldwide, and finally I landed on the Canary Islands." "Then it came quickly to me that my search had ended here, and then something like a vision came to me." "It almost felt like it wasn't my own will anymore." "It came to me while I was meditating about this place:" "yes, do it, it is important to do it and it will not be easy, but do it." "You have it now, you can do it." "So I bought this property and as I was buying it I felt like a bride who had married this place, and I ran through the city with a bunch of flowers." "And then of course I thought in the German way, that within the next years a seminar center will be built up and be finished" "– it didn't happen in that way, instead it was a long growth process with many challenges that brought me to where I am now." "For example, I don't have fear in front of authorities anymore," "I know that someone can realize her dreams if she believes and is persistent and patient and has good nerves." "Like this I could hold it all through the years ... then exactly in the right moments the right people came to help me ... men and women who shared my vision, and eventually a changing community developed." "At the moment we are a very small group of three people, just me and two men, one is my partner, the other is our gardener, and around us a kind of flowing community is forming ... a circle of friends who do not live here permanently but always come here" "to live and help for shorter or longer periods." "They are helping to build up the center and this place, they care for it." "There is also the village community, with which we are strongly connected." "We from Finca Tierra feel ourselves also to be strongly connected with the larger community of our village." "In the neighbourhood are some Germans, a lot of single people, new families and also families who have been here for many years, and who have worked hard." "There is a beautiful exchange of services, of products and we just feel very comfortable here." "For me it was very important from the beginning, and it has evolved quite naturally, that this place is also a female place." "On one hand it was founded by a woman with the help of female friends who often visited the place, and on the other hand it is expressed in the external through all these nice round forms –" "I really had to insist on those, because the authorities wanted to have everything normal and square, with corners everywhere, but for me the roundness of the houses and forms was very important." "The softness and harmony integrated with nature." "From a spiritual standpoint it is nourishing, caring, the way we treat mother Earth ... not with violence but in a loving way." "Similar to the loving in the contact with each other." "And about this I want to say that also the men who have come here have recognized these inner qualities and appreciated being at the kind of place where this is considered important." "I just love it here, though sometimes I was so exhausted that I thought "I can't do it anymore,"" "but things always kept happening: new energy and new people or new possibilities came." "And after nine years I heard from the authorities that I'm exactly in the right place to be building such an eco-tourism project." "Of course this was a big confirmation that my intuition ten years before was exactly right." "'La Borie Noble' was founded by Lanzo del Vasto, after he was touched and deeply inspired by a meeting with Mahatma Gandhi." "In 1962, when the European eco-movement was still quite young, he came with a group to the South of France, to settle on the land there." "Vasto and his young community were an influential part of the European eco-movement." "I think what inspires me most about this community is the possibility of living the different aspects of non-violence according to Gandhi:" "in the work, in the crafts, in the relationships, in the celebrations, in cultural ways, in the education of the children ­ the possibility of building agreement between inner and outer experience." "At the same time, I'm inspired by the practical exchange and the help people give one another:" "the dialog, the listening." "Mainly, that's what inspires me." "In addition to the thirteen permanent residents of the community, there are usually five to ten long term visitors at a time in La Borie Noble, who come to experience a community that lives in close contact and cooperation with nature." "Sebastien is one of them." "He's been living and working here with his family for a year ..." "I came here because my vision was very negative." "I have the feeling that we're heading toward the end, toward the destruction of the ecosystem, humanity, nature and the entire planet." "I would really like to change this vision, but so far I have not succeeded." "Coming from the consumptive society I decided to become a part of this community, which works WITH nature." "My hope is to reach as many people as possible through this community, and to move them back into living and working with nature." "Christoph comes from Germany and is doing his civil service here." "I come from Berlin and am used to bigger cities." "I actually had no idea at all about farming, how to milk cows and such... how to bake bread ..." "This was a reason for me to come here to France, to La Borie, because you can experience something completely different." "Here my job is mainly baking bread, and yes, it is a great thing, a completely different way of life." "Here you have more time for yourself, you don't have so much stress as in Berlin, where you have the exhaustion from the cars all day long... here it is just completely out of the way... there is only nature around us and you have to drive a long distance in order to come to a city;" "I really enjoy this about the place." "Something special about the community life here is the bell that rings on the hour during the working day." "The sound of the bell is a signal for the residents to stop a moment and go inside themselves, to be silent and become aware of the here and now, to become present, to observe the moment." "What is practiced intensively here is that we can be ourselves, and that there is a lot of tolerance for each other." "There is also a lot of human warmth and love allowed." "I also like the celebrations here." "Here there is a special kind of energy, moving upward, with an intense joy." "The community finances itself in large part through the sale of organic products like bread and cheese, but also through the sale of handcrafted products and books, some of which were written by the founder himself." "The gardens of La Borie Noble supply the members with approximately seventy-five percent of their food needs." "The members of the community are vegetarians and some even have become vegans, because they see that it is not easy to live a non-violent lifestyle according to the principles of Gandhi and take the milk from the cows, separating the calves from their mothers." "Resistance to consuming dairy products is growing in this regard and they do not want to sell the calves anymore, veganism seems to be a good solution for some community members..." "About 20 km from the Plattensee in Hungary lies the community of Krishna Valley, whose goal is to create a natural lifestyle that is physically and spiritually harmonious." "The seed of this possibility is given in the sacred scriptures of India, the Vedas, and was embraced by Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the international society for Krishna-Consciousness." "The people who live here strive for two common goals:" "self-realization and Service to Krishna, whom they believe represents God in human form." "A lot of communities have this problem that everyone has their own individual goal and that creates so much conflict." "You know, one person is interested in one thing and another person is interested in another." "And certainly there is still individual people here, so there are individual interests." "But the overarching goal of everyone is to serve God." "And since we have that common goal in mind there is more possibility for success in this community – because we have that focus." "We really have to emphasize the social sustainability part." "And social sustainability means that we should have a common value system here." "And recently there was a university study, which said that a society cannot be sustainable if a society is lacking of 3 things: a school, a temple and a place to get together." "If these 3 things are not there, then the society will not be sustainable." "Those who live here are working voluntarily in service to God and to the world." "Around 150 adults and 12 children live on Krishna Valley's 230 hectares." "The village has its own school, where in addition to normal subjects, there is a focus on developing love and appreciation for God and for for the whole of God's creation." "We teach the children here how to love god." "It means not just one person-god - but it means his associates as well, his creatures." "It contains that we should respect other living entities as friends, other humans, other living beings like animals in the nature, trees, the land... so this is the whole meaning of "loving of God"." "So practically we do some spiritual practices, some philosophy, things like that, and regarding the nature we try to serve the nature." "This is the way of loving-serving." "Serving is the expression of loving." "It is not just an emotion, but an action!" "So we try to do something." "Small things like collecting litter from the ground, or do other things... go to the harvest festival." "When the devotees harvest the grains, school boys and school girls go as well and do the harvest with them together, so they can feel the direct connection with the nature, that we are depending on the nature and we are depending on God." "The temple in Krishna Valley is dedicated to Krishna." "It's used daily for many purposes: meditation, prayer, dancing, celebration, taking meals, and sometimes even for joyful shared work, like pumpkin harvesting and processing." "When you follow the vedic literatures which are our scriptures then it shows how to live in a proper way." "Cities are destroying the environment." "You know the cars, the factories, the industry, all of this has a horrible effect on the world around us; meat eating also." "This is having an effect on the environment:" "cutting down the rain forests, using so much land to grow grains to feed the enimals, so we can kill the animals, so we can eat them." "But in Krishna Consciousness we just eat grains and vegetables and fruits and milk, which is easy to produce - we do not need so many cars, we do not need cars, we do not need tractors, we use oxen here..." "In Krishna Valley the cow is sacred." "What we would call 'animal husbandry' or 'livestock farming,' they call 'cow protection.'" "Every cow and every ox is treated as an individual and is under the protection of the devotees of Krishna until it dies a natural death." "Unfortunately the oxen must be castrated and have rings placed through their noses." "this is part of the reality of animal husbandary." "Krishna Valley is a good example of a nearly self-sufficient community;" "it produces more than ninety percent of its own food." "Thousands of tourists come every year." "They either camp or stay in the guesthouses." "They join in the colorful ceremonies, celebrations and cultural events of the Krishna community." "Matavenero and Poibueno are two neighboring villages in the mountains of Northwest Spain, lying 1000 meters above sea level." "After a village fire in the last century, the villages were abandoned for twenty years." "In 1989, people from the rainbow movement settled there and began to rebuild the village." "Their idea was to live and work in cooperation with each other and with nature." "For twelve years, Matavenero has been acknowledged as a municipality with its own mayor." "It provides funding for projects and infrastructure;" "there is an organic market, a bakery, and a library." "In the village-owned kindergarten and school, special educational principles are applied by the two teachers in their daily interaction with the children." "Transport of materials to and from the village is accomplished by a cable system that works with gravity, using no electricity, simply by sending down a bundle that weighs twice as much as that which is intended to be brought up the cable and into the village." "I've lived here for 13 years and what holds me here the most is the fact that we have such a very simple life, that we are in an original, untouched, and natural place, where you can't hear a highway or feel asphalt under your feet." "There are no cars in the village, and the parking lot is a fifteen minute walk away." "I live in a wooden house and when I walk out of the house there is soil right there in front of me and I enjoy that about being here." "I looked for that in Germany and in Europe but I didn't find it." "I come from an area in Germany where there are many highways, and I had to get away from that." "Here in Spain there are still many empty villages, and there are possibilities to go and live in them, to start a new life." "We enjoy the freedom we have here, to build our houses the way we want to." "Everyone creates his own little home and lives in closer contact with nature." "Because I live in a wooden house which is breathing I have the feeling that I am always connected with the tides, with the rain, the snow and the sun." "I have my garden just next to here." "Actually everybody has a garden here, we all make jams, I split wood and for a few hours every day I am outside." "In this way I stay directly connected with nature." "And I realize each time I go to Germany for a month, my senses close down, because there is so much outer stimulation..." "I have to close myself." "When I come back here it takes a few days and then suddenly I realize that something has opened again, and I feel much more alive, more vivid." "This is something that brings a higher quality of life:" "I feel much more alive here." "Here there are lots of rocks and it is somehow hard." "If instead there is soft earth then there is a soft absorption, but here, because of the rocks, it is somehow more confrontational..." "of course, in the end, that means with yourself." "We have permanent mirrors here, reflections ..." "how far can a human being go with destruction?" "I'm actually learning more and more to accept this, because it is necessary." "The development goes through that, that's my insight now." "For a long time I was afraid of violence and the closer I come to this issue, the more I realize that you have to go through it so that you can get out of it." "Then you understand history:" "why did this whole violence happen on earth?" "Why all these wars?" "Why have human beings slaughtered each other, why do they still slaughter animals." "I can practically answer all these important questions for myself here." "I can actually give myself the answer and then I discover wisdom in myself." "And you know, suddenly it becomes clear that the answers are really in myself and I feel relief, because in the end nothing can be destroyed, it's all just transformation..." "that's how I see it then." "Finally ..." "I meant I don't have fear that the earth is destroyed," "I'm not afraid of tidal waves, not of earthquakes, and not of atomic energy ... actually I am not afraid of anything." "Because everything I could fear is in myself." "Matavenero helped me tremendously to gain this insight." "The people act as a mirror." "I really have to say that I can snuggle much closer with Mother Earth here, than I could in Austria." "So free somehow, to have this feeling, that you can lie down here ... this doesn't belong to anybody..." "nobody owns it." "Here you really can be as YOU want to be." "I have lived for more than two years in Matavenero, and I have chosen this place because I was searching for an extraordinary community." "Most communities have a particular vision – spiritual, political, ecological... and this can produce stiffness, dogma." "The lack of dogma in Matavenero is what holds me here." "Here there is the principle that the freedom of one individual ends where the freedom of another begins." "I try to live this principle here." "I have lived here for 19 years." "I had many reasons for coming here." "The most important reason that I stay is because I see so much potential and so many possibilities." "It's possible to have an ecological garden from which I can live." "I like this idea." "At the moment we're building and restoring the paths in the village." "We have come together as friends who have decided to work together on this, and now we are here." "Long and short term visitors to Matavenero's nature paradise are welcome year round." "The best time to visit Matavenero is from May to September, but the mountains are also inviting in the winter time." "Schloss Glarisegg is located at the westernmost part of Lake Konstanz, at the corner, where it flows into the Rhein." "We have our own beach with our own shores, right on the lake." "There is a natural forest above us, with a small river, and waterfalls." "Nestled between the forest and the lake is our property, there is a lot of space with meadows, fruit trees and berries." "There is a neighbor who is an organic-dynamic demeter farmer, and we share the bounty of his produce." "So far no one has wanted to make a bigger vegetable garden, but I am sure that will happen soon." "What we have now is an organic-vegetarian seminar and the community kitchen that provides us with three meals a day, a really nice buffet with wonderfully prepared dishes." "Our beginning is a very exciting success story." "Within six or seven months we generated more than a million Swissfrancs, and so we were granted credit by the bank to purchase the property." "This came out of the energy of our shared focus – all joined in to sell stocks and raise money so that we could buy the land." "It was very touching, very impressive, to know that it was possible to come so far on so little..." "none of us had a lot of money." "Since the beginning there have always been twenty to forty people who lived here with ten to fifteen children." "From a business point of view, the seminars and guest services developed most strongly and quickly because we had the buildings – we used the guesthouse, the cultural center and the sports center for seminars and for guests." "We developed classrooms, work rooms, and spaces for art and for cultural exchange in the school house." "And in the most important place, the kitchen, we cooked for ourselves and for our guests." "I call this instrument a 'Wellenreiter,' or in English, a 'Wave Rider.'" "It sings a progressed monocord." "On this part there are three different soundareas." "And here there are four." "In this case you have a diatonic row with which you can make melodies that you want and then accompany them as you like." "The nice thing about it is that you can 'stroke' it, you can hold a sound by staying in a certain area." "You can hold the sound or change the sound or volume." "You can add other sounds to it." "We are a community without a Guru, without a religion, without a political direction." "This kind of community provides the greatest opportunity for personal development." "At the same time, it's a huge challenge, because it offers a place for everything." "Our decision making process is consensus driven, which is difficult and slow, but in the end the decisions can be embraced by all the members of the community." "Financially we can afford to pay more and more people within the project, so that they can live and work here." "To give you an idea, from our beginnings from almost nothing, today we earn more than a million Swissfrancs a year." "We use this money to pay around 600,000 Swissfrancs to our community members for their work." "Most of this money is earned from seminars and guestservices, and it provides enough that the people who work here can also live here." "In community the primary thing is inner development, and this is fantastic." "For example, human tendencies are to look for someone to blame, to act the role of the victim, to criticize and always want things done your way ... you have fantastic opposites in community that you can use to see these human tendencies," "to find your own limits, recognize them clearly, and go beyond them." "The ecovillage called Sieben Linden is located in the Altmarkt in the eastern part of Germany." "It was 1997 when the first settlers came here, and today there are a hundred and twenty residents." "What connects them all is the wish for a sustainable life that can be an example for others to follow." "We want to become a village with 300 people and already from the beginning it was clear, that we do not define ourselves as one group or one community, but instead as a community of communities." "We call these communities neighbourhoods and in each there is a different lifestyle." "The idea is, that there is not right way to live ecologically to achieve sustainability, but there are many ways, and many ways will find their place here." "Some of the neighbourhoods live in a way most people would consider to be quite normal others have invented their own lifeconcept in nutrition, social processes and finances." "Each neighbourhood gets a part of the property after they are acknowledged and they can build their houses there for up to 25-30 people." "Until some years ago, all decisions were made in consensus." "Sieben Linden reached a size that demanded another model of decision making ..." "Two years ago we started to create a new model for decision making at Sieben Linden." "It took us almost a year to bring it into the form that it is now." "We have a council system, to which we've turned over the larger part of the decision making process, so that we all don't have to discuss all the smaller things at each plenum meeting." "It doesn't mean that people are excluded, because the councils often include many people from the community." "But as in the case of developing the decision making process, some topics take a lot of time." "Because of the size and complexity of the community, it's not possible that everyone be involved in every decsion." "And it's a relief for me that I don't have to have an opinion about every plant in the garden!" "Our aim is to have more time to enjoy, to do beautiful things together, and not always have to meet about organizational stuff ... just to have a beautiful time together." "Sieben Linden has built the first multi-level straw bale house in Germany." "The first three-story, multi-family strawbale house in Europe houses eighteen people here." "In Sieben Linden we made a decision to use the straw bale building method, and we've enhanced this building method, developed it quite a bit." "There are different kinds of apartments in this multi-level strawbale house, single apartments and shared flats." "We showed many working guests how to build and work with straw and mud." "Heiko has lived in the ecovillage for eleven years." "He works in Sieben Linden's organic shop and enjoys his contact with all the customers." "I think the interactions we have with each other are very special, in comparison to the way it usually is in the outer world." "When I think about living in a rented house with neighbors," "I think it's quite different than it is here." "We know each other, we have forums... there's a lot of sharing of our life paths together, and this connects us." "We have common aims, like environmental awareness, or smaller ideas like we don't want mobile phones or cars in the village." "These are some things that are important to me." "Another thing is that I have a son who is growing up here, and it is just beautiful to watch." "I love how he can move and be with the other children, growing up in an atmosphere that's very different from conventional circumstances." "We're an experimental field in the ecovillage." "Of course there are problems, conflicts, all the other issues you usually have." "We're not an island; we are living in the middle of society but we have the chance here" "(and for me it's an absolute luxury) to experiment, again and again, to discover what ways there are to be together, and to watch how solutions are created." "In order to become a part of the cooperative you have to invest around 12.000 euros." "We use this money to buy land and to build infrastructure for the community." "This year we will build another greenhouse so that we can provide even more vegetables for ourselves." "Everyone who lives here has paid for a part of the land, which at the moment is more than 80 hectares, including a forest." "It's pretty large property, and everyone owns a part of it." "Yes, I think it's a good idea, to organize ourselves as a cooperative, where everyone contributes and no single person owns it all;" "instead it's owned by the community." "Two independent studies, one from the University of Kassel and the other from the Technical University of Berlin, have pointed out something extraordinary:" "the residents of Sieben Linden have a seventy three percent smaller carbon footprint than the average German." "There was some research done that showed that we are living more sustainbly than the average German in the way our houses are constructed." "This is because we only use natural materials that are produced without much effort." "The production of the wood, clay and straw that we use doesn't use a lot of energy, so a house can be built more economically." "We use a high insulation standard for our houses, and use wood from our own forest." "We've reduced our energy use for building and living to about 80 percent of the average German's." "Another difference is in nutrition." "Our food is mainly local and seasonal;" "most of it is grown in our own gardens or in the surrounding area." "Our consumption of animal products is very low." "Meat consumption is one of the main contributors to global climate change because it uses so much energy and causes so much emission of greenhouse gases." "In general in Sieben Linden the meat consumption is very low." "When considering how to reduce our carbon footprint, a question was:" "what is the difference between a vegetarian diet and a vegan diet?" "It's very clear that eating a vegan diet, where you let go of all animal products and only consume plant-based foods, makes a tremendous difference." "It's mainly because so much methane is made by more than 1.5 billion cows on the Earth." "If the number of cows is reduced, the methane that they produce will also be reduced." "So we see that the kind of nutrition we have is an essential consideration in the energy that we use for living, and we want to live a lifestyle that is compatible with what the planet offers." "Other factors in living a more sustainable lifestyle are things like sharing of community rooms and sharing of machines and appliances that are usually privately owned, like televisions and projectors for viewing movies." "These kinds of things are all shared here." "We only have community washing machines that are used pretty intensively." "There's no rest for the washing machines here, so we buy the highest quality that use the least energy and water." "We use things communally; for example, childrens clothes are passed from one parent to another." "Clothes are not thrown away here but are put into a gift corner, and the people who like these clothes can take them and use them." "Tools are devices that we also share." "The whole concept of community works out in the sense that things are viewed to be well used instead of owned." "So we use a lot less - less energy, fewer goods, and we really use things until they have been used up." "In the world today there are no communitarian answers." "There's a lot of conflict and competition, and people don't listen to each other." "There are such big problems in the world now." "People are waking up to the reality that we live on one planet, but the ability to act as one voice is not there." "We are trying to learn how to do this here in a small way, and we realize that we're learning a very valuable lesson." "We have a big, beautiful open space that could contain a village of 300 people – currently we are 120." "We already realize what strength and potential there is." "A nice poem of Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that we see each other always in front of a huge horizon, and also love the vastness between ourselves and another." "We have this vision of being a model society that allows for space between people and this huge horizon." "What that means is that we don't quarrel about the dishwashing or aim for very perfect results, like some of the first kinds of communities." "We treat each other with open hearts, like in a loving marriage or a close and friendly working relationship." "And in doing this we find that very practical solutions will appear." "In every area we are finding new solutions, like new decision making models, new communication styles, new architecture, new ways to help the children learn ... this trust and friendliness allows us to recognize new solutions in so many facets of our interaction." "And now we see that the time has come when society is moving toward us." "You can see it in every area .. we are a growing village where children are born, where the lives of all ages come together." "People who do regional development for the government ask:" "what does a region look like when its communities support each other?" "How have you succeeded in reducing your energy consumption?" "Why do you have such a good energy balance?" "All these questions of the larger society are asked of us now." "Valle de Sensaciones is located in southern Spain." "Ten years ago, Achim Burkard bought the land in order to realize his dream of living a creative lifestyle in close contact with nature." "He and his partner Rahma live here, taking in guests who want to experience community and the connection to nature." "The slogan of the Valle de Sensaciones is to live creatively in sensual contact with nature." "Right now, here in the bathtub, I'm having one of those magic moments." "I'm completely connected with the water, with the fire, seeing the sky and the mountains," "I'm relaxing with the feeling of being in the middle of nature." "I get creative insights here, and lots of ideas for new projects." "Many guests who enjoy this bathtub under the starry heavens consider this an intensive experience as well." "But this is just one of the experiences that we have that we share with our guests." "Sometimes we're bathing in the mud together with a lot of people." "We do human mud sculptures, and spend long nights with music around the bonfire." "We go up the mountains together, or meet at the medicine wheel in one of the valleys." "And there the experience starts, to be in the middle of nature and to feel it more and more luxuriously." "It's not an austere life, but instead a feeling experience that nature holds us close and comforts us, like this wine here in this bathtub, it's a luxury of being alive." "We work on building more and more freaky buildings where one can feel this." "At the moment we're working on the third treehouse, where you live in the middle of the tree." "In the morning you wake up and you might have the leaves of the tree inside your house." "This treehouse that we are building now is also a musical instrument ... it opens like a blossom to a stage and it exists as five giant musical instruments where you can happily make music that can be heard in the entire valley." "In the history of the project we used lots of local materials, mostly mud, and olive wood, and other fibrous materials." "We learned how to build with these materials and now we teach others what we learned in regular workshops." "We're still trying new projects together with the participants." "Community life is a very important element that we try to share with all of the people who come." "The place is pretty open, though through our website we filter those we invite, so we can sustain the atmosphere." "We have people coming and going constantly;" "some stay for a weekend, some for more than a year." "From the beginning we have tried to live authentically like a community that serves the people and is never touristlike." "To make community life flow easily, Achim has invented a game, which he calles the community mandala..." "Here is our community mandala, where we coordinate the daily tasks and responsibilities." "Every weekday is listed in the mandala, and there are also task fields." "All the players move in the circle and in that way they find their daily tasks." "For instance, I complete a task, then I move further using the rules of the game to find my next task." "There are the elves who take over a task for a least a week, like cleaning and food preparation, or the communication and coordination of the place." "The elves care for things in a practical way and define their tasks as well because they bring task fields in or out of the game, depending on what there is to do." "All the people who live here take jobs, sometimes because they want to and sometimes because it is their turn." "And lastly we have the suns, which we give as daily gifts, just because somebody did something and we liked it, like if someone made a cake or a dessert, or played music while others cooked." "If you have a sun, you can move better on the mandala game field, and you can do fewer defined tasks." "We've been using this game for more than three years now and have had extremely good experience with it, so we don't have to have meetings, no one does the same job all the time, and everyone knows their job." "We really have great experiences with it, especially with guests who can use the game to integrate immediately into the group life." "Our aim was to create something like social permaculture, in the sense that everything carries itself and we don't have to check what needs doing or assign tasks." "It regulates itself completely and runs continuously without having to put energy into it." "Tamera is a peace research village in the South of Portugal." "One hundred and eighty people live, work and study in this model for peaceful cohabitation of people, nature and animals." "Tamera is also an international training center and experimental site for the development of Peace Research Villages worldwide." "The project was started in 1995 by three founders:" "sociologist and psychoanalyst Dieter Duhm, theologian Sabine Lichtenfels and physicist and musician Rainer Ehrenpreis." "My most beautiful vision of Tamera, and we will certainly achieve it, is to build a model settlement where a few hundred people live together in peace ... within themselves, with their neighbours and eventually with the entire world." "And then, having realized the model here, we can bring this example out into crisis areas of the world as well." "The founding philosophy of Tamera says that only those things which we can imagine can become reality." "Albert Einstein said:" ""What we can think, we can do."" "It's a very deep sentence." "Another important function of Tamera is education." "We're building an alternative university because so many people want to know, how does Tamera work?" "How have you done it?" "Can we also do that?" "If we try it, will we have your support?" "and so on." "So Tamera doesn't exist alone, there is a worldwide network." "Curious people come from all over the world, and are inspired by having the opportunity to study and live here." "To develop the sense of what it means to live in community." "In Tamera the community is organized into working groups, called pylons, which is an architectural term for a structure or place where supporting parts meet." "Each pylon coordinates the activities of its work." "The pylon called "Grace" is responsible for the interaction with and the welcoming of the guests, and for the community's political networking." "Another pylon is the "Solar Village," where technology and architecture are developed and combined with nature in a holistic, life supporting way." "The working group responsible for the "Place of the Children"" "supports the unfolding of the creative power of the youngest residents." "Each pylon has a group leader." "The leaders of all the pylons form the community council." "In this way, the information exchange between the working groups within Tamera is assured, and even important decisions can be made quickly and easily." "In some areas of the community work, such as financing and building, the members of the working team are elected by the community." "The women's council acts to resolve the personal and interpersonal challenges and some questions of the community." "The women's council is a group of woman interested in social and healing issues." "A person who feels moved to seek council from the women can go to speak with them and ask them to reflect on their issue." "It is a space where there is perspective on the complexity of community, and how people exist on inner and outer levels, how they interact with themselves and with the outer circumstances." "These women consider how is it with the individuals, what do they need?" "This is a rough description." "The Austrian permaculture specialist, Sepp Holzer, comes often to Tamera to plan and create the community's edible landscape and lakes, and to teach the principles of Permaculture to guest students." "An important working group of Tamera that is still under development is the Solar Village." "Here we sit in the testfield of the future Solar Village." "Since 2004, we've been working together with Juergen Kleinwaechter, a pioneer in decentralized solar technology that can be built simply, that is not dependent on big companies." "We always say that the Solar Village is a model inside a model, since Tamera itself is like a big creative womb for the foundation of models for a Peaceful Culture." "For the residents of Tamera's peaceful culture, the loving treatment of their children is a matter of course." "An alternaitve school lies in the heart of the "Place of the Children,"" "where multi-faceted projects provide the children with opportunities to acquire many important skills." "We are working on a different concept for school." "Of course we are teaching all the important subjects, but not in the usual, chronological way where each subject is taught separately for an hour each day." "All the important subjects are learned in the context of doing projects on themes that the students have chosen." "The children of Tamera's school have written and produced a theater play." "Originally written in German, the children's vision included performing it in English and in Portuguese, so they learned these languages, translated the play and have performed it in several European countries." "An angel talked to me He gave me the answer to the riddle" "If we transform ourselves We will transform the world" "We have to create places Where people don't have to lie anymore" "One of the most important foci of Tamera is peacework between Israel and Palestine." "We go to Israel and Palestine every year, and we have peace camps between Israelis and Palastinians in Tamera." "We are building a core group to explore whether models like Tamera can make a real difference in a crisis area." "The thought is not to do that everywhere, that all people have to start to live as we do, but to see whether one model of this form, with its depth of peacework can make a difference in a region like the Middle East." "And on the other hand, what we call "inner development" can be seen, especially in crisis areas." "It is one thing to be at peace at home on our meditation cushion and another thing when we meet up with soldiers while walking along the wall in Israel-Palestinine in real life." "How effective is the peacework then?" "That is the moment when war can arise even in peaceworkers, because the soldiers in the uniforms are seen to be the guilty ones." "Experiences like this show how important it is for a project that goes deep into the inner topics to also be very real and concrete in crisis areas." "The peacework in Colombia and Israel-Palestine is for me a central part of Tamera." "Itit from Israel and Mustava from Palestine are peace students in Tamera." "I can see the connection between my love to a german man as a political issue also" "It's not only about me and him" "It has also to do with, like I said, a chain of generations" "Or if I have more and more strong friendship with Mustava" "And trust with him, on a heart level, it creates a new imprint" "And this is not by ideology, I need to do it or I will do it" "It just comes from a truthful way" "And then we can really see each other in a human way, in a heart way" "And for me, this creates healing, not only in a personal level, also in a bigger picture" "Healing work is also done in Tamera, with horses, who are considered to be intelligent, sentient beings." "Here we ride without bridles and without saddles." "We try to work with the understanding that horses are also conscious, spiritual beings who actively seek contact with people and who would like to be helpers." "I have seen countless examples of this:" "horses who know what a certain human needs, and move appropriately and sensitively to help people to overcome trauma or reopen their hearts." "This kind of peaceful willingness to serve is an amazing, true characteristic of the horse." "Guests are invited to help with the olive harvest that happens every year, starting in October." "It's a good opportunity for interested people to get to know the community." "Markus from Germany participated in this year's olive harvest..." "Being here is a very unique experience that I can hardly express with words, and which I know will continue to effect me further in my life, even when I go home, and even after I am home for a long while." "It is a place that simply changes people." "I am very conscious of the depth of this change in me." "I will continue to explore the subjects of ecology, community, and their social interactions." "My wish is to keep these thoughts alive and create new possibilities of living." "On Sundays during the season of the olives, the entire community of Tamera gathers in the groves to help with the harvest and to celebrate..." "The overall vision is that all of humanity can rediscover a way to live in community." "I believe that humans are community beings, not individuals in the sense of having to be able to do everything alone, but cooperative beings." "Many thousands of years ago it was like this over the entire earth, when people lived together in community." "The patriarchy of the last five to ten thousand years destroyed this idea, step by step, in order to make humans controllable." "So today we have a powerful elite that controls most of humanity." "If instead the larger part of humanity learns to live together in cooperative communities, in tribes, we will regain a lot of power." "Someday, we won't need governments that control us." "Then, we'll need something different." "Where there was pain, let healing awaken." "Where there was anger, let the power for change emerge." "Where there was fear, let safety and trust grow." "Where there were enemies, let the awakening of mutual compassion begin." "Where there was oppression, let freedom reign." "Where nations were divided, let sympathy for planet Earth lead to shared responsibility" "We have come as a reminder:" "If we want planet Earth to survive, then all the walls of separation must fall, the walls between peoples, between Israel and Palestine, between Europe and Africa, between the so-called first and third world." "And likewise with the walls that we have erected in our own psyches, the walls between the genders, and the walls between humans and all creatures." "May all displaced people find a home." "May the pure indigenous wisdom and source gain recognition and respect." "May the people who are willing to risk their lives for truth and justice receive the protection they need." "May the voice of justice and truth and compassion and solidarity with all beings be heard all over the world, and may it spread and become a powerful movement that stands for the protection for life on planet Earth." "May the seed of peace communities blossom and may the first self-sufficient communities be a sign and show that it is possible to develop societal systems which resonate with the universal laws of love and compassion, and of truth and abundance of life." "May we become carriers of hope for all who come after us." "May we set visible signs which show that the eternal life will win over all systems of wrong power, of destruction and exploitation." "We have come as a reminder of the original beauty and truth of life:" "Every living being has a right to be free and to unfold, a right to love, and a right to genuine truth and trust." "Let us set examples for overcoming violence wherever we are." "Let us stand up for life and for love so that fear can vanish on earth." "Let us form a worldwide circle of power to safeguard all creation." "In the name of all those who had to give their lives, in the name of justice and truth, in the name of all that has skin and fur." "In the name of all creatures, and in the name of grace and the movement for a free earth." "May this prayer or something better come true." "Thank you and Amen."