where-topia?

I am feeling very inspired by this experience I've been having at Torri Superiore.  I've loved working with and for other people.  I've loved sharing meals with everyone.  I've loved going for long walks in the mountain or down to the river.  I've loved discussing the hopes and challenges associated with sustainable living.  I've loved meeting people of all ages and cultures, who have made this radical commitment and actually made it happen. Oh, and I've loved not even seeing money over the past 4 days or so.

Of course, this place isn't perfect.  Consensus is a slow and sometimes frustrating process, organic agriculture comes with a load of natural challenges, regulations at the regional level often impede desired innovations; and money is scarce, which means that certain things must get prioritized over others.  The food supplies, for instance, come partly from a regular grocery store, so everything served here isn't actually organic.  It's a shame and a blatant contradiction.  It's a compromise this community have decided to make.

I wonder how an ecovillage would work in Québec.  I wonder what designs are best suited for our harsh winters.  I'm excited about doing research on the subject.
I wonder how much land costs, how open-minded and supportive governments might be.  I wonder who wants to manifest a project like this with me.
I wonder where I'd want to root down into this.  In Beauce?  Near Montréal?  Or just somewhere without such long and cold winters?  Which bioregion do I want to work with?




I wonder if I'd easily move on from a life of such mobility to a more localized lifestyle.  Because that's what sustainability calls for.  (Planes are the worst!)
And that's what community calls for too.

Yesterday my "job" was:
1) Hanging clothes in the sun
2) Cutting vegetables to feed 30 people (while listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers and sipping champagne.)

Today my "job" consisted in hiking up (about 20 minutes)
to the donkey patch and retrieving the battery of the fence
to bring it back so they could recharge it.

This is everything I have come to believe in:  egalitarianism, community, process, ecology, anti-consummerism, education, simplicity, and a true embodied, integrated lifestyle.

Yes, I am extremely inspired.  I can't wait to meet people from the permaculture guild in Montreal.  I can't wait to visit my friend Valerie and see what kind of eco-house she has built for herself in New Richmond, Gaspésie.  I can't wait to find those radically (radical= roots) minded folks, who are emancipating themselves from the modern capitalist and individualist mindset and taking their power back by learning how to take care of themselves, their community, and their environment.





I just don't know if I can survive the winters.