Permaculture in Lebanon!

I found an answer to a question I asked in an earlier post I had titled Arab Winter in Montréal.  There IS permaculture in the Middle East!  How do I know?  Because there is a Facebook page, of course.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Permaculture-Lebanon/242823612458499


A little research tells me there's even more!  There is permaculture in Palestine, I found out through a blog called Land and People: http://landandpeople.blogspot.com/2009/04/permaculture-as-necessity-not-choice-in.html.

Tangently, but relatedly enough, I just watched a video of Joanna Macy, who is a leader.  I never got the chance to see her in person, but her work, and especially the class she teaches through CIIS called The Great Turning, which she teaches through CIIS, has inspired a great deal of my PCC colleagues.  A number of them say she changed her life.
So please have a taste:

Life is good.
I'm living by myself in a big empty apartment... meaning I have my own dance and yoga studio.  Space!
Soon I'll be moving in to live with six people (12, on two floors, to be more precise.)  That's what I've been talking about for so long: community living.
I am excited.  I am anxious.  I'm a bit scared.
I'm... trepidatious :)
And adventures keep unfolding...

May yours be blessed as well, my sisters and brothers!

Ecovillage.. in the name of ?

The revolution is happening.
Well, it has the potential of happening.
And I feel a bit scared.

I am facing an opportunity to step into what I have been professing to be my dream!  (Careful what you wish for, hehe).  Less than two months after my return to the native land, and I have already found and met a group of people who speak the language of permaculture, who share visions of organizing into ecovillages.  They speak the language of permaculture and they agree that it is essential that we begin to learn, how to grow our food, and how to grow... socially, together.
I've been thinking about socio-political organization for at least ten years now.  I've been talking about egalitarianism, and community-living for almost as long.  Yesterday, as I sat in the living room of a fellow visionary and discussed the potential of the ''Institut de desurbanisation'', I gradually came to feel the significance of my conclusions.

The idea would be to live communally, in the city, while preparing for a transition to the ecovillage.  We'd be learning several skills to regain some autonomy, like sewing, knitting, canning, brewing, fixing and renovating the house, etc.  That's exactly what I've been ranting about for the past six months!
But the thought of actually doing it: living and working together, makes me a bit dizzy.  Have I grown to comfortable in my individualistic modern ego?
The truth is, I don't know these people as well as I know the friends I have had over the past fifteen years.  With my old friends I have sweated and fought (most of us played soccer together), won and lost, cried and laughed.  We have witnessed and supported each other through idyllic and horrendous love stories, through break-ups, confusions, joy and dreams... We have been through so many changes together...
Now there is a brand new group of people I could be moving forward with.  We could be entering a new phase of change together.  We could create change!
But we don't know each other yet.
And is that even what scares me the most?

Or is it the thought of eventually leaving the city?  No more world-music parties, no more impromptu meeting at the pub for a drink, no more sitting in a café with my laptop, no more dance classes, no more théâtre, no more daily multiculturalism.
Do I want to retreat from all of that?

In the name of energetic autonomy, in the name of food security, in the name of building an example of what could be...

In the name of every human being who is being oppressed, beaten, starved, raped, and forgotten... just because they live on a land where natural resources are being extracted...  In the name of voluntary simplicity... of anti-consummerism... In the name of indigenous people in Northern Canada, who are watching their last frontier getting drilled and destroyed by the oil industry...
In the name of fresh water and the hundred of animal species who have gone extinct over the last fifty years... In the name of heavenly Pacific islands, which are now slowly sinking under raising levels of ocean waters... In the name of ghettoized populations being plagued with pollution emanating from irresponsible industries and the spread of landfills (it's called 'environmental racism, look it up)...
In the name of my Cuban, Mexican, and Salvadorean amigos, of Palestinians and Israelites, of Syrians, Russians, Tibetans... in the name of my neighbors in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve... In the name of PEACE, in the name of Love for this planet and all the wonders it has gifted us with...

In the name of Life, simply.
Out of fear that we'll end up blowing each other up for fear of scarcity?

I am trying to re-trace the line of thought that brought me here today.

In the course of my political, environmental and philosophical studies I have come to consider most wars and injustice as symptoms of deep-seated unconscious fears (that stem from the illusion of separation).  Fear of lacking.  And from that fear, the sprouting of greed, lies, violence.
Peace doesn't mean the absence of struggle or dialectic.  But it does mean the end of violence.

In the course of my study I have come to value egalitarianism as an ideal to strive for, if we are to develop a sustainable peace.  And I have come to value wildness as the necessary source for creativity to keep flowing.

I'd like to eat food that is wholesome.  I'd like not to depend on the industry for my sustenance.  I'd like solar and wind power to replace the nuclear.
We're not mature enough, as a species, to make use of such powerful a tool.
We must learn how to live together.

Dreams are bubbling

I am tired, but I'm happy.  Life is good and full of new connections.
And I like connections.  They mean more mirrors, more reflections, more truth.
There is so much I want to convey that I run the risk of going abstract.  It happens like that a lot.
But the theme of today was Grounding, so in that spirit I will make an effort to focus my entry a bit.
And besides, I am extenuated.
I just got back from an important meeting.  No, it wasn't a job interview.  It was a preview of a possible future though, a taste in what my life's work could be... of what life could be.

There were 37 of us and we came from many different regions of the province of Québec.  (In case you wonder: that's 1,667,926 square kilometers, which is three times the size of France, and a big 20 percent of the USA.  In short: the province of Québec is LARGE.)

Some of the people there already knew each other through the Occupy Montreal movement, others came form small villages that are 5 hours away from the big city.  Some were veterans of the 70s and the 80s commune experiments, some of us don't remember a life before the advent of the internet.
I didn't know anyone; I had only had a few cyber exchanges with one of two of the organizers.  We came from the four corners and spanned at least two generations, but we all shared one basic intention:  the creation of a self-sufficient and healthy eco-community, according to the principles and philosophy of permaculture.
37 strangers, one utopia.
For where is this place going to be?  Are we talking about one, or more communities?  What land(s) do we have available?  What does the process involve?  What resources do we already have?
Do we mean the same things?

Permaculture means that we recognize how fundamentally interconnected and interdependent we are.  It means we are ready to see, observe, and learn from what's before our eyes: the Earth is wise and she is teaching us about diversity, complexity, and unity.  She's teaching us about relationships, cycles, and change.  She's teaching us about equilibrium.

We have had enough of buying into the false promises of the capitalist system.  We don't want to waste anymore resources and time: we'll create the alternatives.  We'll build new models, propose new ways.

Changes happen at the periphery.  If Darwin was right, the fittest organisms will be the ones living on.

There is so much I would like to revel into while reflecting back on today's experience.  But I want to go sleep for now.  It is only the beginning...

A wonderful experience is in the works...

Centimeters..

Snow has been falling down alllll day.  I had tentative plans on my agenda for the day: 1) call this dude Vahid and go visit an apartment, 2) go introduce myself at the local office of employment.  But with this gentle white blizzard waving at me from the other side of the window, I decided to stay in instead.  (Plus, Vahid postponed our meeting.)
I browsed through a few more job offers, reworked a few résumé to fit the profiles, worked on those cover letters that are supposed to make them impatient to meet me.
People ask me: '' What kind of job are you looking for ?''  I tell them I am open, as long as it is inspiring.  You see, I'm not interested in working at Tim Hortons'.  I'm not going to spend my days like an automaton, just to make ends meet.  I want to care.  I want to grow.  I want to feel connected.
So these jobs I am applying generally have requirements that are a bit above what my experience is.  But I KNOW, they are not above my competency.
Here I am, in that infamous qualification ''ditch'', trying to show that I can climb and fulfill whatever functions these people need fulfilled, trying not to slip to the bottom and lose faith.
It's been less than I week since I moved here, I suppose.  I am trying to be patient.  The old wise woman inside knows it's only a matter of time until I get to shine my little light and take part in some super duper progressive creative community endeavor.  But for now, it's lonely as hell.
I haven't gone dancing in over what... two months?  My foot won't allow me.  The tendon connecting to my heel has a little tear (happened exactly a week before I left home in San Francisco.  Talk about body-mind!) and it wants me to stay in place and be with my emotions instead of going out and dancing them off.  It's hard.  I want to move, get my heart rate up, sweat and shake and feel free... but I can't.



I'm back on OkCupid.  I figured it'd be a good way to meet other queer people.
I miss home.  I miss the sunshine.  I miss creating with Harvey.
But this is not meant to sound down in the dumps or anything.  It's just that it's been snowing all day.  And I long to share my energy with others.

I have some ''meetings'' lined up for the next few weeks.  I found a group of people who are wanting to start a sustainable-living-community-land-ecovillage-project-thing somewhere.  I'm planning on joining the first meeting next week.  I'm also meeting a professor from the Drama Therapy program next week, just to learn about what the scene is around here.  Tomorrow, I'm going to some introductory meeting for a ''young entrepreneur in social economy'' formation.  And saturday, there's an open house at a dance studio.  Don't know if I can dance quite yet, but please foot, let me try out that physical theater class!  Oh, and hopefully, I'll get some calls for interviews soon...

It's cool not to be working, actually.  It means lots of free time.  Besides, I got a bit of a cushion still.  I can handle it.  It gives me time to explore the city.  (I went to a lecture on Mohawk history yesterday, at the McClure museum near McGill university.)  It's just that it ain't that much fun when thermometers show minus twenty (celsius) outside, and you got a sore heel with all the fear (of a chronic injury) it brings..

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.

"How long are you staying?"

Torri Superiore, day three.

I got here on Wednesday, in the late afternoon, after a long and pleasant day of tribulations.  I had come from Marseille and got dropped off in Nice for a quick swim in the Mediterranean Sea (it's the Cote d'Azur; who needs a bathing suit?!), followed by a bit of impromptu slacklining with some local people I met on my walk to the train station. 

Swimming in the Mediterranean:
Check!

I bought a baguette and some cheese, and caught the train that would cross the border into Ventimiglia, Italy.

I arrived in Torri a bit later than I had expected, which meant that I wouldn't get to do my share of work-exchange before spending my first night here.

I was told that there were no other guests at the moments, and that there might also not be much work for me to do.  "I can walk the dog" I said while immediately realizing how stupid the comment was.  "No, I'm sure we'll find something for you," said Simmons, "Let me find Nina, she must be around somewhere."  And he left me in the office for a little bit.  

I browsed through the library and found a small section of books in English.  There were a few titles I was interested in: "It's the End of the World as We Know it, and I could use a Drink," "The Transition Handbook: from Oil Dependency to Local Resilience," or perhaps one of the many titles on the topics of Ecovillages or permaculture.... but in the end I decided to borrow a book  about the works and legacies of the great Sufi mystic, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi.  It looked like a small and powerful book, and I thought it would draw a nice thread to my recent sojourn in Istanbul.  I hadn't known this before Ezgi told me, but Rumi spent a lot of his life (between 1228 and 1241) in the Anatolian city of Konya, where he is now buried.

I met Nina, Korean-born, adopted by German parents and she showed me through to stone labyrinth to my room.

Torri Superiore is home to about 25 permanent dwellers.  Most are Italians and Germans; and the common language is Italian.  The kids all speak both Italian and German, plus a bit of English! 

There are more people involved and living here temporarily.  Some are here as seasonal workers, like Adrien (from France), who came specifically for olive harvest, or Ido (from Germany) who came to visit his brother and gather gallons of olive oil to go sell in Switzerland.  Others seem to have a more "long-time noncommittal relationship" with the community, like Simmons, who is originally from Australia (but spent many years in British Columbia and Vermont) and who contributes with his expertise in organic farming.  Dusan is a young Serbian man who's been working here for the past couple months while looking into buying some land in the area.  Peter says he comes here four times per year, to take a vacation from Berlin, and to spend some time with his son Daniel, who is the initiator of this marvelous experience.  

Adrien enjoys a glass of wine during lunchtime
taking a break from picking olives all morning.

In the early stages of the project, it was all about restoration of this historical building.  The building was in ruins, and it took a couple of years of extremely hard work to fix it, before Daniel and Nina could move in.

"It was all about bringing life back," he tells me, "Bringing life back to the place... and to our self."

"And what does one need to know in order to do this?" I asked longingly. "Plumbing and electricity and stuff?  How to build things? Right?"

"You learn by doing it.  That's what we did."

Today, Torri Superiore is a marvelous little village onto itself, a veritable hamlet; with its many living quarters, its kitchen and two-level dining room (big enough to accommodate up to eighty workshoppers/tourists during the high season), its carpentry room, yoga room, playroom, rooftop spaces, etc.  Everything is beautiful, and highly functional!  

There are as many different models of ecovillages as there are communities.  I'm told that what makes this one special is the historical building, and the fact that it is located in a touristic area.  This allows for Torri Superiore to generate the greater fraction of its income through organizing classes and workshops, and hosting tourists from all over Europe.

This money belongs to the cultural association and can be reinvested in the ecovillage.  But what we have here is a mixed economy system, (i.e. living quarters are owned privately) which means that each person is also responsible for their own finances..

An Italo-German picnic = a feast!
(yes, we ate for over an hour)

Community living tends to be cheaper than "mainstream living", because it allows for the sharing of many skills and resources.  

Unfortunately, the steepness and quality of the land here brings many agricultural challenges, so a lot of the food has to be bought from the city.   Moreover, Torri Superiore has to abide by county and regional development regulations and all, so they have yet to be granted the permits they need in order to install more solar panels and become more energetically self-sufficient.  In the meantime, they also get their electricity, and the aqueduct system (and the internet, of course) from the "outside world".

  

As far as leadership goes, they have explained to me that important decisions are made through consensus, and that minor ones are generally decided by whomever deems them important enough to show up to the meeting.

They've been meeting weekly for twenty years.

There are three main subgroups to address different issues in specific areas: the guest house, farming, and the building.  

However, everyone takes turn doing certain tasks, and all must volunteers in other areas.  

My understanding is that these groupings have occurred somewhat organically, as each person gravitated towards their area of interest.

Picking olives involves hitting branches in order to make the fruits fall down,
and gathering them in big nets.

  

Which brings me back to one of my initial observations upon arriving here.
I wandered around the building, familiarizing myself with the silence of the valley and trying to figure out my way up and down and around.  So I encountered and greeted a few people ("Ciao!"), and what I found noticeable was how they all, without exception, asked me the same exact question after the initial "where are you from?".  They all asked: "How long are you going to stay?"

This, to me, points to the core of an experience like this.  It's all about time; it's all about commitment.  

I am finding/feeling some clarity since I've been here.  It's certainly easier without the distractions of the city; without grocery stores and shopping malls, without street lights, and without locks on the doors.  It's easier to feel good, centered.  

And perhaps it also helps that I have actually been working quite hard.  Harvesting olives in the mountains, working physically, concretely, climbing trees like I never imagined I could climb trees before... focussing on keeping a stable foothold, staying focussed and in the moment, with nature, amongst trees pregnant with yet another miracle of life.  No time to see my mind run astray into the future.

  

And so for now I must go to sleep.

Though there is much more to share...

Fruits of our labor

going to work in Utopia

I am leaving Marseille in a few hour.  I'm getting a ride to Nice, with Olivier from covoiturage.fr .  From Nice, I'll get a train to Ventimiglia, which is on the boarder of Italy.  Then, I will catch a local bus that will bring me closer to where I am to stay for the next six days: Torri Supperiore.
Torri Superiore is a small ecovillage that is home to twenty permanent resident and open to non-resident to come and learn about different aspects of sustainable living, i.e. permaculture, bio-fuels, green buildings, consensus leadership, etc.

Dating from the 13th century, the village consists of three main buildings with over 160 vaulted rooms, all linked by an intricate labyrinth of stairways and terraces. Its complex and fascinating structure has been compared to a labyrinth or fortress, built on the side of the mountain.

I am so excited!  Yes, I get to experience utopia for a week.  But most of all, I am impatient to... work!  I've been roaming the continent for two months like this, working almost exclusively from my brains, writing several hours a day.  But I haven't sweated so much, I haven't done much physical work, I haven't seen the fruits of my labor and how it is useful, in a concrete, material way.
So there I go...

I'll be in touch :)