Photo by Cottonbro Studio

An eco village is an intentional community that is designed to be environmentally sustainable. There are many different types of eco villages, but they all share a common goal of minimizing their impact on the planet.

Eco villages often have a strong focus on communal living and self-sufficiency. Members of an eco village typically grow their own food, generate their own energy, and reuse or recycle as much as possible. This lifestyle can be very rewarding, as it allows people to live in harmony with nature while also becoming more self-reliant.

One of the best things about living in an eco village is that it provides opportunities for people to connect with others who share similar values. In many cases, eco villages are located in beautiful natural settings, which makes them ideal places to relax and play.

7 years of living in an eco village #1 Story

My name is Celastrina live here in this green valley in the foothills of the Italian Alps this valley is not only home to extraordinary wildlife in nature but also to the Damanhur Federation of intentional communities with over 600 people from all over the world. In February 2015, I finally decided that I was done with living alone in my small city apartment going every day to my 9 to 5 job, and feeling like my life was slipping through my fingers. I said goodbye to my old life in my hometown of Stockholm and set off on a journey that would give my life a new direction. 

Not only was I longing for closer contact with nature and the elements but was longing for community context with people who shared ideals and were working actively together to make the world a better place. I wanted to live and “Be the change that I wanted to see in the world.” I found that in Damanhur I could realize this dream but as always reality also comes with many surprises and things aren’t always exactly as we expect them to be. Today I will speak about the expectations that I had before moving to the community and what the reality really looked like. Of course, this experience might be different depending on what community you are looking at in the world because we all have different characteristics but when speaking to people who also live in other eco-communities around the world I’ve found that the themes are more or less similar. So the first thing that I expected before moving to a community and when I was researching communities was really in line with the interest and what I thought was the most important thing for a community which was growing your own food and being self-sufficient and I think this is a theme for many people around the world who really want to break out of the system and feel that they’re independent. And in the case, that anything would happen in the world you’re able to sustain yourself and this is something that we’ve seen a lot also with this current pandemic that people have started to be more interested in growing their own food and being more self-sufficient in general. And of course, when I arrived here I found this in Damanhur we have our agriculture and we put a lot of importance on being self-sufficient not only in food but also in energy but I thought that that would be the major project communities in general, but I found here that being self-sufficient and growing your own food is really a small percentage of what Damanhur and communities, in general, are about. So one of the main projects in Damanhur is incarnating a new society model or creating a new culture so we have a lot of emphasis on our own art on our own music on our own constitution our own currency and many other things. 

So its really the creation of a new story for humanity a new story for the planet and for what our future could really look like and this was so exciting that it was much more than just being on the fields and growing your own vegetables, but it was this holistic approach to life. And this holistic approach to really creating something new for the world and incarnating that and living and experimenting with that every day. I also know that other communities around the world have similar projects, but also other emphases on specific topics. So for example there is a lot of research in human design and in how to create peaceful relationships not only with ourselves and with others but with everything around the world and other communities are investing a lot of energy in researching alternative ways of energy supply of food supply and really community, in general, is this really creative hub of exploring and experimenting with different ways that we can live on this planet. so yes there’s a lot about growing your own food and self-sufficiency but that is really a small part of all the things that you find in a community. this next expectation is a major one and I think this is something that many people think and also a lot of pre-judges that people have about eco-communities and I too had those pre-judges or expectations because of course it depends if you think that is positive or if you thinkthat is negative. I had expected that people would be much more hippy than what I really found but I had expected that it would be much more of playing guitar around the bonfire and just being happy with all the people around you and just going with the flow and so onand that was probably the exact opposite from when from what I found it’s much more structured living in a community that I would have thought before coming here and people are really normal so it’s a cliche about living in a community where people are a little bit outsiders from reality and of course, there are also those elements in every community I think. But people are very dedicated and work very very hard to implement and to really incarnate the ideals of the community and so there is really no time to just hang around and do nothing here people who come visit Damanhur often say that we are just running around all the time and that’s because there are so many things to do if you really want to change the world and people are really busy and really serious about this. But of course, there are gatherings and there are meetings and family meetings and social hubs and parties and also guitar playing and bonfires but that is not the everyday life in the community. But this is probably different from community to community and in Dominar we really put a very very high value on the action and on really being able to realize the dreams that you have and make them into something that you can touch because if you dream about something or only have ideas then and don’t incarnate them. then you can never really let people see that another way is possible you can never really see you can never really show that you’re serious about something the fact of being able to incarnate what you’re dreaming about in that manner is important this has been a major teaching for me since I arrived here because I’m very idealistic. But coming from a city I never really put my hands into the dirt so to say.

I dreamt about things but never really had to experience the feeling of ecstasy you have when you realize something, especially something that you feel would be impossible to realize and that is something that I think that all communities around the world have in common to show really a practical and living example of that it is possible. To incarnate a new way of living in a new society model another expectation that I had before coming to the community was that people would be very much focused only inside of the community and would have only jobs that were focused on empowering or creating a better environment inside of the community. When I came to Damanhur I realized that that was very far away from reality and people here have normal jobs. So we have people working as lawyers or doctors or teachers or businessmen or women so people are a little bit living two lives where they have their normal jobs and then they also have the community life when they come home from those jobs. but of course, there are also people working inside of the community or in businesses that give services to the community. So for example agriculture or we have our own food store we have our own school we have our own welcome center and guided visits and on and all of these are businesses inside of the community. But it’s not that the community is closed in on itself and that it has no connection with the outer world but it’s very interconnected to the local environment. So in Damanhur for example we are very active locally and politically as well have the major in the closest town where Damanhur resides is the manhunt and I think this is very important because if you want to change the world or be an example you also need to be open enough to embrace everything that is around you and change bit by bit. 

Celastrina on Youtube. 

Author: Bliss

Dedicated to making a positive difference for people, animals, and this beautiful planet!