Back in Amsterdam after a 7-week summer break filled with adventure, nature, wonder, community & blissful shared moments.
After enjoying the Mediterranean sea, we hiked and meandered through the breath-taking Pyrenees and we spent the last days of our holiday in a small, cosy ecovillage in SW France “La Ferme Légère”. They are living “off grid” on a beautiful farm totally renovated in an ecological way and completely autonomous in energy, water and vegetables. La Ferme Légère (https://fermelegere.greli.net/) facilitate many workshops on food, water, energy autonomy as well as retreats around “The Work that Reconnects”. This is how I ended up there through my friend Sylvie Chasselay who lives there and trained with me as a Work that Reconnects facilitator last autumn.
It was special to experience this lifestyle with my girls and the first time we had an immersive experience in an eco-community together : we slept in Sylvie’s beautiful yourte, made our own delicious sourdough bread, our cheese, took care of the many animals there, helped in the huge vegetable garden, mixed up different textures to create nourishing soil for seedlings we planted, we harvested and enjoyed delicious vegetables and fruit, helped prepare meals for large groups in the kitchen cooked on woodfire and with solar ovens. We could participate in and witness eco-construction as they were adding a ceiling to the bakery (with the plan to bake bread for the neighbourhood as an additional source of revenue). We learnt about the healing properties of many plants and flowers which we identified during a foraging walk and in a short time we learnt tons about macerating flowers, roots & leaves in oil or alcohol and made some of our own healing balms. We had many moments of sharing our feelings and thoughts about various topics in community with a large group of adults and children as young as 3 participating.
Here’s a little glimpse into some moments there as I was mainly without my phone (and one of the few there with a Smartphone…). See the video here Ferme Legere
I was grateful to have a taste of this experience with my girls. It certainly sparked some reflection in them and it inspires me to do my best to live in a more conscious and harmonious way … as challenging as it is in a city and a fast-paced society where living in harmony with the Earth isn’t the norm … yet:)