Category: blog-eng

Dear you,

Here comes some news from Eotopia at the end of this scorching August (but we breathe, we had rain!). More than ever, it seems that resilience is on the menu for the coming years and we warmly invite you to come and experiment with us other ways/voices.

The festival ended with a bit of rain to refresh the atmosphere and bring back some green to our drought-yellowed landscapes. We do not despair, on the contrary. The enthusiasm is there and we have confidence. Resilience is an art that is cultivated daily.

About 70 people took over the space to celebrate what makes them excited, from singing and dancing to yoga, breath work, sourdough bread and face painting, we had all kinds of rich and entertaining workshops to celebrate another year on this wonderful planet!

As the new season approaches, we have some news and reminders:

– Eotopia is reborn once again! As we are always questioning ourselves, we are rethinking the project and looking to reinvent ourselves. There is room for entrepreneurial minds who would like to participate in this beautiful adventure. Several axes of development: garden / ecological construction / retreats / artistic expressions… and an opening for other ideas!

If you are interested to come and try the adventure, don’t hesitate to let us know!

– We are also looking for people who want to live with us for several weeks or months to help us in the development of the place. If you are looking for a place to live and if the values here speak to you, write us!

The next events at Eotopia:

– September 2-9: Visiting period with straw earth construction and garden refurbishment (depending on your tastes and desires).

There are still a few places left…

– From September 19 to 25: Retreat on the deconstruction of patriarchy (reserved for people who were labelled male at birth)

The program will include cultural questioning, workshops and exercises, taking care and taking time, nature outings and moments of introspection, art and self-expression.

The objective of this retreat is to put words to what is inside of us, to meet our emotions, to learn to observe our behaviors, to understand them, to question them to reveal our true nature.

It is a common exploration of our vulnerability to show ourselves and others as we are.

It is also about learning to see systemic oppression as behaviors we can overcome.

It is about saying no to guilt in order to move forward in our full strength and face this patriarchal society that oppresses us all.

There are 5 places left.

– September 30 to October 2: Dance Your Being

This event is not a period of hosting or visiting Eotopia. It is a workshop proposed by a resident:

“Come and reconnect to your way of moving, dancing and acting.

Through the body (and beyond words), come and connect to your authenticity.

You don’t need to know how to “dance”. You just need to have the desire to reconnect to your body and to movement: yes!

The Qoya (https://www.generation-transition.fr/fr/qoya) will be there!

More information from her: mylene@generation-transition.fr

– October 8: Inauguration of the cultural place “Au jolivert” in the heart of Cronat! (see below)

– From October 15 to 22: Visiting period with ecological construction and refurbishment of the garden (according to your tastes and desires).

– From November 5 to 12: Inner Expression vol. 3 !

7 days to get together and explore what is inside us that needs to be expressed. On the agenda: improvisation, musical exploration, yoga, qoya, ecstatic dance, meditation, internal family systems, etc.

Some news from Au Jolivert

Meanwhile, the story of our project of a cultural place in the countryside continues to be written. Work is progressing, the ground floor is almost finished. We still need to do some plastering in the toilets and on the second floor, the kitchen and some finishing touches and we will be able to open this place to the public!

If you want to help us, it’s between September 12 and 18.  Although this project is separate from Eotopia, it is possible to come and live in the eco-place during this period.

The official inauguration is scheduled for October 8 with a big party!

And to finish, a special mention:

Hey, we are the Racines (Roots) project, we were present at the festival. We are in the very first steps of the co-creation of a new collective place. Here is our web page: racines.page. See you soon!

Wishing you a wonderful month of september,

The eotopians

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(Photos Arthur Perrin)

Dear you,

Here’s some news, at last! It’s been more than a year since we last wrote a newsletter… but we are still here!

2021 and the beginning of 2022 has been a time of intense inner turmoil. Many of us here have gone through existential crises that have materialized in many ways. Eotopia has necessarily been impacted, but everything is experience, everything is change, and we are learning more than ever about resilience, whether it be ecological, energetic, alimentary or emotional!

Eotopia remains alive and the people who animate it on a daily basis are more motivated than ever to make this place, this dream, evolve.

When you arrive here, you might think that nothing has changed since last year, the building sites of the barn, the bathroom and the greenhouse are not finished yet… they have been put on pause for many months, just like the garden which has been almost abandoned. But internally, a lot has happened and confirms the direction we want to give to this place: a welcoming space propitious to personal transformation.

Ecology, veganism, the gift economy, free education, all these pillars remain important to us, but we realize that they are meaningless if they are not accompanied first and foremost by a full awareness of our emotions, our traumas or our conditioning.

Our priority becomes clear: slow down, observe ourselves, question ourselves, transform ourselves.

The (r)evolution starts within us, within me, within you, and Eotopia invites itself to the party by proposing a space of introspection and sharing, to support each other towards a better understanding of what is at stake within us and around us.

To this end, several objectives for this year 2022 which promises to be transformative:

• Beautification of the place

We want to live in beauty, to celebrate the gift we have been given with this place by magnifying it with our creative minds.

• Renovation of the buildings

Painting, cleaning, renovating the barn, the bathroom, rehabilitating the greenhouse, the projects are numerous and we are motivated to move forward on the material level.

• Welcoming

Visiting periods to share nice moments with you, but also workshops and thematic meetings to transform all together.

And a festival, of course, to celebrate all together!

• Art in our lives

It is a will to inscribe the project in a more artistic dimension, nothing concrete for the moment, but it is on the way!

• Introspection and deconstruction

To remain within ourselves, conscious of our limits, our desires, to question ourselves and to open ourselves always more, towards an enlarged consciousness of the visible and invisible world. We also open processes of deconstruction on various subjects such as patriarchy, masculinity, femininity, sexuality, etc.

• Development of the Jolivert

The project of the associative café continues! We are not losing enthusiasm to open a second space of transformation in the heart of Cronat. More info here: Facebook / Instagram. You can also write at aujolivert (at) gmail.com.

Eotopia welcomes you this year for several dates :

• From May 8 to 15 for the Inner Expression retreat.
• June 6 to 13 for a week of visits (with clay construction if the weather permits!)
• June 10-12, open house for all!
• In July: no visiting periods, but the place can welcome people willing to get involved on a long-term basis (one month minimum). Write us for more information.
• From August 11 to 16: The festival!
• From September 2nd to 9th : Visiting period!
• September 19 to 25: Retreat on the deconstruction of man (anti-patriarchy), reserved for those who were labeled male at birth
• October 30 to 3: Retreat “Dancing one’s being”.

On the resident level, we welcome with great sadness (and joy for the moments spent together) the departure of Charlene. The yurt having burned down (by mysterious causes), she did not feel like staying at Eotopia anymore. She left for other adventures in Spain.

So much for the news! On the whole, we are doing pretty well. The little cold snap of early April has burned our flowers… while bringing us closer together around the stove! Ready for a new year!

To move forward with our projects, we need support. Several ways to support us right now:

• pallets, tools (saw, nails, screws, ropes), paints, canvas, buckets…
• money to renovate, to organize a mass stove training and to offer more comfort to the visitors
• the sun
• one person to participate in the creation and development of the associative café
• the ingredients to make a vegan cake and a person to make it with Ada
• a yurt
• a law to re-establish family education without control

… and everything that comes from your heart!

Oh, and a little gift for the road too! Ben and Yazmin have written an ebook about building their cabin out of pallets, earth and straw. Here it is in exclusivity to inspire you to do the same. It’s in french for now… sorry ! The link : TerrePaillePalette

We wish you a wonderful spring, flowers, birds chirping and lots of hugs!

See you soon,

The Eotopians

Dear you

The post-confinement is advancing and so are we at Eotopia. We are projecting ourselves into the future, however slowly and step by step. We are looking for new people to join us and we are dreaming of another great Eofest at the end of summer. See more below.

The spring without visits was actually good for us. We took the time to be together, to strengthen the bonds that unite us, to get to know each other a little more. We slowed down… well, a bit – not we couldn’t help moving forward though! Even if we are living a life of degrowth, we are also still aware of the generally difficult state the world is in. In this time we feel it more than ever, trying to abandon certain habits, certain comforts, both in the way we live on the land and in our way of being connected to the land and each other. So we’re working on slowing down, but staying active, keeping a certain rhythm. Plants grow, even when we’re not here, some (many!) are edible some are not. We do our best to take care of the ones that we can. It’s a good year for gardening with sunshine and much more water than the past spring. At the same time, we are busy with several other projects. We have started renovating the second floor of our house to insulate it (and to install a yoga room, music room, etc. – and later on a rocket mass heater!), we have built a new greenhouse with patio doors and pallets and the phyto-purification system is back in use – bigger, stronger, more active than ever! The construction site of the cob-pallet house is also progressing well, we are now in the process of the final plastering of the earth. More information later on (and an ebook in free access so that you can do the same if your heart tells you to!). Many other advances have taken place, more yin, more or less concrete, material, emotional, and certainly spiritual – and we’re queering more than ever. Come take a look for yourself!

Yes, we slow down, but we keep dreaming. About what? About the future, of course. And what’s in our future? Maaany things, but two dreams specifically:

1. We dream of expanding the Eotopia family! We dream of new residents but also new neighbours! So, if you vibrate with our values and want to join us, don’t hesitate to contact us! For visits, we will give priority to people who are potentially interested in moving in with us. If you are a fan of our values but don’t feel like living in a community… come and live close to us! Saône-et-Loire, Nièvre or Allier (we are at the crossroads of the three departments) are very nice departments, rather wild and very accessible financially and in terms of infrastructure. There’s also a lot of abandoned houses around here…

2. We dream of a hundred joyful and colorful people, dancing around a fire, talking circles, workshops, shared meals, crazy ideas, creations, everything you can imagine… but yes! We dream of a festival at Eotopia! Eofest 2020 will take place, when the blackberries are abound on the roads of France and the tomatoes are ready to burst.

What’s on the agenda? You, you, you and you and you and you, etc. … First of all, us, together with an idea that has germinated at the last festival and has been making its way since: Collective Horizons. We therefore invite you to come to imagine the eco-place or community of your dreams, to meet other people who share these dreams, these desires, and/or to share your experience of collective life and/or the creation of eco-places. Maybe this festival will inspire you to join Eotopia, to create your community somewhere else or right next door to us!

• The dates: 27th to 31st August.
• The place : Eotopia land
• For who? Everyone (but especially those who want to start/join/co-create/open an eco-place)
• Where to register? Here
• How much does it cost? Very expensive: your time, a little bit of your life and energy.
• Rules? Yes, we do have rules! And not just one. We’re vegan, alcohol- and drug-free. Take a look at the website for more details…
• More info? Look here

The entire Eotopia family is thrilled to have you here for this… event. Since all our visiting periods have been disrupted because of you-know-who, we are thirsty for meetings, exchanges, sharing.

Join us – for short or for long!

Until then, we wish for you to be able to celebrate the summers coming!

With love,

The Eotopians

Dear friends!

Spring is coming to Eotopia (and registrations for the visit periods are open, see more below… :-))! The trees are starting to bloom, the lovely scents are in the air and all around it is getting more green. This winter has seen much more rain than the one last year, which makes us very happy because we can see how nature is able to stock up on water before the summer! The fields in front of our land have been inundated now for several weeks – honestly, we wouldn’t mind it staying like that… It brings birds, frogs and other wildlife and just shows us the transformative power of water!

Yazmin, Ben and Ada have returned from Mexico and things are generally starting to get busier again here at Eotopia. Last week we had our first experience of hosting a course. The five-day forest garden design course, facilitated by Rakesh “Rootsman Rak”, brought loads of interesting knowledge, good and inspiring interactions but also challenged our facilities to accommodate a larger group of people during the cold season. Everyone, participants as well as residents, did their best to make the energy warm!

But now, one week later, the room that was used for teaching has changed drastically. We are in the process of tearing down the old insulation – it was a rat heaven – to change this to a more long-lasting option. This is part of a bigger project of renovating the house, which will also include a project of a rocket mass oven that we hope to start to construct this summer! In general, we have reorganized and are trying to work more with small sub-groups on different projects, to help us move forward and spread the responsibilities as best as possible. This also means that we will have loads of things to suggest for visitors to take part in during the coming visitors’ periods!

And talking about that. The registrations have opened for the four visit periods of 2020. You can find more info here: https://www.eotopia.org/wordpress/en/visit-us/. On the website, you will also see the dates for our open door days and info about the process for those of you who might be interested to join the project.

We hope you will all have a great transition to spring, and maybe we’ll meet in 2020, maybe another time!

With love,

The Eotopia family 

Dear friends!

Fall has passed and winter has arrived, and with that a natural slowing down of the pace. Yes, we have been busy here at Eotopia since the last newsletter in August. It is not always easy to practice a life of a slower pace when there are so many motivating things happening around us, so many interesting people that are coming to visit us and so many projects we want to be involved in! But that is why winter is here, to remind us to also take time to relax and put some of our projects on hold – while other projects, such as lactofermentations, little inside construction works and strengthening our social bonds take over. 

The drought this summer was tough for us and for our garden. Our well dried out early in summer and not a lot of our vegetables were able to survive the lack of water. At some point, however, we noticed one particular part of our garden that seemed to be flourishing with flowers, seeds and vegetables. This was around our newly created phytopurification system. The system, as we had designed it, had not survived a week of drought with very few residents (and little water flow) which actually just meant that the greywater from the house now became more available to the plants and vegetables we had planted around the spot. This gave hope in the middle of the drought and we have spent many hours on planning and redesigning other parts of our garden to have more water retention, to harvest and store more rainwater and to release this when needed, next summer. In the midst of this tough period, it gave hope to see just how adaptable nature is when we work together with her! We also held a little ceremony to welcome water on our land – and we have definitely not been missing water since then..! 

During the long dry period, Loona and Thor managed to put up their yurt, which they have bought second hand. Recently, they also finished their poelito, a little rocket mass stove, and they can now pass winter with comfort! The pallet cabin of Ben, Yazmin and Ada has also moved well forward and is now ready to be covered with clay when the spring comes, very exciting as well. We are very grateful for all the help we’ve had moving these construction projects forward! The common house has also seen some changes, we have made a quiet office space upstairs and we have moved a bit forward with creating a yoga/music/contemplation room next to this – this room has already housed its first concert with our very own Elsa Fôret! However, with the arrival of winter and the departure of the cats with Vincent and Juliette we currently have a bit of a discussion with the rats living in the house, and we don’t seem to agree on the standard of tidiness with the little creatures… Hopefully, and animal communicator can help us on this. 

But this is not all on the house front! Our association, Vert de Terre, is now the owner of two houses! The one we’re living in and now also another one we have acquired in the middle of Cronat. This house used to be a meeting place for the locals, a place where you could have your coffee while reading the newspaper or chatting with your neighbours. Our aim is to make this place a space for welcoming people from near or far, for cyclists needing a stop on their way through the Eurovelo 6, for locals to come and hang out, take part in a workshop or sharing in other ways, for visitors to sleep over and for many other things. But we have also promised each other to take it slow with this project, because we do still have many other things we would like to progress on around and in our current living space!

And one final note for all those of you who have already contacted us or are considering contacting us for a visit: We really hope to be able to find ways of meeting you all! We will continue our open door days in 2020 as well as our different visit periods. Please check back here on our website and/or on our Facebook page in February for news and specifics regarding this. 

Until then, and to all of you out there, we wish you a pleasant, peaceful and harmonious winter with time for reflections and introspections whenever needed!

With love,

The Eotopia family

Hello dear friends from all over the world,

We haven’t given so many news in the last months, yet things have happened in Eotopia! Between the garden, the preparation of the festival, the construction of a hut in palette, the implementation of our system of phytopurification, the redefinition of our visions, missions and objectives and all the endless meetings that go with it, difficult to take a step back on what we are experiencing.

Fortunately, summer has suddenly settled in, and with him great warmth that invites us to spend a good part of the day in the house, cooler. We take advantage of it to take a well deserved rest!

The garden is flourishing… it is rotting under the more or less desired plants and the drought that is coming is not the most reassuring. Our methods are suitable enough, semi-shaded cultivation, consistent mulching, invasive wild flora… we hope however that there will be some storms from time to time to water all this!

Yazmin, Ada and Benjamin’s pallet hut is progressing well, the roof is laid, all that remains is to fill all this with straw soaked in dab. We look forward to welcome our volunteers for our participative construction! The yourts of Elsa and Liri are already settled into the forest. We thanks our visitors friend for helping us bulding this chaming inhabitat for our new residents!

The pytoepuration pond is off to a good start, it’s a big step!

The Eofest went very well, magical moments shared by a little more than seventy participants and we are already looking forward to organising the next one. We let you make an idea by consulting the photos on this album: link.

But the big news is the reorganisation of the Eotopia project, which is taking place gradually and augurs great things, thanks in large part to our brand new residents, Elsa, Liri, Thor and Loona!  Together, we have taken each pillar and redefined it, rewritten our vision, redefined our personal and collective goals, and refined aspects of our daily lives.

These salutary integrations are contrasted by the rather sudden announcement of the departure of Juliette and Vincent who prefer to change course. This brings us therefore to 8 residents in total including two aged 4 years old. So there’s still room to join us…

On this subject, news there too: we have decided to change our organization of visits to respond on the one hand to the more and more numerous requests and on the other to our constantly changing needs! We are planning open doors so that more people can visit us for a day, we keep 10-day visitation periods and we open up the possibility of hosting 1 or 2 people for a longer period if there is consent! We would also like to open the space to thematic meetings in collaborative self-management. Please consult the page of our website during August to see the updates on this subject

We wish you beautiful sunny days, shade, plenty of water and beautiful harvests!

With love,

The Eotopia family