To be or not to be (confined)

​These times of confinement leaves us with quite some time to reflect on what really matters. As we Suderbynians exchange with friends and family stuck in apartments in the city, we realize that we are not equal when it comes to this situation. Living in community and living with the land, a situation easily perceived as a burden and a sacrifice through mainstream lenses, appears now as a privilege and a luxury - but a very basic and necessary one.
Our daily lives barely changed, even though many of our planned interactions with the outer world, such as translocal projects, meetings, events etc. got canceled, postponed or disturbed, thus creating a lot of uncertainty for our future.
Yet, we still have the sea, a few kilometers away, the forest and our own garden, allowing us to be with Nature, to be Nature. This is a precious source of psychological, social and practical resilience of which many are deprived on a daily basis, even without lockdown. And we have each other: being surrounded by 20ish people with whom you can meet, play, work, talk, cook, live and love brings a lot of necessary magic and power in the everyday life.
These are not just ''nice things''. These two core aspects of ecovillage life, natural life and community life, can now shine in their truth, as many people start to wonder, sitting on their castle of toilet paper: ''Maybe this hippie stuff is not that dumb after all...''
 
Being in Nature and access to community - whatever forms they take - are more than universal human rights. They are the basic requirements for the proper functioning of our physical, emotional and societal bodies. It's the very stuff we were brought to live for: meaningful lives with and for each other, celebrating the nurturing life force of trees, elements, animals and lands that hold us alive.
By doing so, just living this simple, magical, imperfect way, we can naturally respect the boundaries of our Mothership, without forcing and sacrificing anything.
 
Maybe, instead of talking about climate change as an external event that we need to fight against, we could start to respect ourselves as a species and think about serving our true deep basic needs?
 
#SuderbynEcovillage #Permaculture #AllYouNeedIsLife