Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Eco-Village; First Impressions

I've arrived in Northern Scotland at Findhorn Village to complete 2 masters classes on sustainable development. Findhorn is an amazing laboratory of what works and doesn't work environmentally, economically and socially in an eco-village.
Today we had a brief introduction to the park as well as tour of some of the houses and explanation of the history. Lunch- a purely vegeratiran affiar made by people in the community, cleaned by people in the community, sourced by vegetables from the parks
farm- was deilcious. After lunch, one brings one plate up to the counter where cooked food and raw food are deposited in separate bins for composting, silver is separated and plates are stacked.
I am sharing a bungalow called with 3 other students from the course. Though I am impressed with the level of environmental awareness and desire to create change through the build environment-0 I am a bit skeptical of the spiritual elements. Before every meal- and in fact every activity- we "attune". We hold hands, calm ourselves and try to immerse ourselves in our task before starting. I wonder how my attitude to this will develop over the next few weeks.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Yeah -- I aslo wonder how you will adjust to being "attune" to your new environment