I would like to try to summarize what my experience here at Gaia has been by first answering a few questions: How can I translate, in a simple way, what the Gaia Terra project is about to those who don't know it? What was my path during my time as a volunteer? What was my dream when I came to Gaia? What do I take home with me now that I'm leaving soon?

I'll start by giving a little information about myself first.
A few things. I had many ideas and many representations, the absence of a clear vision of my purpose as a person, the vague idea of ​​becoming a French teacher abroad, a master's degree in progress to finish, some experience in helping migrants in France, the awareness of having been a student for long enough, perhaps even -too- long, but also that of having been a dancer or improviser, even there perhaps too long, and, finally, the awareness of having been, throughout my life, a walker perhaps a little lost who always tries to decide between which streets to choose to go between her favorite imaginary continents, that is, an avenue that immediately led to the sense of rights and being responsible and the other, the avenue of pleasure and freedom. Today I still travel between these two parallel avenues.

I then arrived at Gaia through the help of all these accumulated experiences. At this point in my story, having an experience ESC so it was for me in some way an excuse to continue to search for myself by having experiences of a new kind. So I had no expectations about what this place should have been, or what could have happened, on the contrary, I came to Gaia rather with my own list of my habits, attitudes and patterns to observe, study and perhaps dismantle.

 

 

How to translate in the simplest way possible what the Gaia Earth Project is about?

Starting from its history, Gaia Terra, before becoming an ecovillage where the regenerative waters of the Stella river flow, was a brick kiln and then a light carpentry company, located in Flambruzzo, Udine, which closed its business in 2011. Five years later, in 2017, the building was bought by Debora Sbaiz, founder of the project with the idea of ​​creating a community there with this phrase as its motto: “light on the planet”, a philosophy that serves as a vehicle for the residents of the project.
In truth, what should be said about Gaia first of all is that the project occupies many different roles, from a 'home', which a few residents, 6 at the moment, and many volunteers, have chosen to live and share together, to a place where somatic, artistic, and communicative practices coexist, or even a dynamic platform where exchanges, events, workshops, residences, or courses take place, where any type of person would be welcomed from the moment they ask themselves what their impact on the planet is.
If you ever get the crazy idea to one day crash through Gaia's gate, here's what you might find: the "gulo towel" or "asciugaculo", invented to no longer exploit trees at all costs in order to produce paper; the "fervida", which is the cultivation of probiotic bacteria through the use of fermentation, which solves problems ranging from nutrition to cleaning spaces; a dry toilet, whose job of collecting the community's feces and urine is wonderfully well done, but there would also be, to please the most curious, a "food forest", an orchard, and a vegetable garden cultivated with the Fukuoka method of permaculture among the main things. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the type of activities that take place there.
The ecovillage, therefore, in order to grow and continue to invent itself, experiments, fails, and observes itself, while also celebrating, feting or thanking every type of experience or walker for what it brings it.

 

 

So what was my volunteering journey at Gaia Terra like?
When I arrived at Gaia Terra in early May, I was intrigued by the idea of ​​meeting myself in contact with a new environmental and social context while I was about to finish a cycle of studies that was supposed to end with the writing of a thesis. The idea of ​​starting a project that was going to involve me in Italy for a long period was also compelling for me. So until September my time was divided into two parts: the first part was to discover the various rhythms, possibilities, and activities that this reality could offer, in which I tasted experiences of all kinds, from improvising as a baker for the community, something I had never done before, to sowing in the natural garden, or even drilling wooden beams for the construction of a future, no longer so hypothetical, dormitory; the second part of my experience was to introduce times dedicated to writing in other time slots of my day, which resulted in success. I graduated in September in France, I went around a bit, met friends, and thus passed the first chapter of my journey as ESC. From September onwards, the pressure of the exam fell away, every moment spent at Gaia simply had more flavor and it seemed to me that the moment had become appropriate to connect more and more deeply with people and situations. I certainly enjoyed my time experiencing more things and not settling into a fixed routine.

What was my dream when I crossed Gaia's door?
My dream then, if I can call it that, was, and still is, to be able to inhabit the world with more awareness of my responsibility as a person with respect to current issues related to our attitude on planet Earth, asking myself: what am I missing? What experience? What diploma? What opportunity am I missing to take the issues that have to do with my humanity more to heart in today's time? To answer those questions, I chose to volunteer at Gaia Terra.

What I take home from my experience ESC reached at an end?

Surely some moment crossed through theESC has helped give my journey a touch of the extraordinary: I am very grateful for my participation in July at the RIVE gathering (network
(Italian ecovillage). While I was in Gaia I also got to know other realities that enriched my perception and conception of what could or could not be considered an ecovillage:
in Meraki, in Emilia Romania, a place where the RIVE also took place, or in Torri Superiore, in Liguria, considered one of the first ecovillage realities in Italy but also in Europe. These places
they gave me a better idea of ​​what it could mean in words and actions to move towards a positive, responsible but also pleasant impact on this planet. In addition to these two extensions of my direct experience with Gaia, I certainly take home the sense that something important has just happened there for me. Perhaps the approach to a light awareness that I belong
me too somewhere in the specific as in absolute, but in a way that is less and less abstract and made easier to reach, and the active practice of being grateful for what I have knowing the potential that every small gesture can have to reveal the abundant affection felt for what surrounds me.

Finally, I think my attitude is wrapped around the words of this song by Ben Mazué, famous, but especially in France:

 

The fate is a poem

Destiny is a novel

With death as an emblem

Why every moment counts

 

Fate is a poem

Destiny is a novel

With death as an emblem

Because every moment counts

 

Aurore Berger or Swan Oury