Liminal Village

Today we leave Liminal Village, heading towards Frankfurt to host a workshop for a client. Liminal was the first real stop on our tour. I'm glad we came here first. I'm leaving inspired, with new friends, and a sense that we contributed something useful. 

We're at the border between North and South Italy, in the mountains overlooking the Adriatic. There's something in the air here that reminds me of Catalunya: I mean that every collaborative project is connected to a handful more, and they’re connected to more in turn, spreading out in a thin layer in all directions like the mycelium mat that holds the forest together. 

To get a sense of the Liminal Village project, it’s worth watching this 5 minute video to see their epic vision for a regenerative global network of interdependent hubs. In this short blog though, I’m going to just give you my impressions of the place after a short visit.​​

Liminal Village is a family home for Laura, Roberto, Elea, and soon a new baby. Plus some medium-term residents. Plus a new cohort of temporary community arriving at each new moon. It's a space for people who are working on transformative projects to connect, exchange and learn from each other.

It’s also a prototype for a more ecological way of living, mixing low and high tech: biological water filtration, syntropic farming, solar powered electric tractor, computer controlled farming robot, etc. All of that is super nice. But there are 2 dimensions of this project that really grab my attention. 

First is the personal aspect. They suggest that on a really good day you’ll spend some time working on global issues, some time contributing locally, and some time working on your own personal practices. Could be journaling, meditation, therapy, yoga, reconnecting with your parents, hiking, whatever. This is a kind of peaceful, long-term activism that includes the activist in the social systems that need to change. It's not about simply looking outwards, pointing at all the dysfunctional systems, injustice, and waste “out there” in the world. But you keep returning attention inwards, cultivating self-awareness, deepening your understanding of your own habitual behaviours and patterns. 

As far as I’m concerned, this is a non-negotiable requirement for any long term collaboration to succeed. We have had so much training in the logic of individualism, with its competition, selfishness and duplicity, that it takes some deep inquiry and gentle sustained attention to really see how were contributing to the very problems we're most concerned with solving. And in this patient compassionate posture, it's possible to grow into new behaviour patterns, to come out of the domination/submission pattern and develop the habits of partnership. Respect, consideration, consent, non-coercion, listening, care, contribution, boundary-balancing, communication... all these skills and attitudes can be cultivated. In fact they seem to arise spontaneously when you surround yourself with the right company. 

So that was the 1st aspect that won me over: these are “techy” people with a genuine commitment to personal work. The 2nd aspect that inspired me is the network of local projects they’re contributing to. The Liminal Village property here is impressive, but it’s privately owned; the ecotech projects developing here are contained within a small parcel of land. What’s more impressive to me is the extended family of related projects. 

First up, the kindergarten. During lockdown, a group of parents started a renegade kindy, organised around Steiner principles, so their kids could play unmasked. It's recently come "above board", legally incorporating as an association and making itself visible to the local municipality. The kids meet in a beautiful yurt, crowdfunded by the community. It's situated on land borrowed from one of the families. Everyone worked together to clear an old disused patch of vineyard to create a safe space for the kids to play. At the site there are 30 families visiting nearly every day, so life can't help but accumulate there. Like the veggie box scheme that’s organised out of the carpark: it’s the easiest place to coordinate drop offs & pick-ups. Get some zucchini with your ragazzi.

The kindergarten is a hub in a network that has no outer limit. There's a brick factory for more ambitious local production, like 3D-printed houses and DIY wind-turbines. There's an olive oil producers’ coop. A wine coop. Yesterday we were deep in conversation and suddenly Roberto rose out of his seat, jumped up to meet the man who just walked past the kitchen window. Came back into the house 5 minutes later with two wheels of sheep’s cheese and a freshly slaughtered lamb (I mean the whole carcass: skinned and gutted, but very much a lamb still). The dude had been grazing his sheep on their land and this gift was his reciprocity. I can see his place from where I’m sitting here writing now. Next time we need meat or cheese, we can just walk over to him to buy it. 

To some people reading this, what I’m describing is the most obvious, the most natural and normal way of living. It’s really nothing to comment on. This is basically the life I grew up in: a happy family, looking after a block of land while being civically engaged, participating in a limitless network of collaboration, reciprocity & purpose.

But I also know plenty of people for whom this story will sound like a fairy tale, like paradise. The blend of informal & formal groups, of friendly exchange & commercial trade. The network of favours. The coordination of increasingly ambitious shared projects that benefit all participants. These are the foundational building blocks of mutualism. This is what families, communities, and towns are made of, anywhere in the world.

So I have this weird experience of double vision, knowing that utopia is completely normal for some of us. It’s just not evenly distributed.  I gotta say though it's a real treat to sit here and watch it at its live growing edge, bursting forth with the enthusiasm of spring.

You are reading Wandering Lucky, a blog from Rich & Nati sharing stories from our life on the road in Lucky the motorhome. We’re looking for introductions & invitations for other places to visit in Europe, other groups like Liminal Village who combine a local focus with global concerns. Communes, maker spaces, eco-villages, community hubs, free schools, cooperatives... They’re all working on different missions, but aligned in how they organise: participatory, non-coercive, mutualistic, generosity of spirit, curiosity of self. These groups are not fighting against an old reality, they're having too much fun building the new.