A community at Paradiso Integrale – co-creating the future by caring for Nature

Since spring 2020 we live in really weird times. We are kept in fear of a virus which is said to kill exponentially. There is no evidence for that, but it becomes ever more clear that the amount of people impacted by the restrictions will be huge. Being imprisoned in a flat creates severe psychological damage, losing one’s job or business is likely to push people into poverty. What is when, some day, they cannot afford food? What is when there is no food available because of broken transport chains or lack of production? What, if the money you have cannot buy anything anymore?

In times of crisis it becomes ever more important to come together and support each other in many ways. Living in the countryside offers relief from the impression of being imprisoned in 4 walls. We can move freely on our grounds and strengthen our immune system by breathing fresh air and by exposure to the sun. Here we have the possibility to grow food, also in moments when the supermarkets are empty. With a solar impiant on the roof we can create electricity and don’t risk that the content of our freezer gets bad. With adjacent  wood we have the possibility to heat our flat and to cook our food on open fire in case we run out of gas. And we have the possibility to share our thoughts and to support each other at any time, psychologically and practically.

I created my “Paradiso Integrale” as a meeting place for people, where we live together and grow together. During 35 years I have welcomed hundreds of people, friends or friends of friends, volunteers and many other people with whom I got in touch for one reason or another. They came here for a day, a week, a month and some of them for several months or even a year. It was a joy to meet people with whom I could “klick”, and with others with whom I didn’t, I was glad when they left. In any case, I learned a lot from them. Especially the negative experiences taught me very much about the human condition, about the psychological structures of people, about their worldviews and degree of maturity and about their ways of handling their lives and being in the world. No University could have taught me as much about the human psyche as all those people have in all these years.

When my husband Mark died, with whom I had shared a flat in the compound, I started to feel the need of people around me with similar interests and with a mindset which would match mine in the sense that fruitful conversations would be possible. I have people on my list with whom I would love to live here, but they are bound to other places by family relations. So I started to spread the word in order to find those who would love to live immersed in nature, to take actively care for the land, to cooperate with the food production and other necessary tasks in such a setting – and who are willing to live in a loose community in mutual respect and support and who are willing to grow and navigate joy and conflict in a constructive way.

At this moment (February 2021) I am looking for a couple and/or a few single people for this project to join me and Alessio, my “adopted son”, here. If you feel inspired, please connect with me, so we can get to know each other first online, later in person if we find out that it “klicks”. I am looking forward to meeting you – in one way or another.

Holidays in Paradiso Integral in Umbria, Italy