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25 Apr 2024
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Description
Our non-profit yoga organization was founded from a deep yearning to share the message of the Heart with ever more people. At our centers, we share non-dual yogic teachings formally—via silent meditation retreats, yoga courses, and workshops—and informally—through daily life in a vibrant community of people dedicated to living with an Open Heart. In this way, we help those searching for meaning discover their inner Self and experience the love, self-confidence, freedom, and joy of a life lived from the Heart.
Our center is located on a quiet hill of Beaujolais Vert. With almost 10 hectares of land, the center is made of a 1902 castle and a more modern building with rooms for our guests, 5 yoga halls, a professional kitchen cooking vegan food, 3 permaculture gardens, a fruit forest, all of it surrounded by pine forests and grassland. We offer a year-round program of silent meditation retreats, yoga modules, workshops, volunteering, and drop-in meditations and Hatha Yoga classes. Our active community life includes such activities as bhajans (devotional singing), ecstatic dance, and movie nights.
What makes visiting our center special is the opportunity to be among others with the aspiration to bring daily life into spirituality. Our community members radiate openness, kindness, authenticity, an attitude of service, and enthusiasm. We actively live with an Open Heart and welcome everyone who wants to learn to do the same. We warmly invite you to join us!
Types of help and learning opportunities
Help with Eco Projects
Gardening
General Maintenance
UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
Joining our community is a great way to explore or deepen the practice of yoga and meditation. There are usually around 45 community members (including experiences yoga and meditation teachers) and 40-100 students depending on the season with whom you can connect. We have daily meditation and hatha yoga that you can join. We offer monthly silent meditation retreats and long yoga retreats.
Help
We are looking for support in the permaculture department. Reach out if any of these areas sound appealing to you and match your skills.
Herbalism
We are harvesting herbs and flowers from the wild and from our permaculture gardens and transforming them into herbal teas, tinctures and other products to offer to our community and guests. This year we are building a solar dryer to scale up our production in a sustainable way. We are providing the kitchen and the café with flowers and aromatics to spice up their offerings.
Landscaping and caretaking
We are developing our 10ha property into an oasis of natural beauty and biodiversity. We are installing gardens with (edible ) ornamental perennials in several areas around the castle and on a recent extension of the land. We wish to build more wooden practice decks, install land art, and improve the paths on the property.
Vegetable and flower gardens
Our current vegetable gardens are managed according to permaculture principles, creating a living soil and highly nutritious vegetables and herbs. This year we’ll extend the vegetable gardens, install a big greenhouse and extend the water harvesting and irrigation system. We will also start with a flower garden to bring beauty to the land and provide cut flowers for the altars and ceremonies.
Food forests and nursery
We are installing and maintaining food forests on the property. We run a little nursery to propagate plants and manage the previously installed food forest according to syntropic farming principles. In the fall we’ll extend the orchard and plant edible hedges.
Please only apply if you have passion, experience and preferably training in permaculture as we already have a vibrant community of 30 volunteers and a dozen of employees to take care of our main activities.
Languages spoken
German: Fluent
English: Fluent
Spanish: Fluent
French: Fluent
Accommodation
You will get a bed in a shared dorm. All beddings and towels are provided. We have a dedicated building for our employees and volunteers right by the castle. Two healthy vegan meals per day are served in our communal kitchen and breakfast is also offered in a self-service mode. All meals are buffet-style and we also have a kitchen for volunteers where you can cook your own food as well if you wish.
What else ...
Our center is located in Saint-Just-d'Avray, a small village in Beaujolais Vert, just 45 minutes from Lyon by train and one hour by car. We have several bigger towns with organic shops and restaurants within 30min drive, and you can explore the Jura, Alps and Massif Central in less than 2-hour drive, and the South of France is just 3 to 4 hours away. You will find walks, trails, forests and rivers all around the center.
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Space for parking camper vans
We have some spots for campervans, however a bed in a shared dorm will be provided.
Can possibly accept pets
We cannot accept pets.
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
Hours expected
Maximum 5 hours a day, 5 days a week
