France
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18/05/2022
This Spring, we are proposing a COLLECTIVE love-studies research EXPLORATORIUM through working HOLISTICALLY (with heads, hearts, and hands) on the study of Love - through the lens of FIRE.
If you’d like to come and co-author a book exploring Love through studying and fostering Fire.
This is classic eco-sustainable cooperative construction volunteering ... but on a whole different level. We're all here to learn together.
La SOURCE Center for Research & Création is the first international & interdisciplinary center for Love-Studies research. That's right - Love. We are trying to understand love, on 3 precise levels - inner-connective (love within), inter-connective (love between ourselves and others), and eco-connective (love for/with our environment).
Okay! More about this Spring:
WHAT is Holistic Research?
“Holistic research” engages the head, the heart, & the hands; by bringing all three together (insight, connection & experience), we can build something greater than knowledge -> we can cultivate WISDOM.
...and WHAT are we building?
This is an intensive, immersive, and collective Holistic Research Exploratorium resulting in the publication of a Co-Created Book investigating LOVE as it can be understood through fostering FIRE - in active research with:
our hands (physically & experientially),
our hearts (intuitively & relationally), and
our heads (analytically & symbolically).
...and WHY fire?
Fire is the primordial gathering place - what better subject could we choose to begin our adventure into collective Love- Studies Research?
Since the beginning, people have come together around the fire for warmth, nourishment, storytelling, song, and for light in the darkness. After the Winter Solstice on December 21, the darkest day of the year, the light will slowly begin to come back. Let’s welcome the light together, and learn more about Love through sharing space with Fire.
Why Collective Construction?
Aside from the great satisfaction of watching the fruits of shared labor ripen into visible form - collective construction provides a ground for many important love-learning opportunities:
skill-sharing, cultivating patience, communication, dedication, creativity, resilience, group problem solving, and much more.
As a methodology of research, spending time to create spaces that will hold and harness fire creates an opportunity to intimately understand the needs, behavior, and generosity of fire.
Love is deep, intangible and vast.
Fire is immediate, physical and concrete -
but it is also symbolic.
Constructing homes for fire creates a bridge, a concrete circumstance for asking larger questions about love through fire’s intricate world of qualities & associations, for example:
Does love purify and transform in the same way fire does?
Fire needs oxygen and fuel to thrive; it breathes and eats - How does love breathe and what does love eat?
Fire is dangerous if uncontained - is love? Fire creates and destroys - what does love create and destroy? What do fire and love evoke for you?
...and WHO is this for?
8 - 10 RESEARCHERS =
[4 coordinators] + [4 - 6 collective research participants]
...and WHO are we looking for?
Any gender, age, & origin; diverse backgrounds, skills & talents; varied beliefs, practices & experiences …
with a strong sense of respect, curiosity, openness, and an intense enjoyment in cooperative construction, connection & reflection.
...and WHERE does this happen?
...and WHEN?
Spring 2022
Block 1 - Sunday Jan. 30 - Saturday Feb. 19
Block 2 - Sunday Mar. 6 - Saturday Mar. 26
Block 3 - Sunday Apr. 3 - Saturday Apr. 23
Participants will be accepted for only one block.
Selection begins December 21, 2021
APPLY as soon as possible to ensure a space is still available.
Art Projects
Help with Eco Projects
Teaching
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
Farmstay help
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
We are a bilingual project (English and French). We have a big focus on sustainability and ecological harmony (without sacrificing comfort, style, and enjoyment). The area is remarkably beautiful and wild. We have river-bathing on-property, as well as ocean and lake swimming nearby. Several small cities and many beautiful villages to explore. We are quite an internationally influenced group who have traveled the world and engaged in many forms of inner and outer seeking... jungian archetypal analysis, taoism, the red path (and earth-traditions or 'shamanism'), zen meditation, body-friendly wellness, poetry, art, music, great and healthy food.... we are deeply engaged in seeing and understanding ourselves, in creative expression and also enjoyment of this miraculous gift of life.
We are diverse. And we want to keep it that way. This is a no-dogma zone, where all beliefs, faiths, paths, values are received with curiosity and honored with the best of our capacity.
WORKING with our HANDS:
Cooperative Construction Projects
(20 hours/ week) on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings from 8am - 1pm
Projects include:
• Building an outdoor wood-fired kitchen (with bread/pizza cob-oven, rocket stoves, mass-heater, etc.)
• Creating a fire-circle space for story-telling, music-making, and sun-gazing
• Installing a wood-fired sauna & botanical fire bath
...all for collective use.
… as well as other smaller, ongoing tasks & projects to support our human, animal, vegetal (and mineral!) community members.
CONNECTING with our HEARTS:
via tuning-circles, heartstorming sessions, workshops & collective practices (proposed by both coordinators & participants).
REFLECTING with our HEADS:
through collective brainstorming sessions, spontaneous interviews, & independent individual inquiry - always returning to the subject of Love, with Fire as our guide and teacher -> all resulting in a co-created book on Love as Fire, slated to be published before the end of Summer 2022.
Participants will have at least two full days and two additional afternoons completely off and unscheduled each week to make space for excursions, relaxation, and reconnection to nature or oneself. Exact workdays & times may fluctuate based on weather conditions.
Additionally, participants are asked to assist with the daily life of the community - we all cook 1 collective dinner a week and assist in the cleanliness of shared spaces.
English: Fluent
French: Fluent
We have a variety of housing/rooms available - it will depend on your time of arrival and the duration of your stay. We have 3 units with two bedrooms and 1 bath; a large share-house with 6 bedrooms and 3 baths; and eventually 4 dome-homes with eco-showers/compost toilets. We have a small swimming pool, and about 11 acres of land/forest/field/valley with a couple of small streams. We also have goats, chickens and geese.
We're providing enough food for 3 meals/day.
The food we provide is vegan except for eggs and honey we source from places where we know no arm is caused to animals.
The kitchen is vegetarian - i.d. you can cook in the kitchen and eat in the house if you're using dairy products, but you have to cook and eat outside around our barbecue area if you want to have meat, fish or seafood.
We're in a great location for day-trips.
10 minutes to Les Monts d'Arrée
15 minutes to the Lake of Drennec (3 hours hike)
15 minutes to the city of Morlaix (& TGV train station)
25 minutes to the beaches of Carentec
30 minutes to BES (Brest-Bretagne) airport
35 minutes to the village of Roscoff
45 minutes to the city of Brest
1 hour to the city of Quimper
2 hours to the city of Rennes
3 hours to the city of Nantes
3 hours & 30 minutes (by train) to Paris
6 hours to Plymouth, UK (by ferryboat)
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
We've got plenty of space for parking - and options, too! Closer to shared life, or with more privacy; with ease of access to facilities or with more expansive views of nature... up to you to choose.
Case by case basis - and all animals must remain outdoors (or in camping cars), though we are happy to help build/create shelters for them. Horses and donkeys are easily welcome (as we have stables and facilities for them).
More than two
5 hours a day/5 days a week
