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Note that the up-to date project is described on www.8thLife.net, as it has evolved by co-designing with all others who became involved after launching the vision described below, in the summer of 2010.
So on this page here you can just see how it all started, a daring vision inspired by a challenge called "Best Idea for Humanity Project" (which now seems to have disappeared from the web?).
The location of Finca Luna is perfect for a small eco-village, as it is surrounded by mostly empty buildings with the other 'bits' of the old farm. All basic infrastructure is already here, it's a kind of 'abandoned village' that is waiting to be re-populated.So really it will be an eco-village whether we do something or not (eventually the surrounding properties will be brought up and such close rural neighbors invariably help each other), but what if we 'accelerate this natural succession'? And try to find integral permaculture designers to buy these lands, quicker?
So we played the idea for a while, but I only really got a big inspiration to do something wonderful with this in July 2010, and the inspiration came in the form of 8th Life.
8thLife: Exploring the Fractals of a Sustainable Humanity, part of the 4yrsGo initiative
So this is how it started..
21 jul 2010
THIS IS the first DRAFT from that date,
now the project site is at 8thlife.net
image: The Infinite Eight by David Friedman
http://www.kosmic-kabbalah.com
8th Life is a study & educational adventure in an Inclusive Aware Community - working on the regeneration of EcoSystems at the human level & the environmental level.
This project tackles the question: How do we heal the wounds of world? How do we heal, simultaneously, all wounds, all wars: within ourselves, between people, amongst nations, & in the environment?
We already have good working models & transformative technologies for this, and they work best within communities: living & working together, as close to Nature as possible. We need to deeply understand, test and improve and especially share widely, and quickly, these models and technologies, on the ground.
8th Life aims to be an optimal piece of that ground.
In an Inclusive Aware Community we can do the powerful transformational work that restores the self-regulating abilities for EcoSystems to heal & for our consciousness to evolve.
We will experiment, teach & learn how to work with models, methods & tools that turn problems into interesting challenges. As we work together to find solutions we liberate & expand all minds.
Starting with a core of 8 adventurous people, over 8 years - supported by an eclectic team of 80 experts - we develop a beautiful forest garden farm, an effective working team & a new intentional community,
on the site of it's 8year pilot project,
located on one of the smallest of the 8 Canary Islands.
The open-ended adventure is followed in real-time, via Internet, by 800 Advanced Students and 8000 Student Spectators, creating interactive layers of pioneering real-life TV edu-tainment, rapidly expanding access & understanding of the most important new sciences in existence for this, the 8th generation of the Industrial Revolution, an era whose great gifts and contradictions we now are called, urgently, to resolve.
This project is offered as a real-life, replicable model & sustainability lab to all people who care for the environment and are interested in accelerating our conscious evolution, effectively caring for future generations & all other species of this Beautiful Planet.
image: The Tree of Life by David Friedman
The fractal trees in this poster represent the Sefirot of the kabbalistic Tree of Life. Fractals are forms that are self-similar on different scales. How many trees are here?
There are eighteen complete trees in the three larger wheels. Eighteen is the gematria (number value) of the Hebrew word for Life - Chai.
But there are even smaller wheels, hinting that this fractal process of reproduction and self-similarity can be continued endlessly inward. And there is also the suggestion of even larger trees continuing endlessly outward.
You can also see this poster as just the cross-section of of one giant tree. The three wheels (containing eighteen complete trees) can thus represent the three generations of life that we are primarily embedded in - grandparents, parents and children.
The Tree of Life contains all the generations, but we can only know a small 'slice' of it. The Hebrew word for wheel, galgal, is similar to the word for reincarnation,gilgul, and the word for age, gil.
Intro Stella, promoter of the Project
Intro Stella, promoter of the Project
I'm a PermaCulture Designer, Teacher and Activist, you can see my CV and full profile here - http://permacultureinstitute.pbworks.com/Stella
Doing a two week PermaCulture Design course (the science of sustainability) in 1994, aged 28, was a big milestone for me, in that I felt empowered to start joyfully inventing and creating, together with my friends, the new society structures that would get rid of the injustices I so keenly felt, from early childhood, plagued every level of our world, and which I protested against as an adolescent and young adult. Around the same time I also had the great fortune to find, be welcomed in (and then continuously challenged into expanding my awareness by) the Re-evaluation Co-counselling community.
On my Permaculture Institute profile you can see the rest of the story: for the last 16years I've been discovering, creating, studying, puzzling, and especially experimenting with permaculture projects, large and small, enjoying myself a lot but also encountering ever new frustrations and fascinating horizons to explore, and new models to apply, on the road to a sustainable humanity, able to live in harmony with the planet and all species, especially it's own.
8th Life, the project I present here, is the culmination of the last 8years of focused and intensive action-learning in small permaculture community, and a synthesis of all that I have studied, learned and experienced so far. This is a tremendously exciting and ambitious next step for me which this course-competition has contributed to 'gel' and made seem actually possible.
The Best Idea for Humanity Project has allowed me to dare to imagine that we could, together, actually get this crazily ambitious project to fly. 8th Life is something I know can contribute greatly to changing the world for the better.
Thanks, truly, from the bottom of my heart, for being so imaginative, so generous and focused in creating such a valuable expansion-tool for all of us.
With much love and appreciation, Stella
image: The Tree of Life by David Friedman
http://www.kosmic-kabbalah.com
Fractals are forms that are self-similar on different scales - like the nine-branched trees in this poster.
Notice how the branches of each fractal tree are similar to the shape of the Hebrew letter Shin. The letter Shin, which is comprised of three vertical lines, represents Fire or transcendence.
Transcendence has to do with growth and evolution. Look at the smallest tree and see how it is just a 'baby' sapling. As it grows, it transcends its previous limitations and becomes twice as large.
As this tree continues to mature, it transcends its limitations and grows twice its size again. As it grows further, it transcends itself again, and again, and again. But notice that all of the previous stages of development are included in the composite structure of the largest tree.
This is also true of human beings. As we grow and evolve in consciousness from egocentric Chaos to ethnocentric Torah to worldcentric Messianic awareness, we should transcend the limitations of the previous levels, but we should always include these less-inclusive states of being in the composite nature of our fully mature and integrated kosmic consciousness.
18 jul 2010
NOTE THIS IS an old DRAFT ONLY
you can see the up to date project on
with thanks to
Nuccia Zanesi for her mentoring, pacience with me and her fierce love for clarity
David Friedman for permission to use his beautiful kaballistic art
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