Castel Mundo Lessons
By: Floris Koot
Tags: Social Change, Ecovillage, Community Building, Leadership, Castel Mundo

Would you like to live in a place like this, with great friends and committed people?

Castel Mundo Lessons

On building a community from scratch

Somewhere in 2017 I posted on facebook, half jokingly, a call for people who’d love to start a community in Italy with me. The reason being that the Italian government was giving 200 abandoned villages and castles away to initiatives that would bring them back to life. Way too many people shouted their support for the plan, to let me it end there. To move forward I had to take it seriously. So here I was last weekend, with about 12 people (flu and family matters taking out at the least 6 more at the last moment), some leaving early, others coming late, to grow a community around the idea. Here’s the lessons/insights we came up with, that I’d like to share with you.

The village project is called “Castel Mundo”, castle of the world. This has two meanings. One: “The planet is a spaceship and we are all crew.” Planet earth is a fragile bubble of life within a lot of empty space. And two: every community is a miniature of the whole human society. Thus we are both a mirror of and to the whole. Our ‘castle’ hopes to become a beacon and safe haven. Here’s what we are learning and spoke about...

A community is a dialogue, a dance of possibility.

There’s a dance between freedom and direction. If there’s no direction, people get lost. If it’s all direction people start feeling imprisoned. The field needs a bedding through holding the space. And within this space there should be the freedom. For instance during the weekend some participants went to a party nearby and returned deep in the night, feeling like they came home.

The journey is as essential as the goal or purpose. If you build a community, be a village right from the start. And that’s very different from a workshop, business, project or a movement. Because when you grow a community the way you build it will set the tone, of what people experience as ‘the way it works here’. That’s also why we included a lot of game play in the weekend. You get to know people better, when they play and fluidity in roles is easier.

And when people don’t like that ‘way’, they’ll leave when they’ll feel that way can’t be discussed. So open dialogue and room to criticize as important too. At the same time, there’s a dance between what’s spoken about and having too long meeting discussing everything. The trick is also to follow a personal and collective inner compass towards the goal of having an actual living village.

There was also already a request towards me to show even less leadership. I may have been a firestarter, I may have organised the location and handled spending, but a voice from the group framed it a bit like: “Floris, when you let go of holding all the ropes, you help us, becoming a community that shares that responsibility.” And indeed, I may have taken the initiative, but if I want it to be a living community, I shouldn’t run it as a project leader. :)

So the dance of community is also one between my personal ideas and those of everyone else. From this dance the collective one rises. And rather than try to control outcomes (political mindset) I should dance and feel. Because the others have shown beautiful ideas, experiences too, that deeply deserve to be integrated or even be leading. Like, I’m not an expert in ecological mindsets, but I do know for the future of our planet all communities need to have it.

It’s a dance between dreaming and doing. Lack of either one, or either group and nothing (new) gets accomplished. We discussed how to attract more doers, without losing the dreamers. A solution might be to integrate work projects with social projects that will help the doers in their actions.

In the end it’s all about: how can we make it work together? This is about simple things as one person bringing a dog and another being allergic to it. Or from having vegans in the group and others still preferring meat. I loved seeing this solved in goodhearted dialogue without setting rules. We rather invented the principles that would help guide us through such exchanges.

Principles for the community

These are principles mentioned during the weekend. Principles, other than rules, are a guidance to live by. I’m sure they’ll evolve as we go along.

Leave things better behind than you found them. This goes from cleaning up your garbage, making things more beautiful all the way to leaving nature and people flourishing more, not less, after your presence. A regenerative ecological design of and relation with the environment is essential for this.

If you see a job it’s yours. People have a Right of Initiative, or even Interference when they feel something needs to be done. It also prevents complaining, without taking responsibility.

Stay open towards criticisms. The more you are convinced of your ideology or ideas, you need others to help you see flaws, add tweaks or help you see blind spots.

Bring in your practical experience and or insights. Make sure that your contributions are rooted in reality. Refrain from just voicing opinions based on hearsay or opinionated news sources.

We win, when everybody wins. We flourish, when the whole flourishes and everyone senses they can fly. And everyone understands that the way they fly must be supportive of the whole. Like a artist shining on stage can touch a whole audience or a cook can enchant all who come to eat.

Picture by Nick van Breda, Castel Mundo Weekend in the Netherlands

The, very rough, plan

To settle in an abandoned village and turn it into a living community is a long term plan. We still may not even end up in a village in Italy. During the weekend we discussed many options, wishes, needs. From nomadic income (no fixed location?), creating a self sufficient economy with different rules than profit driven (at the cost of others), flourishing by being healing for inhabitants and visitors alike, while not damaging nature any further, but rather sprout more of it. It all came down on one main direction: becoming one more living alternative that shows the world it can be done.

Since the village must also, according to the Italian regulations, have a hotel function we hope to become an ecological, artistic location that offers bed&breakfast, workshops, retreats for social activists, small festivals with a twist and be part of the maker revolution. Come help (re)build camps for volunteers will help make the reduce costs, and increase community building. Thus we must become attractive to visit and at the same time have enough quiet times to comfortably live.

For village structure we are considering a two weekly meeting in the village center, starting with a song about what we all need to know. A council of wise ones, including bright children and balanced elders, will offer reflections on behaviors, culture and visible aspects that need attention. This is about strengthening the shared sense about what needs to be done. It’s less about shared decision making. We rather felt trying out letting people act autonomously on what they feel the can and must do. For this we chose to grow not bigger than 150 people, as science suggest the biggest group our biology feels comfortable with. Below this number we can see everyone as family. Above this number too easily others become dehumanized beings that can be treated as pawns. And exactly that has created these cultures of crony capitalism, destruction of nature and self serving consumerism that acts aggressively against those that question it, let alone closes it eyes to the real cost.

Investigations on economy, leadership, decision making.

Thus we seek new forms of leadership. How to decide together, in a way that support the idea of “thriving as a whole will benefit all”? We seek new forms of economy, where working for the whole has more benefits than self enrichment. We do not believe the lie that if we all take care of self, it will balance out. Most people are not build for that game. It has become an excuse for theft at the cost of people and planet. And as the world is full of experiments around this, we are sure to keep our eyes open and perhaps even contribute ideas of our own.

We seek new forms of decision making, like deep democracy, where diversity of balanced insights outclass triggered anxieties, that can easily be played by others. We seek to keep playing with ways to do this, rather than conform around settled customs. Because staying open for experiment keeps you awake. And we, all those in the weekend loved awake (woke) people, who consciously consider their role, play, contributions. Aspects such as safety, mutual recognition, snuggling and hugging are seen as human, heartwarming and enriching, but they are not the goal. Putting such in the center would easily make us create a safe self confirming bubble, blind to new developments. The core of us is made up by people who prefer a conscious community that wants to learn, grow, thrive and contribute to solutions towards a thriving, healthy planet and free peoples. I can only go ‘wow’ feeling just that. The journey seeking to make this happen is as valuable as the goal. I’m grateful for all those who joined the journey and brought in their awareness, experiences and gifts.

On a road less travelled, Castel Mundo Weekend. Picture by Mieke Marianne

Thank you so much: Coco, Nick, Jolanda, Jolanda K, Ivar, Mieke, Maartje, Marike, Lex, Luc, Greald, Mark and all others involved in the initiative, but who couldn’t make it for this weekend. I hope you find ideas are reflected too within this blogpost. Thank you also Jocelyne, Dirk, Anouschka, Malcolm, Anne, Gilles, Kai, Coen, and people I may have overlooked, for being there for the start. Let’s flourish and fly. :)

Link to the Castel Mundo Home group on facebook. There’s not yet a website.

Ties also in to this post from/about the Learning Society network.