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TERRA DE LUTZ ECOVILLAGE - OASIS OF LIFE
QUICK FACTS
Where: Renne-le-Château, Occitanie Region
Who: Nancy, Cathy, Michiko, Annie, Cécile, Bernadette, Alain, Thierry, Arthur, Adeline, Grégory, Aurelien,
and Arnaud and Christophe who are undergoing a trial period to become permanent residents
What: An ecovillage hoping to grow to between 25 members who embrace a foundation of spirituality and self-sufficiency.
When: July 10-24
Website: http://terradelutz.org
The Roots: The vision of the Terra de Lutz residents is to create a community where each person lives a life of harmony. Harmony with nature, harmony with one another and harmony within themselves which is reflected not only in their interactions with each other, but also with the physical project usage of sacred architecture based on Fibonacci’s calculations as well as gardening in consciousness.
THE PROJECT
Background: The project began with 7 women who decided to create an ecovillage in the south of France. They all had a desire to live a more spiritually guided life and to have a stronger connection and understanding with nature, community and themselves.
It was sisters Cathy and Nancy who first found the listing of Terra de Lutz on “Le Bon Coin” (a website like Craigslist in the USA) and proposed the idea to their friends. The group purchased the land in August of 2016 from a farmer who had been producing organic cheese with his dairy goats and cows since 1972. In addition the records showed that the grounds had always been cultivated with organic practices and had never seen the use of pesticides nor fertilizer applications.
When the group arrived, they fell in love with the red earth contrasting magnificently with the white rock formations and the spiritual magnetism of the site and surrounding areas.
They quickly found more people to join their community bringing their number to 13, drawn to the community’s emphasis on spiritual consciousness and each bringing with them their passions, life experiences and energy in cooking, ecoconstruction, Chinese medicine, carpentry, architecture, computer programming, cultural traditions, mechanics, electricity, event planning, accounting, finance, dance, theater, entrepreneurship, etc.
Spirituality and Mysteries: The area of and surrounding the ancient village of Rennes-le-Château is known internationally for its legends, unexplained phenomenon and conspiracy theories.
There have been many stories of people coming to the area and suddenly becoming rich. The most famous story is that of the Priest Saunière who arrived to the area in the late 1800's, totally broke but then had enough money to rebuild the entire church, abbey, gardens and lookout towers in the village . Although some have declared that Sauniere was in fact just a conman, many people still to this day arrive hunting the treasures that could be that of the Visigoths, the Cathars (‘The Good Men’) and others. Many believe the treasures are hidden in the hill underneath the village or in the surrounding fields as there are limestone caves all around the area.
On the other hand, there are also a great number of people drawn to the area for its spiritual legends. One example that Rennes-le-Château is thought to have been the last place Mary Magdalene lived and where she died. In addition there is Bugarach Mountain which has been inverted, meaning soil samples show that the oldest layers of sediment are at the top of the mountain rather than the bottom. This could be due to geologic 'uplift' given to the shifting of the tectonic plates in the Pyrenees, but others believe it is the site of one of the earth's 7 chakras. Bugarach is also a site like Roswell in the US where there are many reports of UFO activity. These are only a few examples of why it is thought that many people who are spiritually connected are in fact drawn to the area, but feel free to do some research and find out more!
Land/Soil/Water: The property is nestled in a valley bordered by mountains, ‘The Serpent’ rock formation, dry scrubland and forest. It is a total of 57 hectares, with 27 ha of woods (oak, ash, pine, lime and boxwood), __ ha of pasture, and __ ha of scrubland (barberry, juniper, lavender, thistle and thyme). The area is very dry given the warm Mediterranean climate despite the consistent amount of rainfall almost throughout the year (approx 720 mm per year which is the same amount Brittany in the North of France). However, given that the land is a pure red clay and because the rain storms are intense, water is not absorbed by the soil very quickly and it easily flows away.
Therefore, the team has a plan to utilize Key Line Design methods to create a system of holding ponds that will be used to capture the rainwater and snow melt from the River Carla which runs through the property. The Carla River is dry the entire year the snow in the Pyrenees melts. This year that lasted only 3 days! Once the ponds and dams are built, the water will be used to irrigate the gardens, to water the animals, etc. They have one existing well on the property which was just about dry when we arrived.
Agriculture: Terra de Lutz is aiming to be self-sufficient and ‘one with nature’.
Therefore creating gardens using sustainable methods for food, medicinal and material production is a necessity. This winter the residents put a permaculture inspired garden into place to produce food for themselves. Their garden is currently full of zucchini and tomato plants of a very specific variety. They have a friend who is experimenting to breed tomato and zucchinis that will grow well in the harsh Mediterranean climate with a fraction of the water and gave them seeds to test and save as well. The overall agricultural
design for the project includes many small productive, permaculture inspired gardens and food forests, and a Mandala garden (currently under construction) with a small holding pond in the center.
Animals: Almost every member of Terra de Lutz brought with them at least one companion animal and now there are no less than 3 dogs, 4 cats, 6 dwarf goats, 3 horses, 2 donkeys and a small flock of 8 heritage breed hens with one rooster for egg production.
There are many great stories about the animals such as Christophe’s herding dog that is now 18 years old, when Arthur and his partner Adeline decided to conduct a ecovillage tour from Portugal to France on foot taking with them their donkey, dog and goat,
and the rooster who is just learning to crow. Lucky for us he hasn’t figured it out just yet and we were able to sleep past 6:00am ;)
BUILDINGS & ACTIVITIES:
Original Buildings: The site has 2 original building structures which will be renovated in the future as described below. The first (approximately 45x8 meters) is made of stone on the first floor and the second floor has been renovated with brick blocks.
The building was divided in to many different parts including a farmhouse which now holds the communal kitchen, guest bedroom food storage and communal bathroom. Next to that are three other storage rooms (which used to be housing for the goats, cows and farm equipment) and the workshop. The second floor holds the temporary living spaces for 10 of the community members a large living room/indoor meeting space and open office area with a kitchenette. The final room is the old ‘Laiterie’ where the previous farmer would transform milk into yogurt and cheese. Afterward it was renovated into a small single apartment with a living area and small kitchen.
Now the living area is the designated space for WWOOFers and referred
to as the ‘Piano Bar’ as it holds the community’s musical instruments. The kitchen is used for making the community’s soaps and cleaning products, which are made with essential and natural oils and ash.
The second building is an old storage barn of approximately 175m2 located directly across from the main building, also built with a stone base and second level renovated with brick blocks. This building is currently still being used for large material storage and equipment.
Future Design: As mentioned above, the future site design is based on the ‘sacred geometry’ inspired by Fibonacci and the ‘golden spiral’ both in the architecture of the buildings, the buildings’ relation to one another, the site layout of the gardens and agricultural production and their relations to the energetic flows through the property. This is quite a challenge especially given the desire to work with the existing buildings, but Arthur and his friend Pascal have created a wonderful proposed design built with ecomaterials, strawbale insulation, etc. They hope that the plans for the two building renovation projects will be approved by the local authorities in autumn to begin construction in the spring of 2018.
The function of the main 2-story building will be to hold 18 apartments (living/sleeping space, kitchenette, shower and compost toilet between 25m2 and 60m2 each) which will be available for Terra de Lutz residents, guest rooms and a bed and breakfast for tourists.
The old storage barn will be renovated into communal areas and a multifunctional space. It will hold the semi-professional communal kitchen, meeting room on the mezzanine level and a multifunctional area with a stage on the ground floor which will be equipped to hold conferences, concerts, workshops, dinners, etc.
Other spaces the community members hope to create include arts and crafts studios, a wellness studio with a massage parlor and therapeutic consulting office for medicinal herbs and Chinese medicine, and a Japanese Bath/Furo and Tea House
Energy: Currently the community is using solar hot water heaters mounted on the main building. They have already purchased solar panels which they plan to install by the end of this year. The residents also have the intention to install a wind turbine on site. They currently burn wood in the winter for heat, but with the new passive solar design for the buildings, they are hoping to reduce its usage.
SALES
The community has many hopes and visions for the future of Terra de Lutz and the plans they have formed will certainly demand money for materials, labor, machinery, etc. Some of the group members have jobs outside of the community, others are retired but everyone puts a lot of work, love and effort into the day to day tasks and special projects to keep the village moving in the right direction. There have been many ideas of ways to bring in funds for the village, such as holding events (the specialty of Cathy and Nancy), answering to vegetarian catering calls (Bernadette, Nancy, Annie
and Michiko), Chinese medicine and energy healing consultations, naturophy (Gregory, Alain), art and creativity worshop for kids especially (Aurélien) selling Japanese style lacto-fermentation products (Michiko) and selling vegetables and other agricultural products (Arnaud), organizing social permaculture workshops (Cécile), organizing hikes and horse rides in the area (Thierry). In addition there is a large field which has been dedicated to accommodating camping equipped with composting toilets, solar showers and an outdoor kitchen.
WHAT WE’VE BEEN DOING:
We arrived at Terra de Lutz at the beginning of an exciting time for the residents. It was not only the day when two awesome WWOOFers arrived (:D), but also the day they welcomed a group of about 20 people with the Via Brachy organization. Via Brachy’s mission is “to favor community, intercultural dialogue and active citizenship”.
There were 4 subgroups of the organization that came from southern Portugal, Athens Greece, Palermo Sicily; and Toulouse France. The group stayed in the camping area onsite for ten days doing workshops in community building, non-violent communication, exploring local initiatives in the area and participated in 2 hands-on building days for Terra de Lutz. We also shared some dinners and had a movie night as part of the group included a Greek camera crew which created documentaries focused on international cooperative and community initiatives.
Another group also joined us for two days during our stay called AlterTour which included 40 individuals of all ages. AlterTour is an annual noncompetitive bike tour which takes place in France and started over ten years ago.
The tour goes for about two months every summer and participants have the option to just do certain portions of the tour or of course, do the whole thing for the die-hards! AlterTour’s original motivation started with a desire to get the word out about sustainability projects in France, but most specifically organic and alternative farms. Over the years as organic agriculture has become more popular and well-known, the tour has expanded to include a much larger variety of inspirational and alternative initiatives and business from social to energy to economic to solidarity.
We got to participate in many different activities at Terra de Lutz and a lot of it was helping to prepare for the events with Via Brachy and AlterTour; 2 work days, dinners and a concert event for 200 people! Our first task was to work with Arnaud in helping to collect materials for the Mandala Garden. The garden is planned to have 3 concentric rings that surround a small holding pond in the center. The first ring and depression for the holding pond were already completed before we arrived and planted with a wide variety of aromatic plants, sweet corn, zucchini, tomatoes, ground cherries,and lettuce to name a few.
The second ring was already outlined, but we needed to collect the materials for what would be a raised bed. Because there would be two work days in the Mandala Garden (one with Via Brachy, and the second a week later with Via Brachy and AlterTour), it was decided that we would collect as much dead, dry wood as possible and clean certain areas of the forest to enable the volunteers to collect leaves and soil more easily. Arnaud created the Mandala garden following permaculture and hugelkultur techniques. This includes dead and decaying wood placed in a trench as the base layer, which is then covered with soil and rich organic materials to fill in the gaps (such as dry manure from the horse pasture, smaller sticks and dead leaves, wood chips). We also spent some time organizing wood that had been collected for woodchips and passed them through the woodchipper.
With everything ready for the Mandala Garden workday, the third day we spent some time in the kitchen with Cécile, Nancy (who made a lovely vegan parmesan with cashews!) and Michiko who was in the process of lacto-fermenting some vegetables and making koji. Koji is the main base of fermented Japanese food, including miso and sake. In the afternoon we were able to participate in the workshops which included, collecting rocks to create a dam to hold the precious winter rainfall and snowmelt on the property with Thierry,
a cob workshop to finish a small barn for the goats constructed with wooden palets (cob is a mixture of clay, sand, straw and water) with Arthur, a painting project headed by Annie and Bernadette with natural paint made by Cathy, collecting dry manure, leaves and soil for the Mandala Garden with Arnaud, Grégory, Cécile, Aurelien and Christophe and some light construction with Alain all photographed and documented by Nancy.
The day turned out to be a great success and a large amount of progress was made for each project!
After this most of our tasks took us back to the
kitchen to prepare foods for the various dinners and events planned for the second week. We had one night of Party Sushi (sushi rice in bowls with veggies mixed in) with Via Brachy.
We also spent one morning picking Mirabelle plums at a friend’s home and then proceeded to make 15 plum cakes! We helped the head chef Bernadette to make different vegetable spreads (lentil, butternut and hummus), zucchini quiches, carrot salad, desserts including lemon cakes,
coconut fudge brownies, gluten free almond cakes and cut over 40 kilos of potatoes for French fries! Laura also spent a good amount of time in the kitchen with Michiko learning traditional Japanese cooking (sushi maki or veggie rolls) and lacto-fermentation techniques such as making koji and Nukazuke. Michiko came to France from Japan at the age of 26 and was proud and very happy to share her culture and cooking with us!
Wednesday night was a lovely night with good energy, good people, good music, good dancing and of course good food!
Staying at Terra de Lutz was a wonderful and very special experience. The site itself was beautifull but to also be surrounded by the residents who hold spirituality and community so highly despite the learning curve required to create a successful community, was inspirational and enlightening. We wish them great success with their project and can’t wait to come back to visit and see how things progress!
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