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Ecology

The land comes first, and it gets the last word.

adam rozanski via Pexels

Pillar 02 of ten

We are looking for land, and when we find it we will be its guests before we are its owners. Ecology is not a theme on the programme. It is the ground the programme stands on, and the reason to leave every acre better than we found it.

The land sets the limits

How many people, how much sound, how much light at night, where the paths go, which corners stay untouched: the land decides. Before anything is built we walk it through four seasons, learn where the water goes, where the birds nest, where the ground is fragile. Then we design around that, not over it.

Regenerative, not just sustainable

Sustainable means not making it worse. We want more than that. Food forests and gardens that feed the kitchen. Water caught, slowed and stored. Soil built with compost from our own kitchen and toilets. Native trees planted every year by the people who come, so that in a decade the land holds more life than when we arrived.

Cupped hands holding dark soil with a young green seedling Atlantic Ambience via Pexels

Built light, built to disappear

Structures on the land are simple, natural in material, and built so they could be taken away. Timber, canvas, earth, stone. No concrete slab poured where a meadow was. If in twenty years the land has to go back to itself, it should be able to.

The people learn from the land

Every stay includes time working with the land: planting, composting, building, harvesting. Not as a chore but as the most direct way to understand where you are. Children lead a good part of this, because they ask the questions adults have stopped asking.

In short

Ecology, in four lines

  • The land sets the limits: number of people, sound, light, paths, untouched corners.
  • Regenerative rather than merely sustainable: the land should hold more life every year.
  • Structures are light, natural and removable.
  • Working with the land is part of every stay, and the children lead a good part of it.

Words we use

Questions

What does regenerative mean on Spiritual Land?
That the land gains life while we are on it: more soil, more water held, more trees, more birds. Every year should be measurably better for the land than the year before, and we will keep those measurements public.
Will there be permanent buildings?
Some simple ones, built from natural materials in a way that they could be removed. No concrete poured over meadow, no structure the land could not recover from.
How will you handle waste and water?
Compost toilets, a kitchen that composts everything it can, water caught from roofs and slowed in the landscape, no chemicals in the ground. These are decided before the first gathering, not after.

Longer read

Ecology first: regenerative land, permaculture, and leaving it betterThe land comes first and gets the last word: four seasons of walking before building, food forests, water slowed and stored, and a yearly count that must go up. What makes land right for a sacred placeWater, forest and meadow, real dark, room, reachability, neighbours, light building rights, a price the circle can carry. The search criteria and the reasoning.
All tenThe pillars

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