Coming to Light to Heal

We choose to put our energy at the service of LIFE and the New World that awaits us

Choosing to embody great dreams comes with great challenges

As we slow down, following the rhythm that Nature invites us to embrace in this winter season, we have closed a year of much movement with gratitude and wise decisions, a year in which we have had to hold many group processes related to the New Age, the power "over," patriarchy, and capitalism—things we want to leave behind but that continue to infiltrate projects for the New Humanity like IKI-GAIA.

We all intend to co-create a new world, a place that meets our needs and desires. Yet, unexpected challenges arise, and since we are not prepared… difficulties emerge. Strong challenges will keep confronting us until we bravely shed that inheritance we carry automatically. Until we find a way to sustain ourselves on this path with empathy, humility, kindness, and mutual support. Until we are ready.

A year in which, despite facing intense difficulties in finding strategies that meet everyone's needs and vision, we organized open-door events every month, seminars and family camps with the Shchetinin methodology, three worldschooling programs for families that brought us valuable learning, courses and workshops on syntropic agriculture, cooking, and fermentation, our first "Experience Week," Nonviolent Communication (NVC) courses, seminars on council practices, conflict mediation, and more. We planted over 60 fruit trees, grew many vegetables, created a windbreak syntropic line with hundreds of shrubs, plants, and trees, harvested and fermented numerous vegetables, and built a chicken coop.

A year in which we did not succumb to the pressure to give up or sell out because some people wanted to leave for various reasons (as happens in most projects during the first two years) and wanted their money back immediately. Instead, we kept co-creating the world we want to see with VALUES, coherence, and integrity!

We don't see things as they ARE but as WE ARE

A year where, above all, we kept building positively and with trust, moving away from fear, enjoying every stage, with an intention to grow and overcome obstacles, loving every challenge and every challenger. For all of them bring us learning and, most importantly, an opportunity for inner recognition and growth. Compassion (including for oneself) is the force that drives and sustains us.

Where there is much LIGHT, there is also much DARKNESS

We continue to grow and seek the "right tools" to navigate the path and overcome obstacles (mostly related to the infamous "HFP": human factor problem) as we embark on something as revolutionary and necessary as co-creating a Biotope of Healing-Action outside the capitalist system.

Our Nonviolent Communication training is the KEY—a small but significant contribution to the process of "looking within," understanding conflicts (inevitable in communal living), and deepening self-connection and connection with others.

NVC, an essential part of our individual and group development program Permaneser and a requirement for membership in the project, gives us opportunities to grow by becoming aware of the needs behind words and actions. Often, these are driven by insecurity, fear, despair, helplessness, and misunderstanding. These valuable needs protect other needs but must be transformed and directed to serve life, creating new strategies that care for the COMMON GOOD while meeting individual needs.

An opportunity to look deeper into the baggage and traumas we carry.

We continue to grow and enjoy the journey

Why? To regenerate and regenerate ourselves on all levels. To cooperate with Mother Gaia in creating abundance for all. To grow a small ecovillage of like-minded people willing to cooperate in these mountains. To repopulate the area by offering jobs. To allow our children and the next seven generations to be born, grow, and thrive in an optimal environment of abundant nature. Above all, with TRUST and in PEACE, while recovering our sovereignties in education, food, energy...

Why? Because it is our ikigai, our purpose in life, our reason for BEING!

And yours? What is it? What can you contribute to this pioneering phase?

A warm and loving embrace from the guardian of IKI-GAIA.
Check our event calendar to see the upcoming activities!!

June 19, 2024October 18, 2024

SYNTROPIC AGRICULTURE AT IKI-GAIA

Syntropic Agriculture, also known as syntropy, is based on an understanding of natural succession practices and the value of biodiversity. Its key is the creation of agricultural systems that simulate native forests.

This system involves growing a wide range of crops, including tall trees, shrubs and vegetables, to form a microclimate suitable for crop growth and to encourage land and ecosystem rehabilitation. It is a particularly intensive form of agroforestry that mimics the establishment of an optimal natural ecosystem such as that of natural virgin forests.

This practice is an alternative to standard soil conservation practices, and has the potential to generate abundant food, revive damaged areas and optimise energy and water absorption.

It is important to understand the basics of plant sociology, soil biology and supporting factors such as mycorrhizae and other biostimulants such as humic substances. Its methodology is based on a combination of biology, chemistry, ecology and botany and can be applied on both small and large-scale farms, providing a sustainable solution for rural areas.

While classical agroforestry is often combined with livestock, on the one hand for multiple land use, and on the other hand for direct fertilisation and tillage by the animals, syntrophic agriculture is based purely on the smallest possible cycles of the cultivated land itself. Integrating livestock is possible but not necessary.

This means that trees and shrubs are regularly pruned, grasses are mowed and crop residues are used. Together, this serves as mulch and compost, prevents soil loss from heat, wind or heavy rains, increases microbial activity, regulates weeds and constantly returns nutrients to the soil.

Continuous humus accumulation and permanent root penetration ensures long-term fertility, creates an aerial structure in the soil that maximises WATER holding capacity and contributes to climate stabilisation through massive CO2 storage in the soil.

In the long term, syntropic farming is much less expensive than conventional or organic farming because no inputs are used, irrigation becomes unnecessary and the system is largely self-sufficient. In addition, no large machinery is needed.

The IKI-GAIA project has the great advantage of having a Mediterranean forest redoubt of great landscape and climatic value that has the peculiarity of a humid forest (thanks to the phenomenon of horizontal rain) but that, being in the sunny side (with south, east and west face), enjoys a unique microclimate conducive to the development of endemic species.

The 240 hectares of IKI-GAIA are a true living laboratory of biodiversity and inspiration with a great abundance of exotic birds (Rabilargos, a bird with beautiful blue plumage, an endemism that is usually seen on the southwest Atlantic slope and here exceptionally, Arrendajos, Chaobas piquirrojas (small crow) of Zafarraya, even Oropendolas!!!), wildlife and a very unique exuberant flora.

On the Puerto del Sol estate we find amongst other native trees and shrubs such as hawthorn, rosa canina.... 4 species of the holm oak family, a true redoubt of the typical Mediterranean forest that has almost disappeared...

1) Coscoja (stunted oak or chaparro)

2) Quejigo (normally only found in the Serrania de ronda, sierra de las nieves, grazalema, in Cadiz, and some specimens in casabermeja but only here in the Axarquia😍)

3) Aleppo oak

4) Holm oak

La Loma is a project farm, applying the principles of Permaculture, a revolutionary approach to agriculture and the design of human settlements in harmony with nature.

La Loma Viva is located on 7.5 hectares of terraced farmland at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, on the coast of Granada in southern Spain.

Its vision is to unite Earth Care and People Care by offering a platform for research, practice and learning in Permaculture and personal growth, developing tools to promote the health and resilience of people and places.

La Loma Viva aims to create an environment where people and plants can thrive, where it is possible to learn about all the interconnected manifestations of life and where we can rediscover our inherent participatory relationship with the earth as a living being.

More info: https://www.lalomaviva.com

In our work as consultants, designers, permaculturists, gardeners, horticulturists, anthropologists, facilitators of change... we too often come across a fundamental deficit: LACK OF A BROAD, HOLISTIC AND SYSTEMIC VISION OF AGRICULTURAL, HUMAN AND LANDSCAPE PROJECTS.

What is the strategy, are the objectives compatible with the geographical and climatic location, are we really colonisers when we want to think of ourselves as ‘indigenous’, and do we see ourselves as ‘indigenous’?
Do we see ourselves and the environment or do we reproduce a civilising introject against the ecosystems?

In the course on syntropic agriculture we will learn how to read landscapes and analyse the principles and tools of design, philosophy and cultural prejudices in our decision making from a systemic point of view.

The first agricultural course in Malaga, which we were able to hold in an explosive natural environment with a Mediterranean forest of gall oaks and centenary holm oaks, took place in June 2024.

The programme we have prepared for the weekend of the 29th and 30th of June is full of impulses and opportunities to integrate an arsenal of good practices, as well as very wise advice, which you can apply to your own project and your life from now on.

Through the planned theory and practice sessions you will gain a more holistic understanding of landscape reading, fundamental to be able to introduce small interventions and improvements in our living and working environments, and take responsibility for our important role as project designers and cohabitators of the great Gaia Being, Mother Earth.

This time the course will be in Spanish, but we will be able to translate simultaneously into English or German.

Click here to see the detailed programme

Robert is a member of Al-Khadra Granada regenerativa and a farmer, consultant, educator, conflict mediator, political scientist and philosopher. He has lived for 12 years in Gualchos, a small village in the lower Alpujarra of Granada. He was born in Germany and spent his childhood in the woods. After some academic studies, his hands asked him to touch the earth again. Robert tries to observe, listen and learn in order to sow seeds, ideas and projects.

In his journey he has had the good fortune to share the path with great masters and tragozars in Germany, Belgium, France, Portugal, Brazil and Spain. In Gualchos she has been collaborating for the last decade with the foundation La Loma Viva. On this beautiful farm he started 7 years ago a path towards Syntropic Agriculture with a series of consultations and courses with Ernst Götsch, the inventor and pioneer of this method and philosophy.

Robert was Ernst's interpreter and assisted in the preparation, development and follow-up of the courses and experimental crops. These cultures were amplified with courses by Dayana Andrade and Felipe Pasini, co-creators of Life in Syntropy. And then with courses given by Karen de Vries, Ryan Botha and Felipe Amato of TERRA network.
Previously Robert had known and practiced agroecology in a subtropical climate with Mestre Nildo and environmental education in Lençois, Bahia, Brazil. And in the temperate climate of Brittany, France according to the principles of Pierre Rabhi.

In Spain he learnt permaculture with Alex Kruger and Dor Havkin. A holistic vision which has been guiding him ever since. Thanks to Darren and Linda Doherty he is enthusiastic about Regenerative Agriculture. He is deeply inspired by Agroecology, Permaculture, Natural, Regenerative and Syntropic Agriculture. Robert organised and facilitated a series of workshops with Al-Khadra Regenerative Pomegranate on several farms in the province.

He is also a consultant to members of the association and feels the joy of cultivating and reforesting together with friends.

With Rakel and Sergio he shares a vision of the possible, the present and the future. And a great desire to learn, meet and co-create with you.

Ernst Götsch is not only a grower and researcher, but also a pioneer in the field of Syntropic Agriculture who has dedicated his life to the advancement of sustainable agriculture. Born in 1948 in Switzerland, Götsch has more than three decades of experience in reclaiming depleted land through his imaginative Syntropic Farming techniques.

His innovative approach, Syntropic Agriculture, integrates food production with the natural regeneration of forests to create sustainable agricultural ecosystems. His work has taken him to various parts of the world, but he is primarily based in Brazil, where he has had the opportunity to create a model of sustainable agriculture that has motivated farmers around the world.

His approach unites food creation with the recovery of characteristic timberlands. Through this methodology, he has had the option to build biological farming systems that replicate the structure and capacity of regular forests. These biological systems are designed to amplify vitality based on sunlight and water uptake, and to restore degraded land while producing abundant food.

One of the key points of Götsch's Syntropic Agriculture is its emphasis on accelerating common forms of progression to create a self-sufficient framework that relies on characteristic procedures to create biomass, increase soil richness and restore biodiversity.

More info: https://agendagotsch.com/en/

Besides being a mother, anthropologist, journalist, vegan cook, social permaculturist, educator in sustainability and accompanist/guide in the Schetinin holistic pedagogy and model, facilitator in the design of ecovillages and processes tending to the development of the New Humanity, Rakel feels like a free soul and traveller.

After living in many corners of the planet investigating other ways of cohabiting and cultivating the land, and getting to know other cultures, tribes, communities and ecovillages in 4 continents, she decided to return close to her place of origin (Malaga) to grow her food and continue learning about water management to contribute to the process of counteracting the pressing desertification she saw in the south, co-creating what she calls a HEALING-Biotope.

IKI-GAIA, the project under construction of ecovillage + School of Life from the basis of Permaculture (projected for children and the next 7 generations) + HEALING-Biotope located on a beautiful land of 240 hectares in the Axarquia region of Malaga with springs, oak and gall oak forests and a flora and fauna of great value is her great life project, the result of a life dedicated to the service of a Greater Common Good.

Through techniques of Water Retention in Landscapes such as those applied in Tamera (where she was trained), the vision is to increase biodiversity, reforest with native trees such as yews, Spanish firs, stone pines... and food forests in parts of the farm (where the bioclimatic campsite, the educational complex of Schetinin, the Adventure Park...) to renaturalise the area (rewilding project).

To practice, encourage and promote permaculture and regeneration of the planet, the holistic development of the BEING, as well as the recovery of sovereignty in the areas of food, health, energy and, with special emphasis, in education (to encourage rural repopulation around schools, communities, ecovillages...) as well as to remember the importance of THE RETURN TO THE EARTH in complete ecoheritage, are its ikigai, reason for BEING.

Sergio Pareja Martín (51 years old) has been involved in organic farming for 25 years, the last 8 years helping others in their urban gardens, orchards, vegetable gardens and farms in the design and management of healthy spaces. He has worked in his own plots dedicated to edible forest, in school gardens throughout the Axarquia region, as well as in urban gardens in disadvantaged areas such as Trujillo, Peru. He has also given informative talks on ecology in educational centres in Malaga, has offered advice on popular reforestation in the Montes de Malaga, and has promoted the production, consumption and marketing of organic products in the Axarquia region.

Sergio likes to define himself as an ecoculturist. Combining his knowledge of cooking, agriculture, biology, geology and history, he pursues an integrated vision of ecosystems and the relationship between humans and the environment. Masanobu Fukuoka is his main teacher and inspiration. In 2018 he had the good fortune to meet Ernst Gotsch in person, since when he has been involved in syntropic agriculture.

‘As a young man I was lucky to meet other crazy people like me, who have the dream to heal the landscape (and a bit of the landscape too), they started as my friends and ended up as my teachers. With Juandedios in Algarrobo, Malaga and with Roberto in the shade of Comares, one of the most unique places in the Axarquia, I shared work and above all learning’.

‘My friendship with Robert was born when we found ourselves working in La Loma Viva, in Gualchos in the Lower Alpujarra of Granada, where a beautiful project of syntrophic agriculture is being developed’.

At the moment, Sergio is collaborating in the Monte de Venus project in Cajiz, Malaga; in a reforestation project in the Vega del Júcar, in La Manchuela in Cuenca, with the citizen action group Emergencia Climática Axarquía; his favourite work is the design and conversion of forest gardens, rural and urban home gardens.

We invite you to participate in one of our events, bring a tree and plant it yourself! Check the events calendar for upcoming options.
If you can't come along at the moment, we invite you to make a symbolic donation of at least €25 so that we can buy and plant another tree for IKI-GAIA in your name and your SaLUZ.

All of you who donate at least 50€ will be included in the list of supporters of the project and we will send you, upon request, internal information about the project and the about-right protocol, including extended vision, the 7 KEY IKI-projects and participation models 😉 so that you can be informed of important developments.

We share with you the account of abundance enabled for the IKI-GAIA project in case, instead of donating through the platform, you prefer to make a transfer and you are NACE from NOW to contribute with a donation to this demanding phase.

Beneficiary: Semilla Monte Alegre

ES56 3058 0769 4427 2002 7693

Concept: donation IKI-GAIA + tree + mail (so we can include you in the internal list and keep you informed)

Blessings to all of you who are with the WILL
to contribute to CHANGE

If you feel that this is what your heart is looking for, it is your moment to take the step to create what you believe in and live in a tribe in an ecovillage of children and beings committed to their role of being referents and willing to do individual and group work, or, if you are preparing to take the step to join a project like this in the coming years, we invite you to become a member of our association by clicking here and ask us by mail for more confidential information about the project, so that we can start the process of approaching and agreeing on both sides 😉.

Contributions of all kinds, with the best wishes of prosperity and blessings are very welcome to continue advancing with the materialisation of this replicable model that will soon be able to serve, as contemplated in the vision, to all those who need it in this transitory phase we live in where it is necessary to surf the waves while the civilisational collapse is bottoming out, and a new humanity and a new paradigm emerge with strength and light.

May 25, 2023May 25, 2023

Seminar on water retention in the landscape

Water, the messenger. Water falls, irrigates, flows, infiltrates, is distributed and gives life.

In the seminar on Water Retention in Landscapes that took place from 19-21 May 2023 in the ecovillage project IKI-GAIA, we learned with a group of over 35 attendees how to pacify water and make the best use of this natural resource to generate abundance.

Under the guidance of Daniel Stocker and Seth Thompson, we learned the principles and techniques of water management in landscapes. In addition, we were able to practice what we learned on IKI Gaia's land where we measured, dug and planted an infiltration trench, made clay mounds to see in a small model how different water retention techniques can be applied in the landscape, etc.

Guided water meditations and group dynamics helped us to establish a deep connection with water and with each other and the integration of the 2 hemispheres of the brain to favour a more effective learning (to know more about the techniques of the Schetinin pedagogy that we are bringing to Spain, click here).

This seminar was the 4th Module of the cycle of courses on Permaculture organised by Permaneser, a collective of Permaculture educational projects in the province of Malaga.

We would like to thank all the Permaneseres for this wonderful weekend, full of learning, laughter and water, blessing us from both earth and sky!

March 7, 2023March 7, 2023

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