Author: Amy Leonard

Sweden

For my first stop I am volunteering at an Eco retreat in Sweden (www.greenstones.se), and have been here for 11 days so far.

Guests
stay in yurts: round tent-like rooms which are super insulated and
energy efficient. There are 4 sleep-in yurts, a group yurt for
workshops, a beautiful heated pool and sauna yurt, and a little massage
yurt.

Greenstones is a very pure place, on a gorgeous
crystallised rocky island surrounded by clear water. I feel very
grounded here, and, alongside ecology, I have found myself learning and
thinking a lot more about people and spirituality than I had
anticipated.

As a reiki practitioner, I am interested in energies
and what makes up the ‘feel’ of a space. Due to the yurts being round,
there are no angles and corners to hold negative or stagnant energy, so
the positive spiritual energy in them can be quite powerful. I gave a
reiki treatment in one of the yurts a few days ago and I really noticed
how strong the energy is in the round spaces. Some of the workshops and
courses they run here are focused around Daoism and other spiritual
practices.

For my first few days here It was a very
busy weekend as we were hosting 21 people for a workshop centred around
the concept of ‘inner transition’. Many of the people who took part are
members of the transition towns movement in Sweden, and are ecological
activists. The workshop was designed to encourage people to take a step
back from constant outward action, and give space for them to address
their inward personal issues / questions / anxieties / strengths, in
relationship to their activities. It was about the strength of the
individual as part of a wider movement, and remembering not to lose
that.

It was great to spend my first few days of workaway
surrounded by lots of people who are making positive ecological changes.
I mainly helped with preparing food and drink, for group meals and FIKA
breaks (great Swedish word for coffee cake and chat!), and got to know
the two lovely ladies doing the catering, Eleanor and Yvonne, who I had a
great laugh with.

I was lucky enough to spend lots of time with the leader of the workshop, facilitator and coach Debbie Warrener (www.catalysingchangeagents.com),
who is not only really fun to be around, but also an inspiration to me
in her work and lifestyle. It’s great to meet people who help me to
understand the sort of career positions that could be open to me in the
future. I have a degree in Fine Art, and briefly set up and directed a
not-for-profit arts and music project last year (www.confluenceproject.co.uk).
This means I have some project/events management experience, as well as
skills in directing discussions and dialogues. Meeting people like
Debbie helps me to visualise ways in which I can use these leadership
and organisational skills in a professional way one day – I have ideas
about an ecology and art education project. Working as a freelancer can
be unpredictable, but it also gives you the freedom to dictate your own
agenda, and work true to your principles, which is something that I
would like to aim for.

One workshop attendant, Stephen Hinton,
another person directly involved in making positive changes, had a chat
with me about the Eco collective he founded near Stockholm. The project
began 9 years ago, and is now a fully functioning and semi-self
sufficient home space for him and (I think about 10) other people. It
was great to talk to him and get a bit of an idea about how these type
of projects can be started up and successfully managed. There is lots of
interesting information about sustainable futures on his website: www.stephenhinton.org

So
far at Greenstones my main activity and task is to turn over all the
land in the veggie garden ready for planting. We’ve sown some seeds in
the greenhouse, and it’s been good to work directly with the earth. The
chickens and ducks like to come and help me when I’m digging, and it’s
nice to get to know them too! The animals are really important in the
garden because they help with keeping the soil fertile by scratching up
the ground, providing natural fertiliser!, and pest control (ducks eat
slugs and slug eggs).

Almost everything is recycled here, it’s
popular in Sweden in general. All of the food waste, tea bags, coffee
granules and organic matter is turned into compost to keep the garden
healthy, and we take all the plastics, metals, glass and papers to local
recycling banks. They are on grid, and get their energy from a green
energy supplier. The heating system for the hot water, radiators, and
indoor heated pool is managed on site- it is a highly efficient wood
furnace, intricately hooked up to three high tech water containers which
self regulate and are generally pretty snazzy. The drinking water is
pumped from a well, and all the grey water gets naturally cleaned by
running through 5 interconnected gravel bottomed ponds before running
completely clean into the fields. The ponds provide habitat for
wildlife, and reduce the need for masses of pipes or grid water cleaning
systems. The water would be reusable as drinking water, only for the
fact that, because Greenstones has a lot of guests, it’s not guaranteed
that everybody uses fully biodegradable cosmetics and soaps.

It’s
great to learn a little about these systems and add to my
Eco-knowledge! I would like to go and work somewhere where they are only
just starting up, so I can get a real hands on experience and education
of planning and installing buildings and utilities. I’m sure I will see
many different stages of construction at different places on my trip.

Introduction

Like many others, I have recently become concerned about and engaged
in questioning our ecological impacts on the planet. I feel passionately
that lots needs to change in order to sustain healthy life, natural
habitats, and functioning societies. Alongside this, I have started to
think a lot about politics, and the general structure of society in
relation to consumerism, wealth, commodities, lifestyle choices, etc. My
questions have been accelerated by the fact that there is a general
election in Britain in a couple of days (I have voted by post! Green, if
you’re interested), and there is a strong potential for great change in
the near future. It seems to me that a lot of people are starting to
question the current ‘norms’, particularly under the Conservative
government, and potentially realise that things could be a lot better in
many ways.

One major thing I have thought a bit about is local
economies, and wealth distribution within them. I believe that weak
local economies are, amongst other problems (including rising tax, lack
of jobs, etc), due to local wealth being frequently distributed into the
wrong places. Places which take wealth away from the local community
and feed it to the already rich (think major supermarkets and chain
coffee shops). This style of consumerism equates to a rise in the wealth
of big companies, and a decline in money circulating in local
businesses, and therefore the local community. About a year ago,
concerned by the realisation that many societies are (in SOME major
ways) literally fuelling their own downfall, I began to make my own
small changes by shopping a lot from local independent traders, (and
feeling great when I see the owners in the local pub in the evening,
circulating their profits in the local economy. Yes, I am using the word
local a lot on purpose!).

The second major thing I found myself
questioning, as I mentioned at the beginning, is society’s impact on the
environment. The ways in which a lot of these major supermarkets and
chain shops source and ship their products is completely unsustainable.
For example, food is grown on the other side of the world, using methods
which deplete the soil and ensure that seeds can’t be used for
planting. They are breeding chemical-filled plants, that can’t
germinate, on purpose. They are shipping food thousands of miles, using
up (irresponsibly sourced- fracking?!) finite resources, when a lot of
it can easily be grown locally. It is insanity. And this is just one
tiny example of the sorts of problems modern societal habits are
creating and continuously contributing to. Not only is there a major
economic problem happening here, but also an environmental one.

Recently,
these concerns have made me really think about the type of lifestyle I
want to lead. I don’t want to contribute to structures that I see as
potentially disastrous for the economies and the environment. I have
quickly realised that I want to work towards a semi-self sufficient
lifestyle, to break away from some of the things I disagree with
politically, and to do my bit to minimise ecological damage. I am sure
there is no other option. Burying heads in the sand and ploughing on
towards destruction isn’t going to be possible for much longer. I hope
that by beginning my journey now at the age of 22, I am setting myself
up to live a much more comfortable, happy, and rewarding life.

To equip myself with the knowledge needed to pursue a more ecologically sound life style, I decided to organise a trip (via www.workaway.info) to learn about ecology, Eco-building, and Permaculture.

This blog will document my experiences and the things I learn on my trip, which I began last week.