Attending ECCO (Encuentro Continental de Comunidades or “Continental Gathering of Communities”), was an immersion in Latin American Ecovillage culture. It transformed me in many ways. The most profound though, relates to children!
A long time ago, I made a conscious decision that I don’t want to have kids, I never regretted that decision. My current lifestyle as a traveler, dancer, Tantra practitioner and mostly grownup activities had excluded infants and children from my path for a while now. I occasionally spend time with family children but they’re typically not more than 2 at a time. So you can imagine my culture shock when I spent 2 weeks with at least 10 kids under the age of 10 running around in the countryside of Argentina.
In my imagination, kids are tiny loose cannons; they do unexpected messy things that need a lot of time and work to rectify. In my experience at ECCO, that is all true. Kids poop, vomit, stick their dirty hands in communal food, wreak havoc and constantly make loud noises. AND, they’re also very cute, spontaneous and adorable. Not exactly like cats, but sometimes close.
Children in Ecovillages enjoy great levels of freedom, trust and love that I rarely see in cities. Infants as young as 3 or 4 years old go up to any adult nearby and ask for whatever they need at the moment. I was very grateful for that because I was able to have conversations in Spanish with kids. It signifies a fluency and comfort level with the language that I hadn’t enjoyed before. Kids run around, often naked, and play freely in Nature. Garden tools and sharp objects are typically laying around yet no one forbids them from touching this or avoiding that. They learn by example and gain the intrinsic knowledge somatically and organically without force, panic or confinement. Just like baby monkeys or any other beings learn. Very refreshing to see.
All the spaces, including workshops, meetings and circles welcome children, including their interruptive behavior at any time. They are fully integrated in the community and not segregated by age, gender or any other arbitrary label. The children, therefore, gain a lot of skills organically and joyfully. Most of all, living close to Nature; climbing trees, covered in mud, playing in the sand, jumping in puddles of water, running around naked and enjoying the tactile sensations of the natural world around them. Very different from the sterile life of the cities. In the 2 weeks, I didn’t see 1 kid with any kind of electronic device.
This brought back beautiful memories of my childhood in Egypt and how we (my relatives and I) enjoyed a similar kind of village life, even though we lived in the city suburbs. All the adults were trusted to provide for us. Adults felt safe to interact and play with children. There was plenty of love to go around. It pains me to see children today afraid of adults, adults afraid of touching children and way too much fear, separation and power over imprinted in children. No wonder our world is getting more violent with too many physical and mental health crises.
Nature is the Goddess and she has all the answers. Let’s go back to our roots; living in small communities in harmony with Nature and all living beings.
“We all come from the Goddess
And to her we shall return
Like a drop of rain
Flowing to the ocean”
(if you don’t know this song, I recommend searching for it online and listening to it)
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Unconditional Love 