Today, I‘m treating you to a fascinating and inspiring guest article from Stella in La Palma, Canary Islands. She’s also offering an opportunity to experience sustainable living in this beautiful part of the world.

Finca Luna

Finca Luna

 

Stella writes:

I love getting Sally’s newsletter not just because there’s always something fresh and useful in it for me but also because I love being reminded that I´m a ‘downshifter’ ! I’m enjoying my life tremendously through making the large set of decisions that implies. One of the things I keep enjoying is that it’s an endless deciding and constant challenging of my own ways of thinking, because one of the choices I made was to be coherent with my values, to cultivate integrity and that in itself is enormously rewarding.

Living in a way that isn’t expected or supported by the dominant culture, I am constantly pushed to seeing its contradictions, its oppressive mechanisms, its killer-tactics… and invariably I realise how much of those I still carry inside me, in my thinking patterns. Not pretty, often, and occasionally quite difficult because it isn´t exactly a ticket to popularity (even amongst my ‘alternative’ colleagues!) when I choose to bring these things up to others’ attention but always interesting and very stimulating, emotionally and intellectually. I love growing like this.

I’ve never had what you might call a very conventional or consumerist life, certainly not as an adult: perhaps whist growing up I did experience what I would now call luxury, but also realised early on that happiness and having comfort and things did not necessarily come together: if anything the things distracted one from living peacefully and from contentment (there is always ’something more’ to want!).

A permaculture course I took in London in 1994 was a turning-point for me when, at age 28 and after a decades of much searching and restlessness in trying to reconcile employment and social activism (not to mention art and science, ethics and enjoyment, etc.), the whole thing came together in the clear and coherent picture offered by the very holistic science-with-a-plan that is permaculture design.

I set up an urban permaculture charity (www.finca-luna.com/GA ) with a few close friends and within a year we had funding to do a series of inter-connected urban regeneration projects which were something of a predecessor of what is now known as the Transition Towns Movement (transitiontowns.org). The best job I ever had, it was especially a thrill to create ethical, well-paid, satisfying jobs for a number of other people (12 p/t jobs in total over 6 years), and much training resource for our many volunteers and later permaculture course students. I lived and worked in South London, cycled to our damp office in a park (a rundown ‘folly’ we reclaimed), lived on very little materially but had the chance to buy a mortgage and so I did (this is what later became the funds for the farm – Finca – I now live in).

This was hardly a yuppie lifestyle and when I decided to come to live in La Palma, in the Canary Islands, I was downshifting from that. I actually arrived to the Island for a sabbatical, thinking of spending 3 months here to cure the workaholic streak I had gotten myself into with the permaculture charity and then go back to my beloved London. Instead I ended up falling in love with the place, doing a big and painful growing-up spurt with the help of the beauty, peace and strong energy the Island is famous for, and at the same time was presented with an awesome choice. I was offered a great job in London, working for the then largest inner-city regeneration project (the perfect career move for me at the time, great money, in the place where I had all my friends, contacts, roots…). In La Palma I was offered a gardening job for no pay but in exchange for food and accommodation: no job security, in a country where I still didn´t speak the language, knew no people and was very far from home. It was ironic and very interesting to be faced with this choice.

And it came down to this in the end: what price can I put on fresh air, picking my food from the earth and the silence and great beauty of an unspoilt landscape where crime is virtually unknown? The hardest thing was deciding to start again with creating a local friendship-net, but I am blessed with solid friends I truly feel are with me wherever I go, and they have been there through it all, to this day. It was a big jump into the unknown, but in some ways I was very safe: I made no big investments, took no irreversible decisions (apart from letting go that one dream-job in London), involved no partner or children … and decided to observe and enjoy the process.

But it was only once I had made a real commitment to this land (to give my best to the Island, not just take), that I think the land opened her arms to me: I met and married a wonderful local man with a lovely big, warm extended family and after 6 years of renting a large farm, I found a nearby smaller farm I could buy, a very beautiful place already set up with fruiting trees, many almonds and fertile terrace gardens, with stunning views of the ocean: a little bit of paradise. And eventually I created a job I love that involves travelling to many places to teach something I am very passionate about, and which also creates eco-employment for others.

So ten years and many adventures later, hard as some trials have been on the way, I can truly say I never once regretted that decision to jump. My biggest problem now is figuring out how to reconcile my deep contentment with so much suffering in the world. And I do this by working towards social change in any direction that I can, mainly through teaching permaculture (the most recent development is being asked to do a monthly radio programme on this) and using our farm as a ’sustainablity playground’ for people taking their first steps in trying out this lifestyle: open air, socially committed work, very low-consumption living.

To this end we are now also offering shares in the Finca, both because we realise we would love to share Finca Luna (the blessings, the work and the opportunities) with others, and also because we wish to facilitate the transition to a lifestyle that an increasing number of people realise they want (and that we believe is beneficial to society and the planet) by offering this ’start small’ chance: instead of buying a whole finca (something many people can’t afford anyhow) and do the transition alone, you can share the work and the experience of others on the same path.

The shares information is up on the association’s wiki:

http://gaiatasiri.pbwiki.com/shares

 and Finca Luna’s designs book is up here:

www.fincalunawiki.pbwiki.com
(It’s in Spanish, but if you want a rough translation you can use the Babelfish button in the menu)