sanctuary for connected living
ABOUT
The Nature Sanctuary
The Enchanted Grove is a sanctuary that will be created in southern Sweden. Here we explore the question: what could a world we would rather live in look like? It will be a place where we explore alternative ways of being that are aligned with Charles Eisenstein's more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. In a setting of permaculture gardens and protected forest, we come together to connect with one another and the living world.
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CONNECT. As an ever-evolving little community we’ll weave a web of connection together, creating links between long-term members, brief visitors, and everyone in between. We will work with the soil, share meals, tell stories around the fire, make medicine, have ceremonies, and dance. In our coming together, we rediscover our kinship with each other and all life, what our unique gifts are, and how we each truly belong here on this planet and with one another.
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LEARN. Working with our bodies, minds, and hearts, we will explore traditional nature-based knowledge and practices. We'll explore skills like foraging for wild plants, working with medicinal herbs, basket weaving, archery, natural building, plant dying, spinning, weaving, natural honey bee guardianship, and more!
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RESTORE. Using regenerative practices we'll build an abundant system providing food and other resources for everyone at the sanctuary. Visitors can take what they see and learn to their unique corners of the world to locally introduce holistic ways of working with the Earth. Come explore how you in your own way can help heal soil, create a balanced food-system, support biodiversity, restore a damaged ecosystem or water cycle, and support native forests.
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RESTORE. Using regenerative practices we'll build an abundant system providing food and other resources for everyone at the sanctuary. Visitors can each take what they learned to their unique corners of the world to locally introduce holistic ways of working with the Earth. Come explore how you in your own way can help heal soil, create a balanced food-system, support biodiversity, restore a damaged ecosystem or water cycle, and support native forests.
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REST. Navigating the many demands and stressful narratives that we’re exposed to in our daily lives easily overburdens us. The Enchanted Grove will offer a sanctuary of rest and peacefulness to those who want to give their taxed nervous systems a rest. Nourish your body and soul with beautiful nature, art, healthy food, and by simply enjoying the moment in whatever way feels right to you. Although you are invited participate in the sanctuary’s activities, you are also so welcome to step back and just simply be.
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The Enchanted Grove is currently looking for an affordable property the nature sanctuary in the Örebro region (Sweden) that has great potential and a considerable amount of land. Do you have or know of a place with plenty of space and nature in a peaceful location? Please contact me!
The Virtual Sanctuary
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The virtual sanctuary is where you are right now! it is an online space accessible from anywhere in the world. Here we celebrate knowledge, art, and practical skills to connect with the rest of nature and rediscover our kinship with all beings. Explore different resources like blogs, poetry, and recipes that are offered on this website, to discover:
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ORIGINAL WISDOM. Become familiar with nature-based ways of living and learn about indigenous knowledge and ways of being. By exploring concepts like kinship, reciprocity, and ceremony, you can rediscover and build meaningful relationships with everything around you.
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NATURE BASED TRADITIONAL SKILLS. Whether when building a shelter, foraging for food, or making medicine, nature has always been at the center of our human lives. In today’s world, many traditional skills of working with nature are almost lost. Going outside, touching, smelling, and tasting the nature around you will reconnect you with the knowledge of your ancestors, and welcome a newly found appreciation and care for the abundance around you. Learn about new skills and fun projects here!
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Amber
Amber is the main visionary and space-holder for the Enchanted Grove Sanctuary. She is a heart-led woman with a deep love for nature. While navigating her young adult life in the scientific worlds of psychology and environmental science, she increasingly felt something was not quite right. She was struggling to find a sense of belonging and connection in the Western culture and narratives she was exposed to every day. Amber felt a knowing inside that there must be another way to be in the world than what she was experiencing. In her mid-twenties she therefore started a lifelong quest to find out what this could look like. Through many experiences in nature, living amidst indigenous people, inner- and outer travels, and learning earth-centered traditional skills, her unique little piece of the puzzle for creating a more beautiful world became increasingly clear. The Enchanted Grove will be an shared expression of her great love for the nature, as well as a playground and sacred space for humans to fall back in love with all of creation and remember their belonging to the natural world.
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Values
Reciprocity - Giving Back to Nature
Every day the Earth showers us with gifts: air to breathe, fresh water, food in our bellies, and the companionship of animals and trees. Even though we receive this great abundance, we humans try to take more and more without replenishing or giving any gifts in return.
At the sanctuary, a central question in all we do is: "What can we GIVE?" We rediscover ways for living in reciprocity with each other and the rest of nature, supporting all that surrounds us to thrive. Much of the lostness we feel as people is a result of how separate we experience ourselves from the natural world. Returning to living life from a place of gratitude and reciprocity is a powerful medicine for our hearts, and provides a sense of belonging and purpose in this life.
Kinship - All is connected
We each owe our human lives to the generosity of the many beings with whom we share this Earth. We are deeply connected to the landscapes that we are a part of and the many beings that inhabit them. At the sanctuary we recognize that each of these beings has inherent value, plays an important role in the web of life, and deserves our care and respect. They are our relatives. From a tiny ant, to an old pine tree or meandering river, each has their unique role and gifts. At the Enchanted Grove, we work on building relationships with all of our human and other-than-human relatives that are connected to us and support them so that can thrive.
Community - Belonging
At the Enchanted Grove Sanctuary we come together to explore new (while ancient) ways of being. Sharing our energy, skills, and ideas, we will create a network of human and other-than-human relations that is deeply interconnected with the local and wider systems it is part of. Being in community will help us to find belonging, support one another, heal, share our passions, and work together to achieve goals. We will gather in circle to collaborate, celebrate, be seen by one another, learn from our elders, and have ceremony together. Through developing strong connections among us, we create a strong and resilient system, and hopefully offer a small living example for a transition to a more sustainable and connected future. Do you share our vision and values and want to connect? Be welcome and reach out.
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Beauty - Hózhó
Western culture has become infatuated with consumption, materialism, and speed. At the sanctuary, we choose to centralize other values, and see slowing down, intentionality, and beauty as important medicines for our rushed and disconnected lives. Whether while planting a tree, preparing food, or sitting in circle, we aim to infuse what we do with attention and beauty. Beauty is an invitation to awaken our wonder and amazement and experience life in a way that goes beyond the specific thing we see or do. An inspiring concept is offered by the Diné (Navajo) people: Hózhó. This is said to be the most important word in their language and is loosely translated as peace, balance, beauty and harmony. To be “in Hozho” is to be at one with and a part of the world around you.
“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”
- Robin Wall Kimmerer