Balaya Buyul Community

Global Ecovillage Network logo with a flower and leaf design in purple and blue.
  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Established
  • English
  • Ecological
  • Rural

Founding year

  • 2019

What we do

The community is a land-sharing community consisting of 24 adults and 13 children (and growing) ranging in ages from 0-70 years. We care for a beautiful 95 acre property near the town of Mullumbimby with a mix of waterholes, rainforest, food growing and livestock. We are in the process of building our houses (approval for 12) with an existing community centre.
Our community vision is to become a regenerative, abundant, joyful and inspiring community using
best practices for shared community living and land-care while creating a minimal footprint on this
land in which we all take respect and gratitude in being stewards for.
We are an intentional community with community facilities, spaces and gardens and have a common beliefs of the connection to country, sacredness of the earth and water, organic food production, arts and creativity and being active to make positive change in the world and engaged in our larger community of the Byron Shire. One community project is to regenerate the upper Brunswick River (Durrumbul), which flows through the property with native subtropical rainforest. We honour the Midginbil people as the traditional custodians of the area and pay our respects to their ancestors and culture as well as the mountain that watches us (Balaya Buyul – place under the mountain). We have a loose sociocratic governance structure with pods and some shared community finances. We try and achieve consensus on community decisions.
We have regular sharings, meetings and gatherings and like to celebrate events and the passing of the seasons.
As a new community we see ourselves as the new wave and generation of communitarians following the footsteps of the older Aquarian festival generation which established many of the original landsharing communities of the area. We hope to learn from their wisdom and mistakes going forward.

  • Purpose
  • Ecological
  • Languages
  • English
  • Hebrew
  • Spanish
  • Community type
  • Ecovillage
  • Intentional Neighborhoods

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 2019
  • Started living together

Gallery

  • Not open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
32

How to join

There is a waiting list so not open to any new members

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Our Community Members

Balaya Buyul Community

Promoted Needs and Offers

  • Events
10 years ago

Gaia Ashram Internship

The Gaia Ashram Internship is a one month program on Ecovillage Design, Permaculture and Deep Ecology. The internship will be a holistic participatory learning experience & process. Interns will experience being part of the Gaia Ashram Community and we will live together for one month at– Gaia Ashram-. At Gaia Ashram we belief in holistic learning that balances the head, hands & heart. Gaia Ashram encourages participatory learning & values the power of community in holding the learning space. We design the daily & weekly structure of the internship and of our lives here based on these values and principles. Theoretical learning (Head) The theoretical sessions will be participatory and interactive. It will cover the 4 keys of Ecovillage Design Education (Social, Economical, Ecological and Worldview inspired by Gaia Education). Each week will cover one of the Ecovillage Design Keys and integrated into this we will be introduced to Permaculture Design & Deep Ecology in terms of philosophy, movement and personal experiences. Overall, We will have a maximum of 2-3 hours of theory per day on the session days, to also create lots of space for practical experiential learning. See more details of the key content below. Practical learning (Hands – on) For the hands – on practical learning we will be developing the Gaia Ashram’s farm and restoring nature on the Gaia Ashram land using permaculture strategies & techniques that are appropriate for the Rainy Season & the land and its local context. The hands-on work will focus on Gardening work i.e. developing the vegetable gardens, planting seeds & seedlings, transplanting, propagation of plants, making composts, growing and maintaining a Food Forest, planting green manures, planting lots of trees, planting seasonal crops. Apart from the Gardening we will also will be doing some natural building which mostly will focus on creating natural finishes using mud plasters and art works on
  • Events
10 years ago

Deep Ecology and Mindful Gardening

Deepen our connection with nature through our head, heart, hands and spirit. Join us for this two weeks contemplative learning where we will learn together What is Deep Ecology as a philosophy, as a way to see and interpret life, as an approach to deepen our connection with nature and as a way of living. This two weeks program is designed to have balance of the learning through different channel of our being: Head: Theoretical learning, critical thinking, debate, discussion, deep reflection & deep questioning. The learning through the head help us to understand deeply of what is happening around us and in the world. Understanding and deeply questioning the reality presented to us is a way to liberate ourselves from it. Heart: listening to what we are feeling when we engage ourselves in nature and her stories. Allowing the heart to feel the love, joy, compassion or the feeling of sadness & fear allowing ourselves to feel the pain ourselves, the world & Mother Earth. We will use the activities of The Work That Reconnect of Joanna Macy and other practices to help our heart to learn deeply. We need the learning through our heart to bring about transformation at a deep level. Hand: Mindfully working with nature in the garden. When we are mindful we love, respect and connect as we are physically engaged. Practical work help us to ground our believes, philosophy and vision. It empowers us and assures us that the new reality we wish for is possible. It makes what’s in our head and heart become real and tangible. Spirit : Spirituality, Meaning & purpose. Learning at this level is about being conscious of our values and purpose, seeing ourselves as part of a greater universe and realizing our connection, relationship and responsibility in that picture. a learning at this level helps us to stay connected with our core and bring meaning to life.

Information

Communities

A residential project: people live here as their primary home.

Organizations

An institution, business, network, or project that isn’t a residence (e.g. a learning center, farm, or network with no one living there full-time).

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