Terra Luminous Permacultural, nonviolent and sociocratic community, protecting the rain forest with art and love

“A group of people who share the risk”, this is community for us! We are united in living, working, celebrating, mourning, planting, harvesting, and cultivating the fertile field of relationships. The intentional community is still at the beginning of its journey. Today there are around 20 members, considering 11 that live fulltime in the ecovillage and 9 that come often and actively participate in the projects. The community is open to receive new members in its various modalities, and the process to become an associate takes from 6 months to 1 year. Its governance system uses Sociocracy, focusing on equivalence, effectiveness, co-responsibility, self-organization, horizontality, and transparency. Caring for relationships is anchored in the practice of Non-Violent Communication and all that involves the environment is anchored in the principles of Permaculture and sustainability. Terra Luminous, which is an NGO, occupies 35 hectares of a Permanent Environmental Preservation Area in the Atlantic Forest, a strategic place since it is one of the most important Water Resource Protection Areas in Brazil. It is in the municipality of Juquitiba, an hour and a half from São Paulo capital. Some of our values are: Engagement with self-development, collaboration, respect for individuality, celebrating diversity, transparency, and the expression of what is truly alive, cocreation of a sustainable life in community and shared power with equivalence and effectiveness. The first group of 5 members founded the community in 2016 and 4 of them are still deeply engaged. Terra Luminous has a Retreat Center that hosts up to 35 people and has been one important material source to maintain the community in the forest. There are socio-environmental projects that the NGO run that brings a higher mission for all involved: protect and regenerate the forest. There are common activities such as rituals, celebrations in the fireplace, and agriculture gatherings that connect all members!