Over the past years I came across various resources that helped me become a better human, enrichened my life, or, in general, taught me ways to pursue and live a resilient life in peace with others and nature. Hereby I’m sharing some notes of these resources with my key take-aways.
This is a not an exhaustive list and the order of the items has no importance.
Plants for the future (book)
Plants for the future discusses a huge variety of wild weeds that are edible, extremely nutrious, and grow all over the place. Helpful to connect back to nature, get local, and get a more diverse plate.
Early Retirement Extreme
Early Retirement Extreme is a philosophy and practical guide on creating a “lifestyle that meets all needs while minimizing ongoing inputs”. Helped me raise awareness on the importance of establishing multiple income sources and has ideas on how to cut down costs significantly.
Permaculture Design Course (PDC)
PDCs are two-week offsite gatherings in nature to deep dive in permaculture. Permaculture is “a revolution disguised as organic gardening”, as Bill Mollison used to say. It provides an extensive set of principles and tools to (re)design one’s life following the ethics of care for people, care for nature and fair share. And guess what: it all starts by growing food. It’s amazing to rediscover this essential power of independence and self-sustainability.
Socioracy
A toolbox for intentional community building and organization development. Emphasizes an empirical approach even for adapting its tools. Mantra: “Good enough for now, safe enough to try.” You can consent without loving an idea to help things go forward. Many Voices One Song (book) is a great study material. Hashtag self-governance.
Dragon Dreaming
Dragon Dreaming is a project management inspired by living systems. It’s an iterative, cyclic, integrative, people first approach. It focuses on finding alignment by uniting everyone’s dreams instead of looking for compromises.
Volunteer working such as WWOOF, Workaway et al
A wonderful opportunity to explore the world by staying at people’s place for a few weeks or months and give them a hand while being fed and provided with shelter. Exchange knowledge, gain skills, form communities, make friends. Hashtag slow travel.
The Mastery of Love
Love is all there is. The Mastery of Love is a contemplation on love based on the Toltec wisdom. One of my bibles that I come back to every now and then. Recognize the infinite love in yourself. Have love for yourself so you don’t depend on getting it from other sources.
Making Love: Sexual Love The Divine Way (book)
Making Love: Sexual Love The Divine Way is a guide for reconnecting to one’s sexual energy based on tantric teachings. Making love is uniting with the divine. Let the bodies make love instead of doing sex. This philosophy had transformed my sexual life.
Yoga
A transformative journey from the need of finding physical exercises to treat my hurting back to spiritual connection with the one. Yoga’s toolbox is vast. It includes body postures, breathing exercises, diet and hygienic recommendations, relaxation techniques, meditation practices, and so on. It’s a compass in my life.
Ayurveda
The Indian science of life. A holistic approach to restore body and mind balance in an ever-changing environment. 101 for self healing and cooking. Vasant Lad’s Ayurveda: The Science of Self-Healing book is a decent starting point.
Art
Art is self expression and therapy work. Starting to paint changed my life in so many ways. It helped me reconnect to the inner child in me and found a new way to express my creativity and share my love with others. Hear the story of my first year of color fields. A beautiful book about this topic is Alain de Botton’s Art as Therapy.
Living local
“Think globally, act locally”. Fuck businesses that want to change the world. We changed it too much already. Let people decide how they want to live their lives without imposing some global goodwill on them. Key strategy: Eat local and seasonal. Sponsor local businesses. Use local currencies. Create or join local communities. Get involved in local activism.