MOTHERWOOD

"The next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community; a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. This may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the Earth." - Thich Nhat Hanh

"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." -Victor Hugo

"There is an almost sensual longing for communion with others who have a larger vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendships between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality almost impossible to describe." - Teilhard de Chardin

All I want is to live life's unanswered questions in good company. - Nina Graboi

The great teacher Martin Prechtel:

Over the last several centuries, a heartless, culture-crushing mentality has enforced its so-called progress on the earth, devouring all peoples, nature, imagination, and spiritual knowledge. Like a bulldozer, it has left a flat, homogenized streak of civilization in its wake. Every human on this earth, whether from Africa, Asia, Europe, or the Americas, has ancestors whose stories, rituals, ingenuity, language, and life ways were taken away, enslaved, banned, exploited, twisted, or destroyed by this mentality. What is indigenous -- in other words, natural, subtle, hard to explain, generous, gradual, and village oriented -- in each of us has been banished to the ghettos of our heart, or hidden away from view on reservations inside the spiritual landscape. We're taught to believe that our thoughts are actually the center of our life. Like the conquering, modern culture we belong to, we understand the world only with the mind, not with the indigenous soul.
And this indigenous soul is not something that can be brought back in "wild man" or "wild woman" retreats on the weekend and then dropped when you put on your business suit. It's not something you take up because it's fun or trendy. It has to be authentic, and it has to be spiritually expensive.

Damanhur, perhaps the most fully realized intentional community on Earth, renowed for its exquisite underground temples.

"Our aim is to create free people, human beings with an open mind and wide perspective." -Stambecco Pesco of Damanhur

"It began as a project, as a vision of how the world might be. This was our vision of the whole world." - Orange Riso of Damanhur

"The center was founded in 1968 with little more than a dime and a prayer to ensure its survival. Through all the years of my involvement here, I have never thought of the center as an institution, but as an adventure, an exhilarating bet on the future of the arts."
- poet Stanley Kunity, founder, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass

"Artists' communities are the nation's research and development laboratories for the arts. These communities go back to the origins of civilization.There is written record of ancient Greek and Roman writers and artists retreating to the countryside to places where they could work, free of the influences of the marketplace."- Michael Wilkerson