Gasser school

"There are no small children but just great human beings"!
We met Marianne Fischer, the teamcoordinator of this privat school, for the first time to arrange an appointment when to have a guided tour through the schoolbuilding. This was already an impressing exchange about our ideas and we were couriously looking forward to met her again, to get to know more about her way of teaching, being and learning, which is based on the ressourcive padagogy, the flow pedagogy.
The whole idea of their way of working with children is grounded on the groth and greatness of every single person, so as on one hand everybody is great, on the other hand everybody needs to learn something, if as grown up or as child. While stateschools mainly work on the level of notes, thinking, pressure, success, knowledge and work, freeschools include the second level of personality, individual needs such as learning rhythm, interests etc. The Gasser school mainly works on the third level, the energetic level, that which tries to reach above human beeings - divineness in the here and now, happiness, life power. This means, that they communicate on an energetic level with the children. To insult others or to hit others is taking their energy, so always when this happens, it belongs to the schoolculture to give this energy back by finding something great in this person and tell it to him or her. It is not a discussion at all that there is something great in every person. Following this "rule" no teacher is scolding pupils or telling them what to do or not to do. One good example of this is that when they meet in a classroom to work together everybody who feels ready to start, is present with his/her mind, feels serene enough to start, just lifts up his or her hand. So slowly this readyness spreads and when everybody has lifted up his or her hand, to say that he or she is ready to start, including the teacher, they start. This ritual enables everybody to decide by themsemelves when they feel ready and are not manipulated by others.
...
to be continued...:)

...Read the rest here!

Travelling School of Life-Workshop in Glarisegg

Today we made our first workshop on education networks /travelling school of life in the Schloss Glarisegg.
There were 6 people - 2 community members, one aura healing therapist from the nearby village and three people working in the Gasser-school in Glarisegg.

We started with a little game - everybody should write down 3 skills (s)he has
and 3 things (s)he wants to learn.
There was a lot of different skills, from healing to project management, from photography to Spanish...
It is always amazing to see that even in small groups there is always interests and skills fitting together... and that very often you could just off from the workshop start a learning group with someone...

They were all quite interested and open and we will propably meet up with the aura therapist woman to learn from her. She also gave us a contact to a friend od hers who also wanted to build up a learning network but never started as there were no people with him...

We also talked a little bit about the Gasser school
and discussed about alternative education and economies...

When asked what possibilities of selforganised learning there are and there could be in Glarisegg, the community members told us that living in (this) community anyway means learning and having to learn a lot :-)
But up to now there is not a lot of skillsharing groups in the community, as there isn't so much time for it in the daily working life and routine...

When I asked them about possible low budget learning for visitors in this expensive place,
they said there is not a lot going on yet, although this kind of learning does happen sometimes (e.g the instrument builder had someone learning at his place and helping him).
This also might change in the next years, as the community is still building up... so in a few years there might be more possibilities for travelling school of life as well...

---Anja

...Read the rest here!

Schloss Glarisegg

Their Website > Schloss Glarisegg

Since 3 days we are in the area around Schloss Glarisegg,
a community in an old castle nearby the lake of Konstanz.

When we left at Antonios (humanshope) place in Keswill
we knew that we would get a whole house (in exchange for helping the owner with his project) in Steckborn nearby Glarisegg from Sunday 19th on.

But in our decentralized organisation chaos we had made a date with Kathrin (a Glarisegg community member) to show us around the place on the 17th,
why we had to come 2 days earlier
and so there was another 2 nights to spent somewhere else than in the house...





We thought that it propably wouldn't be a problem to stay somewhere in Glarisegg for those 2 nights,
as it is such a huge area: really beautiful nature with the lake and a forest, several houses (like living houses, guest houses, seminary spaces) and a campside with tents, a yurt and a tipi...

But first answers we came across in "the community" (when asking if it would be possible to stay for low)
was that it would at least cost 10 Swiss Franks per person
just using the toilets and showers (even staying in an our tent/bus)
and the excuse "if you would have asked earlier maybe it would have been fine
but I cannot decide to let you stay without asking the community".

So we -dissapointedly- decided to spend the first 2 nights on the beach that belongs to the Glarisegg community
and felt a little bit strange among those rich "yuppie-hippies"
living in a big castle with own beach and not wanting to share with us poor idealistic travellers... ;-)

But when we came to talk to Kathrin about the project and community
we also learned to understand about the financial and commercial situation of Glarisegg (I will tell more later on)
and when we joined a celebration taking place in the yurt in the first evening
we saw that there still are lots of open, helpful people around there - and we were allowed to stay in the yurt in the end.

The community exists since 5 years and is based on 5 main ideas/projects:
a) an own school (GasserSchule, flow-pedagogy)
b) seminaries and guests
c) therapies
d) arts and culture (Kulturlabor) and
c) the community itself.

There is no common "religion" /... , but everybody can live however and believe whatever (s)he wants. Also, like Kathrin said, they are always trying new methods and structures of organisation.
(For such a young community it seems to be quite well organised anyhow... )

The community consists of around 30 members and some children, there are always lots of guests and guest workers around. Most of the people living there are around 40, there are only few young people and children there.
The community members meet 3 times a week to talk about organisational and emotional stuff, which is the main communication plattforms and keeps information circling.

Kathrin told us that there shouldn't be any destructive talks in the circles
and that people would try to talk only about their own feelings without accusing each other,
whereas Marianne Fischer of the Gasser school (who is not a community member any more)
told us that she stopped going to these circles
as she felt depressed about the way of communicating and complaining about each other in there and that it was too tiring for her and just taking too much energy.

Some of the community members rent workshops or seminary spaces within the community and work there, some work "outside".
The community is financed mostly by renting space out to guests. There is also a shareholding society to finance the place, in which people can invest their money directly in sustainible living and culture by supporting the community.

The people in Glarisegg are not self-sustaining, there isn't even a vegetable garden at the moment, but interacting and trading with local organic farmers.

It seems there are a lot of spiritual/"esoteric" people there and so are the workshops, seminaries and therapies offered there (e.g. schamanic healing, spiritual sexuality, Tai Chi, Tibetan Tantra, coaching in relationships, family therapies, contact improvisation, trance dance, ...)

To become a community member you have to live in Glarisegg for three months as a guest worker, which means you pay 15 Swiss Franks a day (including organic food) and work 5 hours for the community. After this time the community decides if you can stay longer, after half a year they decide if you can come to their circles/meetings.
After one year you have to start to invest into the community, which is 21.000 Swiss Franks within 3 years (500 Swiss Franks a month) - payable in work, goods that the community needs or in money. Plus you have to rent your room and any other rooms like workshops etc.

This prices and strict conditions are only understandable if you know that this beautiful peace of land with all the houses costed 3,3 million Swiss Franks to buy (which is actually cheap for the region!)
and that e.g. heating the old buildings (which is mostly not living space but guest and community space!) is 600 Swiss Franks a day!!

Even though deciding to move to this mega-project seems to be an expensive decision for live there is at the moment lots of change going on. Many new people are interested in becoming a community member and some of the people who started the project are moving out for different reasons...

Some more impressions and pictures in my mind:
People still seem to have time to talk while working...
people walk slowly...
people do Yoga at the beach...
many of them seem to be amazingly passionate with their work...
and they are open towards you if you are open as well...

To come to an end: in general Glarisegg seems to be a quiet and spiritual place,
that -in it's own quiet, slowly and spiritual way- brings inspiration, healing vibes and changes to the people of the regional area...
at least to those who can afford...

---Anja

...Read the rest here!

Kesswil / Humans Hope

www.humanshope.ch

We rested some days in a nice horse-farm which belongs to friends of anja.
There we had a skillsharing-circle to see what we want to learn and what we can give further to others and built up a little learning plan for ourselves, which means that we founded learning groups, for example different language learning groups, a yoga group, a photo-workshop and lots more...
We also organised a financial meeting and met in the circle to exchange our expectations and our visions of the tour.
The father of the farm family is working on a map-tracking-software which enables you to track your way on a google-map with mobilephone and GPS to reconstruct your route. He offered us to use his invention on our way and gave us 2 GPS-mouses where after we tracked the first route to Switzerland.

After two days we left to find a nice place to stay over night at Lake Konstanz.
On our way we picked up some interesting components in the form of a beautiful pink chair, a mattres and a wonderful blue pillow.
As the sun sat down we stopped in a little village at the lake and parked nearby a park.
By strolling arround we collected some firewood so that we could start a nice campfire nearby the lake to cook dinner in it.
The night was beautiful dark and the big fullmoon was rising up on the other side of the lake which we left behind us, reflecting mysteriously in the dark waters and symbolically shining us the way in the direction of our next level of the tour: SWITZERLAND.
So nice, the first time that we slept outside in the wilderness.. being just for us.. enjoying the fullmoon.
In the morning we were surrounded by fog and after some morning-yoga and swimming in the icy lake we had jammjamm breakfast,
while the sun broke through and a beautiful day began.

The next challenge was waiting for us at the border in Konstanz.
One of us was secretly filming the border-policeman. When he recognized it he got angry and made us deleting the whole film material which took a lot of time as we weren't very used to use the camera. ;)
But all in all we were allowed to pass by without car-check.
After passing 18 roundabouts (WOW) we finally arrived in Kesswil.
The nice family which was waiting for us, created a network called humanshope.
In the moment this network includes thirty persons and it is mainly based on a webpage which presents their ideas and links to many other different projects, which seem to fit in their flow.
The basic idea is that all the "problems" of our world cannot be solved seperately anymore, but need to be looked at from an all-encompassing point of view, so all the different aspects such as spiritual (f.e. the Maya calendar), economical, political and social are included.
So they developed a concept of how it could be possible to reorganise and reform the world system.
Their main idea is based on a bee cell structure which can already be found in very old cultures, and as well in recent sciences, such as RAUMFAHRT, where they found this form in the asteroid-belt which surrounds Saturn.
According to this proposal, the world is split in many hundred cells, of which each one is independent,selforganised and is able to live out of its own capacities. Of course not every unit has all ressources, as oil, specific plants etc.,
so this is where the network of a bigger territory, seperated into six cells, takes care of each other. If there are any problems which can't be solved on one level, it is carried up to the next level.
For more information have a look at www.humanshope.ch .

As the Maya calendar builts an important aspect of the concept's background, mainly the whole group works with it and tries to transfer it into their daily life. They even have a learning group in which they meet regularly every month to exchange and deepen their knowledge.
So we had the great chance to take part in a short introduction and later on in a workshop about more details of the Maya philosophy, which is a lot more than just a calendar, and even more than a horoscope, but a whole life philosophy including a new understanding of time and the complexity of the universal cycles in its past and in its future as well as the humans' role in it.
www.lawoftime.org (official 13 moon calendar website)
www.tortuga.com (planet art network-"time is art")


Before meeting us, Franziska, the mother of the family, was really sceptical about our whole group and expected us to be wild long-haired people covered with wool all over ;), but when we left after two long days she even cried and she and Antonio, the founder of the humanshope-network, didn't want to let us go. We felt incredibly at home at their place and it felt like leaving family. It was such an open minded place, where we could share all our ideas, enjoying ourselves and the whole atmosphere. So one evening we had a workshop of the humanshope project with Antonio, whereafter the evening slowly grew into a wonderful sharing of sound, dance and meditation.


All in all it was absolutely touching to realize, how different people have the same or similar ideas at the same time, and how they get connected in a flowing way, exchange their ideas and dreams and explore ways to cooperate and work together to be stronger and move on.
And we knew it was good that we came.

...Read the rest here!

Exiting the EU!

We left our lovley horse farm + biggest bureu ever on the evening of the full moon and went to a small town on the shore of the Bodensee / Lake Konstanz and spent a relaxing evening making a fire in lakeside park, waking up while old people are going for their morning walk past our food circle on the steps to the lake, and taking the opportunity for a fine cold swim!
In the morning we packed up with our new pink chair we "dumpstered", grabbed another nice folding couch on the way out and headed for Konstanz to make some last purchases before leaving Europe!

The last couple days weve been staying in a small village house with some very nice people, one of whom is working on the project Humans Hope.



More Post later, right now we have to leave to visit a school project in the next 5 minutes!
More Post later, right now we have to leave to visit a school project in the next 5 minutes!
.

...Read the rest here!

Switzerland, here we come!

I am sitting in the biggest and nicest bureau I ever had,
in the horse farm of some friends of Anja,
tryin to figure out what happened the last days.

Our busses are down in the garden...
there is some fire, three walnut trees and a big hammok.
we can choose between hay to sleep on, a trailor and a guest room...

It's only 5 days since we left Munich
and since then we were not even really travellin
but only hangin out in the place of Anjas parents in Sigmaringen, in there nice garden and the cosy livingroom...
preparing and getting to know each other better,
chilling, climbing, organizing ourselfes and the next stops and contacts, painting, cooking, ...
catching a hitchhiker who directly wanted to come with us, getting to know her a little bit and processing through the realization of not feeling that its good to take her with us on this tour.
Yeah! the first real groupprozess was born here
... and during all this : drinking soy milk... and feeling SO WELL!!! ;-)

After this first stop we finally started our way in the direction of Lake Konstanz
which borders Switzerland

It already feels like we've been years together on the road
and I have a really good feelin about the group
and the tour in general :-)

Switzerland here we come ! :-)

painting psychedelic lovely pictures all together
in the first evening we spend all together...
( making plans for exhibitions after the tour;-) )



juggling, meeting, watching turtles and chillin out in the garden of Anjas parents in Krauchenwies
hanging around in the livingroom



climbing in the "Hochseilgarten" where Anja worked for some years...
helping each other through exercises...
keeping eye on each other to ensure safety...
giving hand if needed...
inspiring each other...
trusting each other :-)



painting our nice new trailor (that is full of soy milk;-) !)
and helping out with art exhibition organisation stuff
in the nice workshop and living space of Michl and Dorle,
of their daughter Camilla and Bayu from Indonesia,
some artists (ironartist, musician, painter)
living and working in a very small village near Überlingen

They also told us a little bit about their association for arts, youth and culture named satu
and about the youth congress in Indonesia and existing and possible connections!

...Read the rest here!

On the road at last!

The big night! The beginning of dreams that have been waiting to become reality for months, and even years, and its finally here! Like the moment when after a long climb to the top of the roller coaster and it slowly starts it rapid decent and you realize, oh wow here we go!!!
After several last hour/minute changes and fixes to the busses we rolled out of munich in an almost dream like state and headed for our first destination in south germany, where we are now spending a couple days repacking the bus, planning routes, and generally getting more organized!

...Read the rest here!