26/12/2024
LONG TERM LAND GUARDIANS AND MONASTIC LIVING
We, Barbara and Emma, a married couple, are the only guardians at the moment living at the Mount of Oaks, an Off grid Permaculture Project since 2006 in Central Portugal. We are calling new full time guardians as the ecosystem grows and requires more human beings as part of it.
As it has already a specific call to be a monastic community, we are looking for humans who not only have experience on off-grid living in permaculture systems, but mainly that have a divine call to pray and be at service (to God, Nature and local community).
We are looking for humans who aspire to be producers more than consumers and who desire to live simple lives with very little financial needs.
We like transparency in this area, so, this project, as it is already well developed, has many ways to finance itself and the costs to run it are quite reasonable even for a southern european country. With an average of 10.000e a year (less than a portuguese minimum wage) we provide a living for 2 humans with one car and a working farm van, 2 mobile phones, some gas for the kitchen, petrol machines like a water pump, solar system, 2 dogs, 4 cats, chickens, ducks and geese, a donkey and a mare...
We are a non-profit Association so we also count with some fees from our international faithful associates who believe in what we are about...This cover mainly our accountant that we have to employ as a public institution. Then we have hospitality (renting our guest room, caravan and camping for people on retreats or holidays), Events and Courses (Permaculture and natural building courses, retreats, medicine cerimonies, mushroom identification walks, etc), Produce (eggs, chicken meat, vegetables, herbs, teas, tinctures, oils, fermented food and other medicines) and also occasional donations that we are always very grateful for... With a bit here and there we manage to cover our total expenses and have enough for our own personal needs (maybe 1000-2000e a year for each, coming from our own personal projects).
We will expect any new guardian to contribute financially on the initial stage of their staying as me and Emma did for many years to develop this place... Eventually, for those who become a "match", there are many possibilities to develop your own income generation from the land, as long as it fits our ethics and principles...
At this moment, as it is, there is abundance enough to welcome more humans and we believe that more humans will also generate more abundance as the system has much potential to grow and develop if we would have more hands and minds to share all the work and responsibility...the potential is imense to regenerate and produce even more and provide a healthy and good quality living for 2 - 4 more capable human beings...
As I mentioned before, the main motivation is not only to live off-grid or out of the capitalist system, but the reason why we want to produce most of what we need to consume using the least capital as possible and not overworking is so we have more time to dedicate to pray, meditate, study and serve our local community as we have been doing all these years... At this moment, besides hospitality and education we also hold singing/praying circles every 2 weeks, purification sweat lodges every new moon, occasional healing ceremonies for our local community and personal counseling as is Emma´s main gift among many others.
We are both followers of Christ for many years, came out of institutional christianity a long time ago too, and we were guided by the Spirit who brought us to this land to serve this way and work alongside those who have a clear call from The Great Spirit of Love and Light to pray and serve this land/earth and the community God builds around it...
If all this calls you or is already part of your life, get in touch and we can start a conversation.
On the 17th of February 2025 we will start our open season with our off-grid permaculture internship and this would be an ideal time for us to get to know a potential new guardian.
In March we will host a Perculture Design Course, and if you don't have one already, we recommend enrolling on that too, as it´s very important for us that we all share the ethics and principles of Permaculture and regenerative land practices.
Check our website and specially our internship post, as it might give you a more clear idea of what we are about and how we see this place...
Mount of Oaks (MoO) is opening for applications for those who feel called to be part of our 10 week "Permaculture Off-Grid/Greed Internship".(reviewed text-April 2024) This idea has developed out of our own experience since 2006, hosting hundreds of guests, friends, volunteers and family. We...
