Brian & I went to Damanhur to participate in their 10 day “Amine” program. I’m still not sure what it means but they described it as something more than for tourists & a little more insight to life there. So I can say Damanhur is completely different from Tamera & Sunseed! It is situated in the Italian Alps & it is way bigger than the others, with around 600 residents!
To accommodate this they have created several different “nucleos”. On the first day we did a tour round some of the them. The furthest are 20mins car ride in opposite directions from the original central part, Damjl. The nucleos are settled in and around some Italian villages. So you can imagine it is rather large!
A new straw bale house being built at Dendera nucleo by one of the long term residents. He’s lived here around 35 years. Damanhur has existed for 41 years now so they must be doing something right! 🙂
A nucleo is a mini settlement of at least one big residence, & some have several huts or caravans.
Wooden Hut room. If someone wants to join a nucleo & there are no rooms left in the main house they build or bring a caravan.Our little band of troubadours on the course looking at some caravans insulated by wood, bamboo & other materials.Next onto the earth hut where Henk, one of the participants stayed. We all stayed in different nucleo. We found this strange & suggested that in the future all participants stay together in the same nucleo as we didn’t really get to integrate with our nucleo families much, as everyone is very busy in Damanhur, & felt a stronger bond with our group. Though there were some people in the nucleos who really made an effort or were interested, & we had some great chats!This was an experimental building built on a mechanism to turn the house with the sun!Beautiful view from the other side of this house 🙂
So Damanhurians prepare & eat all meals in a shared kitchen & dining room & only have their own bedrooms. I don’t know if I could live like that all the time. I think I’d need some more personal space, but I never heard any complaints from damanhurians, though come to think if it I didn’t ask about it directly. They did reiterate that living together is the hardest thing, just confronting & communicating with each other in life! This is what I’m hearing all the time. Developing human connection seems to be our greatest challenge now.
Kitchen at DenderaDining room at Dendera with the stunning Brian & Wapiti Azalea (native American deer – Azalea flower: after a few years all Damanhurians choose/are given new names, to represent their connection to nature through an animal & plant name!). Wapiti was our course leader.A very fat cat at Dendera. All nucleo have a few shared dogs & cats.Art created by its people, is very important at Damanhur. We’ll write more about that later!Art creates a kind of sacred space outdoors & connects to nature.Each nucleo has a special tree, the one on the left here, I forget the particular terminology for it, which people can greet by touching their forehead to & this functions to introduce & connect you to all the plants in the nucleo.
Next we visit some other nucleo & get challenged by our beliefs! Do you believe in magic? Damanhur does!…
It’s nice that you are home though. But where is Brian? Did you lose him?