My last invitation
Hola friend of Resonancia Community
I’m writing because my time as guardian of the Valle de Sensaciones is coming to an end, with one last invitation to experience the Valley and also a request for support.
I will probably sign the contract today that will pass the Valley into the hands of a wonderful and highly motivated group, who will arrive in about a month to fill it with new life.
Until then, the Valley is open once more for one final moon cycle, to be lived in and enjoyed. But it also needs the energy, presence and care of people who feel connected to it.
But let me start from the beginning.
A little over 25 years ago, I arrived here as a nomad, and the Valley called to me so intensely that I spontaneously brought my 14 years of travelling life to a halt here. In close contact with its nature and the spirits of the place, the vision arose for this crazy artistic and experiential space for a life close to nature, communal and sensual.
Without thinking too much about it, full of creativity and the desire to play and create, I began, with the support of my parents and many helping and learning hands, to shape this natural playground and fill it with life.
I never paid much attention to practical matters: neither bureaucracy, nor organisational structures, nor concrete plans for the future. Valle de Sensaciones was born mainly from the power of creativity, the joy of living and exploring, and all the inspiring souls who became part of the project for shorter or longer periods of time.
Many people have had very deep experiences here over these 25 years, probably also because of the purity and craziness of the whole approach. Some even completely changed their lives as a result of what they experienced here. And some also left the place rather frightened.
One conflict that accompanied me through almost all of these 25 years, and which I never truly managed to resolve, was that I carry within me the dream of living together in free resonance and personal responsibility, while I myself have neither the gift nor the desire to direct other people.
At the same time, living in community, especially in such an unconventional environment, often needed guidance, and that guidance was frequently expected from me.
It took me years to understand this dynamic and this tension.
One of the main areas of my creativity then became developing tools that could help coordinate a community based on self-organisation, or even resonance, without the need for leaders. The best known, and probably the most successful, became the “Community Mandala”, our “kitchen game”.
Even so, this issue was never really resolved. As a result, I spent much of the time living in the tension of feeling that I was not properly fulfilling my role as initiator of the project, while at the same time hardly anyone ever fully stepped into that responsibility.
Since the Covid pause, at the latest, I decided to let go of this conflict of roles. I moved out of the Valley and now live both in the nearby village and once again nomadically.
Since then, I have tried to continue giving Valle de Sensaciones spirit, meaning and purpose by inviting self-responsible groups on a non-commercial basis, through temporary events and through rentals. But this also did not turn out to be a sustainable long-term solution, and in recent years the Valley has remained empty for increasingly long periods and has fallen somewhat into neglect.
When we returned from Kenya last spring, we found quite a few things damaged by the storms.
At that moment it became immediately clear to me: I was going to let go of my beloved project and place it into other hands that could once again care for this paradise and fill it with new passion. Since then I have been going through a very intense process of letting go, full of memories, gratitude and also many tears.
I am now passing Valle de Sensaciones on to the “Hadas del Sol”, the Spanish tribe of the Radical Faeries. Of everything I have experienced during these 25 years of our community laboratory, the Hadas del Sol are probably the closest to my own dream of community.
They live community with an incredible amount of creativity, freedom and joy of life, filled with love and a surprising ease in being together. They have shown me that it is possible to create and sustain a communal experiential space without hierarchies and without a commercial logic.
I’m very excited to experience, in about a month from now, how these wonderful crazy Faeries will fill the Valley with new life. And I’m also happy that I can continue to be part of it myself, in freedom, without special expectations around my role and without carrying an overarching responsibility for the whole place.
There are now about four weeks left during which the Valley is still under my responsibility, and I would like to use this time especially to offer those who feel connected to this place the opportunity to visit it once more and bring it to life again.
At the same time, I would also like to ask for your support.
After the storms of last winter, the Valley is currently rather wild: fallen branches, broken reeds, lots of overgrowth and accumulated leaves... And lately there have also been several thefts. Parts of the water system and parts of the electrical installation have been stolen.
Because of this, the current level of comfort is rather similar to the early years of the project: showers with a garden hose and very little electric light.
Before reinstalling the water and electricity completely, which can be done relatively quickly, I want to wait until there is life in the Valley again, so that everything doesn’t simply get stolen once more.
So, if you feel like spending a few weeks in the Valley and the current situation doesn’t put you off, you are very welcome.
It would be a great support to me if old friends of the project, or also new people, came and helped bring the Valley to life once more with some willingness to contribute, flexibility and adaptability.
During this period, however, those living in the Valley will need to take care of their own shopping and their everyday needs. We ourselves live in the nearby village, and I usually come to the Valley for a few hours at a time to gradually repair and prepare different things.
So if you feel like experiencing the Valley once more, and caring for it during this final cycle, I look forward to hearing from you.
