So it begins...

It's official: yesterday, we signed the final deed of sale for a small plot of land in the Béarn foothills of the Pyrenees. A small piece of land, once covered in forest, where generations of sheep have grazed and which has been watched over for centuries by seven majestic oak trees. A place called Miramon - which, in Béarnais, means ‘looking at the mountains.’

So now we are landowners. It's a strange feeling, and not without its shadow sides: when will it become possible again, here as elsewhere, for everyone to have access to a place to live and flourish without having to pay for it? When will we, as a society, manage to reconnect with the earth as a source of life and as a commons, managed through mutual and care-based relationships between humans and non-humans?

For now, we have secured an official permission, from the powers that be, to acts as stewards of this place. We are therefore committed to looking after it as best we can, and learning to coexist with it and all the beings that reside there.

At the heart of this commitment is a somewhat ambitious project: to build an eco-friendly, comfortable house using local materials (mainly straw and clay), on a minimal budget; to align ourselves with the cycles and rhythms of life so that a nourishing forest garden, teeming with life, can emerge in this place; and more broadly, on a local scale, to integrate our daily lives into existing networks of mutual aid and exchange, in order to strengthen and enrich them, and to stimulate ways of learning, connecting, working together and empowering ourselves as inhabitants of a same territory. No less!

This blog exists so that anyone may find out more and stay informed about our adventures. In the sidebar, you will also find a link to subscribe to our newsletter, which we will probably send out about once a season... or whenever we find the time! Today, we are also launching our Telegram channel, where we will publish photo and video snapshots of what we're up to.

Our intention in sharing these articles and reflections is also to enable anyone interested in these topics to learn about them, and perhaps undertake similar projects elsewhere. That is why we plan to organise participatory workshops in the coming months, whether in construction or gardening. We will circulate this information through the above channels. If you would like to join us at any point, please feel free to subscribe to the newsletter and/or Telegram channel to stay up to date.

While we're at it: we also invite you to check out our new MaDo Collective homepage (yes, that's us), which has links to more information about our various current and past projects.

We hope to see you there!