Quotes of Participants

Dreams

"If I ask myself: 'What do I really want? What is my dream?' And if I pursue that relentlessly and earnestly, ignoring all else and following my yearnings, then I am going my proper way. A way with which I can retreat from all of society's misadventures. Because things are good here.Germans need only decide to live differently, and they can do so. The system doesn't stop us."

Silke Hagmaier, Co-founder

Longings

"Lots of people yearn for a life like this: They feel that something's missing but don't know what. They recognise there must be alternative life forms besides family, couple and single existences. But society doesn't offer them. This has economic reasons: Industry prefers one man, one lawnmower, to a 200-man group sharing one mower."

Martin Goldstein, Project advisor

View from outside

"I'd imagined it differently, like... well, you know... outdoor loos and, all in all very primitive. It's a shame that there are so few colours and that the wood is so pale, but life here must be calmer, less stressful. Where we live, people are uptight, and envy their neighbours, but here there's no need to. I wouldn't mind manual work, and if everyone works and pulls together, then it's fun, too and you're proud of your own labour."

Visitor

Neighbours

"It looks terrible, if you look at the gardens and so on. It's full of weeds. It's like how gypsies lived. That's how they live."

Local farmer 

Contentment

"I have material concerns. My pre-pension work programme runs out next year.I don't know what will happen then. But what counts is not submitting to anxiety, but enjoying the present. You know, this meadow, these poles, the birds that fly by, and thinking: thank you,it's great, I really feel at home here, I feel blessed."

Henning Müller, village dweller