COMMUNITY


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OVERVIEW

The Harmonic Alchemy Retreat (HAR) is a community-based project with a combination of full time and part time (seasonal) residence and volunteers, offering services to retreat guests.

The HAR community is intended to be as self-sufficient as possible sharing skills and products from land management.

Where needed outsourcing services, paid for from the sales of surpluses or via barter and exchange.

The HAR project is not just a cooperative community, because one of the primary functions of the project it to offer a variety of retreat services to guests.

The community offers facilities to other organisations or individuals to run their own retreats, while also providing in-house workshops, classes, retreats and volunteer opportunities to both international and local Bulgarian guests.

The principle of the cooperative community is applied both to the running of the HAR and its relationship with the wider Bulgarian village community, with both being considered integral to the running of the project.

“Good Morning! Good Afternoon! Good Night!
These are not just mere greetings.
They are powerful blessings
setting the best vibration for the day.
Hence whether it is morning, afternoon or night
make sure that you say your greeting right!”
Franco Santoro

VISION for Community

Harmonic Community living in the flow of life, working in tune with the seasons, shrinking and expanding as night becomes day, the summers intense heat ebbs away through autumn into winter.

These are the natural rhythms of life that keep us in tune with nature and the planet we live on and help maintain our Circadian Rhythms

Life in the developed world became regulated by the working week and the 9-5 jobs that operated without regard for natural rhythms.  With increasing debt enslaving people to work longer hours for more of their life, many are now looking for alternatives.  The Harmonic Alchemy Retreat Community is one such alternative.

“The smallest component of the human molecule
is a vibration – the equivalent to a musical note.
Taking the time to learn more self-awareness at this level
creates life experiences beyond that
of all the greatest symphonies ever heard”
Gary Hopkins

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of the Harmonic Alchemy Retreat Community is to encourage connectivity to grow unity, using healing practices that work with vibrant creativity, confidently embodying high frequencies to maintain the vibration of peace and love.

Reconnecting people with the natural nurturing energy of nature in tune with the cyclic rhythms of seasonal existence and connect with the harmonic alchemy of the universe expressing itself in energy, frequency and vibration.

“In this world, everything has a pulse of a vibration.
This sound is unique to each living or non-living thing
and in itself creates a music that no-one can hear.
I believe that this has a very powerful resonance with,
and a deep effect on, our lives.”
Mike Oldfield

The HAR Community:

The HAR is a group of like-minded individuals and families working together, in a skill sharing self-sufficient cooperative. The community includes a small collective farm, growing fruit and vegetables out in the field and in large polytunnels. Also including a small dairy herd of goats and some cows, along with flocks of ducks and chickens for eggs.

Individual and family residence are encouraged to have their own smaller scale food gardens, with surpluses shared by the collective. Food preservation, jams, ferments, pickles, chutney and dried fruits/vegetables are collectively produced and communally shared or sold in the local shop.

The rich mountain landscape offers numerous grazing opportunities on meadows with diverse herb communities.  Meanwhile, wild food sources are abundant from fruit trees, bushes and mushrooms from woodlands.

Building, renovation and maintenance of properties can be done using community skill sharing wherever possible.  Investment can be a combination of collective and individual depending on how the property is used.  It is acknowledge that it is important for individuals and families to have sovereignty over their own land and home, while still being an integral part of the community.

“Happyness is not a matter of intensity,
but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”
Thomas Merton

Community Projects

One of the primary objectives of the HAR cooperative will be to assist local social and economic services.  The local shop and community hall (currently in the same building) are seen as a priority part of this integration objective.

Encouraging local trade in small scale farming products and garden surpluses bought and sold for cash or exchanged for equivalent goods or services.  Establishing a local trade currency in service time credits, which can also be used in exchange for food and/or treatments, classes or workshops held in the community hall.

Community volunteer days to assist with vegetation clearance along sides of roads. Maintenances of community gardens and cemeteries. Construction of community play areas for adults and children; adventure play grounds; walking trails; mountain bike trails; aerial runways; etc.

Community volunteer days helping elderly or sick residence with domestic jobs and property maintenance.

Education and School Projects:

Young person retreats organized to cater for both international and Bulgarian school trips, from long weekends to 2-3 weeks.  To include but not exclusively:

  • wild camping – with and without tents
  • woodland arts and crafts
  • bush crafts and survival techniques
  • ceremonial fires
  • drum circles – wild singing
  • contemplative practices and meditation
  • Yoga, Chi Gong and martial arts
  • Animal husbandry
  • Practical hand tools use, maintenance and care.
  • Tree climbing
  • Stream and river walking
  • Wild swimming
  • Adventure play grounds
  • Local school visits and day excursions based on above activities
  •  English/Bulgarian language classes for both adults and children including social practice groups
  •  Music lessons
“Physical health doesn’t exists apart from
the health of other things.
Health ultimately involves the community,
and the community ultimately involves the place
and natural life of that place,
so that real health is harmony with the world.”
Wendell Berry

Sound Peace Chambers

The vision for Sound Peace Chambers emerged from the mystic visionary Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow), who has inspired people to build these chambers all over the world to offer sacred spaces to hold peace ceremonies celebrated with sound and movement through singing and dancing.

 The intention of the chambers is to build harmonious relationships with breath, matter and movement, gaining inspiration from the creative energy of sound given life through our breath, then energising our bodies (matter) through movement in dance. Focusing intention on universal connectivity in harmonious synchronicity unity-consciousness in the frequency of peace.

“Chanting is how we enter into the eternal now.  The energetic vibrations of our voices bond us to the spiritual light made of memory, and the now, and of future, for we are the light of universal intelligence.  As we chant the Universe speaks to us in metaphoric images. 

 “The chanter is the cosmic universe in miniature.  The person chanting is the embodiment of the earth and sky.  When chanting, I start by pretending the in-breath is the sky energy, and the out-breath is the earth energy.  

"The highest nerve center is located at the voice center, the place in the human anatomy where the sky and earth are connected.  Sound vibration connects the mind, body and spirit, and makes the physical body whole.”

 Sound Peace Chambers

 In the words of Joseph Rael:

“In the summer of 1983 I was sun dancing when the vision came of a man standing, looking at me. He moved toward me, then suddenly he disappeared, and where he had been I saw an oval-shaped chamber. Inside that chamber were men and women singing. It was being revealed to me that I was to build sound peace chambers where people could chant for world peace.

“Somehow the Vast Self was involved in the sound chamber, not just the individual self. I already knew that what we recognized as the personal self is but an echo of the Vast Self, which is the eternal Self. Somehow I knew that the sound chamber had something to do with how the eternal Self was involving all of our lives holistically, and that sound is another form of holism that is an ingredient of our physical well-being, our planetary well-being, our environmental well-being.

“When I had this vision, I spoke to the United Nations about it, because I recognized the UN as the entity for world peace. Today, we have sound peace chambers in countries all over the world, including the United States.

“In another vision I was instructed to build ceremonial fires in the sound peace chambers. I built the first fire on April 7, 1984, and now ask keepers of the sound peace chambers around the world to light a fire on the seventh of every month.

“It is 24 years since I had the vision to create the chambers, and 24 years is a sacred time in our tribal tradition, a time when the energy of power expands to all the different directions and to the galaxies. I am asking for the people all over the world to think about peace in their homes and their lives and their families.

“You are here at this time because you are supposed to be here. As you are peaceful, you will pass this peace to your children and grandchildren, and they will grow up to BE the peace of the whole world. A-ho!”

Read more here:  http://www.josephrael.org/?page_id=9

 Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow)

 Joseph Rael, whose name, Tsluu teh koy ay, given to him as a child at Picuris Pueblo, means “Beautiful Painted Arrow,” is widely regarded as one of the great Native American holy men of our time. He was born in 1935 on the Southern Ute reservation to a chief’s granddaughter and a Tiwa-speaking Picuris native. At about age 7, shortly before his mother’s death, he went to live in Picuris near Taos, NM, where his visionary powers were developed until, at about age 12, he began to assist the village holy man in curing practices.

He was educated both at Santa Fe Indian school and public high school before getting a BA in political science from the University of New Mexico and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For a number of years he worked in various capacities in Indian health and social services in both New Mexico and Colorado.

At age 45 he quit his social services job to devote full time to teaching and following his visions wherever they might lead. In 1983 Joseph had the vision to build a Sound Peace chamber, a kiva-like structure where people of all races might gather to chant and sing for world peace and to purify the earth and oceans. He built the first such chamber at his then-home, a trailer park in Bernalillo, NM, and shortly like-minded people began to build Sound Peace chambers in other locations.

At present, Sound Peace chambers have been built around the globe. Writes Joseph, “My vision is that through sound we will bring about peace and other important vibrations. Sound can teach us a way to create without destruction.” Meanwhile, Joseph began leading ceremonial dances, based on his visions, with participants from all races and nationalities. “When you dance you are expanding the vibrations of insight and manifestation,” he writes. “I created three dances — the long dance, the sun-moon dances and the drum dance—for these spiritual gifts.”

Read more @ http://www.josephrael.org/?page_id=2

 

“To know ourselves as the Vast Self playing
is to be both human and divine.
It is for this we all are born,
to be mystics, fully alive and dancing.”
Joseph Rael in House of Shattering Light

Properties for Sale

Property Purchase Examples:

 Most properties with residential rights have at least one building structure on them. The condition, age, style and size of buildings vary enormously. The area of land available with each property also varies quite a bit, but usually averages between half an acre to an acre (2000-4000 sqm).

Residential properties as above vary in price depending on condition, size and location. Average prices range in the project area of the Leskovdol valley area is currently between £5 – 15,ooo). Fully renovated houses / villas are available, some with furniture for prices in the region of £30-50,ooo.  

Meanwhile, agricultural and forestry land prices are usually calculated by the square meter and range from £1-3. (£4,000 – 12,000 per acre)

Current planning regulations are relatively relaxed when applied to property renovation or re-construction. Although tighter controls are applied to new buildings, there are very limited restrictions on the construction of agricultural buildings for animal housing or barns for hay.

Property Ownership Examples:

Private ownership as individuals, groups or family investment.

  • Purchased as full time or seasonal residential property
    • Renovated/rebuilt to individual specification for own use.
    • With kitchen garden and/or own animals
    • Possibly with additional meadow land for grazing
  • Integrated with additional accommodation for volunteers and retreats guests in house or camping + facilities
  • Building and maintenance using community skill sharing and service credits scheme

Community ownership purchased using collective funding from activity / service sales and/or grants:

  • Community shop
  • Community hall
  • Camp sites
  • Retreat accommodation properties
  • Sound / meditation chamber(s)
  • Sweat Lodge / Russian Baniya

Land rented from Municipality

  • Grazing meadows
  • Camping sites
  • Community hall
“Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat,
read a good book every now and then,
get some walking in, and try and live together in peace
and harmony with people of all creeds and nations”
The Meaning of Life – Monty Python

HARMONIC ALCHEMY

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe,
think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
Nikola Tesla
 
The Vision

THE VISION

The Harmonic Alchemy Retreat (HAR) is a community-based project with a seasonal, rhythmical combination of full time and part time (seasonal) residence and volunteers, offering services to retreat guests. The HAR...

THE VISION

COMMUNITY

The HAR is a group of like-minded individuals and families working together, in a skill sharing self-sufficient cooperative. The community includes a small collective farm, growing fruit and vegetables...... 

COMMUNITY

Retreats

retreats

Short retreats can offer a taste of harmonic connection and contribute towards significant shifts in physical, mental and spiritual blocks, but for lasting life-transforming work a longer period is often needed.

RETREATS

Services

OPPORTUNITIES

The HAR community is being established to offer a diversity of workshops, classes and treatments that can be packaged together to form part of organized retreats of one-two weeks in length.

OPPORTUNITIES

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