Avalon Springs - Ecovillage: Community, Intention and Business

Ecovillage: Community, Intention, and Business

Avalon Springs is an ecovillage which includes an intentional community, a Special Events Complex, and a hot springs eco-retreat and healing center. The project as a whole intends to serve as an experiential educational platform for all visitors, that they might learn how to live abundantly, intentionally and sustainably in our changing world.

The Community
The community at Avalon Springs will house approximately 50 people, the core employee/members of the project and their families. The community site itself will be built in a village-style, with small residences forming circles of collaboration and communion. The homes will be eco-friendly, built of cob, strawbale, and other green building materials, and using sustainable energy sources and waste management systems. The social architecture will utilize an adapted consensus model and accountability to a shared statement of intention, which we call Avalon’s Field of Alliance.

Click here to see photos of the site for the community and gardens.

Click here to see Avalon's Plan for Clean Green Energy.

The Business
Many intentional communities encounter difficulties because they lack an integrated source of prosperity for their residents. The ecovillage concept of Avalon Springs includes a for-profit healing hot springs retreat center as a source of abundance as well as a portal and invitation to the outside world to come and learn the art of sustainability and intentional living. In all activities, be they business or community-related, we choose to discover, create, model and share sustainable solutions with the world.

Avalon Springs will offer a retreat center facility appropriate for workshops, retreats, and gatherings that support global evolution, a sustainable future, and holistic healing. Groups and individuals will utilize the gathering spaces, dining facilities, and guest cottages of Avalon while enjoying the natural hot springs for soaking, relaxing, and self-healing. Internship programs will support staffing needs as well as provide experiential learning opportunities to the intentional community builders, permaculture professionals, and sustainable business experts of tomorrow.

Rather that focusing on the recreational traveler and day-use visitor, Avalon Springs will provide an intentional environment that supports those looking to stay for a weekend, a week, or a month, offering a deeper level of rejuvenation of body, mind, and spirit, and a fuller experience of embodied education in sustainable living.

The Special Events Complex
The top of the hill at Avalon, with its breath-taking views and gentle breezes, will be dedicated as a non-denominational sacred gathering space. The main building will be a large group meeting space that is neither a traditional church nor a meeting hall. It is to be an intentional space created for meditation retreats, Satsang, ceremonies, rituals, dance, and music celebrations. The simple beauty of this sacred space will be brought to life with the creative use of light and sound and the spirit of the participants.

The complex will also include a quiet meditation sanctuary, along with some multi-purpose meeting rooms. Also envisioned at the top of the hill are an outdoor amphitheatre, a recording and visual arts studio (all powered by sustainable energy sources), a tree circle, a fire circle, a traditional kiva and sweat lodge, and a design that ties all of this in with Avalon’s reflection lake.

The Special Events Complex will serve as a center where the larger community can gather in intention and communion. It will represent the spiritual core of Avalon, where rites of passage are honored, and where the essence of our common ground unites us in celebration and reverence for all of life.