Our programme  invites you to stay in the Heartland campground site in Abruzzo, for an extended period of time. It is a research platform into the development of new models of society, the study of rurality, working on minimalist farming approaches and creating sustainable structures. This project is a way to use the power of this place to support the enhancement of awareness alongside revitalising a rural community, to reconstruct the ruined houses of stones into small cosy homes where the people who have been called to return to nature live in harmony with the wildlife that has taken over the land.

The Heartland site is built on 25 hectares of pristine land and it was chosen because the land here enjoys no discontinuity – it has never been modernised again. The closest neighbours are over a kilometre away. The abandoned smallholding that has been left 45 years ago is now coming back to life, the olive trees are in leaf, the cherries are fruiting again, and the old wells of limestone are full of clear water, but much has been untouched.

As the site has been allowed to stay wild  and much of it is forested, there are several spots where nature is totally undisturbed. As part of the Be Here program, we offer you a yurt to live in on one of those spots or you can build your own tent or other structure: under the trees, sheltered from the sun in summer and from the big winds in winter. Be aware that this is not a glamping holiday or easy retreat. Nature here is wild, and life in harmony with it means one has to adjust to the wilds, not the other way around.

The program is in place to allow us and you to focus on energizing the Heartland  Centre alongside finding progressive solutions for the economic and social climate of Southern Europe, where so much of the rural population is leaving the country side because the small scale farming they knew is no longer viable. This is even more true in the mountains of Italy, where farming was always harder – we aim to focus on new farming methods, minimalist approach to sustainable tourism, creating models of society that work, focusing on inner work and balance. 

Our Programme is designed to help others too to create a new life and work balance, to bring back rurality and free natural living, we have worked with many projects, helping them too to create an integration between farming and sustainable tourism, helping with rural design. In a sense even though we run an association for rural development, we maintain that real development is no development at all, it is a defence of the natural and our life as an integral part of the biome. We work as consultants for others too, helping them set up their own sites, both in the UK and in Italy. We focus on a series of small plugins that bring mini scale manufacturing into rural areas, organic farming, and a new type of tourism that is experiential, taking people into another realm rather than just a location, a way to experience what true rurality is by experiencing the myths of traditions and ancient ways of living. 

Contact us if you feel that you want to take part in this exciting adventure, that like us you have a passion for living in the wilds in a progressive society, are attracted to inner work, and the study of consciousness, if you too see the wild boars, wolves and deer as your friends and can enhance the wilds with your being, rather than control it, if you too see the land as somewhere you live as a custodian, and above all understand that if you sell your home as a product to others you will never feel complete living in it. 

Here is the new Heartland website: www.spiritsheartlandofintent.com