Testimony of Vanessa Attia:

If I had to associate my stay at the Forge with a chakra, I would choose that of the heart!!

Why ? Because coming to spend a few days here has not dented my love of nature despite Aoutat's 47 bites!!

Nah, I'm joking.

I came because I was convinced that I would find enough there to make the transition between my summer nomadism and the more sedentary return to school, because I wanted to devote myself to a few points of my activity and my projects, including professional and the personal are so intertwined that I decided not to try to separate them anymore…

And I wanted to experience that by experimenting with life in common, taking part in certain collective tasks, stroking pigs, showering outside and using sawdust rather than drinking water to make my excrement disappear.

All that, I can check it off, but I have lived much more.

I felt this energy and fluidity of the group, of a place. This feeling of being at home, surrounded by a chosen family.

I met new people, I attended a rendering of a play that the actors had come to work on, I took part in a mini freestyle circus festival in the town next door,…

Above all, I had rich, simple and nourishing discussions about myself, others, society, the world and the Living.

I probably also gained 3 kilos; proof that you can be vegetarian, eat healthy and enough, without feeling hungry.

In short, I speak of the heart chakra because it is the one that allows harmony between those below and those above, the balance between material, concrete, anchored dimensions and others more intellectual, ethereal, cosmic, spiritual.

This chakra carries within it the essence of life.

It is the place where body, soul and spirit unite, it is the seat of cosmic love which makes the ego go beyond.

It is an extraordinary place of transformation and healing if we go beyond greed and possession.

It pushes the being towards a deep verticality, a place of liberation as a free being.

For me, it is a very good definition of what I felt at the Forge du Vallon among its inhabitants and visitors.

Thanks to the Forge for existing and bringing realistic utopias to life,

Thank you for your human and benevolent welcome.