The return

PAS Rural Coliving
4 min readDec 23, 2024

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This week Ian returned to visit us in Cantabria. But it is not just any visit, he is the first coliving to stay. Ian is a friend from the Philippines who came to spend two weeks at PAS Coliving Rural right after it started. He was one of our guinea pigs, one of the first people who enjoyed the space, who helped us bring it to life and begin to materialize this dream come true.

The other day he told me when he returned to the cabin where he spent just a couple of weeks, that he felt like he was returning home, as if he had spent several years living there. Now he lives in an apartment that some friends from Alceda rented him, who came to visit us for a few days during their experience. The truth is that they connected very well and that surely helped him make the decision to move to live in Cantabria altogether.

During those two weeks, Ian was facilitating a meditation space for the community in the mornings, something that became a ritual. The experience was very positive for the participants, and also for Ian, as it allowed him to put into practice what he learned in France.

Ian travels every month to a monastery where he continues to train and learn. In this new stage, his idea is to be able to open a space where he can carry out this type of meditation experiences, where he can bring groups and organize retreats, surrounded by nature and very close to the river. For us it is a gift to have him close by and we are sure that we will be able to explore ways of adding together and enriching ourselves from the experience.

This is the first of many surprising stories, which happen in a very short space of time, which leave a mark and make us believe that the space we are opening can transcend. It is incredible how a person in just a few weeks can feel the space as his home, can connect and create strong ties with the community of people with whom he lives, can also awaken the affection of others and, most difficult of all, can create bonds of friendship with neighbors in the area.

We are certainly very happy with how this story is evolving, and it could be seen as a first victory, a small success of the project in a short period of time. Our success indicators are related to creating a community, making authentic connections, generating social capital, training and promoting a new generation of change agents in the region, turning Cantabria into a focus of social innovation, which emerges from the town and values ​​the rural, so that from the Pasiegos Valleys pioneering academic programs in regenerative economy can be offered.

The truth is that we still do not know clearly whether the establishment of people from other places in the valley can generate value for the neighbors or upset them. Although it is true that many young people from these towns end up leaving for larger ones or the cities, with teleworkers or digital nomads we also do not achieve the generational change to keep open livestock farms, car or carpentry workshops, bars, restaurants or small businesses in the area. On the other hand, perhaps we are able to encourage local entrepreneurship, which provides new services and different employment opportunities, which can generate a positive social, cultural and environmental impact in the Pasiegos valleys.

To finish with Ian’s story, it is also important to mention that the experience was based on the economy of generosity. Therefore, those first people did not make any payment, there was no transaction but rather an exchange. Without a doubt, other forms of wealth emerged and each person contributed a lot of value to the project, from direct feedback and comments, to suggestions, testimonies, reviews on Google Maps, audiovisual content, review of the structure and copy of the website and a long etcetera of intangibles as well.

At some point, the opportunity was mentioned and left open to anyone who felt like it to make a direct financial contribution, knowing that this money would be allocated to cooperation projects in Africa. And what a surprise we had when a few days after the experience ended, Ian transferred money to our bank account, which far exceeded the fee we could have charged him for those two weeks of stay. We were able to send that money directly to Ghana and continue moving forward with the projects we visited last August. Acting with generosity and trust certainly brings abundance and once again we experienced it at home.

And you… Do you dare to carry out an experiment based on generosity?

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PAS Rural Coliving
PAS Rural Coliving

Written by PAS Rural Coliving

Your village to work remotely, connect with nature and learn from others, share homemade food, acts of generosity and community experiences. www.pascoliving.co

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