Our highest aim with this course is to create a global coherence around community building, harnessing the power of our global network for mutual support, solidarity and aligned action.
- Are you confused and saddened by the growing global crisis?
- Have you yearned for community - actual, tangible “village” in your life but don’t know how to get there?
- Have you had difficulty in stabilzing love partnership?
- Do you find yourself coming to the similar edges in love, eros and attachment and recongize that the problem might be bigger than you (or your partner(s))?
- Do you long for family, but know you’d need a village to raise a child in the most healthy way possible?
Join us on a course diving into the heart of the deepest personal, political and global revolution of our time - and how, in fact, love can save us all.
the course
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Hello, we’re John Wolstone, Ian Mackenzie, and Julia Maryanska - the filmmakers behind *The Village of Lovers.*
We’ve often joked that making this film over the past 9 years was our equivalent of getting a PHD in Love, Eros and Intentional Community, and now we’re excited to have finally organized our learnings from Tamera and many other lineages these past years into this groundbreaking online.
This course is not just an educational journey—it's deeply transformative **how-to guide** for the revolution at the very heart of human civilization - How we can unlock these fundamental powers of Love and Eros to guide the process of organizing community.
Our film the Village of Lovers dives into this question, revealing that at the heart of any successful community endeavor, needs to a radical shift to a culture of Love and Eros founded on the Truth, Transparency and mutual support which foster a culture of trust.
This online course now unlocks how to slowly, carefully and with great respect for the broken world and families many of us are coming from, unlock Love and Eros to organize a thriving community in your life.
This online course now unlocks how to slowly, carefully and with great respect for the broken world and families many of us are coming from, unlock Love and Eros to organize a thriving community in your life.
Is there a link between the immense difficulty of intentional community and the failures of love and eros in humanity?
why this course?
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This course will not only teach you how to build successful community but how to consciously use community to build successful love partnerships and even a thriving love network in your life.
We live in world in crisis - fragmented by the thousands of years of our uprooting from village and indigenous lifeways where we lived in belonging, reciprocity and balance with the Earth and each other. Industrial-growth, post-capitalist nuclear-family society doesn’t work - the consequences accrue in each melting glacier, mega forest fire, and the epidemic of mental illness and violence which plague our current moment.
None of want to live glued behind glowing screens and disconnected from the love, village, and sustainable lifeways *that just make sense* - yet few know how to actually bridge the gap from the current trap of modern society back into a community-oriented way of life.
Many have attempted intentional community in the last couple hundred years - especially during the back-to-the-land movement of the 60’s and 70’s and yet 99% of these projects failed - intentional community *has the highest failure rate of any human enterprise.*
Meanwhile, marriage failure rates continue to rise, amidst a global reckoning with the continued legacy of prevalent domestic and sexual abuse against women, with as many in 1 in 2 woman having been assaulted, while very few in “stable” partnerships or marriages actually feel soul-fulfilled and happy.
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Supportive Global Community
Flexible Learning allows you to access the course content from anywhere, at any time. Our platform is designed for your convenience, enabling you to learn at your own pace in your own time.
what's included
self-paced
This course is taught in a series of modules, utilizing the power of myth, story, lecture and embodied practices to unfold this pathway. There are reflection questions, “homework” and partner activities at the end of each module so that educational journey actually integrates into your life. This is about embodied transformation.
By joining the course, you become part of a global network of like-minded individuals who are committed to transforming Love and Eros and Building Thriving Communities. Together you can share experiences, insights, and support as well as make valuable friends, allies, lovers and network connections.
Interactive Modules
modules
The Journey
This course is taught in a series of modules, utilizing the power of myth, story, lecture and embodied practices to unfold this pathway.
Expanding Love, Liberating Eros
Learn about the expansive nature of love and eros, the importance of including singles in the community, and how to create a love network through eros that binds the community together.
part 1: The Big Picture
What is Eros and Why Was It Outcast?
Explore the origins of Eros, born from chaos and moving as Gaia's intelligence, and understand the historical suppression of eros in favor of domination systems.
The Loss of Village
Discover how the shift from village life to nuclear families has impacted our capacity for love and connection, reflecting on the limitations of privatization and the need for a broader vessel for love.
Partnerships in Community
EMBARK ON A SHARED WONDERING
Delve into the dynamics of partnerships within the context of community, exploring secure attachments, the essence of a good partnership, and how partnerships can foster communal growth.
part 2: the nuts & bolts
Contact and Courtship
Begin with self-contact and move towards understanding the art of courtship in a community setting, emphasizing nervous system regulation and safety.
Being Bump Friendly
Embrace conflict as an opportunity for generativity and deeper intimacy, navigating from rupture to repair within partnerships and the broader community.
A Culture of Truth and Transparency
Practical Approaches to Community Building
Establish a culture where truth and transparency are the norms, utilizing the community as a collective mirror for personal and communal growth.
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Coherence
Through vulnerably revealing truth and shadow, love and pain, trust and safety grow within love relationships and a community group, allowing the possibility for the group to cohere and bigger a “meta-organism” together
Emergence
Partnering together with the Intelligent Mystery to Guide the Process
Once coherence stabilizes, the group becomes capable of listening together for deeper calls of guidance, and no longer relies on “decision-making strategies” but rather courts the mystery, the intelligence of Gaia, and partners with the Earth, the Universe, Creation to unfold a space of communal revelation which becomes the guiding core of any community of the future.
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part 3: Emergence
So much unnecessary suffering on the journey of liberation within relationships + community could be avoided if more people had access to this course. The fundamentals presented in these modules provide a roadmap to sustainably navigating the edge of culture. I found this course to be so significant, that the first thing I did when I completed it was invite my community to form a focused study group around these resources. With so much depending on the health of our relational ecosystems at this time, I can’t recommend The Forbidden Fruit course more.
This course gave me bearings inside a terrain that up until this point had been rife with instability and confusion.
I couldn’t imagine doing relationship and community without the building blocks John, Julia and Ian have masterfully broken down here for us.
- Amma Li Grace
q+a
frequently asked questions
What if I still have questions?
Nope! This class is delivered asynchronously, which means you can start it whenever you want, at your own pace. You have lifetime access and we encourage you to return to the content many times throughout your initiation process.
Do I need to take The Forbidden Fruit at a specific time?
No. All class videos are available immediately.
Will there be any in-person class sessions?
This course will be training how to build a powerful inter-relational web of support around you, where you will share your learning, receive questions and feedback. We also highly encourage you to take the course with a friend or small group for a more powerful learning integration journey.
Who can I practice the assignments with?
The full course content lasts about 3 hours, and the assignments will take longer depending on your readiness and enthusiasm for transformation. We recommend waiting at least a day between each video module, and some participants have taken one video module a week, really working deeply with the content and assignment.
How long should it take me to complete the course?
You’ll have lifetime access to the course, so you can feel free to break up the modules according to your schedule, and repeat videos to let the content sink in deeper.
How long do i have access to the course?
Please, please, talk to your friends about these tools and perspectives. Our deepest desire is to build a global culture around the revitalization of rites of passage and adulthood initiation.
Can I teach these tools to my friends?
No. We’ve put a lot of time, thought and care into The Forbidden Fruit and we’re charging for it because we believe it has value for life. We ask that you respect the effort that went into the course and do not share it without permission.
Cool! So can I share my login info with friends?
If you have more questions, please contact us here and our team will be in touch as soon as possible.
Can I host a group training session?
If you’re interested in hosting a group session, contact us here.