Among us, there was a general feeling, a sense of informal community – at a concert, a festival, a demonstration, in bars and cafés, on the street. Many people around us were traveling in search of new experiences - Amsterdam, Berlin, Goa, San Francisco. Visiting intentional communities and freetowns was a common ground. Christiania in Denmark, New Barbonia in Italy, Findhorn in Scotland, l'Arche in France were such mythic places. We heard of the Rainbow Gatherings, the Farm and the occupation of Wounded Knee in the States. We were fascinated by those experiences, which appeared to combine an active subculture of social experimentation with radical philosophy.

This was also a period when I became closer to my two older sisters. We had our circle of friends. Visiting each other regularly, playing music together, cooking, dancing, laughing, we were naturally drawn to each other more and more, and we found that the most enjoyable part of our lives was in interacting together. Both my sisters and many of those friends would join me some years later in France. In fact, already in those days we shared the dream of building up our own community.

In 1978, I moved to Brussels where I shared a flat with other students. At that time, I was  attending a school of social studies. The institute “Rue de la poste” was popular for its left wing political thinking. My own interest was with the fact that the school arranged long periods of practical instruction in social institutions, including youth centers, women circles, free clinics, trade unions, hospitals, factories.

Those periods helped me to understand how the society itself creates the breeding ground of social exclusion and violence, which are patterns of behavior that had been established a long time ago, and seemed to reproduce by themselves like the cells of a cancer. An author like Raimon Panikkar suggests that one can, as a working hypothesis, date the origin of wars to six thousands years before the Christian era, at the epoch of the birth of patriarchy.

It brought me to some crisis. I could no longer assist people to integrate into a society that had excluded them. On the other hand, I did not believe in reforms. If strong ideologies like socialism or communism had failed in their attempts to bring  about real social transformations, positive changes in peoples heart and mind would never come through revolution or opposing the “establishment” in its headquarters, jamborees and own institutions. I needed to experience something more radical, like changing my own lifestyle. And here came the real challenge. But where and with whom to start ?

Around me an epic was unfolding at the grassroots. I was involved with almost everything that was going out there on the margins of society. I was in permanent contact with people who were fully immersed in local struggles – greens, anarchists, marxists, maoists, peace activists, artists who were involved with emigrants, youngsters, women. Some had years’ worth of counterculture apparatus and stories. There was a difference from what I had experienced before: those people were not looking for individual escapes like drugs, sex, alcohol or music. They were social entrepreneurs. At their own level and using their own means, they were trying to rebuild a sense of community, to create and regenerate social spaces that had been destroyed by modernization.

Although many were trapped within their own contradictions and there was no defined common strategy, they represented a unifying “no” to the institutionalized aggression upon people's commons and self-identity. In that plurality of ways people had created to go beyond the rules that had been imposed upon them, there was something to be explored. Unfortunately at that time, I felt mentally and physically exhausted. Even my trust in peoples castles of certainties was so limited that I was unable to take a positive stand by and for myself.

For almost five years I had subjected myself to an overdose of ideas and feelings that had confused me completely. I needed some peace to heal myself and recover. Somehow, I was lost and did not see any clear answer. It was only later, in 1978, that I managed to get a better control of myself, with the help of some friends.

Pierre Frison was a priest who had become a charismatic leader among small farmers in the South-West of Belgium. He helped them to oppose both corporate powers who wanted to get the monopoly of agribusiness and the State who had planned to build highways on farmers' lands. For this  reason, his bosses sent him onto exile in the small town of Tournai - on the French border. There, although his capacity for action had been curtailed, he was developing the project of a free university on the model of the folk high schools in Scandinavia inspired by Gruntvig a century or two before. Pierre was a lovely person with a great sense of humor, and such an open heart. I visited him several times. We had long discussions that helped me to see more clearly how to handle my future. 

Jean-Marc Le Bihan was a street poet and troubadour. He was traveling around in France and Belgium with a band of artists. He had the charisma to become a star in show business. However, his sensitivity and humanism drove him close to the people. I met him for the first time in Brussels during a demonstration against a nuclear power station, where he had a show. Then one evening, I was hanging out at a friend's party when Jean-Marc popped in. We had some talks and he invited me to join his band. 

Later on, he planned a big event in Lyon aiming at supporting a group of people who had refused to serve into the army. They had a court case and he wanted to bring the matter to the media and the public. So, I became public agitator. We got thousands of people onto the streets. There was a lot of music and theater. Despite some troubles with the authorities who had dispatched military forces everywhere, the demonstration was a success. Later, we played in some festivals and other such events.

Actually, Jean-Marc was not just a poet. He was a leader with a real capacity to convey his political ideas and "heart speak" from the experience of life into a dialogue. He was a real anarchist, pacifist and free-thinker. He had many fans and supporters, especially among the youth and those people who felt to be the victims of social exclusion, intolerance or racial discrimination. I have very good memories of those times and I hope to meet him againone day. Someone told me recently he had opened a kind of cabaret in Lyon.
 

During that period, I had a girlfriend who initiated me into the feminist perspective . She was a great activist and helped me to deepen my understanding on how male oriented is the social structure in our society. Our relationship didn't last long, but I'm very thankful to her.
 

It also happened that one day a friend invited me to a session of humanistic psychology. I had no idea of what it would be like, but I was free that evening. After sunset, we went to our "rendez-vous". It had something mysterious. The meeting was held in one of those big villas built in the Victorian style that are so typical in the old neighborhoods of Brussels. A lady in her fifties received us. We were introduced to the other participants and we were proposed a cup of tea with some biscuits. I remember there was some Indian music playing in the background and a heavy smell of incense.

Soon a guided session started. I found myself  laying down on the floor and looking for the most comfortable position. We had to concentrate on our bodies, starting from the feet and then proceeding to the head. I did not relax immediately. This kind of exercise was all new to me and later on I asked myself if I had ever listen to my body before. Only that was a revelation.

During that session, many thoughts came to my mind at first. It was very confusing. But then, little by little, tensions started to disappear. At once, I begun somehow to sob uncontrollably. I saw clearly I was going out of my body, running in the woods, following the beat of a drum. Suddenly, there was a stone circle on a hill. A man bearing white clothes was standing up nearby. Then, it seems I lost control and fell asleep. It was about midnight when we left the place.

For months, I retained a strong feeling from that experience. I had no words to explain it. Somehow, the vision I got had no clear meaning. However, when I left Belgium a few months later I started to connect it with my new situation.