Paris was an international and multicultural city. Here one could meet people with different walks of life and from many countries. In 1978, The "Horse of 3" – a three thousand square meters old store - became our headquarters. Here were the main businesses run by The Tribe, including  a vegan restaurant, a recycling center, a publishing and editing house, a whole food shop, a travel agency, a free radio station. Many people were involved on a voluntary basis.

In the beginning of the eighties, our phone lines were continuously busy. People were calling from all over the country asking how to get involved with. These were individuals, non-for-profit organizations, trade unions, consumers groups, organic farmers, intentional communities, etc. who wanted to know more, to be helpful, to take a stand in their lives and society. Soon we had thousands of members and were asked to expand internationally.

In March 1980, many of those people gathered in Paris for New Earth. This was one of the first international ecological festivals in France - and maybe in Europe. During a full week, thousands of visitors came and got acquainted with concrete ways of alternative lifestyles. They could also learn how, beyond the trends toward a global economy, it was possible to co-operate on a non-for-profit basis. There was a wide range of exhibition desks, workshops, open classes and conferences in many fields: from organic farming, natural food, alternative health care, renewable energy, waste management and recycling to free communication networks, North-South dialogue, non-violence, peace and disarmament. It meant a lot of work, but we were happy to do it.

In the Summer of 1981, we hosted the Peace March when 20, 000 people arrived in Paris on foot from Copenhagen. It was not so long after we had held the second edition of New Earth which was growing bigger. We moved it to Bastille in the center of Paris. It had a strong symbolic meaning - not only for us. International participation expanded and we received delegations from India, Japan, Canada, the United States, South America and Africa. More room was given to organizations foreign to the eco-operatives, but with whom we could interact. There was Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Médecins sans Frontières, Solidarinosc, Chipko, Stampa Alternativa, and many others.

Thanks to the presence of many artists we could create a joyful and colorful event.  There was a terrific program of music and theater. We had classical, jazz, folk, popular and ethnic music. We had street artists, pantomimes, clowns. We had children's plays and workshops. It was all creative and almost entirely acoustic. I was happy to be in charge of that part.

It was amazing to see the interest of people for improving practical and positive changes in their lives - as free as possible from big transnational corporations. There was the concrete possibility to join forces with other networks and to create a Confederacy of the Alternatives. For many reasons, it did not happen. However, there was a real potential.
 

Before the Peace March event in Paris, a caravan of buses, vans and campers crossed the French border at the frontier town of Ventimiglia in the end of June. We were directed to Rome, where the Italian quarterly AAM-Terra Nuova was organizing a gathering in Caprarola. These were not our first collaborative efforts with Italians, but it was the first time we were invited to openly share our tribal life. The event was called "The Survival Tools".

We all parked on the shores of Vigo Lake. This was a naturally beautiful and inspiring place where we set up our camp in the woods and on the beach. Soon, the whole area was filled to overcrowding with people arriving from every corner of the peninsula.

We built up our gwams and developed community kitchens. We devised prototypes for waste disposal and sanitation. The beach became our classroom. During the whole week, open classes were organized, including yoga and meditation by Bhagel Prasad (India), natural and organic farming by Claude Aubert and Philippe Noel (France), tribal life by Piel (Canada), alternative press and independent media by Marcello Baraghini (Italy).

This gathering was great. There was an atmosphere of great simplicity, and there was not any pressure to participate in anything. Mother Earth gently took care of us. Everybody enjoyed the elements. Swimming in the lake, eating tons of cherries and tasty foods was great. You would have love it. Italians wanted to repeat the experience and it eventually became a yearly appointment.

Caprarola was directly followed by the visit of Masanobu Fukuoka from Japan. He was touring Europe to present his method of "Natural Farming". We were in charge of the logistics and interpretation. Fukuoka is a wise and visionary man. He has published several books, the most famous being "The One Straw Revolution", where he develops his whole philosophy and experience.

The basic idea behind his method is that there is a natural way of caring for the soil and the whole brotherhood of life which, in return, creates very productive ecosystems and landscapes. It's more easy to say than to practice, but the results are effective if you are patient and passionate enough. First of all, one has to observe nature in order to get a deep understanding on how the elemental forces work together. Then, one has to use harmless tools and methods in order to channel these forces. These same basic principles are applied in agroecology and permaculture.

In August 1981, a delegation made up of our children traveled to Japan. They first stopped in Okaido where they spent some time with the Ainus, the aborignial people of Japan. For a week, they shared their traditional daily life and enjoyed the ceremonies and rituals. Then, they went on a speaking tour around the country. They met alternative groups and organizations of all kinds. They also visited Fukuoka in Hakuba. Plans for closer collaboration were made.

Our kids benefited a lot from such experience. Within a few months, they had grown up more responsible and self confident. Not only they had come up with many ideas, but they wanted to act. A concrete result was they started their own organization which was called Young People's Planet . Still today, the organization runs reforestation and ecological projects.
 

Later in that year, I started to better know and appreciate Baghel Sharan Prasad. He was a nature cure therapist from India. In his youth, he had been an active follower of Mahatma Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave. Then, he dedicated himself to the practice and study of Ayurvedic medicine. I understood that from his Indian base at Vinoba's Ashram he was touring and teaching extensively.

While visiting Europe in 1980, he heard that we were planning a 16 year walk around the world. He wanted to know more about it and visited us in Paris. This was the beginning of a love story between him and The Tribe. He decided to join in and later in the Spring of 1981 he was back at the gate.

Walking the path with Prasad, who had shared his own life with Gandhi and Vinoba, was a strong experience. We learned about the living traditions of India - the Vedas, Vendanthas, Upanishads, etc. -,, Kadhi (homespun clothing), Swadesi (neighborliness), village self-reliance, self-sufficiency and self-government. We were initiated in the ways of Satya and Ahimsa (truth-seeking and harmlessness). Gandhi's ways of struggling for justice and peace became very concrete. We learned some basics of Hindi and Urdu, two languages spoken in India and surrounding countries.

I should say that at the beginning I found difficult to cope with Prasad. Maybe because of the language - I spoke only very little English. On the other hand, I was not the guy with a contemplative mood. It was later that we developed some kind of friendship. Prasad needed someone to get to the Netherlands. I knew the language. So we went together on that trip. We visited alternative groups and sustainable communities with whom we eventually developed working partneship. On the way we even visited my family - who were still strongly opposed to my choices. He made his best to seduce them and tried to convince them there was nothing to serious. I keep a good memory of that trip. 

In his way, that was quite different from the one I was used to, Prasad was a great teacher. He was very influential in shaping the basis of what would later become the faculty of Irenology (from Irene, peace in Greek) of an open university with headquarters in Paris we created in the middle of the 80s. Unfortunately, he died too suddenly. It happened on a trip to India, while he was packing back to Europe.