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The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like a high - spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun- struck hills every day. Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat and unyielding, and, despite all its dimensions, valleys, pinnacles, and detours, life will seem to have none of its magnificent geography, only a length. It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

Diane Ackerman

There will be no walnut oil making ceremony this year at the farmer's house in France. The orchard of century old walnut trees was devastated by the tempest that raged through Europe in the days between Christmas and the Millennium. France is, at the time of writing, a crematorium of burning woodland. From the aerial view of a plane all that can be seen is the slowly drifting smoke of the funeral pyres.

We arrived here in the calm after the 'apocalypse' as the locals call it. We were without water, electricity and phone. Two weeks later we now have electricity and water but still no phone. I am glad we came. It is only through association that we build community. Dissociation has its place and value but it is in stepping into the full emotion of the moment and allowing it that we become a part of the dance.

To reduce our vulnerability, we disconnect from students, from subjects and even from ourselves. We build a wall between inner truth and outer performance, and we play-act the teacher's part. Our words, spoken at remove from our hearts, become 'the balloon speech in cartoons` ' and we become caricatures of ourselves. We distance ourselves from students and subject to minimize the danger - forgetting that distance makes life more dangerous still by isolating the self.

Parker J Palmer The Courage to Teach

The damage caused to this southwest region of France has highlighted for me the qualities of community that already exist. Everyone almost without exception adds value. The builders, who came to work on our house, straightened a very beautiful conifer that was at risk of falling completely. They pushed the hedge back into its root hollow and they wedged a concrete phone pylon back into place. They did not need to do these things, they just did, and they did so professionally and with love.

We dined on New Year's eve with the farmer and his wife by the light of one generator powered bulb and an ornamental candle. They welcomed us into their home on a very special occasion. As we talked, the nuances in language that make the difference emerged. I have long been curious about the significance of the use of 'on' in French. For what we would say as 'Let us go' in English the French say 'On va?' - 'One goes?' I wondered if the regular use of 'on' led to a more dissociated culture than one in which we said 'I' or 'We' instead of 'one'. But the farmer also explained that if you lose something - let's say for the sake of example - 'your horse' or 'your husband' (no significance in the order!) then one does not say 'I have lost my horse' one says 'I have lost our horse'. And then everyone looks for it, whereas if one says 'I have lost my horse' then you look for it alone! And that is my experience of community here. My husband and I do not own our house - it belongs to France and to this community. Whilst in the process of having a pool built I rose early one morning to find the farmer's son standing looking at the digging and cementing that had gone on. I was surprised at first but then I realised that it is of course everyone's pool and they are all checking to make sure that it is being built right. I will not be surprised to find that half the village comes to use it in the summer.

Before spending much time in France I had heard horror stories of finding reliable people to do work here. My experience has been far from this. I find that every person has a speciality and 'chacun respecte les autres' - each one respects the other. No-one treads on anyone's toes - each knows their own and others specialties and honours and abides by them. Each liaises with the others so that their work dovetails and they are a powerful network. How interesting then that one of the developments in business in Silicone Valley is the shift towards Integrated Networks and the move to giving away one's core product but placing value in the connectedness of each person in the network and gaining income from the services to each other.

It can be tempting to think of France as Bureaucratic and traditional and in many ways it is, but communities like the one of which we are a part have a lot to teach us. What makes the community so powerful here is that far from being disconnected it is very connected and they invite us to be the same. They do not consider themselves as having much that is their own - everything belongs to everyone. Imagine an international business world that has that belief at its heart.

I come to France for the beauty of isolation and seclusion. What I get is total inclusion and love.