A curated garden of inspiring films, documentaries, books, guides and platforms for positive change. Discover people bringing land, inner life and community back to health. Start with “what can we do?” Leave with one useful action.
More than a link collection: a human-curated garden of pathways. Search a topic, teacher or question, or choose one of the living-system paths below.
Search across the curated resources below.
Choose the doorway that meets you today. Follow curiosity, notice what gives you energy, then carry one useful action into your life, land or community.
You do not have to read the whole library. Choose the relationship you want to strengthen today.
These are editorial suggestions for finding your way around, not health advice. A book, a film or a breathing practice does not treat anxiety, trauma or any other condition.
Over ten years of travelling, learning and meeting people, Benjy kept feeling the same thing: there is so much goodness in people, and so many of us are exhausted, overwhelmed or simply trying to get through the day. This library begins with compassion. No judgement. No demand to have it all figured out.
These are the films, books, projects and people that gave us hope and the courage to act. The world holds real pain, and it also holds extraordinary care, creativity and regeneration. We want to make that goodness easier to find, share and put into practice.
Let curiosity open a door. Watch something that moves you. Meet a project doing beautiful work. Try one small thing. A more alive world grows through what we do together.
Some resources are practical, some contemplative, some visionary. We share why each is here, the lens it carries and one gentle way to begin.
Begin with the two core guides, then explore the field notes and practical manuals that grew from real seasons in Central Portugal. Everything here is free to read online or take with you where a PDF is available.
The guide we wish someone had given us before we planted our first garden. Foundations of regeneration, living soil, syntropic thinking and simple ways to begin.
Read online → Download the PDF →A calm companion for a changing world: breath, steadiness, food, community, wise preparedness and practical hope — without fear.
Read online → Download the PDF →Seven practical places to begin on a real piece of ground, whatever its size or condition.
Read online →Benjy’s approach to turning woody biomass, living roots and useful edges into food, shade, habitat and fertility.
Read online → Soil & root enhancers (PDF) →Models worth studying, bed systems, market-garden thinking and how small farms stay both alive and viable.
Read online →Working with a so-called invasive: biomass, timber, fencing, soil building and honest management of mimosa in Portugal.
Read online → Download the PDF →What to sow and plant, month by month, for Central Portugal and comparable Mediterranean conditions.
Download the PDF →This whole library as a printable companion, to keep beside you offline.
Download the PDF →Why this exists at all: breath, rest, remembering and the quieter half of regeneration.
Read online →Some films entertain us. Others quietly rearrange the furniture inside our minds.
This collection gathers documentaries, conversations and visual stories that have helped us understand soil, food, forests, water, health, community, consciousness and the extraordinary intelligence of life.
These are not presented as unquestionable truth. They are invitations to observe, question, feel and continue exploring.
Choose the doorway that calls you.
Soil, fungi, farms and forests — the repair of living ground.
Hope, written in soil and carbon.
Soil, carbon, regenerative agriculture and hopeful land repair. Watch when people need hope with roots.
Visit the Film Website — Kiss the Ground (opens in a new tab)A farm learns to think like an ecosystem.
Biodiversity, patience, animals, mistakes, beauty and land relationship. A joyful first doorway into regeneration.
Visit the Film Website — The Biggest Little Farm (opens in a new tab)The ground beneath your feet is an orchestra.
A beautiful deepening into the living world beneath our feet: minerals, microbes, roots, humus and the miracle of fertility.
View the Documentary — Symphony of the Soil (opens in a new tab)The forest floor has been speaking all along.
Mycelium, mushrooms, healing, decomposition, networks and the hidden intelligence of the forest floor.
Visit the Film Website — Fantastic Fungi (opens in a new tab)Design that lets the land speak first.
Permaculture as a living design language for homes, farms, communities and landscapes.
Watch the Film — Inhabit (opens in a new tab)Slowing, spreading and sinking water — and letting whole regions come back to life.
What if healing water could heal whole regions?
Our newest heart-spark. A film about community-driven water regeneration, complete water cycles, water retention landscapes, and the possibility of healing whole regions by slowing, spreading and sinking water.
Watch the Film — Water Is Love (opens in a new tab)How we grow, eat and farm — and what it makes of us.
What we grow becomes who we are.
Farmers, health, policy, food systems and the regenerative movement growing wider.
Visit the Film Website — Common Ground (opens in a new tab)
A quiet question about how we will eat tomorrow.
A thoughtful doorway into peak oil, resilient agriculture, permaculture and reimagining farms for the long future.
View the Documentary — A Farm for the Future (opens in a new tab)The landscape within — stillness, awareness and the field we all share.
The stillness underneath the story of you.
Meditation, identity, awareness and the inner path of liberation.
Watch the Film — the Samadhi series (opens in a new tab)Contemplative film and spiritual worldview — not scientific evidence.
One vibration moving through everything.
Sound, geometry, breath, stillness and the shared field of life.
Watch the Film — Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds (opens in a new tab)Contemplative film and spiritual worldview — not scientific evidence.
These doorways also live in the Inner Regeneration room further down this page.
People quietly practising the world they wish to live in.
Ordinary people, quietly building a world that works.
Everyday people pioneering practical, regenerative ways of living, growing, building and belonging.
Watch the Film — Living the Change (opens in a new tab)Not warnings — invitations. Pathways that already exist.
A whole free cinema for a living planet.
A free streaming platform of documentaries and short films on nature, climate and regeneration — every watch supports real conservation and restoration projects.
Visit the Film Website — WaterBear (opens in a new tab)
A love letter to a future that already exists.
A solutionary, hopeful look at existing pathways for climate repair, including regenerative agriculture, marine permaculture, energy and education.
Visit the Film Website — 2040 (opens in a new tab)
A whole cinema for changing the story.
A huge library for social-change movie nights, community screenings, educational rabbit holes and action circles.
Browse the Collection — Films For Action (opens in a new tab)Books that shaped our way of seeing regeneration, interbeing, soil, food forests, culture change and sacred ecology.
Gabe Brown. Soil armor, living roots, diversity, animals and regenerative farmer courage.
Explore Dirt to Soil (opens in a new tab)Mark Shepard. Perennial agriculture, tree crops, polycultures and ecosystem mimicry.
Explore Restoration Agriculture (opens in a new tab)Toby Hemenway. Home-scale permaculture guilds, abundance and ecological gardening.
Explore Gaia's Garden (opens in a new tab)Dave Jacke & Eric Toensmeier. Deep food-forest ecology, succession, layers and design process.
Explore Edible Forest Gardens (opens in a new tab)Rosemary Morrow. Practical permaculture design for restoring land, communities and resilience.
Explore Earth Restorer's Guide to Permaculture (opens in a new tab)David Holmgren. Design principles for living systems, resilience and regenerative culture.
Explore Permaculture: Principles & Pathways (opens in a new tab)Bill Mollison. The big permaculture bible: zones, sectors, water, trees, buildings and communities.
Explore Permaculture: A Designers Manual (opens in a new tab)Vandana Shiva. Food, climate, seed freedom and ecological agriculture.
Explore Soil, Not Oil (opens in a new tab)Nicole Masters. Soil observation, minerals, biology and living fertility.
Explore For the Love of Soil (opens in a new tab)Robin Wall Kimmerer. Indigenous wisdom, botany and gratitude woven together.
Explore Braiding Sweetgrass (opens in a new tab)Masanobu Fukuoka. Natural farming and working with nature.
Explore The One-Straw Revolution (opens in a new tab)Martin Crawford. Temperate food-forest layers, species, guilds and practical abundance.
Explore Creating a Forest Garden (opens in a new tab)Suzanne Simard. Forest communication, care and the hidden life of trees.
Explore Finding the Mother Tree (opens in a new tab)Charles Eisenstein. Interbeing, culture shift and acting from the new story.
Explore The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (opens in a new tab)Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone. Transform ecological grief and overwhelm into grounded action.
Explore Active Hope (opens in a new tab)Teachers, farmers, scientists, storytellers and regenerative voices helping humanity remember how to live with the Earth.
Agroecology, biodiversity, seed sovereignty, Earth democracy and the defense of life.
Explore →Human health, soil health, farmer stories and the transition from chemical dependency to living systems.
Explore →Interbeing, sacred economics, gift culture and the story beneath systems change.
Explore →Landscape restoration, ecosystem repair and the Loess Plateau inspiration thread.
Explore →Succession, stratification, pruning, biomass and agriculture that behaves like a forest.
Explore →Soil armor, living roots, diversity, reduced disturbance, animals and whole-farm courage.
Explore →Botany, Indigenous wisdom, gratitude and remembering plants as teachers.
Explore →Soil health, observation, minerals, biology and the living intelligence underfoot.
Explore →Turning ecological grief into courage, connection and life-serving action.
Explore →Resources for presence, compassion, meditation, heart coherence, spiritual courage and inner transformation.
Heart intelligence, resilience and the bridge between science, spirituality and outer change.
Explore →Requested by Benjy & Sofia
A widely read invitation to examine identification with thought, and to imagine a less reactive way of living together. The Power of Now is its companion.
One gentle way to begin read one chapter slowly, then leave a day before the next.
Spiritual teaching and worldview, not clinical psychology and not evidence for metaphysical claims.
Visit the official resource (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
A four-part contemplative film series on meditation, identity, awareness and the inner path. Part 4, Sadhana, turns to practice and direct self-inquiry.
One gentle way to begin watch one part, then sit for ten minutes without watching anything else.
A worldview film, not scientific evidence. Where it uses the language of physics or neuroscience, treat that as metaphor unless a source is given.
Visit the official resource (opens in a new tab)→ Watch Part 4: Sadhana (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Requested by Benjy & Sofia
A visually rich contemplative film about inner experience, symbolism and perennial-spiritual themes.
One gentle way to begin watch the first part only, and notice what it asks you to accept.
Spiritual worldview rather than scientific evidence; its speculative scientific language is best read as metaphor.
Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)→ Visit the film site (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Requested by Benjy & Sofia
An accessible exploration of watching thoughts and feelings arrive without being wholly defined by them.
One gentle way to begin notice, once today, that you can hear the voice in your head rather than only be it.
Spiritual teaching and worldview; its psychological claims are not clinical evidence.
Visit the official resource (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Requested by Benjy & Sofia
A personal story about loosening control and responding to what life actually presents.
One gentle way to begin read it as one person’s account rather than a method.
Memoir, not prescription. Surrender never means accepting harm or abandoning discernment.
Visit the official resource (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Science, spiritual practice, morphic resonance and a living-world view.
Explore →Fungi, networks, decomposition and living connection in new language.
Explore →Spiritual dialogue, self-remembrance and the invitation to recreate ourselves anew.
Explore →Heart, presence, devotion, humor and the messy human path of awakening.
Explore →Mindfulness, compassion, peace and the practice of seeing that we inter-are.
Explore →A reflective oracle deck that has inspired contemplation, courage, compassion, healing and a deeper relationship with the living Earth.
Explore →Yoga through several complementary lenses: primary texts, historical scholarship, lineage teaching and embodied practice. No single school here is the final authority on all of it.
A scholarly introduction that maps physical yoga through its texts and through fieldwork, rather than through modern origin stories.
One gentle way to begin watch the first twenty minutes and notice which of your own assumptions about yoga’s age and origin it complicates.
Academic orientation, not a follow-along practice class.
Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)→ Visit the research centre (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
An institutional lecture archive for going beyond simplified accounts of yoga’s history and living traditions.
One gentle way to begin pick one lecture whose title you do not understand, and let it be the door.
A broad archive rather than a curated shelf; choose a single talk rather than treating the channel as one recommendation.
Visit the official channel (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Long-form conversations that bridge current academic scholarship and curious practitioners without flattening either.
One gentle way to begin listen to one episode on a tradition you have never practised.
Non-sectarian academic context; it complements, and does not replace, instruction inside a living tradition.
Visit the official resource (opens in a new tab)→ Watch the playlist (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Academic talks that place yoga inside the wider Hindu, philosophical and historical contexts it grew from.
One gentle way to begin search the archive for a term you have only met in a yoga class, and hear it in its own setting.
The archive covers far more than yoga; individual talks are worth choosing deliberately.
Visit the official resource (opens in a new tab)→ Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Fieldwork-based research into embodiment within living ascetic yoga traditions, well beyond posture-only definitions.
One gentle way to begin notice how differently ‘practice’ is defined by the practitioners in this study.
Ethnographic research about specific communities; it does not describe all yogis or prescribe practice.
Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
A comprehensive modern-yoga reference giving historical, philosophical and practical context for breath work far beyond short online exercises.
One gentle way to begin read the opening chapters on preparation and cautions before attempting any technique in the book.
A deep reference, not a beginner programme. Advanced ratios, retentions and locks belong with a qualified teacher — see the breath-practice note below.
Visit the publisher (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Gentle foundations first, then traditional and teacher-led context. Please read the safety note before following any practice.
A gentle, accessible way to follow the breath and bring attention back to the body — a good first doorway if everything else feels like too much.
One gentle way to begin try only the first exercise, for the length of ten breaths.
Supportive contemplative practice within a named tradition; not a treatment for any health condition.
Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)→ Visit Plum Village (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
A practical foundation for understanding and actually feeling diaphragmatic breathing before anything more elaborate.
One gentle way to begin lie down, rest a hand below the ribs, and simply notice which direction it moves.
Practitioner education, not individualised medical advice.
Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)→ Visit the institute (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
An evidence-aware doorway: one brief exhale-focused practice, studied alongside other breathing practices and mindfulness.
One gentle way to begin watch the short explainer first, then read what the study actually measured.
A small preliminary trial in 111 healthy volunteers. It does not show that one breathing exercise treats an anxiety disorder or outperforms every alternative.
Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)→ Read the study (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
An observation-first doorway into pranayama from a long-established Indian yoga and research institution.
One gentle way to begin spend the session observing the breath without changing it.
Part of a taught series. Follow the breath-practice note above, and treat traditional explanations as tradition rather than as clinical evidence.
Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)→ Visit the institute (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
A longer teacher-led introduction for visitors ready to go beyond a short breathing clip.
One gentle way to begin watch it once through before practising anything in it.
Not every technique shown is suitable for unsupervised beginners. Keep the teacher context and the safety note above.
Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
The fuller teaching behind the short practices, for anyone who wants the context rather than only the calming effect.
One gentle way to begin read the sixteen steps once, slowly, before listening.
Traditional contemplative teaching; not clinical treatment, and not interchangeable with yogic pranayama.
Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Fiction and poetry that make room for reflection. Read as literature, not as instruction.
Requested by Benjy & Sofia
A compact modern fable about listening, courage, purpose and what is discovered while following a path.
One gentle way to begin read it in two sittings and note the one line you would argue with.
Fiction and allegory, not factual spiritual instruction.
Visit the publisher (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
A classic novel of spiritual searching that opens reflection on direct experience, teachers, desire and the long stages of a human path.
One gentle way to begin notice where the book agrees with your own experience of learning, and where it does not.
A Western literary work set in India — not a primary Buddhist or Hindu text. Name the translator if you recommend a particular edition.
Visit the publisher (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Short poetic reflections on love, work, children, freedom, joy and sorrow that invite slow reading and conversation.
One gentle way to begin read one passage aloud with someone else and talk about it.
Poetic and philosophical literature, not doctrine.
Visit the publisher (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
What is wealth for, and does the way we create and use it leave life more alive?
A values-centred bridge from scarcity thinking toward sufficiency, generosity and a more conscious relationship with earning, spending and giving.
One gentle way to begin ask where the idea of ‘not enough’ actually came from in your own life.
Stories and a values framework, not financial planning.
Visit the official resource (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
A grounded counterweight to manifestation material, linking money with time, enoughness and deliberate living.
One gentle way to begin work out what one hour of your life actually costs you, and what it buys.
Adapt to your own country, tax and investment context. Not individualised advice.
Visit the publisher (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
A clear bridge from personal abundance to economies designed to meet human needs within ecological boundaries.
One gentle way to begin draw the doughnut for your own household or region before reading the critiques.
A framework and a normative argument; go to the underlying sources for consequential factual claims.
Visit the official resource (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
An invitation to examine money, gift, separation and ecological relationship as one cultural story.
One gentle way to begin test one of its claims about the history of money against an independent source.
A cultural thesis rather than settled economics; verify historical and economic claims before repeating them as fact.
Visit the official resource (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
A popular motivational framework for noticing inherited beliefs about money and the habits people associate with wealth.
One gentle way to begin write down the sentence about money you heard most often as a child.
Motivational self-help. It is not evidence that a mindset produces wealth.
Visit the publisher (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Requested by Benjy & Sofia
A contemporary manifestation and prosperity framework, requested for this shelf.
One gentle way to begin separate what the book asks you to do from what it asks you to believe.
Claims that invoke quantum physics or neuroscience need independent evidence; they sit in the worldview lens, not the research one.
Visit the official resource (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Requested by Benjy & Sofia
A gratitude-, intention- and consciousness-based approach to abundance.
One gentle way to begin practise the gratitude exercise for a week before judging the theory.
Not financial advice. The theoretical-physics language in the book does not establish its manifestation claims scientifically.
Visit the publisher (opens in a new tab)→Link checked 9 August 2026
Practical pathways into syntropic agroforestry, succession, pruning, biomass, food forests and regenerative design.
Succession, forest dynamics and syntropic thinking from the Ernst Götsch ecosystem.
Explore →Principles, planting schemes and confidence-building for starting syntropic systems.
Explore →Prune to stimulate growth, cover soil, plant intelligent consortiums.
Explore →A beginner pathway into syntropic agroforestry and regenerative systems.
Explore →Free syntropic agroforestry courses and learning pathways.
Explore →A visual doorway into food forests with water harvesting.
Explore →Tools for planning beds, food forests, planting calendars, contours, water, access, shade and seasonal flow.
Syntropic Agroforestry & Permaculture Planner for plant filters, grids and food forest design.
Explore →Step-by-step garden design, climate guidance, spacing and permaculture planning.
Explore →Tool for agroforestry designs, useful for farms, estates and land agents.
Explore →Garden and small farm planner for seed starting, transplanting, harvests and seasonal tasks.
Explore →Vegetable garden and allotment layout planner with crop guidance.
Explore →Digital kitchen garden and allotment planner with planting calendar and task flow.
Explore →For contours, zones, access, water, slope, shade, orchards and swale overlays.
Explore →Organisations and movements where regeneration becomes shared action, learning, ecosystem repair and community.
Join, learn or support ecosystem restoration communities and practical land repair.
Explore →Ecovillages, community design, education, tools and living examples.
Explore →Stories, education and pathways from awareness into regenerative agriculture action.
Explore →Health, soil, microbiome, Earth connection and regenerative community.
Explore →A movement and learning hub for social and ecological systems regeneration.
Explore →Living-commons frameworks for purpose-locked stewardship, shared value, community and regenerative place-making.
Explore →Regenerative leadership, inner/outer transformation and living-systems practice.
Explore →Regenerative practice and development education for complex living systems.
Explore →Our growing channel for regenerative empowerment, community, action and free resources.
Explore →Our positive, constructive, uplifting chat for loving conversations and real action.
Explore →Three connected doorways for applying what the Living Library teaches—without crowding the main shelves or presenting future work as finished.
A human-reviewed land-reading pathway connecting place observations, regenerative principles and safe next steps.
Meet the designer →A clear vision for belonging, restored landscapes, simple homes, shared resources, care and meaningful livelihoods.
Enter the vision →The evidence, precedents, legal questions and unresolved tensions that must root the vision in reality.
Explore the research map →Begin with Awakening Regeneration, share a resource with someone who needs hope, join the community, or help this free Living Library continue to grow.
Curated with care by Benjy & Sofia. External resources belong to their creators. We review and refresh this collection as the Living Library grows.
