Community Highlights: Meet Esther Ruurda of Malibu Sangha

Today we’d like to introduce you to Esther Ruurda.

Hi Esther, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In January 2020, we landed in Silicon Valley and were looking to buy a family home when Covid-19 hit and everything changed. I became very aware of not wanting to live in a house without land. And not wanting to live a life without more of a purpose than “just” supporting my family as a stay at home mom. I felt a strong pull to spread my wings and support a greater cause. We started looking all over California and were preparing to make an offer on a property in Ojai with the most beautiful 9 acre food forest. The previous owners opened up their land for Ram Dass retreats and donated their produce to the local Food Bank. Another buyer saw the beauty of this magical spot and we were too late. I got super inspired though and the seed for a Sangha was planted! With a lot of luck, we ended up back in Malibu (where we lived very happily five years prior) and manifested a piece of land with similar options. I started with rebuilding the abandoned gardens with the kids of our local school and organized breathwork, painting and meditation sessions for friends. Very soon after, more teachers and more students started finding Malibu Sangha and the community is growing steadily. The idea behind the Sangha is creating a community to connect with and be inspired by teachings and each other for the benefit of all beings and a more equal world.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
After realizing what it precisely was what we were looking for, things started to seemingly flow in that direction and with a lot of luck plus help from our friend (and realtor) Barry, we ended closing on this little piece of paradise in Malibu Park. The house needs a lot of work and we’re in the final stages of creating a vision for it and it will be beautiful! We definitely had a few “Big Little Farm” moments when it comes to the land, but I guess that was all part of the learning curve. The biggest obstacle was that soon after our move it became apparent my now ex and I were ready for a “conscious uncoupling” aka a divorce after 12 years together. We’re still good friends and both happier than when we were together, which has been good for the kids too. We still live on the same property and are in the permit process to add another house so the kids don’t have to move between 2 places.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Malibu Sangha?
My background is in marketing and fundraising for non-profits – my pride and joy being The Monkey Business Foundation I founded back in Amsterdam (where I’m from) in 2002 when I was 24. We “fun” raised by means of big parties in popular clubs with famous DJ’s and celebrities and raised $25k per night for the orangutans and their habitat in Indonesia. For the last ten years, I’ve mainly been my family’s support system, moving from place to place along the Westcoast but along the way, I have always followed my heart to deepen my knowledge in areas that light me up. I followed courses from The Science of Happiness at Berkeley University to The Secrets of a Farmers Wife in rural Washington State, a Compassion Cultivation Training developed at Stanford University and a 200hr Yoga Teacher Training in Seattle. These last two years, I really enjoyed an eight months herbalism training at The School of the Sacred Wild with Marysia Miernowska and I deepened my knowledge in the Human Design System at the IHDS. I’m actually in Costa Rica right now for a ten days course to get my certification to become a Human Design reader!

All the input from these courses combined brought me to one big insight. You CAN cultivate happiness with the right tools and with help from the right community ánd; happy people spread happiness in their communities – it’s a ripple effect.

My mission is to grow the Malibu Sangha to be a true compassion-in-action movement for a happier, more equal world by bringing people together to provide inspiration and facilitate teachings to elevate each other’s consciousness and wisdom. A Sangha is a Buddhist concept and it literally means “a (spiritual) community”. The work is rooted in the philosophy of awareness, understanding, acceptance, harmony and love. On my website, I explain in finer detail what it means.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I’m inviting teachers with interesting classes that support our mission to reach out and see if we can plan a gathering! I don’t charge for use of our outdoor space except that the teacher adds $5 for every person that participates to the Malibu Sangha Foundation Jar. This Jar supports different local non-profits for a couple of months at a time; in the last half-year we’ve been able to donate about $3500 to The Brown Bag Lady, Anahata Horse Sanctuary and Wags & Walks Dog Rescue.

People can also join the events taking place. I communicate most of the events on my Instagram account @Malibu_Sangha and I send out a newsletter as new things come up. People can sign up for this update on my website.

Volunteers with expertise in permaculture are very welcome to come help me build the food forest and a medicinal herb garden this coming year!

Contact Info:

• Email: esther@malibusangha.org
• Website: www.malibusangha.org
• Instagram: @Malibu_Sangha

Image Credits
Esther Ruurda