Liz Cirelli

I'm Liz, born in England in 1980 to Italian parents. Before they immigrated to England in the late 1950s, my parents were farmers in Puglia, southern Italy, and they came from a very long line of farmers. Back in the day, my father was famous in his village for his cheese.

I grew up being taught how to grow fruit and vegetables, keep small animals, make compost, and harvest water. I loved it and have always had a profound connection with nature, but I always felt something was missing when it came to the farming methods my parents were teaching me. Having studied Geoff Lawton’s amazing PDC in 2021, I now realise permaculture design was the missing link.

Since graduating from the PDC in 2022, I have become the owner of my parents’ villa, located in a small mountain town called Roseto Valfortore, in the hills of north-western Puglia, Italy. It's an incredibly beautiful place. It falls under the Köppen climate classification of Csa: a typical Mediterranean climate, USDA hardiness zone 9a, and we get about 600mm of rainfall a year.

It is the village where my parents were born, and it is now where I call home. I have transformed the property from a family home into a coliving and retreat space, which now operates under the name La Vita Sukha. This is a combination of Italian and Sanskrit and literally translates as “the life of a lasting state of happiness.”

I have 2 hectares of land and plan to apply permaculture design methods to transform the entire property into a more sustainable and regenerative system. I’d like to set up an edible food forest on parts of the land closer to the villa and to reforest the land further away from the villa.

I also plan to construct non-invasive eco-structures with outdoor showers and compost toilets on parts of the land. These structures will be utilised by guests, thus allowing a permanent community to live within the villa itself. I run coliving seasons in the spring and autumn to meet people who would want to belong to our permanent community. 

Plans for increased sustainability include retrofitting the villa: fitting solar panels and geothermic heating and utilising spring water from our land and harvested rainwater in place of mains water wherever possible. I would also like to convert the swimming pool into a natural pool to make it a haven for wildlife.

Studying Geoff Lawton’s PDC completely changed my life. I felt like I’d been given a special key to unlock a huge gateway to knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. The strategies of an alternative global nation resonated so deeply with me…this is how I want to live and how I believe we should be living.

The long-term vision for La Vita Sukha, therefore, is to set up a regenerative farm based on permaculture values and have a permanent community living in the villa, with guests staying in beautiful eco-structures in the reforested parts of the land, immersed in nature. It is our aim for guests staying with us to learn how to live with self-awareness, in a community environment – and to learn how to live according to permaculture design principles.

Our ultimate ambition is to establish a global network of La Vita Sukha hubs, utilising the site in Puglia as a prototype. At this stage, we aim to sponsor individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, immersing them in community-based sustainable living and providing grants to carry this invaluable learning into their own lives and communities.

In addition to my passion for permaculture, I am also an award-winning music producer, vocalist, and DJ, as well as a qualified yoga teacher, masseuse, and Reiki master. I love teaching and have enjoyed mentoring young music producers and teaching yoga for several years. At the moment, I’m a teaching assistant intern for Geoff Lawton’s PDC, with a long-term vision to become part of the permanent teaching faculty.