For the next few days, I'm going to be blogging from the Freewheeling Festival in Stanford Valley just outside Hermanus. Stanford Valley is an independent community centred around sustainability consciousness, which I came across in my research for the Protofarm 2050 project.

This is the third Freewheeling festival/conference/mindspace that they've held, and as organiser Jonathan Rands commented, can now be called "annual". To say that the programme is diverse is an understatement - from early morning yoga to Max du Preez after lunch, climate change forums and tree hugging. Some stuff makes my toes curl and I feel that I have to sneak around behind the toilets to have a smoke. I'm also sleeping in my one-woman tent for the first time since Burning Man two years ago. So, besides the all-access wifi, I'm really going through the worm hole out here.

However, in her welcome, Marian Goodman asked us all to really push those bicycles up the really hard hill... Going all the way... To the top... Out of breath...

And then letting go.

Nope, no room for passengers or sponges at this conference. Everyone of the participants is working as hard as the speakers to create a space of openness, lack of judgement and mental freedom.I walked around with someone's finger on my nose and my finger on theirs, and we got divided into groups of eight with facilitation leaders. My group's called the Dragonflies.  Someone asked me if I knew what chakras are. I think I might just close my eyes, at least for the first while, until letting go comes more naturally. Eyes wide shut and dive right in!

As opening speaker, Peter Willis talked about "WILLIS" - the world I'd like to live in someday. Although he is director of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, no one seems to go by their titles round here.

He talked about change being an activation of the heart, not the mind. That when one has an idea that your heart responds to, it has a visceral, self-generating effect. One should stoke this fire, silencing the "Ah, yes but" voice, at least temporarily. Once the fire is blazing hot, direct it with reason.

Perhaps it seems obvious - he admits that himself. But his application is beautiful. While scientists and technologists are only giving us pieces of what the future world ought to be... He says it's more important for us to imagine, to collectively dream up the world that we would love to live in, to stoke that fire. Then the technology will follow.

What are your deepest yearnings for the future? What are my deepest yearnings for the future?

When I closed my eyes, I saw a world 20 years hence, with no fear. Myself included.