Hildur Jackson
Hildur Jackson was born in Denmark in 1942 and spent most of her life in the suburbs of Copenhagen. She had a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Copenhagen and also did postgraduate studies there in cultural sociology. She was married to Ross Jackson since 1967, together they had 3 sons and 5 grandchildren. Hildur’s big heart and vision, in close marriage to her beloved husband’s wild intelligence and skills, gave birth to the Global Ecovillage Network and to Gaia Education. She died on 6 September 2015, peacefully held in the circle of her loved ones, with her husband, Ross, by her side. We will miss her dearly…
Hildur was a long time grass roots activist, (natural birth, women’s movement, local community movements, technology and society, organic farming). Her passion to solve women’s dilemma between full time work and being isolated and dependent as housewives inspired her to co-found one of the first Danish cohousings in 1972. She lived there with 6 families for 20 years and saw 12 children grow up in these warm and inspiring surroundings with a common house, Icelandic horses, chickens, a football lawns and vegetable gardens
In the 1980s she coordinated for seven years the Nordic Alternative Campaign, a movement of 100 peace, environmental and women groups who aligned themselves with the scientific community to build a vision of how to solve the global, the social and the environmental problems and find ways of realizing this vision. She also initiated and coordinated a Nordic contest of ideas. With representatives from the Nordic countries she participated in the Women’s meeting in Nairobi.
In 1988 Hildur became a qualified permaculture designer, when Max Lindegger taught his first course in Denmark at the Folkecenter for Renewable Energy and she arranged two Danish permaculture courses in Vrads and in Thy.
For 6 years she followed the spiritual training of Danish teacher Jes Bertelsen, and began to meditate. Since 1992 she was been a member of Sahaj Marg, meaning “the natural path,” a raja yoga meditation system now practiced in 70 countries (See www.srcm.org). She worked as a preceptor, receiving people for “sittings” in her home.
In 1987 she and her husband Ross initiated Gaia Trust with the purpose of healing Gaia. Together with Ross and Bernard Lietaer she formulated the Gaia Trust strategy – with primary emphasis on yin (how we want to live with each other and the natural world) with support from yang (technology and economy).
For 10 years Hildur studied and collected material on Giordano Bruno with the intention of writing a book or film manuscript on him and his life.
In 1991 she moved to Thy with Ross and their youngest son to create a spiritual ecovillage to include a training facility, an organic farm and the Gaia Trust office, which later became the international office for the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN). The first task was to refurbish 1000 m2 and turn the 70 acres of “Fjordvang” into permaculture. For three years she and Ross did so while negotiating with the county to get permission to build an ecovillage. When finally they got the permission the Minister of Environment vetoed the project “in the national interest” and they decided to move back to Copenhagen.
Since 1993 Hildur was active in supporting the Danish Ecovillage Network (LØS) as well as GEN.
