The real treasure of Romania * Documentary

A documentary about the World changing...

I can’t hold a smile, my thought flies to the saying “the last ones will be the first ones”... maybe we are blessed because we're not such a developed country, less corrupted by the modern progress, maybe we haven’t yet ruined everything, maybe we still know how to manage living in the countryside, to consume what our garden produces, maybe because our parents are still making pickles and keep potatoes in the cellar, maybe because we still know how to make wine and cheese, because we still know to weave and get well drinking boiled plum brandy, maybe we still have a chance...

Not that this would be enough, but it still represents something; at least we don’t think that chicken is coming from the supermarket and we know how to bake a bread at home.

I'm looking how Romania is passing now in pole position, because the race took a different course, so it seems; so far we didn't have the chance walk in our new shiny shoes, there is a bumpy road ahead and luckily we still kept the gum shoes, we didn't throw them away, we have just repudiated them...

I've had lots of fun for myself in Tamera during the seminar about food; they preach the idea to come back to the habit of consuming aliments according to the season, fresh, without the killing procedures happening these days before the food gets to the supermarket - which is in fact a great idea, and correct way to feed ourselves. Maybe my mother remembers when the pea comes into season, the new potatoes, the cherries, and so on... I also used to know once and I remember that I couldn’t wait to eat the first strawberries of the season, or the first apricots. Now you may whistle for the taste, but we have them all year round: the same strawberry, in plastic, and as much as I try not to go with the wind, I cannot find something authentic Romanian to buy, not even in the villages nearby Bucharest, not talking about the city itself.

During the seminary they described different ways and attempts of food preserving, especially by dehydrating, namely drying, as a way to keep the aliments through the winter time. They were looking for alternatives... so, if you still have elders in your family, you should treasure their knowledge, ask them to teach you how to preserve apples for the winter, how to make sour cabbage, how to keep the carrots in the sand, how to keep the grapes for entire moths, because this information we will be needing all soon! Of course I have told them that we Romanians are still holding this knowledge...

With this I have really took them by surprise, I have told them we still hold these habits, that the mirage of supermarkets did not own us yet, that my mother still collects and dries herbs, keeping them in jars for her stocks! Now I get explained why in another Eco village in Germany, responsible for the farm milk was a Romanian woman! Look for the old recipes, I mean it... who wishes to go to Tamera and teach them, is welcome, they are waiting for you, seriously!

In most parts of the country side, living with what you can grow at home was mostly the traditional way of living until about 20 years ago. The ones living in the villages used to provide food to the ones living in the city. Who is now more than 40-45 years old knows exactly what I'm talking about. In the western society, this memory is still kept by those over 75 years old, maybe because they had the misfortune of being "saved" by supermarkets and the industrialized agriculture.

We Romanians still know how to cook; there are others that don’t even know how to prepare a cake, not talking about home made noodles!?!

In Tamera they were wondering how many hectares will be enough in order to feed from what they cultivate...

In the countryside my grandparents used to have a small garden for fresh vegetables and another yard of 1000 square meters, I remember... and you don’t want to know how many things they were growing there at the same time! The agricultural land outside the village was with the grape vines and the corn, the wheat...

I suddenly felt the desire to embrace everything we have in Romania, all our troubles; from there our country seems like a promised land, that I guarantee you! In a way, the fact that it wasn’t so easy for us, now it seems to be a blessing! Maybe finally we've found something to treasure!

A movie recommended by my new friends from Romania in Transition (intranzitie.org):

In Transition 1.0
(Thank you!)

Enjoy!

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Tamera's Story about Reforestation and Permaculture

I’ve posted a few days ago something about 15 of us taking care of the trees in Tamera. Just like you are doing now, I have smiled... What could possibly do a few people, just for fun, in a few days... almost nothing, it must be all about marketing.

...about 15 people, well-heeled with few reaping hooks, we arrived on the border of a dusty road, near a man made lake. Between the road and the lake there were a lot of fancy colored wildflowers and tall grass displaying their natural beauty... here are the trees, Herman says...

Where? He is must be joking...

But we soon discovered that the tall grass was hiding the enormous beds, sort of some large furrows, specific for permaculture...

Each of us received a furrow to take care of, to cut off the grass and the wild flowers, to let the sun reach down to the little trees coming to life from beneath... slowly we have learned to discover them, only 2-3 centimeters high, planted here and there, on beds.

We started to clean around carefully, without pulling them out, without getting them damaged, without taken them by mistake with some other plants... and hidden by the tall grass we also had to hold over and keep the sunflower plants, about 40 cm high, fragile and thin, meant to protect the future trees, offering them the shadow needed to futher develop.

And so, we had to pay great attention, as it was not as easy as it seemed.

Permaculture does not classify the plants upon their usage in our immediate interest, but integrates them in the circuit. For example, everything we have cut had to be left right there, lying down on top of the furrows among the little trees, in order to become food for the ground. Nothing is lost, nothing is taken out of the circuit, and everything is being reused.

The row that I've had in care was with elder berry plants. Each area is different, they have seeds gathered from all over the world and preserved, entire ecosystems are recreated, not only what it seems to be useful or edible. When the baby trees will grow a bit bigger, they will be planted on lands previously prepared by... pigs, as I have described in an older post.

The "exercise" lasted for about one hour, it was like a sort of an open lesson on ecology, ecosystems, equilibrium, ground quality, soil, about climate and human integration, we didn’t get tired in listening Herman and having him answering to our questions...

Looking back, just for the fun of it, I did some counting on the spot: on my row there were 10 plants per meter, by 5 meters long, results that I have put to light about 50 elder berry plants... I smile to them, my mother makes an wonderful elder berry juice; Ileana, the neighbor of Oana, my friend, makes a competitive fruit marmalade, the smell of which I simply adore; in the morning, here in Tamera they use to drink water with elder berry flowers, so I've just strengthened now a very special relationship.

Mathematics just wont let me go, I’ve really loved it, nowadays I bow in front of my former Master Teacher Cracana, and I cast up 15 people x 1 row x 5 meters x 10 plants/m = 750 little trees cared today! If you count that a tree needs around about 3m space to fully develop, we must have taken care for almost 1 hectare of forest!

This is a lot, if you think that such a forest is being planted at once! One single action this year and the forest will last for centuries! Whenever hearing Herman talking about centuries, suddenly time becomes irrelevant. It doesn’t really matter when and where a forest has been planted. It does matter that it exists.

For us or for our children's sake, it is important to do things like these because time flies anyway, but with or without a forest the history will not be the same.

We leave very happy... we didn’t have planted yet an entire hectare of forest but for sure it matters what we did.

Another day we have been to the green house, where we planted seeds in hotbeds and watered them. We also have seen there how a few thousand of little trees had already come to life. One thousand x 10 square meters, equals with ten thousands square meters, meaning they had there quite a few hectares of future forest. Let’s say five thousands plants = five hectares.

It's not such a big deal if you think how much we consume every day and that we actually need a few billion of hectares... But it means a lot thinking that such gestures are almost non existent.

I was impressed of how fragile the oaks, the pines, and all the majestic trees that we normally picture them when they're hundred years old were... their delicacy touched me in such a way... they were just baby trees, you could tear they down with just a few drops of water... and they really needed us, to help them become our healthy lungs once again.

I felt like asking them for forgiveness, "we did not know, please forgive us, this time we understand, we’ll stop being irresponsible, please come back among us and give us oxygen, shadow, and birds and life!"

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Forests?! Where?

Forests... all the time we hear about them, but it seems like they are not a part of our everyday life...

Since we came on this World, our forests seem to be in the same place, all along national roads, on the edge of mountain resorts, on top of the hills that we picture from the hotel parking, and all over the country on the green colored map. Hardly a change can be noticed - so it seems - or maybe we really wish to think that we didn’t blast so much.

Few acres of worthless trees... do they count? Maybe they moved over for some more valuable crops, or factories, roads or neighborhoods we really needed. I can’t take out of my mind the image of a nurse trying to put a band aid on her patient’s head, stepping on his oxygen supply tube...

The two images above are showing the deforestation process the World has suffered lately. It looks like the civilization destroys everything coming in its way. If you wish to have some fun/get back on Earth, I recommend you to click on the following link:

http://www.globalforestwatch.org/english/interactive.maps/index.htm

We Romanians aren't quite well, "we did our job" too, we laughed out loud at the matter, as the rest of Europe.

We think that cutting down the trees is about making fire, or building homes or furniture, or paper. News: nowadays the fire is made with gas... OK, so that eases a bit our concerns, we think! Also we make concrete buildings. I don’t even wish to imagine what on Earth will happen with so much brash when we will build using other less invasive materials!?

The furniture is made out of wood, at least if we had kept the real wood, but nowadays we chop forests and shred them into shivers for MDF (Medium-Density Fiberboard) and Aggregate Panels. You thought that panel shivers are from scraps? Dozens of wagons of healthy logs are chopped daily so we could change our furniture by the color that we love this year, which is in fact a pattern printed on a piece of paper applied on the pressed shivers and bounded with toxic glue... Glorious, isn’t it? And this is much more expensive than the real wood. It's just like buying some sausages from the supermarket instead of preparing a steak. I will now stop talking about furniture; unfortunately I know what I am talking about...

With the paper is another sacrilege... each day, that corner stand receives piles of waste paper for which about 20 trees were cut, this it is just like they're being delivered a truck full of logs, or a clump of trees that took a hundred years to grow. OK maybe I exaggerated a bit, let's say that it took them 50 years to grow up to that glorious moment of their lives when they become support for our information, to keep us updated about the latest gossips in the VIP frivolous world. Really, can’t we live without? The printed media was invented before the digital era and should've stayed there...

Multiply this with the number of media stands in the whole country, maybe there are a few thousand? So we are doodling more than ten thousands of trees every day? And once we finish reading we throw the newspaper/magazine away, without recycling?

Now think of all the supermarkets that are jamming into our mail boxes what? - trees... already killed. I think I have received a few acres until now. A "successful action" means a few tons of paper x 20 trees/tone, this is a glorious day, when the marketing guy sleeps happily for having accomplished his mission and as a consequence we are poorest with two acres of shadow and fresh air, in fact.

The carton... I would like to introduce a new type of police, called "The Package Police". Why do they have to pack a product in boxes 50% larger than the size needed? To look like we receive more? More we juggle ourselves... A store collects every day between a few trees and hundreds of trees at the garbage can.

I won’t discuss here the books, it seems be the only good thing made out of our woods at a large scale, to transmit the knowledge... maybe it won’t be bad not to keep all the books for ourselves, but to let them flow as much as possible?

Hold on, did you think I’m done? News: we eat forests, in fact we eat forests when we eat our stakes, salami, sausages, milk, cheese or eggs... the main purpose of the World's deforestation is to make room for cereal crops, to feed the livestock!

Tropical forests are replaced with soybean crops... So the animal breeding for the consumption industry is the main cause of deforestation. With each day passing we need larger areas to feed them, because we consume more and more meat: today almost every meal contains meat, we're not having it only on Sundays as our grandparents used to... Maybe you didn’t know, they need now enormous surfaces to cultivate fodder. But this will not happen in Germany or Austria... they always find a weak link somewhere on Earth and so you read in the news they cut the forests in Brazil. And this way the global market blooms, and we carry fodder from South America to North America, then the American chicken ends up to be sold to a market in Amarasti, a far country village in Eastern Europe. People buy it, because it is cheaper...

It doesn’t matter where the animals are breaded, or what nationality we hold, if we are 3 billiards of beef-eaters 7 days from 7... but why worry? the forests will pay off our debts, wherever they still exist. Think that when you buy a chicken or a piece or salami, you say goodbye to a hundred years old tree somewhere. The vegetarians are less invasive persons, of that I can assure you...

This is also about the atmosphere, the air we don’t have anymore. Portugal is becoming a desert, were the people were those who have destroyed their country... they had the trees cut down until there was no need in doing it, as the entire ecosystem collapsed. The soil has changed its composition and now they can hardly grow anything there, except for their own despair...

What is our guilt in all these? What power do we have?

The entire fault belongs to us, if we know and we do nothing. Maybe we did not know, maybe we did not understand, we did not wish to know... And we have all the power, for doing both good and bad.

So, each one of us is part of this. We consume trees, this is a fact and rarely have I heard of someone having planted trees.Maybe one tree, on a Sunday, in a mediated action to all friends... or maybe ten in the courtyard of their holiday house. Or as a business... two acres of rapidly growing beech? Or are we leaving this in the (not)care of the state only? Or maybe we should relax as several NGO’s were created and will take care of these problems? We don’t even pay attention to them or even offer our help.

In Tamera, reforestation is a daily deep care activity... they collect seeds, all kinds of seedling plants, not just those meant to be used by humans. It sounds a little impersonal, but this is about people who truly believe in what they're doing, about people taking action... So first they inoculate and take care of the seedling plants in the tree nursery, until they become able to be transplanted in the ground. In charge of this process in Tamera is Herman, a German forester engineer. He says Romania is his favorite country, he has traveled to Apuseni and worked for a project in a forest there and that he is totally fascinated by the natural abundance we (still) have in our countryside zones. On the very first day, he had us to take care of some beds where trees saplings were planted...

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Burda, Buddha and Bucharest

Yesterday I have brought up to life a very old hobby of mine, from about 25 years ago... I have tailored and quilted a skirt and a shirt, mainly because my daughter, Maria, had installed a tailor’s dummy just in the middle of our house and I was trying to remember how to cut and how a to apply a pattern (from an old Burda magazine - true "gold" in those times). But as I have lost my teen girl patience, I gave up canons and I cut on my own inspiration and reduced all to minimum. Now I am proud to have tailored for myself an orange prêt-a-porter skirt with variable shape and form and a shirt whose model depends on how I decide to wear it, as it’s not so clear... (for the moment, I can arrange it in 6 different ways)

I've had a lot of fun, my main goal was to be efficient rather than creative, I wished to finish the same day what I've started... it looks a bit loose, but I am comfortable with the idea that this would be very appropriate for the next escape to an Eco village, where jeans are not the best and inspired solution.

Yesterday I have packed everything, with a smile, because the skirt looks just like one of the colored cloths of the Buddhist monks!

Wearing something like this in Bucharest? No way!
But... never say never! This morning Maria comes to me and says I should - at all costs - wear that Buddha-inspired skirt because we are going to a place I would love... Really? In Bucharest?

I took the hint; I am an obedient mother...

My advice is that you should listen to your children, please stop reading now and go to Street Delivery, QUICKLY!!!! Between Carturesti and Gradina Icoanei, for a few days you can find a real oasis of wonderful ideas, beautiful smiling people, music, art and photo, architecture and "out of the box" thinking, a fair that kept me happily fainted for a day, without feeling how time flew!

Urban gardens, art and experimental workshops, books and Rosia Montana... Ecological houses, revolutionary messages (in "silk", obviously), events, concerts, lots of kids and educated ageless people, you wouldn’t believe all this until you've seen them! All Universities are present; this is not a commercial fair.

A true surprise for me was to discover, right in the middle of the park, my favorite subject - The World in Transition! While I was approaching the place, it seemed unbelievable for me... reading... that!??? I’ve lived to see with my own eyes such this happening in the middle of Bucharest? This means that we are on the right path!

Romania in Transition (intranzitie.org) was there, with their entire agenda full of wide dear subjects, from Permaculture to own currency, Eco villages, solar energy, nature, animals... lying on a blanket on the grass, seeming pretty relaxed, some young people with a clear look in their eyes hold me to chunk from their new home made bread and invite us to join them at the table, that was right before introducing myself. There was no need for more, for me to understand that we have A LOT to talk about...

They didn’t start their project for a long time, just for a few months, but it is wonderful that things like these have started happening already, people are researching... we will meet again for sure, I am very pleased with this meeting, I'm still having the smile on my face! I have leaved the place with the feeling that I could have spend here my whole day to enjoy the special energy of our meeting...

I’ve spent seven hours in the park and I've hardly had a bird's eye view... projects for "A Different Bucharest", natural gardens, various vintage objects, art, hand made, people lobbying for daring impressive causes, you could see these dreams coming to life only by looking into those people's eyes... This is a World me and I'm sure that you too, would like to live in, a World same time beautiful and decent and clean...

It will be open tonight and all day tomorrow! I will also be there tomorrow, I hope! I'm inviting you, too!

P.S. I felt perfectly fit into the atmosphere with my new skirt, and on top of all that last evening I felt like curling my hair, just like I was doing in the Eco village! Men probably will not understand the satisfaction of having followed my intuition to do this, too...

VISIT THE PHOTO GALLERY >>

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Visit "Street Delivery"!!!!! Now! * Photos

Click on any image to open in Gallery mode:

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The Promise

Yesterday I've learned to be more careful with what I promise... because last night the story didn’t come out and I bag for your forgiveness! The story about writing is complicated... it is not as easy task as it may seem. To write, theoretically we all know, we take a piece of a new blank document and we start writing what we wish to say. Word after word, sentence after sentence, phrases, introduction, content, ending. We all have something to say or to debate, opinions and assessments; countless words are crowding our minds... Actually things are not as simple as that. Or at least for me this is not working as I wish to. Far from me the idea of being a writer, of having talent or a muse, or even inspiration. Nevertheless I have found out on my own skin/virtual piece of paper, that things are generally not easy, not even when it comes about writing. Sometimes, plain and simple, words won’t come out! If I insist, some of them eventually would come out one by one, but they simply don’t want to match, are fighting each other and won’t obey to stay in line inside the same sentence. And I keep on placing and replacing them, delete, rephrase, bring some other new words for help, I try and try to place them so the story could be understood, but it doesn’t work. It seems that this is not about me, here.

As much benevolence as I would have, and despite my will to keep my promise in front of you, sometimes I have no power to influence the words. I start writing, they hardly move, they stumble, I rewrite, restart, think again, until I give up...

Some other times the story flows by itself, words are flowing through my pen or my fingers and I find it hard to keep up the step, I numb for so much writing in the same position for hours. Sometimes I don’t even stretch my own legs for fear that the magic would disappear...

Same about joking... Sometimes I wish it would come out, as much as I would argue that I am bored! There are other times when I laugh of myself and I can’t even take myself seriously.

And I learned to obey, because it seems I don’t handle this area. So writing comes in waves. One day I am able to bring to life two poor phrases only, another day I write 50 pages. I am able to describe 20 pages of what crossed my minds in 10 minutes or to describe what happened an entire month in just ten lines. It is like sailing in the open sea... sometimes I feel like the wind is not strong enough to start carrying me towards the desired direction. Sometimes I catch a short blast, but the story is rich, and in just one page there are deep life experiences, and sometimes there’s no blast at all, then I hold on...

The day before yesterday I promised to tell the story the next day, but yesterday the story didn’t appear. Today I felt again that blast and so to speak I hoisted sail, and surprise... look at what I am writing! Instead the story about Permaculture, I am lucubrating on excuses, blaming it on something similar to inspiration, coming and going at it's own wish.

So I have learned to stop promising to reach some harbor, because I don’t know if there will be wind and if it will be, to what direction he will take me.

For days, there’s not wind blowing, sometimes I fill an entire notebook in just one day, not even being able to type as fast as words are flowing and for these moments a Bic pen is just perfect, the weight of this type of pen does count! In Lisbon, in just one day I have finished a ball pen... not all I write is for this blog, more and deeper feelings are to be found in my notebooks, thinking that maybe one day I will decide to publish a book.

Just like an old salesman smelling for the wind to come, I have started to feel the difference between the right breeze for a blog or for my notebook, since they have special tastes. Then my only option is to go with the wind, with the wave and not against... This is the reason for my absence some days, but not because I forget about you, but because the story is not just ready to appear before the footlights.

You are always on my mind; it was just a kick for me to find this out. And I feel that I am connected to you, yo make me never feel alone, instead I feel like having hundreds of friends to whom I keep telling my stories. To each one in particular. Thank you for existing, I can almost feel you to the other side of this mirror.

I’ve barely started narrating... I do have lots of things to say and I feel like there’s a lot more to come, but all will show up at it's own pace. Now I challenge you to write too.... maybe to write... to me. What would you like to find out about these communities I'm visiting? I have a list of over 50 questions for them, I am sure that you may have another 500... What are your expectations from an Eco village? What do you hope it will bring to you and to the World? Let’s follow this path together! Let your words float too! I'm looking forward for reading them!

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One single day, Tamera, 15 People, Thousands of Trees

In a single day, 15 people we have planted, watered and cared for a few thousand little trees... maybe a future forest?

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Obviously, I am not a Journalist! And never wished...

Obviously, I am not a journalist! And I never wished to become one, on the contrary! But now I'm starting to reconsider a lot of what I've ever said, I've just started to discover that this profession has it's own virtues... and I beg your pardon for the misunderstandings that may occur while I'm writing this blog. As I would like to have the appropriate skills i order to describe more accurate and detached all that I encounter during my journey, without judging in a way or another and without changing those little details that matter... My goal is to reach all the relevant aspects, so you can make your own idea.

The way from Intention to Success is passing not only through thousands of words, but through jaundiced ideas, reasonable meanings and inexplicable meanings, personal feelings, recordings and memories, hopes and dreams, fears and beliefs, personality aspects of those telling the stories and even of those listening. I have been telling the story of Tamera... and I experienced all the possible emotions, from fear to ravishment, from lack of interest to enthusiasm, from indignation to cheer and congratulations! I thank you all from the bottom of my heart, all of you are right!

Is there an absolute REALITY that I wish to describe, in fact? Where is the limit of someone’s fairness? How attentive could you be in your selection of thoughts and how many details are able to describe a human's life? What makes one happy it is also available for another one? If someone says they're happy living in a caravan travel trailer, this is a reality you cannot deny. It may or may not be available for someone else, or for the same individual in some other moment.

I prefer to say that I can describe real experiences but none of them is a final and immanent reality.

Is it enough to describe a community’s structure? For example, we know about ourselves that we use money for our exchange with the environment... we could describe their run, who is printing them, how the value is established, what are the exchange rates meaning, depreciation, people and societies rich or poor and even though everything is true, is a reality, it says nothing about the interior state of man towards money... Many people are not brave enough to follow their dreams, sooner or later they give up their own expression of creativity, rather choosing a safe life direction, a comfortable one, because "the system is not so permissive" - they say and I think they're right. But I think those daring to follow their dreams are right, too: Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Oprah, numerous cases of artists that money & success followed them..... inside the very same system, with the same chances, in the same country, the same period of time, but with divergent far cry results. The difference, they say and I agree, is of attitude, of the build up and operating belief (not always self consciously, unfortunately). Some choose unorthodox methods to reach bounteousness... And each one’s reality is different; the story is different, even though you would like to think there’s only one single reality. For a thief, "the reality" says that this is the only way through... And The Reality shows us that within the same system, things could be easy or difficult, impossible, simple or complicated...

Now apply the same reasoning as far as concerns health, family, relations with children, with the same schemes, you will find "agony and ecstasy", to quote a beloved title.

It seems that there is no system "perfect" enough to ensure the happiness and the success, health, harmony or abundance. Experiencing the system is different, from heart to heart.

This doesn’t mean that there’s no need for us to create more ethical, more crystalline and more balanced systems. Probably we have to personally change, to develop ourselves first in order to create a system of useful beliefs. Because in case of all existing systems, even more for those aiming for perfection, the way they're being used is according to the human consciousness, meaning to the evolution degree of their members.

No dream-system or community is possible where people are missing the courage to say the truth, are cheating, do not help each other or cannot trust their fellows... even if they bear the minimum carbon seal!

And for this reason in so many communities working is divided in two main directions: to correctly implement the organization rules, but also (very important) to provide members' education. The spirituality also helps sometimes. I know that you will label this...

The more high level of organization a system has, the more compulsory it becomes, as by forced threatening, harmony could never be reached.

In Tamera there is no police, no jail, no punishments, but there are forums debating the community issues. The intervention of the police has never been needed.

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The Animals, Our Loving Friends * Tamera Vision

You didn't know that we are such unforgiving and cruel lords, are you?

In Tamera the animals are not raised as food, neither as domestic animals. Food is an important subject in Tamera, just like anywhere in the World. And it's not only about vegetarian or raw food, even though this may also be a research subject. Some of them are vegetarians, and some of them are testing for a few months the raw food variant. Raw Food means fresh vegetables, seeds, kernels without being prepared by a thermal process through boiling or frying, baking, etc...

Here they do not use milk, cheese, or eggs. Only butter has recently became the subject to experimenting, being produced from the milk of the few cows kept as an existent element integrated in the natural area. Some chicken and goats will be introduced soon, but they will have to make own choices for how "domestically" they would like to remain, they will live at the borders of the forest inside enclosures with open gates.

Livestock is attentively planned... how many of a certain species should we have, what to use them for, how much land should they occupy, what shall we do with the cows or the other animals when they will grow old and naturally die? Most likely they will become food for the wild animals, their corpses will be left in the forest, and so everything will come back to nature. In Tamera there are no animals used for hard work, the existent ones are free to do whatever they please... If what they are pleased to do it also proves to be useful for the humans, then everything turns ethical and a co operation may come out of this. For example pigs are left free on large areas, they are not fed for meat or sacrificed, but they are left to do what they love best: to grout the land! So pigs are carried away on lands to be prepared for reforestation, for freshening, where they are extremely happy to dig for over half a meter deep! And so everybody wins, the people are starting with a perfectly worked ground, free from struggle, with no need of cars, therefore without air contamination. They have even been coached to protect young trees and to recognize what should be drawn off. And there is only one generation coached, the second one is now catching up, it seems!

Horses are not used for carrying, not for carriages, not for riding, but for psychologist therapy of human being, by interacting with them. People learn to have trust, patience, to be single-minded and to lead, not to hesitate, to clearly impart... they are still investigating what horses like to do, besides this.

Not even the Mayans were using horses for carrying or for riding. A Mayan used to carry for himself everything he needed from another place, it didn’t seem fair for them to work an animal off, as nowadays it seems so normal for us, or even to grow them up for sacrificing them.

Each animal's sufferings is imprinted on the meat that we consume... the sufferings during life, when we raise them in tiny spaces, artificial, remains along with the frightening experience of mass execution.

Besides the well known nutrients, our food it also holds information. If we’d only be a little more sensitive, we would be terrified, I think.

Dogs are living in a special area, on 5 hectares, are left free to develop their skills and preferences, to organize themselves, but probably watching & protecting is what they like most. But in Tamera there are no houses to be guarded, all doors are left open around here, and yet nothing is stolen, the community means trust. Not even the cultures must be guarded. There are no sheep yet, the key to communicate to this species is still to be found, communication is still in study.

The vet specialist, Tina, is telling us with tears in her eyes about the sufferings of the animals, the fear that they are living day by day, since they are born inside those industrial farms, because animals communicate and know what is expected from them. ...About the abusive way we are treating horses, putting them to run to exhaust and forcing them to learn artificial steps, for show’s sake.

She is telling us stories about the communication process between humans and dogs. ...dogs that people succeeded in understanding, helping dogs, leading people to the most appropriate places, or for example leading wild animals cured in Tamera to be readmitted in their own environment. There are also well documented cases of dogs communicating in their own way to the human beings whether a decision is good to make, or not.

There are so many significations of communication, of layouts and society’s roles, assumed and inspired from animal communities. The presence or the absence of rats has been related to humans’ attitude toward them, it was detected a certain answer at people's intentions.

Harmony and curing the wounds, either animal or human, physical or emotional, in particular or collectively, is part of the recipe Tamera is applying to keep going further.

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Introduction to Introduction * Tamera

Helena and Ria, our hosts for the orientation week, invite us to gather in a circle and to introduce ourselves………… we are from Brazil, Germany, Romania, Australia, Swiss, Mexico, Canada, Portugal, Great Britain, the youngest member is 18 years old, I am the oldest one, we speak English, sometimes German which it is translated for us into English. Helena is asking us to group according to the purpose that we came here for, with three main options: politics, ecology or love. I protest: I came here to meet and understand. So does the Swiss guy, but we are bundled to the love corner, several other reasons being reduced to, anyway this is where most of us have gathered. All right, we could say that we came here for the love of knowledge……. some of them came for ecology and just one of them has a political research purpose, which above all is normal when you are 18!

Everyone is telling his own story, why are we here, how did we get here……….. almost all the others have heard about Tamera from friends or acquaintances who had already been here. Everyone’s story is contextually different, but their essence is finding the place or the way to live happily.

Uma is from Germany, she is a career counselor at a University and she is wondering whether she's really able to provide relevant advice. Some of them wish for a new beginning, like a couple from Germany, looking for a future that they aren’t even able to describe, but they are open to variety. He makes organic elm wood furniture; you can even feel his passion and his pain talking about this. Some others passed through bad moments in life and their friends recommended to them this place, for discovering a new way of living. Martha is mother of 3 children and all of them are here with her, she is looking for a place to raise them, to protect them. Another couple, across the ocean, from Canada, is hoping to build a community someday. The youngest child came here at his mother’s advice, who has lately visited Tamera…… Personally I am here for a study about eco villages, to help promoting these places, aimed by the hope that there is a new world ready to be born, as real as possible, and functional

Helena is 22 years old, she is living in Tamera for 2 years, but her family is living here for many years. Her uncle was in charge with building the lakes. Her job here is being the supervisor, planner and translator for us and she's doing it with maximum responsibility and joy. Ria is living here for 11 years, she is about my age and she is taking care of finances and seminars, let’s say she is sort of a teacher. All of us will be meeting every day after the brunch, between 12.30 and 14.30 and from 16.30 to 18.30, each day with another theme, with specialists from every branch.

A day about water, a day about ecology, a day about food, a day about children, one about community, one about money, one about animals. On Sunday we will be going on a pilgrimage for about 10km, obviously by foot. Besides, in the mornings we will go to the glass house where we will be working for the reforestation project.

This is mainly the orientation week’s structure; the easiest way for us to integrate an to get the know how. The way of living proposed by Tamera, developped on a very large area, I’d say……

The aim of Tamera Project is explained by Ria: the place is meant to be a Healing Biotope, a model of community where the interaction between people, animals and plants is based on truth, trust and reciprocal aid. This is a model that they are shaping as it goes, a living model, based on experimenting and perfecting at the same time, giving local answers to the global crisis, a permanent research with the aim of building a non violent culture. Many times I’ve noticed, they don’t actually know the correct answer, and they are not afraid to admit this; we did this, we did that, but we need to change something else, to find another method, because this doesn’t work! Their declared intention is becoming a head stone for the peace workers in the entire World, for those looking to be the change they wish to see in the World. Maybe on their flyer presentation this may sound a little prevailing, but now after meeting them I absolutely have no doubts, this is their day by day reality, and it feels like something much deeper than I am able to describe.

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Tamera at First Sight * Photos

Click on any image to open in Gallery mode:

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