GOOD NEWS FROM EUROPE!, Hazel Henderson, Editor
Tamera Newsletter December 2010
Dear Friends of Tamera,
The world is in turmoil. Wikileaks has released files which show the world the dark side of our well polished democracies and the weakness inherent in the lack of transparency in our systems. The people in power are indignant.
Millions of people have opened their eyes to the cruelties being done in their name, making it impossible for them to return to the comfortable life of a citizen consumer. May all those who are shaken now join in support for the global development of models based on truth and trust, germinating cells for the creation of a new world.
Addition: Just now as we are about to send out our newsletter to you we received an open letter by the youth of Gaza Strip.Their call for support and compassion, their Manifesto for Change should be known by everyone and spread widely. It even more emphasizes the need for global change.
Please read at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gaza-Youth-Breaks-Out-GYBO/118914244840679
Retrospective Tamera
In 2010 the necessity to build models at acupuncture points around the world became palpable.It was as if the world asked us at Tamera: Are you a model for the future yet? Are you now a place we can come and study what a socially and ecologically sustainable civilization would look like on a small scale? This year the Basic Education and Global Campus attracted more people and more nationalities than ever before, including many people engaged in the process of creating their own projects and models. As a result, we at Tamera take on this challenge to set a new course, to find the content, organization and structure for such a future model.
Beginning: The year began with an intensive internal training for co-workers and group leaders of Tamera, led by the project founders Dieter Duhm and Sabine Lichtenfels. Dieter Duhm set the geistig (spiritual/intelctual) course for the year, predominantly through his text Beyond 2012. He writes: 2012 does not mark the end of the world, but rather the possibility of realizing something new on planet Earth. What is going to happen on this planet during the coming decades depends on how these opportunities will be used. Humankind is facing a cosmic opportunity; a huge door is opening.
Original text: http://www.verlag-meiga.org/de/node/210
Colombia 1: In March a group from Tamera traveled to the Peace Village San José de Apartadó to lead a training in the vision of the Global Campus. What they saw there seemed like a miracle: since the last visit of leading members of the Peace Community of Tamera the basic structures for an international training and education center had been built in an abandoned village deep in the rain forest. Martin Winiecki, a co-worker of Tamera, wrote The Miracle of Mulatos, which was widely distributed and published in a Bolivian Newspaper. More::http://verlag-meiga.org/node/214
During this visit intensive talks with the council of the Peace Village led Sabine Lichtenfels to the decision to hold a Grace Pilgrimage in Bogotá this year.
Peace Education: The Basic Education of this year’s Monte Cerro Peace Education began in May. This year, for the first time, over one hundred people participated, coming from 14 different countries including Korea, Brazil, Kenya, Mexico, Palestine, Israel, Estonia and Colombia. Many of the participants have their own projects or the intention to build communities. The knowledge about community building, political effectiveness, theory building, food production, water management and decentralized energy supply is of existential importance for them. It was also the first time that youth, between 13 and 16, from Tamera took part in the Basic Education as well as the subsequent Leadership course, seminars in Holzer´s Permaculture and alternative energy technology (including the construction of a micro biogas plant). In this way the Basic Education 2010 simultaneously became the new foundation of the Youth School for Global Learning, for which a curriculum is now being developed. It is clear that theater, music and service in the world will be central to the program.
Scholarships: A new addition to the education program in 2010 was the Scholarship Fund. One of the greatest intentions of the Global Campus is to offer this education to those who live and work for peace in crisis areas. In its first year the Scholarship Fund was able to financially support: two representatives of the Holy Land Trust, Palestine to take part in the Leadership Course, four members of Poesia Samba Soul, Brazil to take part in the Bio-Gas Course, six members of the peace community San Jose de Apartado, Colombia to take part in the Bio-Gas Course and Leadership Course and the founder of Otepic Environmental project, Kenya to take part in the Bio-Gas Course, Leadership Course and Permaculture Course with Sepp Holzer. More: http://www.tamera.org/index.php?id=698
Ecology and Portugal-Network: We continue our work of landscape healing and the development of edible landscapes. Last winter’s lavish rainfalls filled all of our existing lakes for the first time, demonstrating to even the most skeptic that the much bigger water landscape we have planned will fill. Already there are significantly more wild birds and other animals to be seen, and the food biotopes on the terraces around the lakes promise a high degree of self-sufficiency for the Tamera community and its guests. Tamera thanks its consultant Sepp Holzer for the knowledge that he continuously offers, never allowing us to rest on our laurels. Another water retention space has been built on the southern part of the land, with gardens planted on the shores, and a base for further lakes has been created. Bernd Müller, responsible for the realization of these plans, says “If we had the necessary money we would build all the planned ten lakes immediately.
This would be a huge blessing for the landscape.
We brought two pigs to Tamera last spring, co-workers for working the hardened soils and for forest building, as a trail experiment. These works excellently become visible to more and more guests: We have hosted five Days of Open Doors, each with 100 to 150 participants from all over Portugal, in the course of this year. This shows the large interest in Tamera and in particular the ecological work. Numerous TV, newspaper and magazine reports followed these events.
Another successful innovation of 2010 was the realization of an ecological trainee time in Tamera: From March until November an ongoing trainee group was in Tamera, each participant stayed for at least four weeks. They supported the work in the Permaculture and learned about the basic ecological and social concepts of the project.
Bernd Müller and others from the ecology team of Tamera presented the ecological brisance and necessity of model building for landscape healing at conferences such as the Bioneers’ Conference at Findhorn in Scotland, the Green Phoenix Conference at the Schweibenalp in Switzerland, as well as university conferences in Portugal and Spain.
Testfield SolarVillage: The Testfield which was opened in October 2009 continues to be an attractor for interested people from Portugal and other countries. Solar cooking was practiced from March to November in the community kitchen whenever possible. During harvest times a solar processing kitchen was operated. The Scheffler mirror and the SK14-cooker worked trouble-free, often outperforming corresponding gas and electric cookers, not only economically but also regarding energy output when used in the right way.
The Energy Power Greenhouse developed according to an invention by Jürgen Kleinwächter combined with the SunPulse Electric was working, we were able to gather data and discover weak points of the system. It needs revision; the SolarVillage Team is looking forward to professional help in thinking, as well as financial support.
The SunPulse Water, in part, was in continuous operation. It was possible to show that the solar water pump can go into series production, and that it is a decentralized and very sustainable solution for one of the core issues of energy consumption the pumping of water.
Tamera wants to realize the next step of development in 2011: Above all we need a research workshop enable the active operation of Testfield I.
Thinkers Specialists Supporters please contact us!
We have an up-to-date SolarVillageTestfield brochure which can be downloaded here:
http://www.tamera.org/index.php?id=51
Stone Circle Completed: In June 2010 the last stones of the Tamera stone circle were set. The project was initiated in 2004 by Sabine Lichtenfels, Peter Frank and Marko Pogacnik. This communitarian spiritual work of art with 96 stones representing important archetypes has thus been finalized. The work continues, however, as many stones will still be given cosmograms and more spiritual power places are planned. The stone circle is used every Monday morning for the celebration of the Ring of Power as well as for other community rituals and as a place for individual prayer and meditation.
The Summer University 2010 was an intensive study time for all in all about 500 participants. A video clip about the event is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBhTRPGdUtU
New Book published: Tamera A Model for the Future. The publishing house Maiga published: “Tamera a Model for the Future”, a richly illustrated book by Leila Dregger, in German, English and Portuguese to give information about the state of the project and to pass on knowledge standing behind the whole project. It is the first book to be published in Portuguese by the publishing house, thus opening to new circles of interested people. It transmits what Tamera is and what a peace project is actually doing in a peaceful country. The book has been received with high resonance in all languages; the German is being reprinted already. You can order the book with a retailer or directly with Verlag Meiga: http://www.verlag-meiga.org/node/229
Progress in Autonomy: During the last year Tamera has come a big step closer to the goal of stepping out of compliance with big business. Supermarket shopping has become almost obsolete through an increase in our production of organic food in our permaculture gardens and our participation in the growing regional network of organic and integrated farmers and producers. 2010 also brought the inauguration of a solar processing kitchen, large amounts of tomatoes and fruit from Tamera and its neighborhood were dried and preserved in the solar kitchen of the Testfield.
The project Solar Tamera took a big and long-prepared-for step: as of November 12, 12:12 p.m. Tamera is linked to the public grid. Finally the Diesel-generator could be switched off. This link is the base for the planned construction of a solar power plant with which we intend to feed solar energy into the grid.
Colombia 2: From November 1st to November 9th a GRACE-Pilgrimage took place in and around Bogotá. 150 people from all over Latin America, from Israel and Palestine, and from Europe and North America participated. The pilgrimage was organized by Tamera and led by Padre Javier Giraldo and Sabine Lichtenfels. According to Sabine Lichenfels it was the most successful of all her pilgrimages. It succeeded in creating a lot of attention for the Peace Community San José de Apartadó in its own country. A big source of light was the role of the youth: They performed their theater play The Black Shadow six times in Spanish, integrating their new young Colombian friends from the Peace Village in the last performances. The Columbian youth played roles close to their own life situations: child soldiers, refugees, and the uncompromising will for different life.
The report: http://www.tamera.org/index.php?id=756
Setting New Courses: Like always, winter is a time to reflect on the past year and set new courses. This is particularly important this year. The global demand for models, education and cooperation is stronger and more visible than ever before. The community of Tamera wants to fulfill the promise given to the world with its work. One thing can be said already: In the coming year Tamera will concentrate more on the ongoing development of the model and less on peace actions in other countries. We will mainly focus on these three pillars: Autonomous energy production, food supply and water management, as they are core questions for the survival of humankind. In Tamera the work and investigation in these fields is integrated with the knowledge about community, love and sexuality and the cooperation with the divine ecological sustainability is embedded in social and spiritual sustainability.
All this will become the base of a comprehensive peace education. For this purpose we want to change the existing structures in such a way that challenges can be effectively dealt with. We need new co-workers and specialists in many areas, for example in technology. As always, Tamera is looking for financial sponsors and investors for the realization of our plans.
At this point we would like to warmly thank all those who have helped to make this past year as successful as it was.
Further News:
Tamera Program 2011:
On March 1st, 2011 our new guest season will start. A warm welcome to researchers, thinkers, visionaries, doers and utopists who want to cooperate and develop new solutions for a future without war.Our event calendar is still in the planning phase. As Tamera focuses on the ongoing development of the peace model, the events and courses offered will focus the same theme. We are preparing various Introduction Weeks about the concept of building peace models as well as our basic intensive course Monte Cerro Peace Education.
The following events have been scheduled already: http://www.tamera.org/index.php?id=events&L=0
Becoming the Guardian of a Dream:
The Tamera Support Circle has doubled its size during this year. Thank you to all those who are long time members, and to those who have recently joined. In order to establish a real big and powerful ring of supporters by the end of 2012 we still need more people to decide to join. Therefore, we invite all those who appreciate Tamera as a project, who use this place for education, study or as a retreat place, all those who want to cooperate with us for another future and all friends: Become a part of the realization of the common dream with a monthly contribution of any amount, your choice! Link: http://www.tamera.org/index.php?id=716
Tamera Public:
TV: In November the Portuguse TV Station SIC broadcasted a 14-minute report on Tamera in the news five times. Here it is:
http://www.tamera.org/index.php?id=1&L=2
The Publishing House Meiga is becoming more and more international: “Temples of Love (Tempel der Liebe) by Sabine Lichtenfels was translated into English and will soon be available.
Morning Attunements for Listening: In December a new CD by Charly Rainer Ehrenpreis and friends will come out: Sources of Love and Peace. Nine Morning Attunements by Sabine Lichtenfels (Quellen der Liebe und des Friedens. Neun Morgenandachten von Sabine Lichtenfels). Read and underlayed with ic in the auditorium of Tamera. You can order this CD in German and English for 10 Euros plus forwarding expenses. The edition is prepared in six further languages: [email protected]
The film “A New We” by the documentary film maker Stefan Wolf, presents 10 communities around the world, including Tamera. It is now also available in English and Chinese. Portuguese, French and Spanish versions will be released soon. Stefan Wolf is in Taiwan right now, offering numerous film presentations, inspiring and motivating Taiwanese for a sustainable and ecological community consciousness. The film is estimated to have been viewed by tens of thousands of people already, and very probably will reach hundreds of thousand by 2011. Stefan Wolf: “We are very happy that Tamera finds its presence in this movie thereby achieving a new and wider level of international being known famousness.”
The film’s website: http://www.newwe.info/
We wish you a and a powerful start into the Next Year
The Tamera Community