I was contacted by the association ACTIVE ECOTOPIA to translate documents and help spread the message about a possible threat to the Community Gardens in Tavira. Jim and I were part of the protest a few years ago to save the historic Agricultural Centre in Tavira where the Community Gardens are now flourishing.I have translated…
Some days I just want to bottle moments of joy. That not being possible, on International Women’s Day 2024, I decided to start recording the events of a magical day from earlier in the week. Four women had a mission, an electric car, which I drove and the sun on our backs. You could call…
Last winter I did an online digital storytelling course with Daniel Greenberg from the Findhorn Foundation. After collecting a few photos and deciding that my story would be about Community and my friend Eva, I dived into We Video and played with iMovie. It was a great experience and I plan to do more. Here…
The turn of the year is a time I usually create a mandala. It is a moment where I set an intention for the year ahead. In a few days it will be 2023, so I have talked to a few friends and invited them to paint, draw or collage at my home near Tavira…
I don’t want to focus my thoughts on war right now or the arguments about who is right or wrong. What I need is hope. So with that purpose in mind I have edited and updated this article first written in 2014. Maybe it will resonate with your desire for peace and hope too. Image…
Jim and I have recently become interested in taking a course called U-lab and fortunately the course is going to happen in Tavira.How cool is that? The U-lab course created by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is being rolled out across Portugal beginning in April 2018 and Tavira is on the list for it to…
The spoken English language occasionally creates a nuance that is amusing. In English, a fair cop is slang for being arrested when you know and admit you have done something illegal. But FairCoop is not anything to do with a fair cop, even though that is how it phonetically sounded in the meeting I attended…
Around twenty people came to the Mata forest, near Tavira, (including one family with two small children) to plant trees on Sunday, 26 November. Young people and some people with years behind them mingled and worked together on a warm morning and into the afternoon. Around seven nationalities were represented, including Portuguese, Italian, German, Belgium,…
Five years ago a group of enthusiastic people, some dreamers, some with solid plans and hopes came together in a forest near Tavira, to plant trees. Some brought along their skills. Others brought tools and labour. The idea was born out of a small community group of friends who wanted to be part of a…
How do you measure happiness is the question in the back of my mind as I interview Felipe Viveros, European Representative of the Bhutan Gross Happiness project. Originally from Chile, now living in the UK, Felipe outlined a narrative that is fascinating some in the Western world. Felipe is a writer and an ecologist with…
