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…
‘It is all a question of story’ – Thomas Berry It was the possibility of a new narrative that captured my imagination when deciding to attend the New Economy Forum in Spain in April 2017. The journey to the conference took just over three hours from my home on a hill in southern Portugal. Leaving…
As part of her master’s degree, Isabel Macieira has published several studies about the History of Art. She is the author of the book – “A Pintura sacra em Tavira, séculos XV a XX – estudos e inventário” (The Sacred Painting in Tavira XV to XX centuries). As a teacher between 1983-2014, she developed with…
What would a sustainable world involve? Can it be achieved? Should we leave it to politicians and corporate interests to determine our future? If you are a thinker and doer and want to be part of the process of finding solutions to some big issues, NESI may be for you. On 19th-22nd April, Málaga (Spain)…