Too weak to make the ring of strength. I spend it in bed. Aida and Sami from Palestine make the film and in parallel a small group performs a small fire ritual to inaugurate the new fireplace and say goodbye to Mena’s soul. Agatha sings a beautiful song for Mena and her cosmic journey.
At six o’clock we leave the house. I decide to travel along, despite my fever.
It will be a day of travel to Ubatuba, a city with about 90,000 inhabitants in one of the largest nature reserves in Colombia. Here, in 1553, the first documented peace treaty was signed between the indigenous population and Europeans in South America, but it was immediately broken by the Portuguese.
We have an intensive conversation with Cláudio about the alliance and the possible future for the Global Campus. Cláudio emphasizes with committed words how important the plan of the healing biotopes is for him. He knows about the deep importance of transparency and wholeness among people and therefore also how important the sexual issue is. “As long as we don’t become capable of truth here, we can carry out many renewals, but it then becomes only a whitewash over an unresolved issue, and always leads back into old obscure power structures.”
He speaks moving words about hierarchy. He takes it for granted that he has a special leadership role, and at the same time he does everything he can to help each person grow into their leadership capacity. The importance of the collective, and the role of the individual in it, are key to understanding more about how things work in the favela.
“We need your support in the area of love and sexuality, and in how to dissolve old patriarchal unconscious structures. And we need support in building self-sufficient models. The global campus is a real opportunity for us to deepen this. These are the two keys we need for fundamental systemic change.”
Claúdio thanks us for our speeches. “They were so global. That’s what the people here need.” He keeps telling us how important Tamera is to him and to his work here. For him, the strongest cooperation was during the Global Campus. That brought an enormous change to the Favela.
In moving words he talks about the topic of racism and how sad it was for him to see that the topic of “racism” has also led to conflicts within Tamera. “I myself know so much about the subject and was hardly asked by those who brought it up. This is also a form of racism, because probably I wasn’t intellectual enough for them.” He emphasizes how often this topic is misunderstood and also abused to hide behind. This is where I would have liked more translation in parts, because this theme is very central to building functioning communities if they truly want to become planetary communities. I listen to his engaging words and learn more and more Portuguese this way. One month here without any translation, and I could speak the language!
At the same time, everything is like a dream trip for me. My feverish state makes me experience everything like a movie.
After two weeks almost only city, Verkeht, noise, densely packed among people, now suddenly the power of nature! After a very winding road through the ricey nature reservoir, we finally arrive at the coast. Supposedly there are black panthers, ocelots and very special snake species here. Unfortunately, my physical condition is such that I only want to lie down.
So I retire, after a first welcome at a wonderful place directly at the coast and give myself to my fever dreams. I guess the soul needs that to digest.