11 Feb Our move to Portugal
Our move to Portugal
We had been looking for a long time for a place that would offer a different way of life; a way of life with land closer to the rhythms of nature, the Earth, the seasons, where we could live more rooted within our own beings and the Earth.
For many years we’ve been travellers – going out from our small base in the UK – taking our work to many places across the UK, Ireland and Europe and loving the life of the bards and tinkers who would always find amazing places to work with and explore, stay with beautiful people, meet new friends, enjoy each moment to the full, give our gifts and receive the gifts of the place and its people and move on again.
I had been a travelling bard for two decades, the first decade impulsed by the island of Iona, where the Nature spirits of the land invited me to sing the songs and share the music I was receiving and co-creating with Nature and the Universe.
This resulted in powerful journeys written about elsewhere…Click here
journeys with sound to the Americas – both north and south with incredible experiences of transformation and opening, Ireland, Bosnia, Malta,
In the second decade I was joined by Heather and we both wove the sound and music as vibrational fields of possibility, alignment and change together in many places around the globe. We also became metal-smiths – makers of metal instruments through the alchemical process of the forge in co-creation with the elements – giving form and body to these vibrational fields we had learnt to weave/ create. For many years it was an adventure and great pleasure to travel with this work to many places, journeys often too wild and amazing to put into words.
Some of them have been documented in my blogs of our Songlines journeys, some not.2014/15 through the southern Hemisphere: Brazil, South Africa and Australia,Click here culminating in an incredible co-creative journey with the energies of Gold in 2018
Click here
We knew that a time would come where we wanted to root and move into a different mode of being. Where being with land in one place would build a field from where new vibrations that came through us would pulse out – Creating a hub in co-creation with the land through weaving sound and forging metal instruments in our Studio of Sound Alchemy.
We had been looking for a number of years – in Scotland, Ireland, England, Check Republic and beyond – had begun a few explorations.
In 2019 we had our first invitations to Portugal…. Several arrived at the same time.
In preparation for this trip, very powerful deep energies rose within us – including a call from ancient Peace Keepers, a calling from the land and from within.
See more about this journey here:Click here
Port u g(r)al – the door of the grail, the grail being an ancient symbol of the overflowing ever replenishing cup of plenty, that nourishes and heals. What mystery and promise is held in this land that carries the name of being the door to this well of nourishment?
As we travelled in 2019 with Sarah and Peter Dawkins who have tracked and worked with many of the energetic landscape temples of Europe, we learnt that Portugal carries a vital role and landscape temple connected to the whole. It has been told of old that ‘heaven on Earth’ can be seeded in this land.
The Templars worked with this vision. Peter Dawkins tracked an energetic gold and a silver pillar framing the Eastern and western borders of Portugal – the gold pillar tracing the western coast on the atlantic ocean and silver pillar tracing the eastern boarder to Spain, while in the centre lies the rose pillar of the heart.
Having worked deeply with gold and silver over the last years, we were not surprised to find ourselves called by a land that represented both and brought them together in the central rose alchemy.
Some of our work with copper, silver and gold has taken us into a deeply alchemical journey that we sense as an ancient lineage bringing wisdom forward as the copper rose gold alchemy.
We have since discovered that Portugal has drawn many many people from all over Europe and the world for the reason of reconnecting more deeply with Earth, to find different ways of relating and living with this beautiful planet and contribute to a renewal of wellbeing for Earth, people and all beings.
We find ourselves amongst so many whose burning desire is to establish more connected ways of living with Earth and Self.
Many small and some larger projects working with and towards re-generating and re-wilding impulses, … the land has called many who are taking their places.
The bees are playing a major part in the connection and interconnection, awakening and weaving of these fields of creation. As the weavers and maintainers of the integrity and health of the energy fields of land and all who live there, the bees are our teachers and co-creators …
Many people have been brought together by the bees! In fact it is the bees that called us to return to Portugal again, stay for longer and connect more deeply with all that is available through here:
Our move was accelerated by the experience of lockdown in spring 2020.
I found myself in Southern Portugal learning from and with bees in a small group who were learning together – whilst caring for bee colonies on many lands and projects in an intimate and sustainable way. Click here
My experience was that of being completely embedded in community and nature, while Heather and my friends in England had very different experiences – often in isolation. I noticed at the time that those around me who were very clear as to what they were inviting for their next steps had the Universe helping them! Synchronicities were assisting them fast and clear – bringing everything towards them to make those steps, whilst the rest of us were also supported but not with such immense clarity.
I realized that I didn’t have enough clarity as to my/our next step and that it was time to gain that clarity; to make choices and put a stake in the ground. The time was now! I considered whether the Alentejo area of Southern Portugal would be a good place to move to but was discouraged by the increasing desertification and heat.
As spring moved into summer at the beginning of june, the rains ceased and the heat increased– the land turned from a beautiful green and spring flower paradise into a burnt dust desert, which lasts several summer months with intense heat until the rains return in October.
There was an invitation waiting for us in central Portugal, which now came into focus.
We had met the Vale das Lobas Project in 2010, made a deep connection and only returned in 2019 – 9 years later. Many people had come and left over the past 9 years, many beautiful and difficult times had been played out and the project was moving in a new direction – having received several grants from ‘rewilding Europe’ for the bio-diversity work and others to restore some of the beautiful old buildings.
We received an invitation to associate ourselves with the project and offer some of our work through the project while also being independent and evolving our own project in conjunction…
I made my way to central Portugal in the middle of june 2020 accompanied by my bee friends – moving together with 2 beehives who were also moving north together with their bee guardian who had been my bee teacher.
I landed in the area, first staying a few weeks with bee friends with another rewilding initiative on 10 ha land – camping out under the stars.
The landing was sweet – being welcomed into an area of beautiful interconnectedness… Sleeping under the stars – (under a moskito-net) assisted me to land….
I helped with the tasks of the land – cutting, stripping and stacking wood….
– Rental properties are not that easy to come by we found out, but through some beautiful synchronicites and the assistance of new friends and local angels we found a beautiful house with a little land in the neighbouring village to Vale das Lobas.
Our move was fairly fast. I knew we had to move in the months between lockdowns – not sure when the autumn lockdowns would strike and whether it would include more border closings….so we moved quickly with only a month to pack, organize the letting of the house, the move e.t.c.
Arriving in our stonehouse of solid granite, built on and into the granite bedrock, it took some time to ‘just be’.
While still unpacking we made vegetable beds for planting winter vegetables, as we learnt that as soon as the rains starts – this year early in mid September – a second growing season kicks in with the warmth that is stored in the rock from the heat of the summer. We started a compost and began learning about soil in this climate where everything dries out for several months in the summer and wakes up again in the autumn for a second growing season, which feels like northern European spring.
Now – several months into this landing – we are still surprised by the welcome and generosity of the land and the people.
We are beginning to allow ourselves to be changed….
Slowing down and listening…
At first we tried to just keep going the way we have done….
And then we noticed that what was around us was inviting us to drop into a different space of being…
Where we spend times in silence, where we listen to the birds and sense the vibration of the rock and the landscape….The olive groves that surround us.
The olives create a particular atmosphere. The silver green leaves reflecting the light in ways that has a silver green sheen – enlivening and mysterious.
The generosity of the land and its people is such that in the beginning nearly every other day someone from the village shared a little something from their harvest with us or shows us plants to grow.
The fig tree in the small public square near the house gave ample fruit for 3 full months and then there were persimmon fruit around the village, while walnuts and chestnuts are being harvested at end of October. End of November into early December was olive harvest – those beautiful silvery beings giving of their fruit in ways that doesn’t allow them to be eaten immediately but they require engagements – either curing the fruit in brine for several months or pressing it for their generous oil….
Since then the citrus fruit have been providing us with winter fruit: a tiny clementine tree behind our house provides beautiful delicious clementines, a lemon and orange tree in the neighbour’s garden are sharing fruit to the hearts delight….we are looking forward to whats next?