We are looking in Nazare. Our farm is only 20km away. And this village is a living tapestry of ocean and land weaved together. For us it makes sense to come here.

Still today, the close knit connection of local people and the ocean is well visible.
Fishing endures as a form of subsistente. And villagers keep on holding into traditions as way to stabilize the dependency to something very volatile: the wild Atlantic waters.

Waters can be very rough in here. They are the dream of experienced surfers. But also the doom of many competent fisherman. In any case the risk is real: one can loose a loved one into the sea.

In my understanding, nazarene women’s skirts are a ritual. As such they are meant to mitigate the danger of a water-centric life. They are displayed in seven layers, one on the top of another. There are many attempts to explain this. I like the most, the one that relates the skirt to the seven waves. Accordingly to the tradition, at the seventh wave the ocean calms down. When man returned from the sea, they needed to wait for the seventh wave so that to find safe harbor. At the beach, woman used the skirt as a rosary to count till seven - so that to catch the right wave.

In my previous article Moving Mountains, I share about the big challenges we are facing with our project in Portugal. In drifting towards Nazare, I foresee that dreams and doom are very close to each other -just as birth is so close to death. It reckon that navigating waters like this, in uncertainty and vulnerability, ritual and traditions are a valuable stabilizing force.

So in Nazare, I will pay attention to rituals. Maybe I will wear the seven skirts. Then while standing at shores of the Atlantic ocean, I will gently hold into them. One by one, as I count till seven. Because there is a right wave. We only need to catch it.

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Projects we pursue. Goals and achievements. Milestones. Difficulties and barriers in our lives. I think we all have mountains. But when difficulties are as big as mountains - how are we, in our smallness, to endure?

In Chinese mythology there’s an old fable known as The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains (first appeared in Book 5 of the Liezi). It teaches about the value of persistence and will power when dealing with hard and seemingly unmovable obstacles.

The two mountains Great Form and Royal Residence were hundreds of miles on each side, and one hundred thousand feet tall. Originally they were situated south of Qi province, north of Hoyang. A certain foolish old man of North Mountain, already ninety years old, lived facing the mountains. He was vexed by the mountains blocking the way north, necessitating a long detour to come and go. He gathered his family to come up with a plan. He said, “Why don’t we put all our energy into leveling the route through the south of Yu to the region south of the Han River?”
They agreed as a group, but his wife presented a doubt: “With your strength, you couldn’t make a dent in a dirt hill—what can you do about those two immense mountains? And where are you going to put all that earth and rock?”
Everyone said, “Throw it into the Po Sea, north of the Hidden Land.”
So he took along three men from among his sons and grandsons to haul loads, and they broke rock, dug earth, and hauled it to the seashore in baskets. The widow of the neighbor family had a young son who eagerly joined them.
It took from winter to summer just to make one round trip. A wise old man at the river bend laughed at them and tried to stop them, saying, “Your lack of intelligence is extreme! With the years and energy you’ve got left, you’ll never be able to break off the stalk of a single plant on the mountain—what can you do about the earth and stone?”

The foolish old man of North Mountain sighed and said, “Your mind is too inflexible to understand, not even as well as the widow’s boy. Though I die, my children will survive me; and my children will produce grandchildren, and my grandchildren will have children, and their children will have children, and those grandchildren will have children too. Children and grandchildren will continue to be born generation after generation, while the mountains will never grow larger—so why worry about not leveling the mountains?”
The wise old man of the river bend had no reply.
The spirit in charge of snakes heard this, and fearing the task would never be done, reported it to God. God was moved by their sincerity, and sent two sons of the titan Kua E to transport the two mountains. One was placed in the northeast, the other south of Ying. From then on there was no natural barrier between the south of Ji and the south of the Han River.

Can you see that too? Mountains do change.
The story advises: carry one stone at a time.

But in our modern existence, there’s a different narrative: we are admired when carrying the whole mountain at once. Perhaps you’ve felt it. Living in this time, comes with massive weight - far too big for one to bear.

It’s important to shift the attention to something less obvious - the power contained in small actions. Step by step, one stone, then another, tiny gestures have the power to decentralize success from one single moment to many moments spread in the course of time. Satisfaction that comes with small actions - and not only from big achievements or overcoming huge obstacles - makes it easier to carry on while facing adversity.

It’s in our vertical structure: just like pillars, humans uphold loads. The place we take in the web of life, comes in itself with responsibilities. Besides that, we take many other weights throughout our lifetime. However, along the way we have forgotten something. We aren’t supposed to carry it all.

Weight bearers, such as turtles, elephants, the great mother, have been part of various animate traditions around the world. Why? Because the heaviness inherent to the difficulties we deal in life, shouldn’t be held by one isolated part - one individual, one nuclear family - but a larger network of support.

This principle applies also to the world inside ourselves. For example, weight should be evenly distributed throughout the entire structure of the body. And shared with the ultimate weight bearer, the earth. When this happens, there’s lightness. But excessive individualism and independency opposes such natural optimization. Compartimentalized in the body, tension gets locked in horizontal bands around the eyes, throat, shoulders, diaphragm, pelvis and joints, preventing weight from traveling freely towards the ground.

Can you sense where you are holding back? Your inside and your outer reality reflect each other.

The tale also teaches that by not giving up, seemingly unmovable things can change overtime. Last December I got a tattoo of three mountains. I knew that endurance and willpower would be needed when facing the challenges of moving countries, developing the Quinta do Bem Haja project and beginning a new life with my family in Portugal.

And I was right. It has been very hard. As I write this, obstacles have been showing themselves in their fullness. Things are feeling heavy. Steps are met with resistance. And I feel that my strength is running out. I believe that a breaking point is closer than ever.

There’s big pressure to take decisions and act. At the same time, every single moment, every single breath, counts as space for being. It’s a strange ambiguity to inhabit: to experience the urgency to run and the space to nurture myself.
The old man who moved the mountains, may have felt it too - the constant labour that maintains connection between extremes, the big and the small, the long and the short lived, the possible and the impossible.

New forms are born under great pressure. And the edge of breaking is often the edge of breakthrough.I need to think about giving birth. There was the moment of giving up, when everything started to feel heavy and exhausting. I could not do it anymore. And then, things shifted. What was blocked or in stillstand, began unravelling with an incredible force. And my child was born.

Something in me, or maybe in us as a family, says “ don’t give up”. It could also be the voice of my mother. Or grandmother. Or from the amazing people I admire. Maybe it’s how the future sounds like.

The old foolish man who moved the mountains has already showed us that big solid things don’t move when everything is easy. The birthplace of transformation it’s in facing the true dimension of our mountains. And in the knowing that many small movements lead to big changes.

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Nature constantly regenerates itself - independently of us. But this restorative processes can be greatly enhanced and magnified if our actions are to be attuned with the natural world.

There’s so much forest lost to wildfires, monoculture and logging. In less than two decades, more than half of the green cover in Portugal has disappeared. It’s hard to see this, for what really is. Most people ignore the ripples of such events, specially on a medium and longer term. There’s a insisting collective numbness about the legacy we are leaving for generations to come. And if one doesn’t feel such reality, one won’t care either.

For most of his life, British naturalist Sir David Attenborough, marveled at the wonders of nature. However, what he saw 100 years ago is surely very different from what can be observed today. Sir David emphasizes that protecting nature is essential. And that to protect, personal experience is needed.

When we consider that more than 85% of forest cover in Portugal belongs to private owners… what does that say about care and nature restoration?

We are one of those small landowners. And we care. For us, purchasing land near Alcobaca - Portugal goes beyond the usual confines of private property. Because having a title does not mean we can exploit the land as we wish.

By developing a regeneration project in this place we want to ensure protection, nurturing and care for a small ecosystem where soil, plants, animals and people support each other. As teachers, we can involve, educate and share experiences with the surrounding community .

This way, we hope that nature restoration can thrive soon enough in here. And eventually spiral outwards, to other private properties, organizations and the region in general.

One of the main pillars in our regeneration spiral is guardianship.

Differently from ownership, guardianship centers on direct experience and relationship. For us, this place is not mere property or commodity. But a living entity. As such, holds wisdom, complexity and coherency in itself.

Humans simply cannot connect from their heads. For that, we need bodies. And a resonant heart. Thus guardianship starts from within.

One very significant aspect is that we must step down from being the ‘organisers’ to become more ‘organic’. Allerd Stikker, mentions in his book that the separation between organic and organised is at the root of our ecological crisis.

Humanity excelled at organization but we had begun to ignore our organic roots. And this is precisely what stood in the way of potential solutions to global environmental problems and the restoration of balance between economy and ecology.
Sacred mountains - how the revival of Daoism is turning China’s ecological crisis around - Allerd Stikker

But to assume our organic roots, we need to be more embodied. Perceptual awareness, grounding skills, nervous system regulation, postural alignment and movement are practices that tend for our organic roots. Common to all of these, is direct experience.

Although it helps, we don’t need to be biologists, ecologists, agronomists, designers, artists or hold any other expertise for supporting nature restoration and taking the role of guardianship. However it’s certain that we do need a different way of looking at our world.

Humans have grown used to assume that they are above nature. But by possessing and destroying the earth we are loosing life force in our lands, water, air and food. Moreover, we too are suffering - because our bodies are not separated from it’s environment.

Guardianship is not a hip trend. It’s an ancient role of great responsibility, assumed and still practiced by aboriginal and traditional families, communities and cultures worldwide. In Portugal roles such as these are greatly unseen and undervalued. Forest guardians, river guardians and light guardians are jobs in decline. Yet they are possibly the ones we need the most.

Back to private ownership. Can you imagine what would change when landowners would realise that it’s the job of it’s family, community and the country to look after all the richness of our places for future generations?

Remembering Lao Tzu’s wisdom:

Big dreams begin with small, seemingly unimportant action. And we have taken our first steps.

Interested in guardianship? Get in touch with us. We are happy to share and exchange more.

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We are about to take the leap. End of May we leave the Netherlands.

While approaching the edge, faith seems to be joining us.

Recently, during a morning walk, my father asked “ You don’t have much faith, do you Raquel?”. Intrigued by his assumption I realized that I never had so much faith in my life, as now. But why faith and does it matter at all?

Questions like these direct my gaze into nature.

What I see are dandelions. Everywhere now, dandelions can be found. In the meadows. The woods. The sidewalk. A crack in the pavement. One thing has become certain over the years: dandelions always return. Dandelion’s resilience it’s outstanding. And for me, it points towards the terrain underlaying my questions: the potency of life that is always here, waiting for the right conditions to return and flourish.

It points to circularity as a self-fulfilling expression of nature.

Life begets life. Life wants life to continue.

Maybe this is what faith can be.

To trust in the force of life that is imminent and ever-becoming. And to act from this trust.

In this way, faith truly only begins with action. How do we know that our actions are rooted in such way of trusting?

Our decision to move to Portugal, has had and still does have, moments of great fear and distrust.

But it was faith that has led us to purchase land.

It was faith that inspired us in implementing the right conditions for life to thrive in this place, that we now call of Quinta do Bem Haja. More about the name here:

This conditions include the ecological restoration of the stone buildings.

Clearing loads of brambles. Planting some trees and bushes. Pruning. Harvesting the olives. Learning about and creating water retention beds in the land.

For me it’s faith at work that makes all the difference.

It’s in the sense that something is right because is life-giving. And it’s, specially when facing hard work and all kind of obstacles, in the crucial difference between going-on and giving-up.

Like dandelion seeds, faith helps us to remember the light.

And so, we go-on.

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Me and my family are dedicated in making this happen.

One year ago, we purchased land near the town of Alcobaca in Portugal. This is where we are embedding all our experience, talent and creative efforts.

To keep our efforts concentrated in such life-project, we are now asking for support.

And inviting others to join us. Therefore, we are opening a crowdfunding campaign.

You can learn more and support the project here:

fundraising/quinta-do-bem-haja

Every donation, big or small, makes a difference.

Thank you for reading and for supporting this journey in whatever way that feels right.

Literally combines “bem”/“good” with the verb “haver”/“to have”. Commonly used to mean “to exist” or “ to appear”, the verb “haver” within the scope of this expression, acts as a catalyzer of abundance.

Older than the most popular expression of “thanks” or “obrigado”, “bem haja” has lost followers, specially among more recent generations.

I am not surprised though, that while connecting with the land, the sound of this words echoed in my ears. Because for me “bem haja’ is far beyond a name to indentify this place. It’s the soul of this place appearing or becoming. It’s goodness wanting to relate and amplify.

Moreover, it muses me that a mouth that utters this words, can magnify generosity and altruism. It makes goodness more tangible, more possible in one’s life.

“Bem Haja” belongs to the collective memory of the Portuguese people. In my understanding, this expression is the soul speaking. If we begin to say it, over and over again, we not only wish goodness to appear in the life of someone else. Saying this words frequently enough, cultivates a culture of generosity and friendliness that the Portuguese are so well known for.

Maybe regeneration of nature and human can begin this small - by simply remembering a language that reflects relationship, and it’s guided by affection and care.

You can learn more and support the project here: fundraising/quinta-do-bem-haja