A letter about Rosa's journey
Dear reader,
My name is River (they/them). I am writing to you, friend, colleague or or acquaintance as you have been connected with Rosa in the past year(s), to tell you a part of her story and how her story became intertwined with mine.
Embarking
I got to know Rosa as she packed up and left her life in Amsterdam behind. I have always been a nomad and hearing her story made me smile. That thrill of the unknown, standing on the edge of the high diving tower, looking down, terrified and excited. Knowing you will jump, but surprising even yourself when you do.
This was the her plan. In 3 weeks, pack up all her belongings, while continue working and say goodbye to all of her relationships. Typical Rosa. Throw your hat over the fence, and force yourself to climb over it to get it. She couldn't have done it without the immense love and support from friends, colleagues and family members. Getting an apartment empty, even 50m2, could be a one day job. But giving aways all your items, trying to find a home for even kitchen utensils, transferring their stories to the next person.
Telling the story of the cookbook, which was a birthday gift from a lover, or of that doughroller of olive wood, bought in Crete while finishing her thesis. Slowly, the apartment emptied and emptied, and Rosa's stuff continues a web of lives dispersed over the Netherlands- somewhere someone is playing a guitar, a keyboard, baking cakes, sitting at a table, sleeping in a bed, lifting weights, all continuing activities Rosa once did...
Until that last day, when there really is only paperclips, batteries with unknown charged status, shells collected at some beach, stickers of coffee houses.. somehow letting those last things go was the hardest. Until she could walk out the door, with only an empty keychain in her pocket where there had been many keys...
The first step into this nomad life, with one backpack and a travelsize guitar. And a bag of food. Never travel without food, her mother would say, wisdom passed down from her mother and therefore carrying triple the power. Lighter than ever, as the door shut and the out of office email is switched on, time to look forward.
Sweet letters and podcasts, voice messages and postcards carried her through Belgium, France, Spain all the way to Portugal. The poem gifted by her colleagues resonating in her mind; like Odysseus going on a 20year journey to get 'home', so did Rosa embark the journey home, but it is the journey that matters. As if to give a little trial, gods played games with the journey south. Train cancelled, the hostel booked on the wrong night, the bus between Spain and Portugal that simply never arrived, leaving a platform full of puzzled and frustrated travellers, the train to Lisbon split in two different journeys. Following the crowd, sitting on a platform in the dark, playing the guitar, waiting in hope and faith whether she would ever make it. somehow, it will all turn out well... until that last stop, under a starry night in a desolate train station, the driver shows up. German, grey haired, reticent but friendly man, dropped Rosa off at Tamera's guest dormitory, where she looked once more up at the now starlit sky, before entering the darkness of the room, hearing nothing but sleeping breaths around her.
Back to the start.
Tamera - re-de-constructing
The ambition of Tamera is grandiose: to build a new culture that is in its nature non-violent. A response from post-war Germany's left wing adolescents. The premise that to heal the world, we need to heal communities, heal relationships between individuals and that this needs reconstructing interpersonal relations from the ground up... That this place can function as an experiment, a petri dish for the world of a society in harmony with each others and the environment.
Of course, this is unachievable. And. It is worth striving for.
The courses offered by Tamera span a vast array of topics; hands on ecology to spiritual love. Rosa embarked on the course named 'SD arts' , with an ambition as high as Tamera it self. Art in action for the world; artivism. After two years of working with scientist, policy makers, activists, entrepreneurs and expressing herself through art, Rosa formulated the contours of this journey. Which was exactly that:
Purpose: Discover Art as a living practice of resistance, connection, and transformation.
" Creativity is the antidote for violence and destruction. Art is our most human expression, our voice to communicate our stories, to challenge injustice and the misrepresentations of mainstream media, to expose harsh realities and engender even more powerful hope, a force to bring diverse peoples together, a tool to rebuild our communities, and a weapon to win this struggle for universal liberation" - Climbing Poetree.
How?
Firstly, to get thoroughly confused. The SD of SD-arts is all about representing what lives inside of an individual to the outside. The purpose is to de-identify from what is going on inside. To decondition. In several days, the group of 15 individuals from Europe, U.S. and Canada are led into slowing down, to observe anew, to connect with their bodies, their impulses. To let their bodies speak through drawing and dance. To look deeply inside: who are you? Really. And to truly face the condition the world is in. To feel all the pain, anger, frustration of this world and what we agree on is a time and space that is on the brink of collapse.
This means owning your own reactions and conditioning. To make space for it, to transform it.
Four research questions guide the way:
How can we be with collapse, uncertainty and impermanence in ways that increase connection and vitality, rather than fear and powerlessness?
What are the principles of community that empower us to face the individual and collective crisis?
How can the conscious expression of suppressed life energies through art, play and 'gestalting' be a ontribution to the necessary global system change?
How can we discover a self that has access to the inherent intelligence of life and that lies beyond our social conditioning and anthropocentrism?
The second phase is to deconstruct, de-identify from within, held by a group. Step by step the group in led into the deeper layers of their own conditioning; using play, representation and theatre practices. Play is so central; it allows humans to display, move through, transform the parts of ourselves we cannot see, that we do not want to see.
Imagine a space where you stand, witnessed by a group of loving, supporting energy, where you get to show the most rejected part of yourself. That part that you think you cannot show to anyone, because no-one would love you. And not only show it, but play with it. Exaggerate it. Laugh with it. Transform it.
Sound incredible, weird, or mystical?
Yet, that is what can happen in the space of an artistic held forum, the social tool developed by Tamera founders in ZEGG, Germany.
The third phase: re-construct, explore new ways of being. After looking so deeply in themselves, facing the beauty and the bad, the joy and fears living in each person, they get a new challenge. How can you re-imagine yourself? Take any quality - an aspiration, a flaw, a talent. Expand. What would this look like? Create a complete character. Dress, talk, eat, think like this character. 24 hrs full immersion. The social nerd takes on a character of a surfer. The blocked artist embodies the character of a blind opera singer. Seekers turn into paranormal see-ers. And Rosa took on a truth from the heart sayer. Slowing down to the speed of listening.
This is where our paths crossed. She woke up looking at this Rosa character, realising the costume she had put on and what it had brought her. And realising that Rosa needed to take a retreat for a while to continue this journey. Rosa had many qualities, and also so many beliefs about who she was that would trip her up in this journey.
So I am happy to help her out. In many conversations we had, I talked about my queerness - how I have always rejected being put into boxes of nationality, sexuality, gender roles and other projections of the outside world. I have all the life force, like Rosa has, which can be powerful to devour cities- it can move people into new places. And. It can also be soft, reflective and fluid. It will not be controlled, planned or dammed in.
Flowing onward
With Rosa on retreat, I have participated in Tamera’s olive harvest. Deepening knowledge of connection to nature and what living in community means. My role is for now to keep collecting and exploring this space of community, arts, embodiment practice and system change. Here, in the petri-dishes of communities the idiosyncracies of individuals can bloom. Healing bodywork, shamanic clowning, spiritual dancing, conscious playing.. Here new ways of being are invented, tested, incorporated, nourished. In this space I will continue flowing.
Europe is populated by a vast network of nomads - campervans and hitchhikers, shamans and marketeers, bitcoin adepts, biotoilet experts and water healing engineers .. and everything in between. Living of volunteering, season work, digital prostitution or simply energy exchange (i.e. without money). Using the lightrail network of telegram groups, who-knows-who and instagram. For those who even own a phone. In this space, people can be at a place for 2 years without calling it their home, or work for 10years without ever having thought of either jobs, work or holidays.
I am now living in Cristaland, nearby Lagos Portugal. This small community can feel more like a student house than a project. With the difference that even though no-one tells you what to do, someone is cleaning up the biotoilet, someone is unclogging the sink, someone chops wood, someone decorates the food with fresh herbs and flowers from the garden. Spaces where it is more normal to hug in the morning than to talk. Not quite parallel to 'outside' world delights - I am sitting in a cafe with an excellent flat white, on a borrowed mac - but little bubbles nonetheless.
Where to next? Lets see where this flow will take me... For now, here at Cristaland I have been learning much in the space of contact improvisation and dance related healing practices. I feel I am just scratching the surface of this field and how it connects to new ways of imaging our society, how it can serve us better. Step by step I let these place change me, take their wisdom and somehow it flow back to you... my dear friend.
In the next update, I will share more in detail on the ongoing mapping of these movements.
With all my heart,
River
ps. The business case of being an experiment for system change is not exactly great. Please consider supporting to conscious comunities such as Tamera.
