Tamera for Tomorrow: A Model for the 99% and Creating Just and Environmentally Sustainable Communities

Lets speak to the deep meaning of the vampire myth in relationship to modern day.  How many people, especially many of us rationalized liberals, realize that myth speaks to reality.   Our issue in not understanding is our lack of an intelligent understanding of metaphor, which epistemologist Gregory Baetson defines as “a language that connects.”

Lets take Dracula, for instance. He sucks the Maiden dry by his seductive gleam, doesn’t he. "Ah, take me," she cries. So, he does and he sucks her dry, he kills her and in his image, she too becomes the walking dead.

Is this a mere fantasy? Have you ever attended to the behavior of corporations? Who is the Maiden they are sucking the lifeblood out of? Gaia or Earth Herself? Does this including us as cells of Her being?  Is our destruction of the environment a mirror to our being dead ourselves?  Are WE the walking dead in our top-down western culture?

Take a drive and look around at all the cement and lifelessness to the planet. Yes, folks, we are the walking dead, and we are sucking the life of our Mother, the Earth Herself. Don't just point the finger at the Koch Brothers. In their seductive actions towards you, you too have become a vampire.

Sorry to anger you in this perception of humanity’s pattern.

There is hope for tomorrow, and one such bright light towards that tomorrow is Tamera.

Tamera is a project that was founded in Germany in 1978.  It is a school and research station for a realistic vision of future communities. At this point in time, the community has 170 people living and working on a property of 330 acres.

The project was founded in Germany in 1978. In 1995 it moved to Portugal. Today 170 people live and work on a property of 330 acres.

The founding thought of Tamera is to develop a non-violent life style fostering cooperation between human beings, animals and nature in general. Thus, they truly are fostering a culture, which in the language of Riane Eisler is a “Partnership Society” or what Rob Kall refers to as “Bottom Up.”

Can we see the relationship between these two, partnership and bottom up?

Soon after the conception of Tamera, it became clear that the healing of love and of human community had to be placed at the center of their work. Sexuality, love and partnership needed to be freed of lying and fear, for they believed there could be no peace on Earth as long as there was war in their minds, bodies, hearts and souls.

Is Tamera a manifestation of such a peace?  Is she a model for the future?  Could it be such a community would function in a way that healthcare, education, and politics is a function of the community and the community is the government? Wait! That signifies communism.  Was true community rule actually what happened in top-down Russia and China?

I don’t think so.  What was titled communism was a farce, a lie masquerading a “same sh*t different day” scenereo.

What would a truly empowered community look like?  What if all of us were the “Powers-That-Be?”  What is your vision?  It’s important to all of us!

Could this be our New Jerusalem, meaning “Place” (Jeru) of “Peace” (Salem or Shalom)?  Can we bring forth peace from within us?  Or do we remain under the thumb of a mentality that divides and conquers? 

The ecological and technological research of Tamera is broad.  It includes the implementation of a retention landscape for the healing of water and nature, as well as a model for regional autonomy in energy and food. Through the Global Campus and the Terra Nova School, they are working within a global network regarding the social, ecological and ethical foundations for a new Earth.  This new Earth they refer to as Terra Nova.

The question the reader of this article is hopefully asking her or his self is this:

            How can WE create a more just, equitable and sustainable future and how can       the model of Tamera be a participant in the world of tomorrow?

The ball is in YOUR court.  “Tamera tomorrow today!” Sounds good as a slogan to me.  Can we perhaps utilize their ideas in our current communities?  For example, how does their work relate to and support Transition Towns and Permaculture Gardening?   Aren’t these practices also a bottom-up / systems approach out of this mess of pollution, alienation and top-down rule? 

Are we truly ready to change?  Or do we continue to live under the curse of Eve who lies powerless on her back while getting “screwed” by the Man?  By this I don’t mean just women.  I also mean the disempowerment of the “labor” class, which includes men.

The choice is ours.  We can only be cursed if we buy into it.  We can give the proverbial finger to the “powers-that-be” who put this curse on us.  Who put that curse on us?  Well, consider the number of the beast ‘666,’ which is a solar number (if you want more information on this number, email me or comment below).  It is also identified with the human ego, our surface layered consciousness, which is identified with the Sun, or Light of Day.  In other words, could it be that our egotistical, arrogance is what is killing us?  No god or devil is killing us.  We are killing ourselves.  Why, because we can’t see the big picture.

Thus is the essence of bottom-up.  We take responsibility and don’t surrender power to the so-called “powers that be.” 

As Eric Fromm states, we escape from freedom.  In escaping from responsibility by surrendering to the Man (corporations), we do indeed escape freedom.  And what does responsibility mean?  Literally, it is a conjunction of two words, “response” and “ability.”  Meditate on this.

Tamara as I perceive it could be a responsible/responsive model for tomorrow’s world.  Thus, let us all ask of the village: Can Tamara provide an effective model for the way we foster communities?  Can it also help us to question our ideas about who we are in relationship to the Earth and to each other? Can Tamara also share her frustrations as well as her joys?

Tamara has a very strong emphasis on the role of women. Thus they state on their website:

            In Tamera we work for the full empowerment of the woman.  For a world in           which women take their place without placing themselves above or below the         man, and without having to fight or imitate him.  A culture of partnership, where     the genders, as equally strong poles, complement and love one another.  A world             in which no violence against women can happen anymore. The women come           together and cooperate for the benefit of all beings on the planet – and a new love             to the men.

            Feminine Peace Wisdom in Tamera includes solidarity with women around the       world, knowledge about healing the Earth and knowledge about love, sexuality and community-building. Sabine Lichtenfels is the main representative for this         knowledge.

“Here for the sake and benefit of all beings?”  Wow!  A culture of love?  Could it be that Tamara is living out the Partnership Model put forth by Riane Eisler?  http://www.partnershipway.org/  And what is Christ said to be if not here for the sake of all humankind?  That’s you, Reader!

This makes me think of Rob Kall’s bottom-up governance.  Is it truly bottom-up we’re looking for as much as it is a partnership?  Perhaps “bottom up-partnership” is process oriented more so than product?  How is that cricket singing outside my window affecting my biology?  Are her “cricks” a ploy to get her two cents into this writing?  Are her “cricks” a father to my conceiving these words?  Is she a co-author of this writing?  Are we dancing in an interdependent dance?  Am I listening to the Way, to God, in attending to the cricket’s “crick?”

An interdependent world is not top-down.  It is relational. Thus, opposites are mirrors of one another.  Is this reflective of true bottom-up? (Good God, now I’m hearing another cricket and its like I’m listening to a symphony!)

Joy!  Thou Spark from flame immortal!  O’ Heavenly born Goddess, I invade Thy halidum –Shiller’s “Ode to Joy” put forth to music by Beethoven.  Well, the song in my eyes sings:  “Joy, Thou Sparkles from within Cricket’s Mouth!”

Is this the kind of world Tamera and that cricket are pointing us towards?  Can we too listen to the sounds of Nature and allow that seminal input to stimulate us into birthing an ecstasy of Joy?

As Shiller states in his poem:

To Joy

Joy, thou beauteous godly lighting,
Daughter of Elysium  (bliss or peace),
Fire drunken we are ent'ring
Heavenly, thy holy home!

Thy enchantments bind together,
What did custom's sword divide,
Beggars are a prince's brother,
Where thy gentle wings abide.

Be embrac'd, ye millions yonder!
Take this kiss throughout the world!
Brothers—o'er the stars unfurl'd
Must reside a loving father.

*Reworked by Schiller in the 1803
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/931_Schiller_Ode.html

What stern customs divides us from this planet or me from the wisdom teachings produced by the crickets?

Could it be that Tamara is helping us birth this unity tomorrow?  Perhaps if we open our hearts, we will indeed hear the ecstatic cry of Joy Herself!  Yes, She is singing at my window, invite Her to yours!  The choice is ours:  Do we bear a heavy weight upon our bosom, or do we lighten up and fly into heavenly and earthly bliss in nursing the breasts of Joy Herself?

To hear Joy sing in Tamera’s vision of tomorrow, listen to the interview Merry and I did with some representatives of the village.  The url is:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/envision-this/2015/09/15/terra-nova-cl...

The website of Tamera is: http://www.tamera.org/what-is-tamera/about-us/

Ode to Joy:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlQZyTF_LY

(Sorry, it’s sung in Latin)

 

 A Bit About Burl, the author

Burl is a retired counselor who is on disability due to Alzheimers and Chrones Disease.  Yes, he is a pain in the ass as well as the head.  Burl has been an avid author of Oped News, a liberal on-line newsletter (the above blog appeared there) and is a member of A New Gaia.  He is also an author of "Sophia's Web:  A Passionate Call to Heal our Wounded Nature"  Sophia's Web in essence ties all religions together and reveals a process oriented look on life.  For example, women and men mirror Nature's process of absorbing within as well as producing seminal inputs. To use a concrete example, the Sun's Rays enter the Soils of the Earth and sparks a seed into becoming a tree.  Question I'm asking readers is:  What seed lie dormant within us?  

The book is available at Amazon, or if you want more personal attention, email Burl at burl_hall@yahoo.com. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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