Yesterday I met with a group of important community leaders in Barichara to discuss the future of Casa Vieja -- the land containing the ruins of an old house that was built in the traditional earthen techniques of this territory. Together we planted the dream for this to become the permanent home of our school where children dream of the native forest, Sueños del Bosque.
In the photo above, you can see my daughter walking among the ruins. She is about to enter one of the most sacred and beautiful projects of Barichara. Bioparque Móncora has been her second home. She played in its dirt when she was three years old. With her dad she planted trees, gathered seeds, and dug trenches to attract water during the rain. It is the place that for 15 years now has been growing a community forest for all children young and old.
The meeting we had yesterday was with the junta directiva (leadership council) of Associación Aquileo Parra. They are the collective owners of the bioparque and a community organization with 40 local members who together have done a lot of work over the last 50 years to bring vital infrastructure to the town of Barichara. It was they who brought the telephone and power lines. They organized and raised funding to build the highway that connects to the nearby city of San Gil. And they gathered around the importance of making Barichara a recognized national monument and heritage site in Colombia.
I felt honored to continue their legacy while adding my own into the flow. We discussed how the land of Casa Vieja can become a nature school for children as part of the bioparque. You see, Associación Aquileo Parra has a problem that they need help with. A previous mayor who was effectively a mafia boss tried to steal part of the bioparque more than a decade ago. He taxed and fined the Associación and burdened them with debt. This has held the bioparque in legal jeopardy since around 2010.
In this photo, you can see several learning sites that are part of our bioregional learning ecosystem in Barichara. Note how "Las Ruinas" is connected to the bioparque. If we can raise the $150,000 US that it would require to purchase this land, it would enable our Waldorf school to become part of the bioparque as well. AND it would bring a vital flow of resources to the Associación that they could use to remove the debt that has burdened them for years.
This is a beautiful opportunity to practice creating the conditions for reciprocity in the new organization we are creating for the territory called Tierra Sagrada Barichara. It is on schedule to become legally constituted this fall. We have plans to bring other regenerative projects into Tierra Sagrada. The land title of our nature reserve Origen del Agua will be donated to the organization when it is legally constituted. Our recent purchase of the community learning center of Totumo will also move into stewardship within Tierra Sagrada in the future.
And if we can raise the money to purchase Casa Vieja, the title will be donated into this non-profit organization that will have local community members who gather as land stewards for each regenerative project associated with it. In other words, these parcels of land will come into the commons and be managed by local community members in service to the regeneration of our territory.
Our dream for these ruins is to plant a nature school on these grounds. The school already exists. Its temporary home is a beautiful site about a mile outside of town called La Maloka. We love that place but it is not fully integrated into the community in the way that the bioparque is.
When we successfully find the investment partners who enable us to purchase Casa Vieja, the home of the school will become the bioparque as a whole. As you can see in the photo above, the land is next to a parking lot and a swimming pool -- both of which are owned by the Associación. Yet if you zoom out like I have done with the drone photo below, you can see that Casa Vieja is the entrance to the bioparque from the town below.
By purchasing this land, our school that dreams of forests will literally be housed within the community forest of Bioparque Móncora!
I can feel the potency of this relationship -- both to catalyze the school Sueños del Bosque to entirely new levels and for bringing protection and security to the bioparque for the long term. Can you feel the land dreaming these realities into being? How would you want to be part of a story like this? Does it bring inspiration? Insight? Knowledge? Healing to your grieving heart?
The bioparque has been my personal sanctuary for five years now. I am growing a forest in one of its sections. To think of my daughter growing up in a school that weaves roots into this sacred place is a gift beyond measure. When I expand out to feel all of the children of this territory, my heart overflows with love.
We compost the dying civilization and grow nature schools in its ruins. How poetic is that?
Onward, fellow humans.
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