A letter to friends in Bolivia

Dear friends!

We write to you after a stormy night; the forces of nature seem to support us in our task. We are in the middle of a working retreat, focusing our energy on finding ways that we, Tamera, can help you, our compañeros in Latin America: Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Mexico… Thank you for the invitation to come and present our work in Bolivia. This invitation serves as encouragement and inspiration to look again at the situation in South America and to concentrate on solutions. We are also moved by the volatile situation of the peace community San José de Apartadó. In this time there is a great opportunity and a great need for the development of an effective global alliance, a movement that would offer assistance to you in Bolivia as well as to our friends in Colombia.

 In this letter we will describe this great opportunity and share with you the basic thoughts that excite us and direct our course. These basic thoughts may be a solution to what most of the world perceives as unsolvable problems.

We can observe the negative effects of globalization everywhere we look. In every case the same destructive pattern is repeated: a country is ecologically exploited and inevitably destroyed through overgrazing, monoculture and exportation. Rural villages and communities are torn apart, trust is broken, and human beings loose their connection to the land and flee to the great urban centers where they live in inhumane conditions. Those who choose to remain in the rural areas do under the constant threat of expulsion. Globalization systematically prevents all potential solutions for healing and self-sufficiency such as the creation of seed banks, free access to water, the right to education, the participation in communities, or the building of subsistence economies. Discord and disinformation are spread all over the world to keep people governable in the grip of their fear.

How may we escape this curse?

Tamera offers the following answer: through the construction of models. And only through the construction of complex, sustainable and replicable models will we be able to escape this curse. That may seem strict, but it is actually something beautiful, as you know.

I would like to give you here an example: Sepp Holzer is being invited to introduce his water landscapes all over the world, which is wonderful. But at the same time, he knows that even the best water landscapes are pointless if humans continue to fight each other. Water is a uniting element, but in our current human condition it is source of conflict. For a water landscape to truly manifest its healing potential it must be built in relationship with human communities, in this way it moves towards the realization of a complete model. We come to the interconnected nature of the concept of models, for in order to create a functioning community we need to gain knowledge in love, and in order to gain knowledge in love we need to develop compassion for the world. In order to develop compassion for the world we need to re-learn how to think, and in order to re-learn how to think we need to know how to develop theories. To be able to develop theory we need education… you see, one cannot divide a whole, complex system into single parts and offer separate solutions and expect success.

For this reason it does not make sense to introduce the idea of water landscape alone. However, we see the potential for Bolivia to begin with a water landscape towards the creation of a model-university; in this way the holistic and sustainable model for a new civilization on this planet emerges through the construction of the water landscape. Here, one could study the mystery of water as well as develop new fundamental ideas about agriculture and permaculture. Here, ancient indigenous and mythological knowledge regarding the unity inherent in the human and nature relationship could be rediscovered and documented with the tools of modern science. Here, a global campus could arise that would educate young people towards new professions in the service of peace not war, a school for the study of the relationship between inner and outer peace, for the cultivation of forgiveness and solidarity between humans, for the healing of humanity and Earth. All these components come together in a powerful synergy which may have unexpected results.

And then a miracle might occur as soon as this center is built, even in early stages of manifestation. (…)

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