Thinking back over the decades, I have spent a lot of time discovering what I don’t want. Few people know from the get-go what they truly want. Once we are clear about what we don’t want, we can cast our net further afield to look outside our box of our experience, and allow one thing to lead to another until we converge with what we do want. The contrast helps us to recognise it.
And it was like this, in scouting the countryside in Northern Portugal to look for regions that might suit the Earth Collective project. Before each trip, I spent several hours viewing online maps from different perspectives eg. roads, terrain and street view, to plan the route. The first few trips were interesting (everything is interesting because it’s new) but didn’t inspire. I then hit a few areas that piqued my interest.
The countryside close to towns and the main road routes is very pretty and rustic, full of vineyards and old Portuguese farm houses, but it is what I call 'intensive rural'. Every square inch is accounted for. Houses have their own small plot of land which is cultivated for food and home produced wine and, sometimes, there are also a few sheep, goats or cows. It looks magical and is peaceful due to the absence of machinery noise (except for strimmers, which the Portuguese love), as cultivation is mostly by hand, or hoe, on these small pieces of land.
I love this oldy-worldly feel, especially compared to the UK and Ireland, where the countryside is noisier than you think. But there are issues for me, in being so close to neighbours. For instance, the spraying of toxic pesticides on vines (and concern over the wind direction), barking dogs, cockadoodling roosters and church bells every half an hour, amplified by speakers. On Sunday, you can hear a whole church service from the comfort of your home! Charming in a way, except there are churches everywhere in rural Portugal and whilst organised religion works for many, the bells are a constant reminder to me of the entrainment of the masses towards religious indoctrination, which disempowers them from developing a direct connection with their divinity and with source - or whatever you want to call it. Anyway, my idea of a rural idyll does not include watching my back for potential hazards. This made me realise that I need to be further away and higher in the hills which is my preferred habitat – more remote, less people, bigger pieces of land, and still within half an hour of a town.
In viewing a few such locations, I gained more clarity. I like less dense forestry (which is also a lower fire risk), undulations rather than steep valleys, and some clearings. Driving around also helps to notice the micro-climates, ie. areas that are more or less exposed to prevailing winds, the direction of the sun, water sources, and so on….
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Footnotes:
1. I have published a number of Notes since the last blog, which are observations and insights into my new life in Portugal, plus the odd epiphany. As there is usually a gap of several weeks in between blogs, I fill in the gaps with short Notes. (You can get notifications, if you are registered on Substack.)
2. If you enjoy my content, please could I ask you to recommend it to your contacts. I don’t use social media, so I rely on word of mouth. As a gesture of appreciation, I am offering a few rewards. When you use the referral link, or the share button on my posts, you will get a credit for any new subscribers I receive. For 15 subscriber referrals, I will send you a PDF of my book, ‘The Ultimate Relationship…the one with yourself’. For 25, I will do a personal video chat with you, or mentoring session, and the same again for 40. Thank you.
3. You can find wonderful pictures of my travels in Portugal on my website.
Brilliant piece. I love how you read and analyse the landscape in your search for the right place for the Earth Collective. Had almost forgotten about the Mothership. I was wondering, in reference to the landscape, are there areas that are toxic free, where they cultivate the land using organic agriculture methods?