Here we are all together, human beings, animals, plants, living on a planet that is round and free of barriers, an ecosystem of inexplicable bounty and beauty, of which we are a part. Every day, Earth provides us with enough to breathe, to drink, to eat, thanks to a tremendously efficient organization in which there is neither money nor authority. Everything nevertheless works optimally.
Remembering this fact is difficult: as humans we create absolutely nothing. The Earth gives us everything. Nothing we have comes from elsewhere. Art itself is but an attempt to attain beauty and universal truth that is inherent in Nature, which is ever beautiful. The perfect proportions, the harmony, are but a reflection of this plenitude that is offered to us, that contains everything, that emanates divine essence.
How could we have been so blind? Isn’t Earth our true mother, intimately connected to ourselves? The indigenous peoples of the world are stewards of the planet who remind us of this. What is our real relationship with Earth? We live in symbiosis with her.
It is essential for us to feel close to Nature. This sensation of well-being is like returning home. Being immersed in nature inevitably shows us our relationship with the world. Nature is a source of personal experience, of irreplaceable re-discovery of the Self. Ecological awareness is nothing more than self-awareness, the consciousness of our destiny as a person and as the human race.
Having a large expanse of pure nature at our disposal is a privilege we must make good use of. Fazenda Catuçaba has the double vocation of being part hospital, part Nature school: we need care, fresh air and attention to cure our ailments and re-learn directly from the living world. Fazenda Catuçaba is a place out of this world and out of time, where an intimate connection exists with Nature, facilitating a communion with the Earth and rediscovery of its deep meaning. Wide open spaces, outdoor architecture and art, nourishment for the body and soul, animals running free, rediscovery of the meaning of sacredness, ancestral wisdom, venerable trees, plant elixirs, are some of the elements of a subtle alchemy, a natural and experimental laboratory serving our transformation and that of our era.
The meaning of Fazenda in Portuguese is “the place where we make, where we produce”, and Catuçaba, in Tupi-guarani, Brazil’s indigenous language, signifies “land of the righteous, good earth”. Nothing can define this place better than this predestined name. In the last decade, many realizations were done here in many fields, seemingly diverse at first but altogether coherent and serving a unique mission: that of returning to Nature, to one’s own essential nature