Tamera is a

peace research Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts (including social conflicts), with a view towards understanding those pro ...

village with the goal of becoming "a self-sufficient, sustainable and duplicable

communitarian Communitarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding philosophy is based upon the belief that a person's social identity and personality are largely molded by community relati ...

model for nonviolent cooperation and cohabitation between humans, animals, nature, and Creation for a future of peace for all." It is also often called a "healing biotope".Dieter Duhm, ''The Sacred Matrix: From the Matrix of Violence to the Matrix of Life. Foundation of a New Civilization.'' (2005) Verlag Meiga Literally translated, "

biotope A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals. ''Biotope'' is almost synonymous with the term "habitat", which is more commonly used in English-speaking countrie ...

" simply means a place where life lives. In Tamera, however, "healing biotope" is also described as a "greenhouse of trust, an acupuncture point of peace, and a self-sufficient future community." It is located on in the

Alentejo Alentejo ( , ) is a geographical, historical, and cultural region of south–central and southern Portugal. In Portuguese, its name means "beyond () the Tagus river" (''Tejo''). Alentejo includes the regions of Alto Alentejo and Baixo Alent ...

region of southwestern

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

History

Tamera was founded in 1995 by three Germans:

Dieter Duhm Dieter Duhm (born 19 September 1942, in Berlin), sociologist, psychoanalyst, art historian and author, is one of the co-founders of Tamera, a peace research center in southwestern Portugal. Influences During this period, Duhm says that he found ...

(M.S. in Psychoanalysis, PhD in Sociology),

Sabine Lichtenfels The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divide ...

(de) (Theologian), and Rainer Ehrenpreis (M.S. in Physics). However, its history goes back to 1978 when these three left their professions and tried to create an interdisciplinary research center to find solutions to the ecological and technological problems the world was facing at that time. Very quickly they discovered that if their project had any chance of surviving, they first had to research the core human relationship questions that lay hidden under all issues and prevent real solutions – such as competition, greed, and jealousy. In 1983 they began a three-year "Social Experiment" with fifty participants in the

Black Forest The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is t ...

of (Germany), and then further developed the results of this research into creating a functioning community in other projects throughout Europe, until they finally established Tamera in 1995.

Experimental research

Currently, approximately 250 coworkers and students (including children) live and study in Tamera which operates as an experimental research center dedicated to discovering how human beings can live peacefully among themselves and with nature, and create a successful, working, and sustainable community. Tamera is also a "free lab" and an international meeting place where peace workers and specialists in various fields from many parts of the world share their expertise. In 2008 participants from more than twenty-five different countries lived, studied, worked, or visited there.

Theory

The research in Tamera is based on a complex world view explained in detail in ''The Sacred Matrix'' by

. One essential part of this theory is the "

implicate order Implicate order and explicate order are ontological concepts for quantum theory coined by theoretical physicist David Bohm during the early 1980s. They are used to describe two different frameworks for understanding the same phenomenon or aspect of ...

" of

David Bohm David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American-Brazilian-British scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th centuryPeat 1997, pp. 316-317 and who contributed u ...

. Another is the "

morphic field Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author and parapsychology researcher who proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture which lacks mainstream acceptance and has been criticized as pseudoscience. He has worke ...

" theory developed by

Rupert Sheldrake Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author and parapsychology researcher who proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture which lacks mainstream acceptance and has been criticized as pseudoscience. He has worke ...

, where only a few peace research villages worldwide of a large enough size and complexity in which peace is established in all its aspects are enough to create cultural healing on a global level.

“What will determine the success of such peace projects is not how big and strong they are (compared to the existing apparatus of violence), but how comprehensive and complex they are, and how many elements of life they combine and unite in a positive way. When establishing new fields in evolution, it is not the law of the strongest, but the success of the more comprehensive that is the determining factor. Otherwise, no new developments could be made, for when they begin they are all small and inconspicuous."
Dieter Duhm Dieter Duhm (born 19 September 1942, in Berlin), sociologist, psychoanalyst, art historian and author, is one of the co-founders of Tamera, a peace research center in southwestern Portugal. Influences During this period, Duhm says that he found ...
: ''Future Without War: Theory of Global Healing.'' (2007) Verlag Meiga

The political goal of Tamera and its cooperation partners worldwide is to create several such centers on earth, which they call “the plan of the healing biotopes.”

Projects

Tamera serves as the headquarters for a number of different and independent projects that, when brought together properly, they believe can establish a new social model and a new culture of peace. They include the Global Campus, Monte Cerro Peace Education, the GRACE Foundation, the Institute for Global Peacework, Verlag Meiga Publishing Company, the Children's Center, the Love School, the SolarVillage, the

Permaculture Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principle ...

Project, the Horse Project, the Seminar and Guest Center and the Terra Nova movement.

The Global Campus

The Global Campus is a worldwide educational initiative designed to offer knowledge in community development as well as the basic principles of decentralized energy supply, architecture, and ecology required to establish autonomous peace villages. Tamera is the home of the first phase of the Global Campus – the Monte Cerro Peace Education – and is cooperating with the San José de Apartadó Peace Villag

in Colombia and the Holy Land Trus

in Palestine to establish similar educational centers around the world.

Monte Cerro Peace education

“Monte Cerro Peace Education" is a three-year course of studies for a comprehensive understanding for the development of globally effective peace villages. More than one hundred students have enrolled since "Monte Cerro" opened on 1 May 2006, and in April 2009 the first class will graduate.

GRACE Foundation

The GRACE Foundation was established in 2007, founded by Sabine Lichtenfels, to direct and attract money towards peace projects in an attempt to offset the large amounts of money now being directed into war and war industries. With the motto, "A peace village instead of a tank," the Foundation mainly finances peace actions and peace education which are connected to the power of grace.

“GRACE follows the realization that we can only create as much peace outside ourselves as we have created inside ourselves. GRACE reminds us that the healing of our planet can only succeed if humanity succeeds in connecting itself with the true basis of life and love, trust and truth; and humanity will only succeed if we personally succeed. GRACE embraces the commitment not to aggravate personal and political conflicts, but to create new possibilities for solutions."''GRACE: Pilgrimage for a Future without War.'' (2007) Verlag Meiga

The Institute for Global Peacework (IGP)

The Institute for Global Peacework is a network of peaceworkers and peace initiatives around the world who want to cooperate to create a nonviolent future. It coordinates all the different projects in Tamera and serves as the “base camp” for all external activities. It also hosts an annual “Summer University” that brings these different people and projects together in a “think tank.”

Verlag Meiga Publishing Company

Verlag Meiga publishes books, literature, and essential thoughts to disseminate the knowledge and experience of over thirty years of research into the development of the “plan of the healing biotopes.” Its main headquarters is in (Germany), with a branch in Tamera.

The Children’s Center

The basic principle of the work with children in Tamera is the “education of perception.” In addition to languages, math, biology, and geography, the main emphasis in learning is placed on studies in community development, art, cosmology, international networking, and how to be a spiritual being in the world.

The Love School

One core tenet of the Tamera theory is that a nonviolent culture will essentially depend on whether we succeed in ending the war between the genders. Love without jealousy, sexuality without fear, faithfulness that is not broken when one loves and desires others, truth and longevity in love, and new pathways in partnerships are the focus of the “Love School.”

“There cannot be peace between nations as long as there is war between man and woman.”

The SolarVillage

The “SolarVillage” is a test site in Tamera creating a model village that will be self-sufficient in energy and food production enough for fifty people. It can be built without any assistance from the big energy companies. Ecology, technology, architecture, and community are combined in a holistic pilot project designed and monitored by physicist and inventor Jürgen Kleinwächter. With the energy produced by a system of lenses within a greenhouse and stored in a hot oil system, round-the-clock cooking is available. Power and electricity can also be produced by means of sun-powered pulses of the low-temperature Stirling engine. Even in a hot climate, vegetables and other useful plants flourish and grow very well under light filtered by these lenses. file:gel-campus.jpg, The lake in front of the Monte Cerro campus Lake 1 of the Rainwater harvesting landscape in Tamera, Portugal

The Permaculture Project

Since Tamera was founded, an ecological team has made ponds and oases, and planted about 20,000 trees.

Sepp Holzer Sepp may refer to: * Sepp (given name) *Sepp (surname) *Science & Environmental Policy Project * Sepp (publisher) *Substantially equal periodic payments, US tax-law provision *Single Edge Processor Package * State Enterprise for Pesticide Producti ...

, Austrian mountain farmer known throughout Europe as the "Agro-Rebel," is cooperating with Tamera to build a sustainable "lakescape" in the dry

region of

, surrounded by a self-sufficient edible landscape with trees, gardens, and wetlands.

The Horse Project

The basis of working with horses in Tamera is to develop a new way of cooperation between human and horse, to promote inner growth, and to increase the ability to be in intimate contact with animals. The horses are ridden without bits or saddles, which requires trust and sensitive communication. The Horse Project is now expanding to offer first-aid treatment for sick, injured, or abused animals, and developing an Animal Sanctuary.

Seminar and Guest Center

The Seminar and Guest Center offers visitors the possibility to get to know Tamera, its grounds, and its research activities. The Center includes the Tamera Guesthouse, visitor's cabins and community tents, as well as the International Youth Cultural Center; and its activities include courses and seminars, Information Weeks, the Summer University, and Open Sundays.

Terra Nova movement

Terra Nova is the global platform that has arisen from the ideas of Dieter Duhm and Sabine Lichtenfels and from the real experience of Tamera. Terra Nova aims to create the conditions for a global system change for a nonviolent Earth, through activism, education and networking and by spreading perspectives for profoundly nonviolent culture based on trust and cooperation. In 2015, Dieter Duhm wrote the book ''Terra Nova: Global Revolution and the Healing of Love'' to expound upon and clarify the basic ideas of the movement.Terra Nova book
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Art and Music

In many intensive courses and community encounters throughout the history of the Tamera project, art was discovered to be a creative principle of Creation and became an essential element for the inner development of community. In addition to painting, "art" in Tamera now includes music, theater, dance, landscape art, and artistic expression in language. For example, there is a Tamera Chorus as well as a small ''a cappella'' jazz group called the "MoonRiders."

Architecture

Tamera has created experimental buildings as models for the construction of peace villages, designed by various architects such as Gernot Minke, professor of Clay Architecture at the

University of Kassel The University of Kassel (german: link=no, Universität Kassel) is a university founded in 1971 located in Kassel, Hessen, in central Germany. As of February 2022 it had about 25,000 students and about 3300 staff, including more than 300 prof ...

, Germany. Designer Martin Pietsch of Tamera has developed "Shade Creations" which have been used not only in Tamera but in quite a number of light-roof pavilions in other locations. The Great Hall in Tamera is a meeting place for up to 300 people. It is a wood-frame,

straw bale Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has a number ...

, clay, and

green roof A green roof or living roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage ...

construction. With its harmonic interior structure, it is the largest straw bale and clay building on the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

Spirituality

In Tamera, spirituality and religion are not questions of some profession of faith or creed, but of a clear perception, openness, and connection with universal forces in daily life. The core community gathers together every morning and every afternoon in the "Political Ashram" to focus on attunement and connection through spiritual lectures. There is also a stone circle in Tamera made up of more than sixty monoliths, created and arranged by Sabine Lichtenfels in cooperation with Marko Pogacnik and Peter Frank, that serves as a place of meditation and power.

Notes

External links

Tamera

Grace Foundation

Sabine Lichtenfels

Dieter Duhm

Future Without War blog
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