ANIVERSARIO DE LIBÉLULA HUERTA
A week full of activities and the house as a meeting point. Mornings starting with meditation and yoga or taichi, workshops related to ecology and art, 2 days in the mountains, exhibition in the poly tunnel and a theatre performance among the plant beds. Live music and bonfires, rebel artivism, poetry recited in green and lots of delicious shared vegan food... These are some images of the september anniversary celebrating 10 years of Libélula Huerta's existence.
Our concentration is like a wild animal
The mornings were generally quiet and calm. The first few days I managed to wake up early and join the Vipassana meditation session. For this occassion we turned a shed in the garden into a cosy meditation room. It was the first time in my life that I tried to meditate and it was a very interesting experience. "Our concentration is like an wild animal, it tends to escape. When you get angry about the escaping animal and try to draw it closer with a power, it will keep on escaping even more. Be patient, try to bring it back very gently." I liked this analogy from Christoph, who invited us to join him by meditating. For the tai-chi he also uses figurative comparisons which help you understand the technique very naturally. Besides tai-chi, we woke up and practiced dynamic yoga with Fer and later Maria prepared a playful yoga workshop for children.Yo siento como sopla
During the mornings and afternoons, there were diverse workshops held in Libélula. Sara taught us how to prepare a biodegradable whitener from the ashes. And together with our neighbour Mercedes, who used to be the best sharpener in her village in her girlhood (now she is about 80), they showed us how to sharpen a scythe.
For the drum session with Dani, we tried different kinds of percussion and made some energetic noise!
With Japanese music playing in background, Fran taught the workshop participants how to write a genre of Japanese poetry, haiku and tanka. As we were an international group, we wrote our poetry about the four seasons in three languages - Spanish, English and Czech.
On Wednesday and Thursday we went to César´s cottage in the Pajares mountains, close to Leon. Walking and relaxing in this natural paradise added good energy to the week.
Appreciate the smell of the onion!
The pilgrim on the camino de huerta with leaf-glasses invited the public to appreciate the smell of the onion and the shape of the tomato, ethereal nymphs in colourful dresses were dancing in between the beds and a monster-frog emerged from behind the corn like in a horror film. These are some of the images from the performance of the theater-group Vello púbico. After the shared dinner and the sunset the theatre continued, this time inside the polytunnel, playing with the lights created a mysterious athmosphere. There developed a nice and natural interaction with the public, who smelled the plants and sang an ode to the vegetable. The theatre group also celebrated an anniversary - 3 years of performing. Happy birthday!I am a veggie table / a table made of veg
Inspired by Pablo Neruda and his Ode to tomato and vegan lyrics by Benjamin Zephaniah, we invented a new literature genre with Fran - green poetry! Poetry related to plants, nature and/or ecology. On one of the evenings, we organized an event to put it in practise. The poets, dressed in green, met in the bandstand in Ferrera Park and, by the modest light of a lantern, declaimed chlorophyll.
Compartir? Compartir!
At the anniversary I experienced once again the power of being and working together. It can make wonderful things happen, which would not be the case if you were alone. A good example was the workshop of creative text writing Loesje with Chema and Meri. We started with writing associations to other people's words and making up crazy stories about famous people, garden tools and places. Another activity was to change a sentence into a different meanings and style, using more or less the same words. That all served as a relaxing and warming-up activity, to loosen up and release our creativity. Afterwards, we chose a few topics to write about, through a collective brainstorming. The more specific, the better. There were subjects like Autumn, Sharing with other people, Migration of the birds or Meaning of the wolf for the ecosystem of forest. For each subject, everyone could express whatever came to minds - by writing a word, an idea, a text or even drawing a picture. We passed the papers to each other, so we could see what the others had written or drawn, which helped us to go further in our thoughts, to inspire us, and make us able to could hold a discussion. We influenced each other. In the end, we circulated the contributions we liked most. The most circulated item had a picture of an open hand, offering a vegetable with the heading "to share?" and with a fist with "or not to share?". Our idea from the beginning was to make same artivism (artistic activism) as we knew about one empty billboard and we wanted to fill it with a message. So we decided to make a poster with the shared message! You can see the result hanging on the billboard on the main road heading to Libélula (towards San Cristobal).
The willingness to share made the whole anniversary happen. All workshop -leaders and performers offered their skills and art to share with the others. Here is my chance to say THANK YOU!!! to everybody.
Rosario de la Fuente for the exhibition "Micromundos" in polytunnel.
Christoph Meyer for Meditación Vipassana and Tai-chi.
Sara Vila from Brin de Sante for the workshop "Aprende a hacer tu propia lejía biodegradable". Información y pedidos: http://brindesante.blogspot.com.es/
Dani de Teverga for Taller de percusión. Dani da clases de percusión y talleres. Información y contacto: 647501866.
The theatre group VELLO PÚBICO TEATRO for a site-specific performance.
Fer for Yoga Dinámico. Fernando es profesor cualificado de yoga e imparte clases en distintos puntos de Asturias. Información y contacto: 647158629.
Fran Priegue for Taller de Haikús y Tanka: http://franciscopriegue.blogspot.com.es/
All poets who particapated by DECLAMANDO CLOROFILA: Mercedes García Amado, Javier Garcia, Esti Rubi, Fernando Álvarez Balbuena, Isabel Marina Valdes, Virginia Gil Torrijos, Inaciu Galán, Esther García López, Kate and Arantza.
César for excursión a la montaña.
Chema and Meri for Artivismo-creativo. Chema es el miembro de la asociación Ye too ponese, que se dedica a la gestión de inéditos viables: http://www.yetooponese.net/
María for Yoga Naturalista para Niñxs. Ella es profesora cualificado de yoga e imparte clases en distintos puntos de Asturias. Información y contacto: arima.rl@hotmail.com
GRANNIES and FABES de MAYO for playing. Más información y contacto en: http://www.fabesdemayo.com/
All people for coming!
Susana, the animals and the garden.
