Wwoofing and geology #4: gardening in the Alps
I end my summer adventure as I started, traveling south, and I feel like closing a circle. After working at organic farms along the geological boundary between Europe and Africa, I landed in the southern Alps in Piemonte. There I met the lighthouse project team and Mandali, with their Italian warmth, international and open-minded culture, spiritual growth and the beauties of the African continental crust sculptured by ice and water. Why would you care about this piece of land and human beings? Here’s my story – and a chance to give yourself 5 minutes rest and reading time.
Simpleness and multiple purpose
There they are: Yildiz, Lisa, George, Teun, Marko and the kids, all playing water games in teams at ferragosto like little kids in Quarna Sotto. The kids themselves are free and respectful, the adults joyous, warm, practical and with a clear vision and intention. Nothing seems complicated: from making yogurt to building a bridge, from caring for the veggie beds to clearing bramble bushes, the acts of life have both a very practical and spiritual purpose.
While weeding around the temple at Mandali, we are neither lazy nor obsessed by finishing, although the thoughts about it pop up regularly. With focus and patience we manage to clear the area very fast and we enjoy it, knowing the weeds will be back anyhow, as weeds do. Similarly, planting a specific plant may provide berries, while helping out other plants for nutrients or the round rocks hanging at tree branches, keeping them low, may help harvest fruits, while being simply beautiful in the winter. No rocket science right?!
Lighthouse project and Mandali
Mandali is a retreat center looking out on Lago d’Orta, Piemonte, Italy. Besides working in Mandali’s garden, these young idealistic entrepreneurs set up the Lighthouse Projects, a hands-on permaculture course and volunteer program to exchange skills, stories, personal touch and spread them around with the organization, the volunteers and the local community. Among others, I was impressed my fellows’ talents in cooking, binding the group with games or jokes, building wooden work tools, recycling materials, making art as painting or music, and I was glad to help shedding light on the history of the landscape around us.
Morning activity @ Mandali: LIfe at Mandali
Alpine energy
Yes, the landscape plays a big part of the story here, as it provides all the organic and inorganic nutrients for veggies and for us. Moreover, it lets energy flow around. When I look at it, I see the energy of ice, of the glacier that carved this whole valley during ice ages (700 m thick ice) flowing towards the south and dropping it in moraines. I see potential and kinetic energy: the rocks are stripped off the slopes and roll down, crashed to smaller fragments by running water and filling the lake with sediments. I see the energy of tectonics and of the Earth’s heat. This let rocks partially melt down to magma, flow and then cool down to form the granites of Quarna and Mottarone. The same energy opened and then closed the Penninic Ocean between the African (with its small microplate: Adria) and the European plate, eventually leading to the large-scale deformation of rocks and the uplift of the Alps.
Not to mention all the energy I am not able to describe in scientific terms: the one released by history of human beings strengthening paths and places like ants do, or the energy which I myself create, like joy or awe, responding to the landscape and to these human beings fuzzing around on its surface.
Welcome to the troposphere: check out the View from Mottarone
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Richness
I feel enriched by this experience, particularly as no money or contribution to any GDP was involved. The richness is in the details and in the community: watering the courgettes and the cucumbers each morning is nourishing knowing we’re all going to eat them at lunch; digging a pond in the water stream behind the house and repairing the wooden-logs-bridge is fun knowing everyone will use them from now on to chill out in the afternoon; gardening in the fairy-tale-garden at Mandali is precise work, although I often get overexcited with those big scissors, and is gratifying knowing all people coming to retreats will enjoy it, as well as the neighboring plants having (a lot) more light to grow.
Living in a diverse community was not always easy. I enjoyed the mingling of habits and cultures with the other volunteers and took also the freedom to get around by myself, typically walking and driving around to swim or look at rocks. Still, the openness in communication and the practicality of the work allowed us to work together and have fun.
Epilogue
My journey continued then to Valsesia and Monterosa and finally south to Toscana, where I started off two months before. During clear days at Mandali, I could see the northern Apennines. I ended up there, following a training for natural guide in Emilia-Romagna….
Would you like to know more about these places and my travel? Don't hesitate to contact me and check out these websites and my youtube channel