Healing Biotope Student Education
I first heard about Tamera after a year of traveling the Middle East, where I was practicing social circus as as artistic-political response to the tensions and conflicts that plague that region. By the end of that year, I was working in the largest refugee camp in the world, Al-Zaatri, in North Jordan, which was home to 250,000 Syrian refugees.
The camp was situated only 6km from the Syrian border. Each day my circus team and I witnessed thousands of people, with the last of their possessions on their back, run in desperation to make it into the UN sanctioned camp. At night, we’d go to sleep amidst the rumble of bombs exploding in the distance, with the war continually raging just over the horizon.
It was during that heart-breaking and world-shattering experience , when I had lost all sense of how to proceed in my humanity, that I first picked up a book written about the Tamera Peace Project in Portugal. I was flooded with tears as I read of a community living a vision of global peace, on a daily level, that although hard for my mind to comprehend, resonated deep in bones.
Later that summer I went to Tamera for the first time, and experienced a state that felt like a re-wiring of my whole nervous system - healing on a cellular level. Tamera is attempting to become a Healing Biotope, which they call a “green house of trust.”
What is a Healing Biotope?
“The word “biotope” comes from the Greek “bio” (life) and “topos” (place). It’s a habitat where all life forms – humans, animals, plants, waters and other beings – co-exist in united diversity. Healing Biotopes are futuristic centers for humanity to see and embody a new vision for inhabiting this planet. Through lived examples they demonstrate how a network of decentralized, autonomous communities can emerge around the world as the foundation for a new planetary culture.” (Tamera Website: The Healing Biotopes Plan )
Before going to Tamera, I could not even imagine what such a place could be like, or even fathom its existence.
Since that first journey in 2014, I have been to Tamera four times, furthering my education and answering a call to bring Tamera’s medicine home to North America, through a feature-length documentary film, The Healing of Love, which I am co-producing and directing with Julia Maryanska and Ian Mackenzie. 
In the past 4 years of going back and forth to Tamera, I have also been on a deep journey with grief. I’ve awakened to the sobering reality of humanity pushing this planet, and countless species, eco-systems and other peoples to the brink of extinction and collapse. From this grief, a vision of seeding a Healing Biotope in North America has emerged. My vision is to help cultivate and shape a biotope in North America that will serve as a model for what a regenerative culture of peace can look like.
As Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” In these difficult times, we need to have models that demonstrate new ways of living."
In this sentiment, I move towards this vision of building a model for a more beautiful world. To me, this is the deepest form of political activism and social action. I have a profound longing for home that roots through my bones and back into my broken lineage of ancestry. This is a committed attempt to serve a healing, thousands of years in the making. I know that I can only truly be at home and at peace, if that home and peace includes all life across this planet. The vision of a North American Healing Biotope is part of a larger global vision of connected communities that will form a planetary alliance for global system change.
I realize this may sound lofty and even outright audacious, but as a millenial who is racked with grief, viscerally feeling climate change, mass extinction, an increasing refugee crisis and many more mounting catastrophes, acknowledging the global crisis and staying true to this healing vision is a huge step in crossing a threshold toward true adulthood where I am taking responsibility for my life, this planet, and our interdependent relationships. I feel my ancestors at my back and future generations, my grandchildren’s grandchildren, beckoning me to do all I can to be a healing force at this time
I am reminded of a quote by the great German scientist-philosopher, Johan Goethe:
I dare to dream of a healed world and this campaign, will help me move towards that.
This campaign will bridge the costs of attendance to a 3-month Healing Biotope program that Tamera is offering this fall, in which I will study the foundational tools and strategies of how to anchor a healing biotope in my own region. See the program details here: https://www.tamera.org/healing-biotopes-student-program/
This journey of this vision is long - perhaps a 200 year endeavour - but I must continue to take steps and for this next step, I need your support.
I am asking for my global community to help raise $4,000 to help cover program fees for this training . I have saved enough money for plane flight and basic living expenses, so this money would directly pay for educational fees that go straight to the community. Right now, we as a culture are releasing the false story of individualism - that we all need to be heros in order to “save the world.” Beyond the reason I am seeking funds, this campaign is a means for my community to already begin co-creating a more beautiful world by feeding a story of village and mutual support.
In order to feed back into this community (and aid in my own integration) I plan to keep a bi-weekly blog tracking my learning journey (shared with all of you of course). I will also hold a public presentation of my research findings/learnings when I am back to the Bay Area this Winter. And then I'll steps towards implementing what I’ve learned as I/we begin the process of building a healing biotope!
Lastly, one of the most exciting parts of this journey is that I am not going alone! Five dear colleagues and friends of mine, from a cohort who have been researching community together in Northern California in the past years, are also going to share in this education. We are amongst a seed group which has been carrying this vision of a healing biotope in the U.S. for the past years and we see this education as a key step in moving this vision into manifestation.
And I’m curious what excites you about this journey and what questions you hold that you want me to carry there - I’d love to hear from you!
THANK YOU so much for supporting this journey - may it serve life.
- John
