I use to imagine and dream about a place... a place where I really could be without any contraction or withholding, a place where only transparency, truth, unity and love was expressed, a place where the Heart speaks through all conditions and where I could really rest and be in real relationships without any limitations.

Part of me believed that this only could be true in my imagination or dreams, or that a place like that could not happen in this society, or that real Happiness and Freedom lived with true transparency, vulnerability and presence could not realistically be expressed between people in this world.

In 2017 something pulled me to this Project and Quinta da Mizarela and the feeling was very strong! It was a feeling of "This is It", this is what my heart is longing for! Here I found real commitment to an Awakened Life and a true expression of real Freedom and somehow eventually I had the feeling that now the puzzle is “complete”! Not in the sense that something it was missing but in the sense of a pure recognition of what we really are and what really is life about.

So now here I am following my Heart, even if sometimes I don’t know what this fully means, but that really doesn’t matter! I feel myself open to Life in a different way, a real openness to the Unknown and to being in the service of something Greater than "me", being fully available with all my Heart and willing to go beyond the mind.

Living at the Quinta, the Ashram of the Awakened Life Project, was/is the response that emerges in this moment and I’m very happy and grateful to have the opportunity of living here.

This is far more than a beautiful place, it is a collective organism that is fully engaged with the pure expression of the True Self that we all ultimately are.

Here only One Heart speaks

Here only One Collective emerges

Here only One Consciousness manifest it self

Be together

Face the fire

Fully engage

Unity is our form

Love is our essence

Surrender is the way

(Written during the Sangha women's retreat) 

Lucia Moreira, Portugal