Life review
This Life review has been made by following the Richard Perkins guidelines that you can read (here).
My name is Oriol Ferrando, I'm from a family that society qualifies as middle class, born in Barcelona in 1978, where I lived most of my childhood and adolescence.
My parents had a second house at the coast near Barcelona, which I've passed my first fifteen years of my life jumping between a beach little town (for weekends and hollidays) and the city. Going for vacations in the coastal village when I was so young, gave me the opportunity to grow by playing on the outdoors and nature.
I went to the primary public school where they try to teach me that, first you need a good education to get a good job, and then after make a lot of money to walk with your head held high ...
I remember that although I was very young, I noticed that there was something wrong, I knew that the knowledge I was getting, wasn't going to be entirely practical for my everyday living future.
Unfortunately I remember the school days as a stressful time, with lots of social pressure to fit into a model that did not look like my.
By age of 10 my parents sing my on to the Trek Union of Catalonia, where I was in deep nature once a month. The strength I had to overcome the challenges at that age still amaze me. By doing trekking we was always crossing our mental and physical boundaries.
There I learned a lot about how to find my bearings and how to enjoy in nature, I fell in love travelling over Catalonia, for me those was my first backpacking trips like going to other exotic country.
When the primary school was finished I went to high school, and whenever I felt more isolated in this way of thinking and living that applied there. So with the age of 15 I made the decision to leave school, and go to find a educational system that only teach me the things that I was really interested.
But I was still too young to know what I wanted, I had clear what I didn't wanted but was still heavily influenced by confused thoughts of a fictional future.
I've always liked art and how to express myself in it, at that time this was what I liked best to experience, so I've enrolled to the Barcelona arts school.
There I enjoyed my apprenticeship, I think that was what I had to do at that time to connect with a part of myself that had been off in my other schools, that was creativity.
My name is Oriol Ferrando, I'm from a family that society qualifies as middle class, born in Barcelona in 1978, where I lived most of my childhood and adolescence.
My parents had a second house at the coast near Barcelona, which I've passed my first fifteen years of my life jumping between a beach little town (for weekends and hollidays) and the city. Going for vacations in the coastal village when I was so young, gave me the opportunity to grow by playing on the outdoors and nature.
I went to the primary public school where they try to teach me that, first you need a good education to get a good job, and then after make a lot of money to walk with your head held high ...
I remember that although I was very young, I noticed that there was something wrong, I knew that the knowledge I was getting, wasn't going to be entirely practical for my everyday living future.
Unfortunately I remember the school days as a stressful time, with lots of social pressure to fit into a model that did not look like my.
By age of 10 my parents sing my on to the Trek Union of Catalonia, where I was in deep nature once a month. The strength I had to overcome the challenges at that age still amaze me. By doing trekking we was always crossing our mental and physical boundaries.
There I learned a lot about how to find my bearings and how to enjoy in nature, I fell in love travelling over Catalonia, for me those was my first backpacking trips like going to other exotic country.
When the primary school was finished I went to high school, and whenever I felt more isolated in this way of thinking and living that applied there. So with the age of 15 I made the decision to leave school, and go to find a educational system that only teach me the things that I was really interested.
But I was still too young to know what I wanted, I had clear what I didn't wanted but was still heavily influenced by confused thoughts of a fictional future.
I've always liked art and how to express myself in it, at that time this was what I liked best to experience, so I've enrolled to the Barcelona arts school.
There I enjoyed my apprenticeship, I think that was what I had to do at that time to connect with a part of myself that had been off in my other schools, that was creativity.
Whilst all these things was happening to me, I had already begun to teach other children in the Boy Scouts centre, in which I was involved since I was 15.
That time we was the leaders and we had lots ofresponsibility to take up the place. By working hard on objectives, activities, assessments ... I wanted to transmit to the future generations the knowledge, experiences and attitudes that were not taught at the general school. |
To better understand the work I being doing, I attended two certified teachers courses, one of them specialized in boy scout, and other in outdoor activities. There I learned a lot about psychology, pedagogy .... and how to pass on my knowledge.
At that time I was eighteen and was when my father died, I only had 2 weeks to say him goodbye. Although at home we have a very romantic view of death, we believe in energies,reincarnation and other ways of living the transfer. Those were very difficult times where I joined a lot with my mother and my sister.
My father with all his good intentions, trying to take me by what he saw as the right way, was a big influence on me and helped me a lot to grow as a person. I had a very short time to absorb his passing, suddenly I was confronted with a entirely new life perspective with full responsibility that comes with choosing my way, a responsibility that you can feel the vertigo when that's comes so suddenly.
Without having no one to blame if things went not well, I had to be more present about what was my freedom and what I had to decide for myself.
Thanks to my mother who always supported me, I could transform the sadness of losing someone really close, to an awakening of another person who has a life ahead.
I will always be grateful to what my father was and gave me, for me he was a good man and I always felt loved by him.
My mother always played an important role in my spiritual life, since I was 17 she started to introduce me her first experiences with the energies and alternative therapies, that in the 90's still looked as witchcraft stories.
I stopped going to the doctor and I started to going to a kinesiology specialist. That woman and my mother submerged me in a totally different mind approach to cure, homeopathy, geo-pathic, the Bach flower remedies, oils therapies, mudras, mandalas, cromo-therapy, regressions, psychosomatic illnesses, Ho oponopono ... and a myriad of alternatives to conventional medicine.
At that age, my mother took me to my first Reiki course, where I started in first grade, and a world that would change my life course and how to understand this.
Because I come from a Christian culture my friends laughed when I talked about these things, at first I was a little lonely not being able to share my life change experiences, I was very excited with my new experiments with the universe, but we were still a few who could share it.
Gradually the concept was integrated into society, and five years later, I made my first course as a Reiki teacher, beginning to adapt my way of transmit it.
In my case spirituality have influenced the way I see permacultura, and to love and respect every living thing.
In this time of transition with the death of my father and a very intense spiritual awakening, I had to focus in school. In arts school had chosen interior design as especiality, something that after two years didn't fit with my life any more. I saw clearly that what I needed above all was to be outdoors, it was difficult to make a decision, but I had to accept the reality and again, I did not finish my studies.
At 19 years old I left home with whom I consider my first partner, and I moved to live with her to the Pyrenees. There for two years I had my first experiences with a small veg garden that we had, and I learned to work independently with crafts and markets in Spain.
But after breaking my relationship in 2000, I spent a few years living between Ibiza and Barcelona, in my second season in the island I had a crucial day for me.
I remember perfectly, on the roof of my house watching the sunset, it was like a click in my brain in which I pass through feeling guilty of my life style, to accept that and feel proud. I was 23 years old and I always had to struggled to mold my personality to fit into the education I had absorbed from my society, my counter-education process had reached a point to value myself and see the prospects throwing my way of seeing things.
I felt full of life.
My father with all his good intentions, trying to take me by what he saw as the right way, was a big influence on me and helped me a lot to grow as a person. I had a very short time to absorb his passing, suddenly I was confronted with a entirely new life perspective with full responsibility that comes with choosing my way, a responsibility that you can feel the vertigo when that's comes so suddenly.
Without having no one to blame if things went not well, I had to be more present about what was my freedom and what I had to decide for myself.
Thanks to my mother who always supported me, I could transform the sadness of losing someone really close, to an awakening of another person who has a life ahead.
I will always be grateful to what my father was and gave me, for me he was a good man and I always felt loved by him.
My mother always played an important role in my spiritual life, since I was 17 she started to introduce me her first experiences with the energies and alternative therapies, that in the 90's still looked as witchcraft stories.
I stopped going to the doctor and I started to going to a kinesiology specialist. That woman and my mother submerged me in a totally different mind approach to cure, homeopathy, geo-pathic, the Bach flower remedies, oils therapies, mudras, mandalas, cromo-therapy, regressions, psychosomatic illnesses, Ho oponopono ... and a myriad of alternatives to conventional medicine.
At that age, my mother took me to my first Reiki course, where I started in first grade, and a world that would change my life course and how to understand this.
Because I come from a Christian culture my friends laughed when I talked about these things, at first I was a little lonely not being able to share my life change experiences, I was very excited with my new experiments with the universe, but we were still a few who could share it.
Gradually the concept was integrated into society, and five years later, I made my first course as a Reiki teacher, beginning to adapt my way of transmit it.
In my case spirituality have influenced the way I see permacultura, and to love and respect every living thing.
In this time of transition with the death of my father and a very intense spiritual awakening, I had to focus in school. In arts school had chosen interior design as especiality, something that after two years didn't fit with my life any more. I saw clearly that what I needed above all was to be outdoors, it was difficult to make a decision, but I had to accept the reality and again, I did not finish my studies.
At 19 years old I left home with whom I consider my first partner, and I moved to live with her to the Pyrenees. There for two years I had my first experiences with a small veg garden that we had, and I learned to work independently with crafts and markets in Spain.
But after breaking my relationship in 2000, I spent a few years living between Ibiza and Barcelona, in my second season in the island I had a crucial day for me.
I remember perfectly, on the roof of my house watching the sunset, it was like a click in my brain in which I pass through feeling guilty of my life style, to accept that and feel proud. I was 23 years old and I always had to struggled to mold my personality to fit into the education I had absorbed from my society, my counter-education process had reached a point to value myself and see the prospects throwing my way of seeing things.
I felt full of life.
I was living in a cottage and near there was a ecologic store where I met and fell in love with my second partner, she was volunteering at the ecological center La Casita Verde. There I also met with the community I would live in the following year.
Was in 2003 when we reached the island again, in a week we had found a four hundred years old abandoned cottage in the woods, and we squatted it. Three months did not reach the property administrator, who seeing that we were giving a good life the place, gave us his consent to run out problem. There was a filled rain water tank with that helped us a lot, we shared cars, we sold some bread, others work making stone walls, I was with crafts, I tried to live an alternative lifestyle and leave the monetary system. |
After I could gather some savings, in 2004 I travel for the first time out of Europe. I went to Central America and I spent four wonderful months as a volunteer for the Akumal Ecological Centre in Mexico.
There I worked protecting the coral reef and sea turtles, especially through environmental education at the school, where we created a puppet theater, a recycling program, and presentations and comics to inform and sensitize. That experience encouraged me to return to Barcelona to study an environmental education course , to specialize in how to educate children better in that regard. |
A couple of years later my relationship with my partner had made two separate ways, that per much it hurt to us, we had to accept this and live our lives separate, leaving us free to realize our dreams.
From a long time my dream was to travel and I had an unstoppable need to see the world, after been workeing hard that summer of 2006 I traveled to India.
I've always identified with street culture but in this country with more than one billion people, the street is a place where you can learn almost everything.
I was the next five years traveling around the world, working mostly with industrial agriculture and small organic farms.
A long this years of travelling and farming I start to know more about permaculture. I had a long time without a clear concept of that word, after few years practicing environmentalism, self-sufficiency, community living, ... I had not studied this new concept of life, and I just thought that permaculture was something that came when we applying common sense when we live with limited resources.
In 2011 I decided to find a community where I could live in permaculture and understand it well. After researching I have discovered The Panya Project, a paradise in Thailand where people was happy and thay was living in permaculture, so I bought a fly and I went there.
They accepted me as a member of the community and we lived, learned and educated, experimented, laughed, cryed and played together, in a context where common sense and nonviolent communication was the rule, following the principles and ethics of permaculture. In February 2011 I attended to a PDC with Richard Perkins, and a nonviolent communication course. Also I was able to attend and conduct workshops on permaculture in practice, living and teaching day by day to be more conscious in this infinite world. |
I found a place that at this point in my life was what I was looking for, it has opened my mind to a new life design thinking toward a positive change.
There I lived with my good friends Matt Prosser and Ben Murray that were doing the diploma. The idea of me doing the diploma has motivated me much to keep been on track, and do more permaculture projects.
This was a summary of a few things that have marked my life, and I think I have opened paths towards me wanting to be devoted to permaculture.
So now I want to dedicate my next two years to make the ten projects of this diploma, using this to by living in permaculture make my life easier.
My intention is to continue in Panya project and learn and improve on the permaculture path, but as a traveler as I am I do not want to be attached to plans, and I will be guided by my instinct and adapting to the new circumstances.