In the airport of Sao Paulo….after 3 incredible months of Vida Brasiliero, I am full of emotion and energy, excitement and enthusiasm and a revived sense of why I have chosen this path of teaching yoga.
As the story and timeline goes, after the Curitiba weekend, I came to Sao Paulo for the last weekend and had organized a retreat at Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza, an organic coffee farm 4 hours out of the city of Sao Paulo. Registration was very low due to a number of other Yoga events happening so we ended up as a group of 8. Arriving to the farm was a LONG journey and we got there after dark, which always makes a road trip seem a bit longer. However, we were greeted with a delicious dinner and our host, Silvia Baretto, who made us feel so comfortable with her open heart and nurturing ways despite being sick with the flu!
We had a tour of the grounds and all after the drive and meal had a great nights sleep in our new weekend farm. The Yoga room at FAF is one of the old coffee production areas and was a very simple room but with a beautiful mandala on the wall and a view of the surrounding farmland. Our mornings on the retreat were pretty cold and we had rain the first day as well….but alas, the yoga, the group and the energy of an organic farm proved too strong for bad weather to bring us down! After 3 months in Brazil, I am feeling super confident with my Portuguese and led the classes all in Portuguese, well, OK, my ‘theme setting’ was done in English because I really want to create a sacred space and intention for the practice and need my native tongue for that, but all the rest was in Portuguese.
With the first day totally rained out, the group shared most of the day together eating and bonding by the fireplace and the library….there was some Acro Yoga, guitar songs and general friendliness….very family like! On the second day, the weather cleared enough for us to get a tour of the Natural Coffee fields, which are different from the Organic coffee fields. We were expertly guided by Joao, the main farmer and master of the land….and wow, was he something special! His energy, presence and insight to farming and our connection to the Earth was inspiring to me, and I feel pretty ‘earthy’ with many of my practices and habits! As we began the walk, Joao would tell us about the local plants we were walking by and occasionally pull one from the ground for us to sample! Eventually, the group arrived at a field of coffee plants that was in the middle of the MatAtlantico (Atlantic Jungle). This way of farming means that there are no fertilizers, no trimming, and virtually no ‘production’ to the growing….all nature’s work! the coffee plants were spread among the other plants in the jungle and it all looked very…well, natural! Joao explained to us how the community of plants works and that some plants are ‘amigos do cafe e outras….nao amigos.’ And he showed us where the friendly plants were making the coffee grow nice and big and the others didn’t look as strong. He shared with us some of his wisdom about how when plants (and he went on to tell us that ALL beings) are all friendly when they are young and then they grow to be ‘not friendly’ (much like the other beings on the planet!). So when he knows that two plants are not getting along too well, rather then killing one or uprooting them, he cuts them down to ‘children’ size and they learn to get along! Really! I made the analogy of humans that sometimes need to play children’s games or make music in order to ‘get along’….Joao also talked about the solar and the cosmic energy that plants live off of and he was full of cosmic energy himself with his smile! At one point, he wanted to tell us how happy the Organic coffee plants were. He explained that plants that are fed toxins and sprayed with chemicals become stiff and break in the wind and with other pressure….however, organic coffee plants are flexible and strong due to their natural state. He demonstrated this by grabbing the top of a tall coffee plant and bending it down to the ground. “See….A Yoga Coffee Plant, flexible!” He said with a huge smile (see photo below!).
As the weekend continued on, our little group became closer and closer and I felt very connected to everyone by the end of our time. We had a great Polenta party dinner on Friday night with a big marble slab acting as a shared table for a pile of polenta that we could each our special toppings to our portion and a make your own Pizza night on Saturday. Lots of great fun and laughter and opening for everyone. On Sunday before we left, we also got a truck tour of the organic coffee fields which are cultivated with some organic fertilizer and the plants are cared for…and we were enlightened with Joao’s insights to the land again….and all the while, our amazing and very gracious hostess Silvia made sure everything was taken care of and also enjoyed in the Yoga and group dynamic. It really felt like we were all being welcomed to part of the FAF family which was very special. I intend to return to the farm next year to lead a week-long connect to nature retreat and hope you’re can come!!

So now, they are calling my flight to New York to board…so I will leave this post as this and start the next final reflections and sentamentos do Brasil from the air…