What is Tamera?
Tamera is an intentional “free love” community of about 160 people on 300 acres in rural Southern Portugal. Their overall intention as I understand it is to create a reality in which all beings can live at peace with themselves, with each other, and with the planet. In addition to their impressive work in fields such as regenerative energy, water, and economy, Tamera is one of the few communities I know of to be actively researching how to be authentic & transparently honest in love and sexuality, which is what attracted me to visit.
What is Free Love?
Tamera defines it as love free from fear, lies and violence. Here at Tamera, people are free to follow their sexual and love desires, and are encouraged by the community to do so, on the basis that at the root of war & conflict, there is a suppression of ourselves, particularly of who we are as sexual and loving beings.
How do they deal with conflict?
As a community! When conflicts such as jealousy and unworthiness arise, the community members are asked to bring them into the open and work through them in a community support group called “Forum”.
What has their research found?
So far, not much definitively. They are not doing any specific research - they are letting themselves free flow and seeing what happens. Tamerians openly admit that they are “in process” and that they are making progress, but they have come to few definitive conclusions at this point.
They have discovered that the basis of change is in changing thoughts and beliefs. Changing the underlying thought structure makes way for changes in feelings and in action.
They have also discovered that most of the residents at Tamera have dynamic sexual expression over time. At times they are more polyamorous, other times more monogamous, and still other times not very sexual at all. This is not necessarily true of the general public but rather the people who are attracted to live in a community of Free Love.
Can their model be applied to communities outside of Tamera?
It depends. While I believe the work they are doing in the Love School is very important, it requires a lot of time and energy to integrate all the issues that come up. So if you have the time and energy, then yes. Human expression of love and sexuality is incredibly diverse and in many ways formed by the culture you live in. So while it is unlikely that their research will come to specific conclusions that can be universally applied, I do believe they may contribute tools, techniques and resources for allowing the natural unfolding of our authentic expression in love and sexuality.
What is the value of being at Tamera?
Tamera inspires and stimulates authentic creative expression, peace and honesty. Many of the residents are highly conscious beings who are clearly doing their life work in service to the greater good of humanity and the planet.
We need more communities doing this work, in their own way, for their own truths to be revealed. We need to change from a universal, homogenized love structure to a world that accepts each individual as the uniquely creative, uniquely sexual, uniquely loving beings that we are.
You can read more about them at www.tamera.org.