What is Primal Gathering? 
Primal Gathering is an environmentally, socially and psychologically regenerative gathering used to restore people, forests, and ecosystems all over the world. Our mission is to leave people and places better than how we find them, empowering people with the skills to be self-sustainable and that can be used in their day-to-day lives.

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This year's event (More details here)
Join us for the fifth edition of Primal Gathering focused on planting 1000 trees in Lagos, Portugal at Quinta Vale Da Lama 17-20th 2022. Take part in yoga, eat incredible locally sourced vegan food, learn about permaculture, how to botanically print on your clothes, write poetry and dance to amazing live concerts with The Orchestra of Samples, The Afghanistan National Institute of Music and other artists soon to be announced. 

Your participation alongside the support of our partners Reflorestar Portugal and Gone West, will help us come closer to catalyzing the internal and external transformations we believe are needed to support the development of regenerative, healthy cultures that are more resilient to the complex social and ecological challenges we face.

We are excited to come together and learn:

 How to assess the land, what and where is best to plant
 How to choose the right trees that are native to your land.
 Which neighbouring plants will support particular tree species in their growth
 Permaculture principles important to starting your own regenerative project at home
 How to plant trees with care and respect 

We will experience:

Filho Da Mãe Concert
BANDUA Concert
Mariana Root Water Prayer
Addictive TV - Orchestra of Samples Concert
Afghan Musicians of Lisbon Concert

Ritmos Cholulteka DJ set

Reforestation with Reflorestar Portugal
Permaculture Principles with Hugo Oliviera
Herbalism Workshop with Irene Miranda (Da Lua Herbals)
Playfight with Matteo Tanggi
5rhythms Dance Class with Nicole Anna Maria
Authentic Communication Exercises with Danah Mor 
Incredible tasty vegan and gluten-free food
& more

Projects we have completed in our previous gathering include: planting 1500 trees at Traditional Dream Factory, 500 trees at Permalab, planting 450+ trees, planting 800 vegetables and naturally building two raised beds at Quinta do Rajo and an herb garden out of cob and repainting degenerated parts of buildings at Quinta Ten Chi. 

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Experience:
*Food & Accommodation is included in the price / You are able to arrive on Thursday 17th to set up your tents etc at 4.30pm!

Standard Tent/Campervan: 250€
Standard Shared Dorm - Single bed downstairs (room of 5): 350€
Standard Shared Dorm - Single bed downstairs (room of 4): 360€
Standard Shared Dorm - Double bed upstairs (room of 4): 700€ - for 2 people to share
Private Rooms: 800€ (for 2) - for 2 people to share 

Upstairs double bed

Downstairs single beds

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Ways to Get Involved

There are many opportunities to get involved other than coming as a participant. Integral to Primal Gathering's ethos is to create, and celebrate a network of conscious projects and services to our community.  To get involved, apply in the links below:

Apply as a Market Vendor
Apply as a Primal Guardian

Apply for a low-income ticket (offered depending on availability)

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Why Quinta Vale da Lama?

Quinta Vale da Lama is a regenerative organic farm, with an educational and working site in the Algarve. Active since 2001, Quinta Vale da Lama is a learning space where people of all ages and backgrounds are invited to experiment with the possibility of taking a more regenerative approach to life by making decisions collectively, restoring ecosystems, finding beneficial patterns of communication and deepening the awareness of being in nature through our senses.

The educational aspect of the project is run by 'Projecto Novas Descobertas’; a non for profit association with 28 years of experience in non-formal education and youth training. Their objective is to rediscover the practices that can sustain and regenerate ecosystems and that allow healthy integration of human settlements in the surrounding social and ecological landscapes. Quinta Vale da Lama is also home of an agro-turism that includes Casa Vale da Lama - Ecoresort, a vegetarian restaurant, Wild Zimu foods and organic market gardens.

Quinta Vale da Lama has approximately 42hectres on the border of Lagos municipality in the western side of the Algarve, in between the town of Odiáxere to the West, and the Alvor estuary to the east. It is recognized as a special conservation zone under Rede Natura 2000. Its land is characterized by the mediterranean landscape of old carob, fig, almond, olive trees and citrus orchards, old rice fields, grasslands and vegetable gardens.

To them, a Regenerative Organic Farm is about:

• REGENERATING soils

• GROWING food

• NOURISHING the community

• EDUCATING generations

• RETURNING to nature

Find out more about Quinta Vale da Lama, its story, community, vision, and mission here. Learn about the work they have done through their association Projecto Novas Descobertas here.

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How to get here? 

Projecto Novas Descobertas
8600-258
Odiáxere
Portugal 

You can find Projecto Novas Descobertas on Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/fBV6MCPGXmznHSxr6

By train

Vale da Lama is a simple train journey away from Faro or Lisbon (Oriente).

• The closest train station is Meia Praia. Use https://www.cp.pt/passageiros/en to book your ticket and find departure times.

• From Meia Praia, Primal provides two shuttles to Vale da Lama on Thursday 17th departing at 18h15 or at 18h40 (the trains from Lisbon & Faro arrive at 18h00).

• For the return journey, Primal provides one shuttle from the venue to Meia Praia on Sunday 20th departing at 16h45 (the trains to Lisbon & Faro leave at 17h25).

By bus

Vale da Lama is also a simple bus journey away from Faro or Lisbon.

• The closest bus station is Odiáxere. There are several bus companies you can choose from: RedeExpressos, Renex, Alsa, Flixbus.

• If taking a taxi from the station, you will need to arrange a cab to pick you up in advance as there are no taxi ranks.

Ride-sharing

Alternatively, Vale da Lama is less than 1h drive from Faro and 2h45 from Lisbon.

• We know that many of you are hoping to split the travel costs and lower emissions in travelling to Primal, and hopefully enjoy some company along on your journey!

• We’ve created a table for you to find ride shares. Whether you are looking for a ride or planning on driving to Vale da Lama, make sure you add your journey here.

By car

• From Lisbon airport, you can get really cheap rentals here: https://www.check24.de, or just use any agency at the airport. We recommend taking the highway until after the Setubal area, Marateca exit and then you can choose to take the scenic routes (and avoid tolls).

• If you drive from Faro, you can take the highway (55min) or avoid tolls (1h20).

By airplane

The nearest Airport is Faro Airport, and the nearest city is Odiáxere.

If travelling from Lisbon Airport or Faro Airport, take a bus or train (see above for more details).

Think green

Come by bicycle or other sustainable ways of transportation!

Portugal is great for hiking and biking. Why not use this opportunity to have a nice journey exploring the countryside of this beautiful country?

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Facilitators

⊳ Reflorestar Portugal ⊲
Reflorestar Portugal emerged in June 2017, as a citizenship initiative, after the fires in Pedrógão Grande, with the dream of seeing the Portuguese forests reborn, through the interaction of the Human Being in the rescue of its role as a regenerating guardian. Since its inception, Reflorestar Portugal has dedicated its action and resources to boost a Regenerative Culture in many areas, in its field of intervention: regeneration of ecosystems and regeneration of human communities. They are dedicated to regenerative agroforestry practices and the restoration of ecosystems as well as regenerative agriculture and the training of individuals, projects and communities to be active participants in the creation of a regenerative paradigm, through a variety of events that they organize or partner with.

⊳ Hugo Oliveira, Permaculture Principles ⊲
Hugo is strongly committed to deeply felt and lived holistic reflection on Nature’s regeneration. Having studied ecovillage and permaculture design, integrating biology & landscape ecology he co-founded “NaTerra – Education for Sustainable Development Association”, a NGO in Macao-China with projects in Macao and East Timor. He also started OrlaDesign, which provides permaculture training and regenerative design consultancy for various projects. Advices and works for the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes/University of Lisbon, doing a Phd on Interdisciplinary Landscape Management surveying the Permaculture Movement in Portugal, and studied an MA in Ecological Design Thinking at Schumacher College.

⊳ Irene Miranda - Da Lua Herbals ⊲
Wisdom keeper of the plant realm and the mysteries of the feminine, co-founder of Loba Nomad and creatress of Da Lua Herbals, where she explores the healing properties of local plants, especially “weeds” and wild ones.Da Lua is a sustainable and conscious project focused on herbal remedies. All Da Lua’s ingredients are organic, wild-harvested or cultivated locally in Portugal. Its production is artisanal and deliberately small-scale and slow.Irene is fascinated by holistic health and herbal medicine, ancient wisdom and craftsmanship, self-sustainability and the return to our roots. Irene is a space-holder, women's therapist, event organizer and herbalist. Multiple and One.https://www.daluaherbals.com/

⊳ Nicole Anna Maria Bosky - 5rhythms Spaceholder ⊲
Nicole is a 5rhythms SpaceHolder, Kundalini Yoga Teacher, Somatic Experiencing Therapist in Training and the Founder of Primal Gathering. During her own self-research, she came to notice that change takes time and practice to be embodied. Intellectual understanding isn't enough, change comes from a combination of having an emotional and meaningful experience to want to make a shift that music and art help with. And a community to help motivate one another, and hold each other accountable. This led to the inception of Primal Gathering.

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Performances by (more acts to be announced): 

⊳ Addictive TV - Orchestra of Samples ⊲

Addictive TV has spent 12 years recording musicians around the world, during tours and performing internationally. Their aim was to create a project that brought together as many musicians as they could from all backgrounds, both cultural and musical – an impractical task in the real world but not in the world of digital sampling. Filming over two hundred musicians in countries from Brazil, Kazakhstan and China to India, Senegal and Indonesia, all across Europe, even Egypt during the revolution. We also became artist-in-residence with a few venues in France over the years, connecting us with dozens of artists from Togo, Cameroon, Rwanda and Algeria. Cutting up literally thousands of recorded samples, creating new music, re-contextualising musicians as if they played together, when in reality none of them ever met or heard recordings from each other.

⊳ AML - Afghan Musicians in Lisbon ⊲

AML is the first and only school of music in Portugal, where talented Afghan children regardless of their gender, social circumstances and ethnic background are trained in a co-educational environment in Afghan traditional and Western classical music, while obtaining high quality academic general education. ANIM has a special focus on supporting the most disadvantaged group of the Afghan society – orphans, street working children, women, and girls and its student body represents a mosaic of ethnicities from all parts of Afghanistan.

⊳ Daniela Martins - Portuguese Sounds ⊲

Last year’s Primal Guardian, Daniella’s voice could not be ignored. With a strong connection to the seas and valleys, Daniella expresses common feelings and desires of what it means to be human. From music of the forest to the agroballad her sonnets remind you what it means to just be. Through the guitar, her voice leads you back to the way of the heart, naturally cultivating love.

Art by: 

⊳ Jenna Duffy - Eco Photographer ⊲
Lifestyle, documentary, and fine-art photographer in New York, Costa Rica and Portugal. Her work explores the human experience in the natural world. Like nature, art is infinite. Photography is a conduit between the ancient and the future. Images share intrinsic knowledge, cultivating appreciation in every moment. She will be exhibiting Rewilding, a fine art photography collection, that explores the five elements, dream states and our human connection to the planet. Print sales contribute to the preservation of Indigenous wisdom and protection of wild places

⊳ Ana Torres - Portrait Photographer ⊲
Ana is a Portuguese photographer with a love for capturing all moments raw, simple and candid. She uses her ability as an observer, creative and storyteller to produce natural images that tell stories and highlight the most meaningful moments. Her mission is to support a more conscious world by capturing its essence though photography. anatorresphotography.com. During the gathering she will be hosting portrait sessions that are intended to honor your natural beauty and support creative self-expression. They are an invitation to express your own truth. She will then translate these into images, by guiding a session where you will feel safe and at ease to enjoy the moment and just release. A beautiful gift for yourself. To book a session, reach out to her directly at hi@anatorresphotography.com. 

⊳ Micaela Jarast - Eco Pictorial Artist ⊲
Studied Fine Arts at Argentina & Spain. Developed herself as a guide an educator at museums (MACBA Buenos Aires; Israel Museum; CCA Tel Aviv). Specialized on several painting techniques: oil, acrylics, watercolor, muralism, clay and pigments.Since 2014 she shares painting circles in different countries, creating artistic focuses, beyond the borders. In 2018 she was invited to Terra Una Artistic Residence, Brazil, where her project Eco Pictorial began: a research on painting with clay & pigments. Later on she was invited by Live With Earth, to share Eco Pictorial workshop at different nature festivals in Portugal. The last three years she has been working on the correspondences between Ecossistem and Visual Arts, finding the source of inspiration in nature and in dance and movement practices. Making collaborations with Ecstatic Dance gatherings, through painting experiences and exhibitions, she explores as well the practice of painting in a non-individualistic way, but rather the creation of a sensitive network in the collective, relocating and nourshing her artwork within a sense of unity.

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Primal Culture

Primal Gathering’s ethos is rooted in a vision of a more regenerative future, wherein human cultures are built around an ethic of care for the planet and the various beings and communities that inhabit it. Our initiatives are designed with the goal of preserving the integrity, health, stability, and beauty of the biotic community, through practices that honor our interdependency and interconnectedness to each other and the natural world. To learn more about Primal Gathering's philosophy -- check out Community as a Practice a living and working document constantly in evolution. 

We kindly request that each individual is aware of their waste and cleaning habits whilst on site, as everyone is expected actively participate in preserving and respecting the well-being of the community, venue spaces and land. We also encourage you to make use of this time to tune in, and manage your own energy, in an effort to consistently acknowledge your needs and boundaries. Help us create a safe space for everyone involved and never be afraid to tell us how we can best support you throughout the Gathering.

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