The ecology of the being in the care of the planet is the mission of Fantastic Forest.
From next Sunday July 25, until Saturday 31, in fantastic forest we will talk about talent management, of living without plastics, of conscious sexuality, of quantum physics, how to communicate with animals persuasive writing, microbiology, of the sound frequency of nature, astrology, healthy nutrition, natural cosmetics, feminism... To grow and move forward. To be individuals, to be society. Of everything that is important in life.
In total they will be seventy talks, ten a day, spread over seven days dedicated to rethink our way of life and the relationship we have with the world. A journey of personal exploration in which experts in the most diverse fields will accompany us through the different strata of life, from the underground to the sky, from the deepest roots to the highest tops, sharing knowledge, concerns and discoveries.
The ultimate goal: to grow as individuals and as a society and raise the necessary funding for SEO/BirdLife to carry out the reforestation project of more than five hectares of native forest in Valdavido, León, an area of high biological value – an ornithological reserve and home to bears and wolves – that is degraded by mining and landfills and threatened by fires.
“The talks, which are sometimes conferences or masterclasses and other interviews, are already recorded and there are two ways to access them: one is free and allows you to view the content of each day for 24 hours, but if you want to participate in the Valavido reforestation project, for €97 you can watch the videos for a whole year, in addition to downloading and saving the podcasts and the illustrated ebook forever in which we summarize the highlights of each participation”, explains María Talavera, creator of this original online event.
María Talavera, mentor of healthy lifestyles and creator of the online event Fantastic Forest.
Maria has been dedicated for years to promote healthy lifestyles from her website and regular collaborations in media such as the Buena Vida supplement of El País or the Hoy por hoy of Gemma Nierga (Cadena Ser), and she gives a Mindfulness-based stress reduction program. "It was created 40 years ago by the molecular biologist Jon Kabat-Zinn, a benchmark in integrative medicine," she explains.
What can I do to have a positive impact on society? That I can contribute? What is in my hand? How can I become an activist? Maria had also been asking herself these questions for a long time. Her answers were revealed to her one post-lockdown morning during a meditation in the field. “It was like that, zás, suddenly. Do you know when an idea embeds itself in you, like a crush?” she recalls. In the silence and stillness she saw everything clearly and that seed germinated and began to grow and grow... “Forests are perfect societies where everyone has a role and work as a team. And the tree represents the connection between the earth and the sky and the journey of personal exploration that we propose”.
The project had to be totally altruistic, that was important. Is about inhale knowledge and exhale nature. Nature and love. “The plan was to bring together people who, with their ideas, could inspire each other Y make us rethink our way of life, our way of consumption. And, at the same time that we nourish ourselves with all this knowledge, go further, get out of ourselves and help regenerate a piece of land”.
The objective of Fantastic Forest is to finance the reforestation plan for the mountains of Valdavido, in León.
Find that piece of land, that reforestation project to which to donate the proceeds of the event, was perhaps the most complicated. "It's not just about planting little trees. but to have a positive and real impact on society, and that includes the protection of the soil, the regeneration of degraded habitats, the promotion of a culture of environmental protection…”, specifies María. She came through the environmental lawyer Cristina Álvarez Vaquerizo, Environmental activist since the age of 15. “SEO/BirdLife had already developed the entire Valdavido project. They presented me with a very technical program, very precise, with studies on the reabsorption of CO2 and what this was going to entail. Only the financing was missing: 45,000 euros.”
The mission of Fantástico Bosque is to make us act like forests, perfect societies where you work as a team.
**THE FOREST CREATURES**
Among the panel of speakers, María was looking for the same biodiversity that we find in the forests, where there are immense trees, with crowns that can be seen from afar, but also a whole population of fungi and microorganisms that are essential for the system to sustain itself. "There are influencers, such as the yoga teacher Xuan Lan or the model Vanessa Lorenzo, author of several books on yoga, growing together and permaculture, who are followed by thousands of people and who help us give visibility to the project, and others, such as the basketry master Carlos Pontales, a super humble guy both in his work and in his way of living, who does not have social networks, ”he explains.
Experts in health, education, entrepreneurship, personal development, spirituality… Relevant voices of the most varied with much to convey about the ecology of being and the care of the planet.
Well-known naturalists such as Joaquín Araújo, the meditation teacher and Tibetan translator Lama Rinchen, the designer of body awareness techniques Lea Kaufman, the actress (and environmentalist) Diana Palazón, the singer Rozalén –her latest album, The Tree and the Forest, also uses the same simile as the festival–, representatives of the slow fashion, as Ines Aguilar Wendy's house Kavita Parmar, founder of the sustainable fashion firm The IOU Project, or Guillem Ferrer, who was the designer of Camper for many years and who is now dedicated to social activism through his foundation Poc a Poc, the painter Lita Cabellut...
“Lita Cabellut was a gypsy girl from the streets of Barcelona 60 years ago whom a widow adopted when she was 14 years old and who, during a visit to the Prado Museum, fell in love with Dutch painting and decided that this is what he was going to do in his life. She now lives in The Hague and is a highly sought-after artist. She, her personality, her work, is a brutal force: a Lola Flores of plastic art, a woman with a lot of wisdom and very connected with nature”, María tells us enthusiastically, while she highlights her personal experience with another of the speakers: the dental doctor Paula Álvarez.
"It has changed my life. Well, the mouth, but the mouth changes life. How you breathe, how you chew, how you swallow are three basic things in which, doing it right or wrong affects your entire health. It affects the brain, the bone structure, the emotions…”.
The journey of Fantastic Forest promises to take us to unexpected places and, in case you were not yet fully aware, if you want, you also have the power to change things. Beginning with you.
Fantastic Forest will begin on Sunday, July 25.