by João Inácio
When in mid-2012 a friend of mine forwarded me an email regarding a call out for social entrepreneurs I wasn’t nearly ready for what would happen a few months later.
At that time, I had just begun to develop a social project that had started in 2011 and was looking for inspiration to move forward with the project.
While reading the Casa Netural’s call for social entrepreneurs I came to realize that it could be the experience I was looking for all along – to be able to work and live in a local community, drink the wisdom of social beings that breathe nature and rural experiences.
Casa Netural came unexpected, but quickly filled my heart with comfort. For a week, I lived and breathed the same food, schedules, lifestyle and habits of Andrea (the founder of Casa Netural) and all people that collaborate to make this project a reality.
Co-living and co-working takes sharing to a different level, and that brings to the experience a lot that would be lost otherwise.
The fruitful energy mixed with the randomness of several happenings make this experience dynamically engaging - the day after I landed I was already live on the regional Matera TV, talking about my social innovation project: the watershop.
The feeling of community is very well present and represented by the people of Matera and Basilicata. While exploring the area I saw a lot of interesting projects, people willing to show and proud of their communities/cities, initiatives that go beyond the groundbreaking challenge of creating new progress in places that seem to be isolated and therefore difficult to provoke healthy development.
The weekend went by fast with all the beautiful landscaping aesthetical encounters and wonderful human forces we met along the journey. Not to mention the gastronomic path that seemed to be with us the all way through.
In essence, my days at Casa Netural can be summarized by a strong feeling of being back to the roots, to the basics, with all that it has to offer. The hegemony between young and old struck me as an emergency that can drive innovation and capitalize everyone’s efforts – throughout Basilicata and Matera it is predominantly this relationship that enables interesting things to grow, and it is this relationship (between young and old) that I kindly described as gold – “when new meets old, it’s gold” – on my last presentation, on my last evening at Casa Netural.
On that same last evening, I remember coming back home after a few drinks. Andrea was already asleep and the girls – Maria Teresa and Eli – kindly left me off on the main square and headed their own ways, leaving me by myself to take the last journey home (to Casa Netural), through those now empty streets that in one week I could already recognize and consider them a little bit part of who I’ve become. That final evening was only me, the lights that create a beautiful glow throughout Matera, and a white dog.
This white dog stood by my side the whole way until I got home. It made me go into a deep state of metaphoric retrospective. It reminded me of what I have sensed those last few days – feeling part of a community, of a family of friends with common values yet totally different projects and endeavors; part of a local reality that has a global heart, of a rural existence that welcomes technological progress; the feeling of being always accompanied at every step, just like that white dog that walked me home, without any precedence, demands or expectations, accepting the pureness of being, embracing the silence and the richness of the moment.
Casa Netural is a magical place in need to be discovered and re-discovered.
A unique project that welcomes and spreads inspiration.
