{"id":1196,"date":"2024-06-18T16:04:23","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T16:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2024-06-21T07:57:50","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T07:57:50","slug":"polish-visiting-an-healing-centre-protected-by-polish-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/polish-visiting-an-healing-centre-protected-by-polish-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"Visiting an healing centre protected by Polish mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If there’s an ecovillage I wanted to visit in particular it’s one in Poland where they practice a unique ritual burning cow dough during sunset and sunrise. The place is actually an healing centre. They play with energy. Well, I don\u2019t know if \u201cplay\u201d is the right word. They cleanse the energy through a practice called \u201cagnihotra\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agnihotra is a healing fire from the ancient science of Ayurveda. It is a process of purifying the atmosphere through a specially prepared fire which is performed daily at sunrise and sunset. The beneficial effects of Agnihotra help to reduce stress, improve health and give one increased energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ecovillage is in south Poland, close to Tatras mountains. I could have flown to Krakow, which is only an hour away from the ecovillage, but that would have been too easy. I wanted to add some travelling to the experience. To make it more adventurous, and spicy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I looked for the cheapest flight within a range of 300km from Krakow.And that\u2019s how I found my 10 euros flight ticket to Budapest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I arrived in Budapest and walked around the city with just a book in my hand and a camera in the other. The simplicity of going without a direction and nothing planned for the rest of the days (or even the next days) was just beautiful. At every step my head was cleaning up, my thoughts were less and I had less worries about my life in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I booked an hostel for the night, just 11 euros for a bunk bed, I could have afford an apartment all for myself on airbnb but I didn\u2019t want to stay by myself, I wanted to see other travellers and what\u2019s the best for that than an hostel in Budapest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I couldn\u2019t be more right. As soon as I got back to the hostel I met the guy who had the bed on top of mine, Gabriel was his name. He travelled from Costa Rica, and wanted to explore Europe, starting from Budapest. He said eastern Europe was much more appealing for him as cheaper than the west and more authentic. I agreed with him, I think big cities such as Paris, Madrid, London and their surroundings have lost much of their beauty through gentrification. You have the same shops in every city centre, same prices, and cultural differences are now very little, looks like everybody speaks the same language: what money can buy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabriel introduced me to few friends he met at the hostel: Adrian and Carlos from Messico, Mehmet from Turkey. At 10pm we cannot stay in common areas, living room and kitchen close, but Gabriel has a great idea: finish our beers sitting on one of the 8 bridges that cross the Danube. We choose Liberty bridge because of his beautiful structure. We sit on the pillars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When we come back to the hostel is 1am already and I have an early wake up: I want to go the thermal baths with Antoine, a Parisian I met the day before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Budapest is well known for it\u2019s springs. It has so many that the Romans, the Turkish and the Austro-Hungaric Empire all built their own baths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went to one built by the Turkish during the Ottoman Empire, the place is stunning: if feels like we are back in time, back in 1571 to be more precise, when it was founded. Rudas Bath is claimed to have medicinal properties. To date, it retains many of the key elements of a Hammam, exemplified by its Ottoman dome and octagonal pool. The bath has six therapy pools and one swimming pool where the temperature is in between 10 and 42 \u00b0C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m travelling very light, carrying only a small backpack, so I don\u2019t have to go back to the hostel to collect my stuff, I already have everything with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We leave the baths around noon. I say goodbye to Antoine with a hug. I tell him I hope to see him again. He say: You should come to visit me in Paris. Maybe I will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get on a bus. Get off the bus and in a shop to buy something to eat and drink for my journey. I\u2019m leaving Budapest and Hungary to Slovakia. My train is already there, I walked to the platform, get in and sit. The train is nice, clean, with plugs and spacious. I love crossing borders by train, especially when looking at the gps map you see this little dot moving from one side of the line to the other: you\u2019ve changed country. The landscape around you didn\u2019t change much but everything else did. A different language, money, traditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three hours later I\u2019m in Kosice, second biggest city in Slovakia after Bratislava. I don\u2019t check the city centre, I rather spend time with Matej and his family. They are hosting me for the night. They are cyclist and I\u2019m too. There\u2019s an app we can use to find people available to host you, and in return you do the same (but that\u2019s not a rule). No, I\u2019m not telling you the name otherwise it gets too popular and I\u2019ll struggle to find hosts. Anyway, I arrive at the central station and look for a bus to reach Matej\u2019s house. He lives in a small apartment north of town with his wife Natalia and two child: Felix and Arthur. Felix is 3 years old and Arthur just 3 weeks old! I\u2019m surprise they accepted to host me with a new born baby. But they did and I\u2019m not sure if I have to be happy about it or sorry for the night I\u2019ll spend mostly awake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But that\u2019s the beauty of travelling: meeting people and sharing intimate part of our lives. I feel privilege I can see how a young couple raise their children, I\u2019m lucky to have that access in their lives. Even though this means not having much space for myself, but that\u2019s ok for one night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arthur, the smaller child, eat, sleep and poo, so he\u2019s not trouble at all but Felix is another story. He keep interrupting his dad when he try to tell me something. He never finish a sentence, three hours of broken conversion that leaves me why more questions than when we started talking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 10 Felix is out. He went asleep, thanks god, I can finally chat with Matej. He helps me to find the best route through the Tatras mountains from Slovakia to Hungary. Apparently is not that easy to go from the south side of the mountains to the north because the two countries are not well connected, maybe they don\u2019t want to be connected. So I have found a village up in the mountains that I can reach by train (and that\u2019s great because I love trains) but from there to the Polish side there\u2019s no connection. No connection apart from one bus that nobody on Slovakian soil ever heard about. After some research I understand is a Polish company that run that small bus, and it\u2019s journey is limited to cross the mountains, then it leaves you in polish town where you can get other polish buses to go around the country. Full of hope I want to try that the next day, but for now I still have three hours of light so I\u2019m going to hike up into mountain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I missed being immerse in wild nature. These trees are covered by fog, there\u2019s also a waterfall nearby, I can hear the water gurgling. So much water in the air and everything here is taking in that water, growing bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I climb up to 1400 metres. Walk in trail made out of stone, it\u2019s beautiful but makes the walking slow and I don\u2019t like that. I like when you walk without looking down, lost in your thoughts, looking at trees, getting inspiration from the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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waterfall – Tatras mountains<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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path – Tatras <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Before coming back at the hotel I stop in the only place opened after 9pm. It\u2019s a pub but the also have a kitchen. I eat some fries and drink a local beer while everyone in the room is watching a ice hockey game at telly. The owner of the hotel I\u2019m staying told me ice hockey is the most popular sport in Slovakia. They were really good at it when Cecoslovakia was just one country but since they split in two Slovakia lost everything and they had to build the team from scratch. It took them all these years but now, he said, things are better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wake up at 8am to have breakfast in the hotel. Even though I could have slept for two more hours to say the least. I didn\u2019t have much sleep the past nights but after yesterday I feel much better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After checking out I walked towards the village, the hotel is 20 minutes away from the village. I arrive at the bus stop but I\u2019m early so I sit down in a cafe for a cappuccino. It\u2019s four euros, definitely one of the most expensive cappuccino I\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bus nobody knew it existed arrive at the bus stop. I\u2019m the only passenger. The driver doesn\u2019t speaks English but I manage to ask him a few things: \u201cCan I pay with euros?\u201d I ask. I don\u2019t have polish zloty obviously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One hour and a half later we arrive at the Polish town. In the bus station there\u2019s a market so I get some groceries and a bottle of wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My next bus is in less than 20 minutes. It\u2019ll take me to Jordan\u00f3w, where someone from the ecovillage is going to pick me up. I\u2019m tense. I don\u2019t know what to expect. Is this place really going to show me a better way to live?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jarek picks me up from the main road where the bus dropped me off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is polish but he grew up in England, where he had his education. He\u2019s a character: sometimes funny others rude. He\u2019s taking something out of his teeth, the all hand in his mouth. I look straight out of the car, acting like I don\u2019t see him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He ask if I\u2019m carrying enough food for my staying and if I had lunch already. I have a sandwich, two small roll bread and an apple and no, I didn\u2019t have lunch. I say that I can buy something else if we stop in a shop. But I\u2019m feeling funny about this: seems like I\u2019m going to stay by myself in a hut by the mountain. What about the others? Don\u2019t they eat? I thought of sharing a meal all together. I even have gotten the wine. But that\u2019s okay. I\u2019m not going to stay long in the Ecovilage anyway, whatever it\u2019ll be like I\u2019ll be out of it in 24 hours or so. I get some cheese, more bread, and veggies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While in the car. I ask permission to film while is talking. \u201cOf course, film whatever you like he says\u201d. I take his word for it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We drive through a forest full of trees, the road draw a black line into the green scenery. Jarek stop the car when a young girl dresses like a elf appears. She is Marta, daughter of Rory and Aisha. \u201cShe is a great artist\u201d Jarek says. I\u2019m relief in seeing a teenager living in the ecovillage and also someone who does look conscious of the world outside the village. We shake hands across the car window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the ecovillage Jarek walked me straight to the house I\u2019m going to stay. It\u2019s a three bedroom house on two store made of wood. The room designated to me it\u2019s small but nice, has got big windows facing the forest. The house has a porch and a balcony that stretches all across the living room, a wooden shelve with many books and a tea table made out of a big trunk give a nice touch to the place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I meet Maria. She ask about me, where I\u2019m from and what I do. I say I\u2019m from many different places but I was born in Sardinia and I\u2019m a videographer. She is happy to heard that and says I have to give her 31 euros for the room. It\u2019s actually 23 euros for the small room plus 8 euros of cleaning fee. Cleaning fee? I suddenly  feel like I\u2019m renting a room through Airbnb. Being in Poland, far from cities the price is pretty high, also considering my position there as someone who will be filming and doing interviews (and sharing all the raw footage with them) I should have a better treatment. That\u2019s not the welcoming I was expecting. First the meal situation, then this. I start asking myself why am I actually there. What I\u2019m expecting to find in that place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not having the time to answer that question I thought myself out of the house. It\u2019s 4pm and Jarek it\u2019ll start showing the ecovillage space in a tour specifically organised for the guest. In fact tonight there will be a concert in the main building. Some musicians from Holland that also practice agnihotra will be chanting mantras while playing guitars, jambes and a small organ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The walk is great. Even though the guest are all Polish Jarek talks in English. He seems to be caring about my video now. He waits for me, at least most of the times, and talked directly on camera. I feel good. That\u2019s the power of the camera: it connect people, it\u2019s able to share incredible stories to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to lay down on my bed for a little bit but there\u2019s no time for that. Jarek\u2019s tour ends in the The house of Light where the concerts was due to start very soon. Musicians are here already and many people wants to talk to me. So I can\u2019t go back to my rented room. I cannot lay down at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concert lasted three hours. I\u2019m knocked. And if we were mostly sitting, drinking tea and eating cakes I feel like I missed something. Like there should be something in that evening. I know what is it! We should have ate dinner. I didn\u2019t eat at all. I\u2019m starving, I\u2019m tired and I\u2019m starving. I arrange an interview with Rory, one of the oldest inhabitant of the ecovillage, for next morning. I go back to my place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m hungry but I don\u2019t eat anything, I\u2019m too tired. I can make tea though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I\u2019m doing that Maria comes in. She said she is sorry but she have to ask me the money for concert. I thought it was based on a donation I say and I have already contributing filming and sharing this story with, I hope, many people. But she doesn\u2019t buy that. She wants cash; and she want it right now. She say the donation amount is 20 euros. Shooot! That\u2019s a lot of money for that concert. They should have paid me for staying there for three hours filming that thing. I would like to explain her that but I don\u2019t think she would understand so I simply go back to my room, take 10 euros and come back to the living room. \u201cThis are the only money you will get from me.\u201d I say. \u201cI feel I\u2019m already contributing with my film.\u201d I mean that but doesn\u2019t seem too impress. She writes down my name and a number: 10, followed by a question mark. I can\u2019t really share with my thoughts on her so I\u2019ll skip to something else. There\u2019s something else to think about: tomorrow morning I\u2019m waking up at 4:45am. Why? Because then decided to raise that early that day and this ecovillage is famous for a practice the do to heal animals, the land and the all planet if they can spread the good energy that far. They do that by burning dry cow shit in a small metal pot every mornings and evenings, at sunrise and sunset. I cannot miss that so I set my alarm at 4:40 with a not-so-happy face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I think the day have already gave me all the possible range of emotions I realise I was wrong. It\u2019s not over. Maria is still in the living room. She stop me and says: \u201cLuis, I opened the fridge, I saw the bottle. Is that your wine?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I say: \u201cYes! That was my present for you guys, but since we had no dinner it stayed in the fridge\u201d She turn pale and look at me straight in the eyes. \u201cWe DON\u2019T drink alcool here!\u201d That bottle is not suppose to be here, why did you bring it? I have to take it from you.\u201d I\u2019m surprise and sorry about the all thing, I didn\u2019t know that but apparently alcool, next to drugs and sigarette, are not allowed in the all ecovillage. It doesn\u2019t matter if you don\u2019t consume them, they bring \u201cbad energy\u201d and they have been working so hard to clean that energy. The oldest residents of the place are burning shit every day, twice a day, from 1995. That\u2019s serious stuff. Or at least it should be because I cannot take it seriously now. The all thing seems a bit absurd and I feel like she is the one delivering bad energy since I met her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wake during the night. I switch off the alarm. I think: \u201cFuck it.\u201d But God or someone up there didn\u2019t agree with that and He wakes me up at 4:45am. I take my camera and run into the small room where Barbara, a resident of the ecovillage, has already started the ceremony. I gently knock at the door and I walk in. She just light up the cow shit. We stay there silent. We breath and I feel strange. I look around me and up. There\u2019s a lot of smoke in this little room. I want to couch but I force myself too. I feel like that\u2019s not polite towards whatever saint or god we are delivering that sacrifice to. So I keep breathing that smoke but it\u2019s not the usual smoke you get from combustions. It\u2019s more gentle. Ten minutes later I\u2019m in bed again, but I can\u2019t sleep. One hour pass and I\u2019m still awake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Altar for Gods – Agnihotra honour many religions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The room where the Agnihotra practice with the burning fire is done<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I hate when people tell me what to do. That\u2019s probably why I don\u2019t live in an ecovillage. I share with them the vision, the need to restore our connection to nature, but I usually I don\u2019t like the community rules. I\u2019m not saying they could live better without rules. Having clear rules and respecting those is fundamental to live in society, big or small that it would be. But I personally don\u2019t perform well under these rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I leave the ecovillage on Sunday at 4pm. In the morning I\u2019ve interviewed Rory and his wife, had an amazing breakfast at their house. Then I interviewed David, had a quick sandwich around 2pm before running to Jarek and Pavani house. I interviewed them too in the upper level of the oldest house in the ecovillage.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there’s an ecovillage I wanted to visit in particular it’s one in Poland where they practice a unique ritual burning cow dough during sunset and sunrise. The place is actually an healing centre. They play with energy. Well, I don\u2019t know if \u201cplay\u201d is the right word. They cleanse the energy through a practice called \u201cagnihotra\u201d. Agnihotra is a healing fire from the ancient science of Ayurveda. It is a process of purifying the atmosphere through a specially prepared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[203,5],"tags":[486,358,488,175,489,490,487],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-experiences","tag-agnihotra","tag-ecovillage","tag-fire-cerimony","tag-living-alternatives","tag-poland","tag-ritual","tag-tatras-mountains"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/silencemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Tatras-Diary-featured-image.jpg?fit=400%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1236,"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions\/1236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silencemagazine.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}