The first part of Sophie’s journey through space started working as a PR and marketing consultant. She worked as project manager in advertisement, then co-owned a gallery in Berlin and worked on an artist residency program between Mexico City and Berlin. The second part of her journey started, after attending the Mexican art fair, at a meditation school in Mexico where she got certified as a meditation teacher. It continued in Berlin as she opened one of the cities first multi-disciplinary mindfulness spaces, then went on to the corporate world to give trainings on awareness, flow, meditation and emotional intelligence. This then came to a screeching halt in unison with the world as a little virus decided to press pause. Sophie used this pause to refocus, experience, listen and learn. To submerge fully in the awareness laboratory of her self and the ones around her. To listen to her mind, to watch it rollercoaster from depression to ease to ecstasy and back. To learn about herself and about humans, relationships, community, trauma, the traps and the glory of the mind, the pitfall of the ego, the truth of emotions, and the value of vulnerability. It is also in the gift of this pause that she re-aligned her values. What world do I want to live in? Who do I want to live close to? What do I want to create? And along came Sao Miguel.

There is an opportunity in the grief of a planet suffering, one that speaks to the land we live on, to regenerate, to make a difference. To make an impact starting with one self, the land, continuing with those closest to us, and then to let it ripple out into the wider network, into culture and into the mycelium that holds it all together. Aldeia do Alma is one of the hopefully many centres of regeneration, of rethinking our human behaviours, of welcoming the whole spectrum of this human experience, of learning from mistakes, of inspiration, co-creation and then together as a whole of bringing about change.

Alma Do Solo is also one of hopefully many centers to emerge, that has the balance of the earth at its centre: The cycle of the seasons, the wisdom of death and the nourishment it brings, the sowing of seeds and the harvest. It is in the honouring of the land and the nourishment of its people that Sophie carries the torch.

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