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Cambium. What's it all about?

It's about many things. So many things indeed that it's a challenge to express in words. If you recognise that your life lacks a certain dimension of satisfaction and would like to know more, read on. Many of us are disenchanted with the materialistic direction our society is taking. We've had enough of being controlled by our governments in the minutest of ways. We yearn for summer but have to endure winter for nine months of the year in the northern hemisphere. The child in us, the sentient human being, has been squeezed into a small shell, increasingly disconnected from our source. We sleep–walk dutifully through our lives, rarely if ever, experiencing the joy of connectedness with Nature.

Cambium is about freedom. Imagine getting up every day, warm and safe, going about your day's activities, be it work or leisure, naked in beautiful, natural tropical surroundings, amongst friends and neighbours, equally naked, who feel the same as you. You don't have to decide what to wear to make the right impression. A whole layer of complexity and restriction falls from your shoulders. You feel empowered, accepted, natural, free, energetic, creative and happy. I have felt all these things in such conditions and seen the joy in my fellow naturist's faces and stance. I know we can live better than many of us do now. Cambium provides the potential to live better.

How much do you like the fact that every trip you take in your car is fraught with the fear of straying one mile per hour over the speed limit and getting a fixed penalty in your post. Do you like it that you can be prosecuted for driving without a seatbelt or talking on the phone? Did you know that there are moves to outlaw eating a sandwich, drinking water or smoking while driving? Do you feel that's an improvement in living conditions or inappropriate hijacking of responsibility by the government? I think we should take responsibility for our actions and eat our sandwiches with care, rather than risk prosecution for the slightest error. Do you appreciate waiting minutes, looking left and right, just to get out of your drive because there is so much traffic? How do you like searching anxiously for a rare parking space and paying through the nose for it, even if all you wanted was to buy a postage stamp?

The villages of the north coast of the Dominican Republic, where Cambium will be, are free of all the above petty and irritating restrictions. People look out for themselves and one another and there are hardly any traffic accidents. You can park right outside the shop of your choice without paying at all. The wonderfully warm and steady climate means that you are free to wear no clothes night and day, winter and summer if you wish. The Dominicans smile a lot, welcome you, wish you well, want to know what you are doing and where you are from. They offer you help. In my home town in England you are lucky if you get a blank stare instead of being barged out of the way, ignored by shop staff who cannot speak your language or harassed by the parking meter gestapo.

Have you reached the point where the satisfaction of acquiring your last TV or music playing device, your most recent car or your latest washing machine was not really significant? Do you feel good about the fact that your PC is automatically outmoded by developments beyond your control, leaving you on a treadmill of upgrading every very few years? OK these are rhetorical questions but you probably see where I am coming from. Cambium is about less materialism in our lives. I and many people like me want to live closer to nature, alive and sensitive to the magical ebb and flow of her energy. Not cocooned in clothes in houses, restrained by social mores and the cold climate. We want to bring the bananas from the grove to the shop using a horse and cart, not a van. We want to absorb the burble of a brook with a drink and a chat with friends of an evening, not sit glued to the current shallow TV soap opera. We want to grow our own tasty, plant ripened peppers and cook them over a wood fire, not unwrap them from their cling film and styro–foam containers after an enervating trip to the supermarket. We want to make our own music and dance without inhibition (or skill if necessary) by the light of a fire in the cupped hands of nature, not only in the glare of strobe lights and entrenched conventions. Call me idealistic if you like, but it's actually possible to live like this.

Our modern life style with its uniform, hybridised, chemical treated food, grown in the abuse of antibiotics and fridge ripened, with its ever growing dependence on drugs for health, with its focus on regimented work every day, divorced from varied physical activity, provides little room for spiritual growth or joy. We don't have to carry on like that. Really. Cambium is about better natural health. We can eat naturally grown food, accepting lower yields. We can enjoy participating in the growth, preparation and transport of it. We can benefit from varied physical activity (not hours on a treadmill or rowing machine) and live healthily in the first place so we don't need all those drugs, which cost us so dearly in money, dependency and side effects. If our health gets out of balance we can deploy a whole range of holistic modalities, which are non–invasive, non–addictive and complimentary with one another and we can keep out of those life threatening hospitals with their methycillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Even if our climate scientists have got it wrong and global warming is not happening or is not due to human factors, common sense tells us that continuing to use up and depend on the oil reserves of our planet is unwise, expensive and unsustainable. At Cambium, as much as possible of our energy needs will be met from the sun. Cambium is about a sustainable and adaptable life. We will use photovoltaic panels for electricity generation where possible. Cooking and space heat will be derived from home grown wood from our own trees. Air conditioning will be restricted to places and occasions of necessity rather than being universal in every living space. Ventilation and the natural temperature control of our bare skin work really well. Believe me. I've tried it. Sewage treatment will be by the natural purification that plants can achieve effortlessly and silently, powered by the sun with no moving parts. This will be bamboo in our case, which yields a useful crop every five years for building, furniture and burning. The land has existing stands of huge tropical bamboo, just waiting to help us out in a symbiotic relationship.

So Cambium is all about

Freedom
Living a better life
Less materialism
Better natural health
Sustainability and adaptability

Cambium is being set up for us to live, work, naked, holistically, year–round. All five phrases are critical to the mix. But there's more to it than these practical considerations.

Once the ingredients of which I have written are in place, a wonderful transformation comes over the people living in this way. They are happier, fitter, rarely ill, more productive and creative and their joy and contentment is infectious. It spreads. It ends up being a spiritual thing enabled by the right combination of practical things. We humans are spiritual creatures. If we never express or experience our spirituality, our lives have missed the point. None of the above observations needs to stifle learning, discovery and the beneficial application of technology and wisdom. Quite the reverse. Cambium is also about learning and teaching. Based on evidence and results, avoiding the trickery of practices based solely on faith, we can advance in light and confidence as distinct from darkness and fear.

So, are you ready to honour your inner being and treat yourself to a life, or even a part of your year, that is significantly better than the one you are currently in? Ask yourself that question, then relax and listen out for the answer that your subconscious offers. Your subconscious knows best. The answer may come in an unexpected way so be attentive. Take charge. Don't let circumstances dictate the rest of your life. Let me know by email when you are there and I'll tell you how to take the next step. I'm here to accompany you on this amazing journey of self discovery and fulfilment.

Francois Harley
Founder