Nestled in a secluded valley with an abundance of quartz crystal naturally embedded in the Earth, Moinhos Velhos is in equal parts beautiful, energising and regenerative! Here we wake up to the creative life force of nature and the songs of the birds in the morning and retire with the silence of the stars at night.

Moinhos Velhos means "The Old Mills". In the days before the Barragem da Bravura (Dam) was built this was an operating water mill, and all the neighbouring farmers would bring their produce to be milled here. Apparently this goes back many hundreds of years.

The site itself covers 16 hectares but is within an area of several thousand hectares of natural beauty, and whilst we are in one of the most tranquil locations you can imagine, tucked in besides the magnificent Barragem, we are also remarkably well located in terms of key amenities.

By car, we are only one hour from the airport at Faro, 15 minutes from the city of Lagos and 20 minutes from the nearest beaches. 

Moinhos Velhos has some very special energies - away from all the popular tourist areas, in a valley of its own, projecting a mystical energy. At the time we did not know what it was, but later discovered that there are thousands of small quartz crystals in the ground all around in the valley, and that Moinhos Velhos is directly on one of the twelve synchronic lines, which join together at only 2 places, one is at Damanhur in Italy and the other is in Tibet.

The synchronic lines are identified as a network of streaming energy that spills out over planet Earth and links up all worlds where life exists, energy streams that catalyze the great forces of the cosmos. They are special lines of communication that become amplifiers of emotions, carrying information which reaches out to all living beings, irrespective of language differences, since they act on the principle that like attracts like. They cross our Earth like vibrant highways of energy uniting far distant points.

One of our original founders, Anne Karine fostered this connection between Moinhos Velhos and Damanhur by making regular visits to the spiritual, scientific, artistic community that is based there. 

Later in meditation we were also informed that Moinhos Velhos is also one of the light centers in the world, and that we should concentrate on bringing in The Light. If you are interested in this phenomena of 'bringing in The Light' it is well worth reading the books by Eileen and Peter Caddy from the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland who also worked with this - in fact one of the sites at Findhorn was also dedicated to bringing in the light too! Peter and Eileen Caddy also inspired some of the Moinhos Velhos traditions and rituals such as the juice time prayer, and also dedicating part of our own valley to the Nature Spirits. One of our current facilitation team, Richard, also spent some time living there in the early 2000's.