With less more

Already during his study years, Marino (Rien) Bouw, born in Erp-Netherlands, became aware of the way in which people work and therefore live in contemporary Western economies, with a focus on more and especially more profit without taking sufficient account of the consequences and damage for this planet and associated flora, fauna and humans.

Although a successful career in business, the inner dissatisfaction of having to work that way, faster, more and never enough, kept growing. Also through experiences during the many primitive journeys in the past, in undeveloped countries of all continents, it was confirmed even more clearly that the dominant materialistic Western system was no longer a challenge.

At the age of 39 he got to a point where he said to himself: ‘I don’t want to go on like this and live on, then consciously chose a different way of life, with the aim of going back to basics, living in freedom and harmony with nature, conscious, simple, calm and healthy.

After four years of intensive preparation and study to delve into all aspects of olive cultivation and biodynamic agriculture, he has been living in Italy since 2003, owner of a ten-hectare estate with centuries-old olive trees, located in the beautiful Umbria, the hamlet of La Castagna, municipality of Terni.

Once through the gateway, pure life begins, in a rare, hard-to-find natural splendor and silence. All the unrest in which the rest of the world finds itself disappears here.

The natural silence, the unique location of the estate on the mountain tops near Assisi – Spoleto and the mystery of the immense adjacent impenetrable evergreen forest with many dark oaks makes it an inspiring landscape. This different way of living in this unique environment, in complete harmony with nature, is an important source of inspiration for him.

Always fully present in the here and now, with great respect and focus on producing and preparing natural food. Almost completely self-sufficient, everything is done by him with attention, calm and a lot of energy.

Fonte Vergine ; translated into English; ‘virgin well’