What a dream! To make my own olive oil with friends together! This is what I have been doing last week. Here, there is a so called "Rainbow Terrace" where Rainbow People of Light and Love are living and we met one morning the trees. It is january, so in South of Europe it is time to pick up the olives.
We gathered around 15 adults and 30 children and started the harvest. We were from all over the world and colors. Such a pleasure to work the land! To be in touch with Pacha Mama and to feel her beauty. There were** around 30 olive trees** on a land that has no running water, so the only water they get is the rain. No chemicals involved for years and years! Just a free land with tons of olives on them.
So the old way to do it, before the machines came into our lives is to hit the branches with a pole and to have down a net where to collect the olives. To gather everything in buckets and bring it to a mill where they cold pressed it at 30 degrees Celsius temperature.
I must admit I was doubting I would like to do it. I was thinking it is a hard physical work and that it might not worth it. I felt very tired the night before and generally with life, and all the time I was making bad projections about how tiring it will be and that as a single parent, I can not do it. But I found it to be a PURE MEDITATION. Everybody was so happy and singing and the children were there "helping" us. At lunch we had an amazing meal with 7 varieties of food - soups, salads, potatoes, guacamole, etc - everything vegetarian!
This physical work it is always good for the brain. I read somewhere once, that when we do movement, the synapses are connecting - the brain tells the hand to move and so on. If we just relax and do nothing, we tend to become vegetables. So the best therapy for me when I was tired was to work some more.
In the end, we got around 100 litres of oil to be shared between us, according to the hours we worked. Nobody to count them, no boss to look at exact time. just our own consciousness that we say the truth. I got 6 liters, so I am very happy! I am an olive oil junkie :)