Maria de Lourdes Pedro Matias has been working as an organic gardener since she was five years old and she wants to share her knowledge with people of this region.
Matias started the Terra Divina Society, School of Knowledge this year and she wants to teach and share information at her large property in Errington.
Matias is from a small village in Portugal, where she farmed with her family from dawn until dusk, with no electricity and no vehicles.
“That’s what we did just to survive,” she said. “And I have wonderful memories.”
As an adult Matias has experienced her fair share of hardship, but she believes that miracles have kept her alive and she feels blessed. While working in Africa she was robbed of all her possessions and money, and left with only the clothes on her back.
Although her life was threatened, Matias escaped and made her way to her uncle’s home in Toronto, where she was offered a job shortly after her arrival.
“That was another miracle, I only had 11 days left {in the country}, ” she said.
After she moved to Victoria some years later, she bought a small house where she lived with her two children. But after fixing it up and installing a beautiful organic orchard they all began to cough. Their house was full of asbestos which was making them sick, and they had to leave right away, she said.
So Matias moved her family to Errington and started all over, doing things completely natural.
She built a stone house and began building organic gardens to heal her and her children.
“I’ve worked very hard my whole life,” she said. “I was told all my life that I was crazy, because since I was five years old I’ve been working so hard.”
Matias now lives on an 88 acre property in Errington, where she bases the Terra Divina Society. She has five green houses and two large earth domes and she wants to teach people how to organic garden and compost, and share information on things like solar wind energy, solar cooking and using solar lights. She grows tropical fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices and can grow almost anything, she said. She is experienced in healing people, after she saved her own life with a concoction she created of natural remedies.
“I was in tears, in pain, I couldn’t even get up or get in a car without screaming with pain,” she said. “I was dying.”
Matias created a 40-day cleanse that healed her, and went on to create cleanses that have healed many other people from around the world, she said.
Matias said her purpose is to help humanity, and particularly she would like to work with local children, to teach them to garden, exercise, make instruments from natural sources, and much more.
Although Matias wants to help humanity, she also needs help herself, to upkeep the gardening on her land, including irrigation work.
She is hoping people will contact her to come garden, heal, learn and play, all for free or by donation. People can take part in Qigong, yoga, meditation or singing in the earth domes, she said, and the domes can also be used for teachings by others.
People can call Matias to make an appointment to come to the property at 250-248-4110 or email terradivina88@gmail.com.
For her part Martias just hopes to improve the lives of others, she said.
“I have so much love in my heart,” she said. “This is my sole purpose.”
Visit www.lourdespedromatias.com for more information.