A Photocopied Letter, Free Love, and Learning to Say No

Details

• Interviewee: Joshua Gottenko
• Role: Community Member
• Community: Tamera
• Date: 2026-01-14
• Language: en

Summary

In this interview, Joshua Gottenko shares his experiences and reflections on life in Tamera, Portugal, an intentional community focused on love, sustainability, and social dynamics. Joshua recounts his journey of discovering Tamera through an influential contact and emphasizes the community’s unique approach to love and relationships as a political practice. He addresses the ongoing evolution of community governance, the importance of trust through transparency, and the challenges faced by new and older generations as they navigate relationships and organizational structures within the community.

Joshua speaks about his personal growth and the importance of integrity in saying 'yes' or 'no' to requests. He discusses the value of the Forum as a mechanism for fostering trust and resolving conflicts within the community. His insights highlight the tensions between different generational perspectives on leadership and decision-making, showcasing Tamera as a living organism that continually adapts and learns from its members' experiences.

Key quotes

The courage to put love and sexuality at the center was very strong.

One big piece of inner work was finding integrity and learning to say an authentic yes or no.

When I first came, the structure was clear... Now we have community days three times a month... Forum remains the strongest tool we have.

Learning to say no was one of my biggest lessons.

It feels like part of a living system, always evolving, always learning.

Transcript

**Sharon:** Let’s start with your name and where we’re sitting right now.
**Joshua:** I’m Joshua Gottenko. This is the very original and creative name for the first lake ever created in Tamera. It is called Lake One. We are sitting next to the place of the children, near the guest house.

**Sharon:** Maybe you can start with how you first heard about Tamera.
**Joshua:** I heard about Tamera from a man called Ross Jackson. He was one of the founders of the Global Ecovillage Network. I met him in Denmark, and afterward he sent me a snail mail, a photocopy of something about the Solar Village. That was around 2005. Later, in 2008, I found the paper again by chance, at a time when I was beginning to think about visiting ecovillages and communities. My partner at the time and I looked it up online. The website said very little about free love, maybe one sentence about peace between the genders or healing relationships between men and women, something very general like that.

When we arrived here, we came like two turtles in one shell, with very different reactions to what we found. I had already lived in open relationships before meeting her and thought that chapter was behind me. I wanted to try a more monogamous partnership. Here, something felt different, more mature in how the topic was approached. After my experience in polyamory circles in Denmark, I could sense that what was happening here was much deeper and more grounded. It went beyond the freedom to explore sexuality. It was about freeing love from fear. That sentence was powerful for me.

I was also drawn by the fantastic complexity of the project. You hear about alternative energy initiatives, farming projects, or autonomy experiments, but finding a place that brings all of these aspects together was unique.

**Sharon:** What kind of values do you think pulled you in?
**Joshua:** The courage to put love and sexuality at the center was very strong. The people here ask simple but profound questions, like why can an embrace between two people create pain and suffering in a third person. Why is that possible? And they have decades of experience searching for real answers to those questions. That impressed me.

Tamera’s ethics are simple. Speaking truth and creating transparency builds trust. It works beyond stories or dramas. Another key value is mutual support. You think about who you care for and create a network of reciprocal care. That is the foundation of community life here.

**Sharon:** What has been the most important inner work for you here?
**Joshua:** One big piece of inner work was finding integrity and learning to say an authentic yes or no. There are always more requests on your time than you can fulfill. When you are new, you want to fit in, and that can make you say yes to everything. It feels like a way to be accepted. But that can lead to overwhelm and burnout. So I had to learn to step back from that and find a sustainable rhythm. That was an important shift for me, both personally and in how I relate to community.

Another piece of inner work had to do with love and sexuality. There is an archetype here called the “marriage swindler.” It describes someone who makes everyone believe they will be the one and only. I saw that pattern in myself. If I was not careful, I could easily fall into it, overpromising, leaving people behind, chasing the next honeymoon phase. To change that, I had to slow down and find a different, more authentic rhythm. That was deep learning.

**Sharon:** And today, what does “love free from fear” mean to you?
**Joshua:** I think Tamera is at an interesting point right now. In the early years, the focus was liberation, freeing yourself from social norms. That was important work, and much of it happened before my generation arrived. Later came a phase that encouraged intimacy and partnership more directly. During the liberation years, “making relationship” was almost seen as negative, as if it created attachment or entanglement. Now, intimate partnerships are more welcomed, but that brings new challenges.

When you enter deeper intimacy with more than one person, it touches layers of fear and trauma, the existential fear of losing your beloved, the patterns passed down from parents, the stories of love and loss that we carry. This is the phase we are in now, where those layers are surfacing. There is also new understanding coming from trauma-informed work and attachment theory. Many newcomers find these perspectives meaningful. The founding generation does not always connect with them in the same way, which sometimes creates tension. The younger ones want recognition. The elders can feel judged. It feels like a family dynamic. The younger ones want the parents to see what matters to them. The older ones can feel criticized for how they did things before. That is where we are now.

**Sharon:** How do you build trust among community members?
**Joshua:** When I first came, the structure was clear. There were four or five groups called “pillars,” each with around twenty to forty people. We had Forum in those small groups four days a week, and a big community Forum once a week. That was twenty Forums per month. Now we have community days three times a month, with around twenty to forty people attending. Participation is lower than before, but Forum remains the strongest tool we have. It creates transparency, and transparency builds trust.

**Sharon:** Can you describe an experience in the Forum that was meaningful to you?
**Joshua:** Some of my most powerful moments were as an observer. One that stands out was in a Kido Forum, which focuses on energy work rather than storytelling. A young man, one of the biggest and strongest in the community, was guided by the Forum leader. He was told to walk around the circle and repeat, “I am the biggest and the strongest.” At first, he was shy and unsure. But as he kept walking, something changed. He repeated the phrase for about fifteen minutes. Each time he went around, you could feel a shift. Everyone was on the edge of their seat, watching him grow stronger. By the end, he walked out of that circle radiating real strength. This experience showed me how powerful Forum can be. It is a space where everyone offers attention and support, and one person goes through a process of revelation and empowerment. It is collective energy work.

**Sharon:** Have you seen Forum help the community through challenges?
**Joshua:** That is one of the big questions people ask on tours: how do we deal with conflict and make decisions? In the early days, there was no formal decision-making structure. People used to say, “We talk a lot, and then things happen.” The ideal was that we did not need a structure because we had a community of trust. But as new people arrived, that trust was tested. There was not a clear system for onboarding or mentoring. Younger members were encouraged to take leadership roles before they were ready. Over time, that created tension and eroded trust.

In 2021, during a community consolidation process, facilitator Miki Kashtan said something that changed everything. She told us directly, “Tamera is a low-trust environment. You need to face that.” Hearing it from someone respected made it real. Since then, a lot has shifted. The old leadership structures were challenged, and space opened for renewal. We began experimenting with sociocracy and consent-based decision-making. It is still new, but it is moving toward more transparency and shared responsibility.

**Sharon:** And how do you feel about where things are now?
**Joshua:** We are still in transition. Some of the younger generation who helped start these changes have left, and the community is adjusting again. It feels like part of a living system, always evolving, always learning.