Unconditional Love

Seven Women, One Cat and a Healing Center.

The sun was setting on the water, painting beautiful strokes of red, orange, and yellow against blue-grey skies. Gentle waves teased the shore with tiny ripples. Palm trees lined the water’s edge, some heavy with bushels of dates. Wherever the eye landed, there was water, sand, trees, and vegetation, with a few houses sprinkled in between. We were seven women and one cat, in the middle of nowhere. The place isn’t even on a map yet.

What others saw as wasteland, Noufa envisioned as a healing center. Even before it was fully operational, the love, heart, and soul she poured into it made it healing on many levels. It’s about thirty minutes by car from the center of Siwa Oasis, in Egypt, if you don’t get lost on the way. There are no paved roads yet, and the terrain shifts with the weather, so losing your way is easy. Once you arrive, though, getting lost becomes the whole point: lost in the serenity of the place, in its beauty, in its silence, and in all the loving healing that “Ard El Ahlam” (Land of Dreams) has to offer.

We co-created our experience, each of us offering our gifts and energy with love. We cooked and ate together, danced, moved our bodies, swam, kayaked, played “Big Talk Game” and sipped delicious Siwa tea prepared by Wasfi, the only man who came by during the day to help with construction. Zein experimented with different cob mixtures for the hut under construction, working with local materials: mud, straw, and sand. Wasfi’s three young sons loved helping the adults build. What a beautiful thing, people of all ages building together; the way homes were made before construction sites became “dangerous”. I loved gathering vegetables and herbs from the garden for our salads and teas. Such a treat, especially in the middle of the desert. Further proof of Noufa’s visionary, pioneering spirit, and of how generously Mother Nature provides when we work with her instead of against her.

My favorite part was our frequent trips to the natural hot springs nearby. With Wasfi’s local knowledge, we’d go to springs where no one else was around; all that privacy and freedom, for free. Mother Nature doesn’t need money, she needs love. Unfortunately, more often than not, money destroys her!

The whole place was built from natural materials, weaving nature into the experience wherever possible. We slept in straw huts, on beds made of palm wood. The simplicity of it all is what made it magical. We danced with the elements: sunny days found us in the lake, sandstorms sent us indoors to sing, drum, play “Big Talk Game“, sip tea, or rest, and sunsets carried us to the nearby sand dunes for their own spectacular show.

The days flew by in joyful co-creation with six amazing women who quickly became soul family. I found myself spontaneously dancing, again and again. Ever since the genocide in Palestine intensified, dancing has been a struggle for me. But in a paradise like this, how could I not?

When it was time to leave for Alexandria, and then on to Portugal, I carried a heart full of love and gratitude, and a nervous system finally ready to meet the world again. As Bayo Akomolafe* said: “The times are urgent, let us slow down.”

* Bayo Akomolafe is a Nigerian-born philosopher, writer, and activist.

Note: This happened in April 2026.

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