I don’t know what the secret of my long life is, it must be the vegetarian diet, or that I always worked with excitement in direct contact with my beloved plants.
…
Or maybe it’s that I smile easily. When you practice good, you generate love and it gives you a feeling of happiness. Loving, giving thanks, not being proud or falling into envy and vanity generates inner peace. I forget toxic people.
What mark did the war leave on him?
The disasters I saw on the part of some were terrible, one revenge after another, killing innocent beings.
Did you learn anything from it?
The war taught me to be a pacifist. The French and their revolution gave us three magic words: liberty, equality and fraternity, three feet that support the world, which is now missing one leg: fraternity, and that is why it cannot stand.
You kiss the earth.
Yes, I take a handful, crush it into thousands of particles and kiss it thousands of times. The earth gives us everything, even life, it is where we come from.
It is true, we are a product of the earth.
Vegetables are our big brothers: they feed us, guide us and set us a good example, I feel like they are talking to me. I don’t talk to them, I just love them, and they understand that.
At what point did you realize you loved the land?
On the day of the Juneda bombardment, we were scattered across the field like frightened rabbits. That morning, very early I saw the pear and apple trees in bloom, that promise… And the planes came and destroyed them, then I shouted: “We are in paradise and man is destroying it!”.
It must have been a child, you.
I was 10 years old. Then I promised to do as much good as possible to humanity, and I have been faithful. In the beginning the work was mine to live and so that my children would not starve. My wife worked two jobs, she worked at the colmado and at home. Moms are the best.
And you?
I divided the day into three eights, eight hours for myself, to sleep, wash; eight hours for work, and eight hours to devote to others, sometimes just reading so that the opinion one has is as correct as possible. But I’m very intuitive.
Can you give me an example?
As a child, I was looking at the men in my town, who at 50 already looked like grandfathers, and he said to me: “Poor old men, they can’t play, or dance, or have a girlfriend, they’re always working. What can they do…?”. And then it occurred to me: they can be generators of love.
You are wise.
Because I love, I love the universe, creation, plants, people. Time is the fabric of life, don’t waste a single minute, that’s what I’ve always tried to do, maybe that’s why I feel like I’ve lived 200 years, because of the intensity with which I’ve done it.
Bravo.
When one opens his heart, his arms open to the other; and the embrace is fruitful and sweet.
When did you arrive in Barcelona?
In 1953, I managed to make my way by handing out oils and soaps from my village with my metal girlfriend: the bicycle, I was very happy with it, it took me everywhere for 30 years, it costs nothing and is a portable gym
When did you start cultivating the urban garden?
Just arrived, in a sad home that had a patio of 50 square meters. I made progress and opened a grocery store and bought a plot of land to build on, but the City Council only gave me marks because I built very little by little. They were hateful, but it is not good for cells to hate.
How did you solve it?
They didn’t let me build the planned and approved floors. No matter, I organized my green world on the roof to teach school children to love plants.
What else has a century of life taught him?
Life is an open book, if you look at it with love and humility you never stop learning. The farmer’s most important harvest is this invisible exchange of vibration with the plants. They are so noble that they only give us positive energy and eliminate our poisons.
Can you be happy in misery?
I have known her well and sometimes she is happier than those who have plenty. I adapted to the situation, very hard, but when I arrived in the field very early, when the sun was starting to rise, I could see each leaf of wheat glistening with dew. “How rich I am, how many diamonds I have!”, he thought.
Did he have enough to eat?
No, we only had one hectare, and Ramoneta and I ended up in Barcelona, ??in a tiny room. My parents sent us vegetables from the garden and we ate that. Shared poverty sometimes saves your life.
