I am passionate about teaching philosophy to high school students, empowering them with critical thinking skills. For years, I taught yoga, but recently shifted my focus to education.

https://www.instagram.com/jiniafonso_yoga/

I am an active art critic, writing on theatre and art performances for Umbigo magazine in Lisbon.

https://umbigomagazine.com/en/blog/author/jiniafonso/
https://www.instagram.com/jiniafonso_art/

My involvement in two theatre groups allows me to explore community-based and participatory theatre addressing social discrimination.

My photographic works, under the pseudonym REFLEKTOR, explore themes of self-perception, social norms, and sexuality, and have been exhibited in Berlin (2019) and Paris (2022).

https://15martel.com/natalia-zavialova-reflektor-jini-afonso/
https://www.instagram.com/agentprovocateur_reflektor/

I have experience teaching hypnosis at ISCTE University Institute of Lisbon and offering consultations since 2021. My latest project, Dance of Self, is a trauma-informed healing initiative combining IFS, (Internal Family Systems) approach of Dick Schwartz therapy, with dance.

https://www.instagram.com/jiniafonso_hipnoterapia/
https://www.instagram.com/danceofself/

Until 2016, I lived and worked in Switzerland, following a two-year tandem bike journey with ex-partner from Lisbon towards India. We traversed 34 countries and 20,000 kilometers, experiencing a life-changing adventure.

Before this journey, I spent two years as a nomad in London, living out of a campervan while studying arts at Chelsea College of Arts.

Aphorisims:

'Everytime I am not travelling I feel like a stranger in a strange land". Jini

'The mind is its own place...you can either make a hell of heaven or a heaven of hell' William Blake

'What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger' F. Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols, 1888)

"Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it." - (Malcolm X Speaks, 1965)

'Thou shalt fight conformism
Thou shalt be the messenger of freedoms
Thou shalt make use of sex
Thou shalt reinvent life
Thou shalt create artificial art
Thou shalt have a sense of purpose
Thou shalt not know exactly what thou dost, but thou shalt do it
Thou shalt give thy love
Thou shalt grab the soul
Thou shalt give something back'
(10 commandments by Gilbert & George)

If nothing else, the weather is fine! Jini

Interests

Sharing the essential thoughts on life...the poetry of a random encounter...yoga practice and sports, environmental friendly life styles, cinema, reading, photography and hitch hiking as a way of traveling.

• arts
• poetry
• photography
• environment
• human rights
• yoga
• meditation
• politics
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• cycling
• hiking
• sports
• international relations

Music, Movies, and Books

At the moment I am studying Tarkovsky life and work, The Bhagavad Gita and The Essays on The Gita by Sri Aurobindo. I have been learning from the thoughts of Fernando Savater (The ten commandments for the XXI century is a remarkable view on ethics) Andrei Tarkovsky, Lars Gustavson,Oscar wilde,Walt Whitman, Thoreau, Rimbaud, the Beat Generation, Goethe,Baudelaire, Dostoyevsky, Wittgenstein, R.D. Laing, Stuart Hall or Foucault. Some films deeply affected me as Stalker, Pi, Elephant, La passion de Joanne d'Arc(Dreyer),Lucia Y el sexo,The lives of others, La fille sur le pont,Persona,Saraband. Dondurmam gaymak, Yol, Crossing bridges and much more Turkish cinema...I enjoy all kinds of music, from indie to jazz ( like a lot Free Jazz) Classical, Electronic, Trance. I fancy very much Free Improvisation... and the sound of a variety of musical instruments...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Living in a campervan and having to make a distinction between necessary and dispensable things...also the possibility of being mobile and exposed to the street... everyday.

Staying with a tribe (the Hammer) in Ethiopia

Teach, Learn, Share

Teaching everything i know, learning everything I can... all about reciprocal change...

I aim to develop my Yoga and Meditation, Shamanism, different approaches on Healing and related knowledge and a few other subjects (Photography, Sound, Mixed Arts, Dance, etc)...to know better International Relations and Politics.

Countries I’ve Visited

Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Mozambique, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

India, Portugal, Switzerland, United Kingdom

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