The Logo

The Green Man, the ancestral spirit of the forests, is represented here by an oak, a symbol of strength and wisdom. And it is precisely the oak that is the predominant secular tree in Mata da Albergaria, one of the most important forests in the Peneda-Gerês National Park (PNPG), which seems like something out of a fairy tale. The Celts assumed the oak as a deity and a symbol of welcome or home and also a type of temple, given its strong trunk and thick branches and foliage. For this reason, in Ireland, churches were called dairthech, "oak houses", the same name that among the Druids meant sacred grove.

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The dot and circle symbolize the beginning of the Universe, spiritual perfection, the union of the elements, the energy and plenitude of the complete being. The circle is also a symbol of movement, like the wheel and the dwellings of all nomadic people who also arranged their camps in the form of a protective circle.

The PNPG mountains are also represented, and in the seventh chakra (coronary), which is considered the gateway to immanent energy, the fire element.

And regarding the people who inhabited these lands of Gerês, writes the author Domingos M. Da Silva in his book “Entre Homem e Cávado”: ​​“It is known, especially from Plínio's confession, that these Galicians or Brácaros, who inhabited the mountains, were very difficult to conquer. Furthermore, they had dense oak forests that were centuries old to defend them; They hid in the trunks of these worm-eaten trees and from there made the most unexpected attacks against Brutus' legions.

From this first impression and way of dealing with the persistent and victorious enemy, these brave Lusitanians of the North deserved the honorable, historic epithet of Querquenos, which can be translated as “carvalheiros”.

And so, with these intrinsic values, Green Man Gerês emerged, a company focused on human and local factors, concentrating the best that nature offers us, in sustainability.

From the root of the oak we can see shapes that resemble watercourses, but it is from the center of the root that one of the best-known Celtic symbols emerges, the Triqueta. For the Celts, it represented life, death and reincarnation. However, this symbol also refers to physical, mental and spiritual concepts. That is, body, mind and soul or spirit.

The Celtic triqueta also represented the three forces of nature. Earth, water and air. Among leaves and branches that resemble the branches of a deer, which is also the symbol of the PNPG, we can see three acorns, the fruit of the oak that will bring new life. And the symbolic importance of the number 3 is not found in the logo by chance. It is the number of creativity and expression, for the Celts it represented balance and perfection.

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