Everything around seems to be moving in hyper-speed, and everything internal is fighting for some quietness in order to process this incredibly fast shifting. As many people know we had put our farm and home up for sale this year. Like so many people in this economy we were feeling really pressured to make some conscious changes. We took an amazing trip out west this summer. It was a trip that was making up for 7 years of no real family vacations with the kids. It was the most needed and amazing experience to completely step out of life, and be able to look at this life we had created from an outside view, and really spend amazing time connecting with each-other. So much of what we thought needed to happen was to truly use this as a chance to fulfill a dream. Moving out west, into the mountains..or near the ocean..to a place of beauty so intense it still fills me with tears when I think about it all. Leaving it all behind and completely simplifying life could really create a space of Mike not always feeling compelled to keep up with the physical farm duties, and a chance for me to step back from so much work running several businesses and missing out on time with my kids. So many beautiful places we visited we could easily picture ourselves in long term. The kids were really amazing and so excited about just about any new place as a new home town. Living out of the van for a month, camping and staying with wonderful people along the way REALLY gave us even more of a view of the life we knew we needed to work at. It was so easy to picture ourselves so many places because all we really need is each-other...food and someplace comfortable to sleep.....
So much of what our society has gotten away from has to do with having way too much, needing way too much. Turkey vulture flies over very often, its message is so important now..waste not want not... In the history of cultures, everyone used what was available to build homes, clothes, tools, they worked together as community for the highest good of everyone involved. I'm not sure when it all happened, but man did we take a giant leap away from the resourcefulness of our ancestors!!
So here we were. We knew we were being asked to make some major changes, and it is so important to me that we start healing this earth, start replenishing what is so little and what used to be thriving. Our thoughts, our energies, and certainly our way of life will directly effect the next 7 generations. Thinking of starting over somewhere else is so amazing, but starting to build a home from scratch and the effects of physical activity to Mikes body was very overwhelming. So many messages I was getting on our trip was all about community. So much of our time and energy had been spent the last few years building this earthship for the farm, the wellness center, and the main foundation and framing was already done..... it only made sense to continue what we had already come so far on. Although this was not the intension for this building, everything in our lives change, everything shifts and it all happens exactly the way it needs to.
So for now, between the double vending events, and taking care of our amazing kids, we have been working every spare moment on getting the earthship sealed in before winter. Let me tell you, going from freeing my mind from everything I once knew to stepping right back into the fast flow, plus adding building a home, has definitely not been easy. Ive had so many doubts and questions along this part of the journey. However, the beauty of it is knowing this is what we need to do, and Mike is always so amazing at encouraging me and assuring me it will all work out. (somehow we have completely switched roles, because that used to BE me and now he does it FOR me :) The letting go ALWAYS allows the universe to flow freely within our lives.
Our home and woods will soon belong to someone else, and parts of me are sad, but so much more of me knows how important and needed working together as a community is with the shifts going on in this world. Even more of me knows that every can and tire packed into this home with mud is one more can or tire that is not being burned or dumped into a landfill.
We have had some volunteers through the last few months, and we are SO grateful and thankful to each and every one of you! There are some wonderful things you can learn from spending time on this building and we are always very open to extra hands, and can always use extra help.
My aunt who passed away several years ago made a cd for us all, on the cover is her beautiful smiling face and the sentence "what lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us" (Ralf Waldo Emerson)
That is it...that is everything... it is what we hold inside, the essence of who we are that is always with us, so much of the rest of the world changes and shifts and we must be flexible with it. Living with compassion and love and only the highest good of everyone inside.... thats how we can make it through everything and it is together...
I do know my role with the farm is changing, and I am so excited to start focusing on the Wellness retreats very soon.... empowering ourselves is the most amazing step we can take to healing this planet...
