By Jillian Vriend

I have learned to live with all kinds of poop around me: bat, sheep, horse, dog, mouse, gecko, cow and chicken. And even to gather the poop that’s good for our young garden, mostly sheep and a little horse. Life has been about poop because it has been about soil. I’ve spent hours now looking at the soil in our garden area, assessing if it needs more compost, more water, more silty soil from the river. We were about preparing for soil for the first month and, now, we are about watering gently and observing as our plantings sprout up little green heads of life out of our soil.

I have never gotten to design a garden from weedy beginning to fruitful harvest. We were inspired to be non-linear in our design, creating curving and spiral raised mounds as beds. We inherited a plot here at Rancho Amigos that was already a 900 square feet with a solid concrete, but not quite complete wall built around it. So, we gratefully worked with what we had. For three years, sheep have been pooping in the lot so we figured it was pretty nitrogen rich. Still, we added month old compost composed of a ‘lasagna’ of green and brown manure. We also trucked in silty soil from near the river.

This is the best soil I have worked with, mostly because I’ve inherited gardens or even neglected yards in the past. We searched high and low (mostly online) until we found an organic, heirloom seed provider based here in Mexico. The seed company offered amazing varieties of all the vegetables that will grow well here in a tropical environment with a pronounced wet and dry season. We planted four varieties of beans, two varieties of tomatoes (with more to come), soy beans, green beans, jicama, tatsoi, bok choy, kale, daikon and regular radishes, carrots, green/red/white onions, jalapeno chilies and peppers. I sowed garbanzo beans and legumes that we bought at the store to eat, crossing our fingers that they will sprout and haven’t been sprayed with anti-growth chemicals. They are happily growing now. We also have arugula and cilantro growing in this garden, although most of our greens and herbs will be grown up by our house, as we’ll be picking from them often. We also received gifts of sweet potato slips, cocoa beans, and cucumber seeds from others in the community and from the sweet men who come here to work on construction.

I dream about seeds and little green heads bursting out of soil. The joy I feel looking at our freshly planted and mulched garden is difficult to describe. It is without connection to anything material. It is a sense of freedom that comes from taking care of your own needs without dependency on others. I feel it also when I turn on the taps here and fresh spring water comes out. And when our lone solar panel provides us even juice to charge our computers, play our stereos, and use the occasional appliance.

I’d had to adjust what beauty means to me. Just today, I was ‘decorating’ our living room, which mostly consisted of sweeping out old mouse poop and dust so I could put out the very few household decor items that we brought with us. I had a moment of feeling tears over what I had given up; so many beautiful pictures, stones, candles, plants, throw pillows…on and on…in order to pare down for the road trip here. I carefully picked these things out or they were lovingly given to us over the years and I had a moment of wishing that I could have them all back.

But, then, I looked out the wide open window at the view of the lake next to the house, or the canopy of trees providing sweet shade on hot days, or the expansive view of the surrounding hillside and the river valley off the veranda . This is beauty. It cannot be purchased or given away. It can be developed and destroyed but, here, on the ranch we are here at the invitation of nature and the Divine Mother. It invites us to be here and feel how it is to blend in with rather than to overcome nature. My tears faded as I took in the beauty around me, realizing that I had used objects when we lived in the city to supplement a sense of missing nature. I felt suffocated there with the windows mostly shut, the drywall surrounding me, the traffic noise a constant presence.

Life here is about simple joys and pervasive beauty. It is both subtle and, at times, extreme. The subtlety is found in the lens you use to perceive it….as lacking or as in bounty. The extremity is in the constant reminder that we are living in and near the wild without grid electricity, cell phone, or internet service. Both aspects are unpredictable and leave me with this sense that anything could happen and, if it does, it will be based in something natural.

Jillian Vriend is co-creator and facilitator of SoulFullHeart Way Of Life and author of three books.