By Jelelle Awen

Our life now has been shifting from gardening to building. Maintaining the three gardens is still a daily effort, mostly about harvesting beans (yeah!) and picking caterpillars off our tomato plants (yuck!). All of the gardens are maturing with some vegetables already having been harvested and replanted. We are now growing or harvesting fourteen kinds of beans, which grow very well here in Mexico and are natural nitrogen fixers. More standard varieties such as black, garbanzo, red, lima, pinto, green beans, and mung. Plus more exotic types from the heirloom seed company: cebra, parraleno, milpa, x-plon, cigna, lab lab, jacobo. Each bean variety has been a mystery: will it be a runner? A bush bean? A half runner?

The shift to building has been a somewhat sudden one. We felt a bit daunted at first wondering how we were going to build homes for ourselves with a very limited budget. Then, we started researching natural building methods and specifically cob building. We downloaded a very informative and encouraging book (which you can get here) about it and decided that it was the method that makes the most sense based on our resources. There is plenty of clay, sand, and straw here on the ranch to create a great cob mix. Cob invites creativity, resourcefulness, curved lines, and synergy with the earth. Our vision is to create three cabanas (little houses) for each of us, a community kitchen and dining structure, a compost toilet and shower building, and a group living room and healing space on the water tank structure that already exists on our lot.

Based on the needs we have for help with this building project, we are now offering free and low cost work exchange and immersion programs for anyone who would like to come and experience the ranch, focus on their personal growth process, and learn about or lend their natural building skills. Please go to soulfullheartwayoflife.com read more about these programs.

The time we’ve spent here has been so catalytic and nourishing that we are desirous to share it with others. We feel that spending time here really gives someone a taste for living sustainably and off grid in a practical and very visceral way. It is important practice for anyone thinking seriously about going off grid, growing their own food, and doing their own natural building. There is a natural growth process and deconditioning that happens when living behind a culture that you are used to and ways of life that you have become conditioned to. Without being able to process this deconditioning with someone, it becomes a difficult transition for most people. We have experienced ourselves quite powerful movements related to this life change and feel we can serve others based on this experience and our many years of focus on emotional and spiritual work.

Jelelle Awen is co-creator and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Go here to connect with Jelelle on facebook. Visit the SoulFullHeart website  for more information about virtual sessions with her.