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Modern Homesteading In Rural Mexico: Life At El Rancho Blog

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

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By Jillian Vriend

The foundation walls of our first cob (straw, clay, and sand) structure are growing. It is like a puzzle, taking random stones and fitting them together to form a sixteen inch wide wall. This first structure is a sleeping and living cabana for Christopher with an outdoor veranda. We will also create one for Wayne and I up on the hill by the large boulders. Our next building will most likely be the common area kitchen and dining building with storage and a pantry. Or maybe the pit/compost toilets and shower stalls. Some days it feels as if there is so much still to do and it almost feels impossible. Other days it seems amazing the progress we are already making by taking it poco y poquito (little by little.)

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I have become fond of the idea that we are homesteaders or perhaps home/heart/soulsteaders is even more apt. Homesteaders live sustainably and independently. A homestead is a sanctuary for individuals to grow their own food, including raising livestock (although we have only adopted the chickens here on the ranch to eat their eggs occasionally), to live much more simply, and to be unplugged from the grids. A modern homesteader is able to combine some of the conveniences of the modern age with techniques from our ancestors. The modern homesteader sees the bigger picture about the long term unviability of our industrial, profit-based, and growth obsessed culture. They feel that they don’t want to contribute to the consequences any longer of this culture and want to take providing of their own needs β€˜into their own hands’ (and hearts and souls, as it were.)

For us, the awakening about the consequences of industrial society and its seemingly inevitable collapse, is what motivated us to set up a homestead here in Mexico. Our biggest priority was to find a place with its own water source, fertile and unspoiled topsoil to grow organically, land for us to build homes on out of natural materials, and at a cost that we could afford since we were leaving Canada with a finite nest egg and without definite means to earn money in the future. We also felt that the rural Mexican culture would be more able to withstand collapse as they tend to live much more simply and cheaply and resourcefully than we do in the US and Canada. The village near the ranch just got electricity in 2008 and still doesn’t have wired up internet, only satellite service. This is an agriculture and ranching area. Many of the adults and land owners here grew up in this area and there is a love of for the land and nature that is palpable in the people here. There is also a heartiness in the people here that we all admire and especially notice that older men here are quite robust and healthy.

The learning curve over the last five months since we moved to our homestead has been huge. We have gotten some advice and guidance from locals here, but most of our guidance has been from a few good books and our own intuition. I am amazed at what I have learned and what I continue to learn every day about plants and how to grow them for food. My current learning curve is around saving seeds and what to plant in anticipation of the hot, humid, wet season that is coming soon. The β€˜rainy season’ (which goes from June to September and into October sometimes) here is looming a bit large in the moment as we haven’t been through it before. Rising water levels of the river that runs in front of the ranch can make it challenging to get here and usually the only way to cross it is by the couple of horses that are β€˜great swimmers.’ Two other people who live here on the ranch, a couple from Washington, are planning to buy a boat which we are hoping to use to boat here during the rainy season.

We are getting used to living with both unknowns and with a growing sense of security and safety about our choices to come here. We are becoming increasingly less reliant on industrial society and finding that giving up things that felt like necessities but are actually luxuries afforded to us through cheap oil primarily are not that hard to give up. And the benefits of appreciation, humility, and more connection with one another and the planet are huge.

Come visit us! Please visit soulfullheart.com to learn more about no cost volunteer opportunities to engage in healing, organic gardening, and natural building at a sustainable 700 acre eco-ranch in Mexico.

Building Foundations: Life At El Rancho Blog

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

jillian

By Jillian Vriend

Our world has been about seeds and plants and now, it is about rocks. Round river rocks and jagged creekbed rocks. Rocks stacked in a wall to form the foundation of our first cob house. We are using cob (a combination of sand, clay, and straw) mortar, which is getting us used to the sensation of mud on our hands and feet (you mix the cob with your feet). I feel my inner child in glee; we get to play in mud for a good reason! The rocks seem to have personalities and I didn’t realize that they can talk just as plants do. They seem to tell me where they will fit in the rock puzzle. And they all seem to want to be part of it. We are building foundations which could remain for centuries to be discovered by generations in the future.

Life cycles are ending in our first garden by the river, which we call the β€˜rio garden.’ The bean plants that are over three months old and have been giving us beans for a few weeks are starting to die and wilt. The tomatoes are wilting in the sun and the ones that the caterpillars don’t get are a welcome addition to salsas. Every time I harvest a bean pod I think of the plant’s will to live encompassed in the drying out pods. Each seed represents life even as the plant itself is dying.

As I talked about in this blog entry about death and rebirth, it is the season of the Dark Madonna or Kali. In this spring season, there is a feeling of anything can happen and if you’ve been running from change, it will find you. Kali offers a stark mirror for that which we’ve been avoiding or haven’t wanted to face in our own shadows. But, always, She offers a rebirth after the death into what is more real and less false. This can be a painful process, however, as parts of us attach to what is current and what we’ve become familiar with. It can be a very intense experience to let go of what we have known, even if it wasn’t making us happy or fulfilled.

For us, a big shift is happening in our personal world. It looks most likely that Kathleen will be moving on, probably staying local in the Puerto Vallarta area. Kathleen has been with us since the beginning of our arrival here in Mexico in October and off and on for over three years. Besides being a friend, she also has been engaging in our SoulFullHeart process since the beginning of its inception. The process for which she has come to the decision to leave and our process around it is quite vulnerable and raw still in the moment, so I feel to leave that for our private digestion. But, in her going, I can feel the death and rebirth cycle in a very intimate way. I’ve been through enough of them, usually by choice in the last several years as I’ve surrendered more to the Mother, to trust that whatever is lost or dies in this process will end up birthing me and others into a more authentic place. A place that we need to be. A place that ends up being the best one, even if it is hard to see that in the moment of loss and adjustment.

I feel even more how the ranch offers a hugely catalytic growth opportunity for those who desire it. Being unplugged from so many of the western world’s grids and immersed in nature the way we are here pushes up conditioning for us to feel and heal. I feel that anyone coming to stay here or visit here doesn’t remain unchanged. I certainly have been changed and continue to be, as have those around me have as well.

Please visit soulfullheart.com to learn more about no cost volunteer opportunities to engage in healing, organic gardening, and natural building at a sustainable 700 acre eco-ranch in Mexico.

Build It And Maybe They Will Come: Life At El Rancho Blog

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

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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.Β Go here to connect with Jelelle on facebook.Β Visit the SoulFullHeart website Β for more information about virtual sessions with her.

The Emerging Me Through Natural Education

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

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By Christopher Tydeman

In my former life, I was a teacher. I taught a range of ages from 7 to 12. I taught reading, writing, mathematics, history, science…et al. While I was teaching I was wondering if I was really teaching anything at all. I mean, yeah, I was helping with some basic fundamentals that are the building blocks of an education. But the content was a mixture of somewhat useful and interesting to downright drab and boring. I tried my best to bring in something meaningful and engaging but, to be honest, it was a lot of work. It all had to tie into the β€œStandards” of the prevailing curricula. Oh yes, the Standards.

We want our children to be β€œcompetent” so that they are β€œsuccessful in today’s highly competitive world.” As a former parent to a school-aged child, I bought that with half my heart and all my mind. I passed that down to my students and their parents and care-givers. If they could demonstrate β€œproficiency” they would have a much better chance of β€œmaking a better life for themselves”.

I agree that my use of quotes is a bit tongue and cheek seasoned with sarcasm. That is my intention. Even while I was buying and selling those words, I could feel how devoid of humanity they really were. The Standards System, or Core Knowledge, or whatever the hell they are calling it now, is nothing more than a conveyor belt by which the Industrial Machine can create its submissive robots. I couldn’t participate in that system anymore without being guilty by association.

Why am I writing about this now? Great question. It has been two years now that I have left my teaching career. I am also now just learning what real education is all about…self-sufficiency, emotional awareness and fluency, and a place to discover and nuture our Divinely-given gifts. I guess I just realized I am in school for the first time since I was a child, where learning happened through creative play and experimentation. As an adult, I can add a lot of physical work to that list. This was the education I wished I could have given my daughter and my students. This is the shit that really matters. I knew it mattered because my students went crazy for nature, food, play, and art. They, as well as us older children, were born with the Divine Fingerprint. The desire to be with what we need most as human beings.

Somewhere we forgot that along the way. Convinced ourselves it must be more complicated than that. But as I sit here in Mexico with gardens literally popping out the ground from our own research, intuition, play and labor, I can tell you it isn’t. Granted, it is hard work. I have worked hard before, but this is for our food. Our sustenance and currency. Our hearts and our souls. You can’t get more real than that. I am learning more about myself and nature, as Mother intended. This is the real classroom.

So, I am back to being a student again. That is hard for the Industrial part of me who thought we had it all figured out. Put in the time and retire in peace. But once you feel your true, wild, natural self you can’t stay in the System without feeling the rub, the pain. The un-naturalness of it all. The insanity. This part of me is becoming more aware of how much happier he is now than he was then. I am beginning to feel a new me arising from this transition from teacher to student. From Industrial Self to Natural Self.

At some point I see myself teaching again. Not sure what that would look like, but I know what it wouldn’t. Been there, done that. I see being a part of a new reality for education. One that will emerge from the collapse of the old. For now, I am enjoying the ride of sitting in the student seat. Learning from my SoulFullHeart family, the ranch workers, the animals, the plants, and the Divine. They are the best teachers I have ever had. Time to rewrite the standards from the inside out.

Poco a poquito: Life At El Rancho

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

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By Jillian Vriend

Poco a poquito or poco a poco means, β€œlittle by little,” in Spanish. The hispanic foreman here at the ranch uses it often and it’s become a favorite of ours as well. Not only is it fun to say (as so many Spanish phrases are), but it seems to capture a deeper lifestyle shift for me since moving to the ranch.

Recently, I was lining the spiral paths in our garden with river rocks that are piled close by. I started doing this to denote areas of the garden that were close to the path and in threat of getting stepped on. We sowed carrot seeds on a slope inches from the path and I didn’t want any unsuspecting foot crushing them. Then, I started lining paths that we created in some of the beds with rocks to denote where it was, again, ok to walk without crushing anything still dormant in the soil. I have been very relaxed about this process, mostly letting my inner child lead the way when she feels like adding more rocks. I was in the middle of adding more rocks when Chino, the aforementioned foreman, came by. He said the word for β€œpath” in Spanish and we communicated through hand gestures that I was, indeed, using the river rock to line all the paths.

Chino offered then to wheel barrow over a bunch of rocks for me. I knew how Chino worked, which was in a big display of strength and grounded push. I knew I would find myself with a huge pile of rocks in a short period of time. I smiled at him and pointed to the bucket I was using to slowly bring them over. Then I used his seemingly favorite expression, β€œpoco a poquito.” This he got immediately, smiled at me, and moved on.

This sense of responding to things needed to be done, little by little, is a different approach than the pushing productivity of the western world and actually in most work projects. While there is a sense of importance about getting our garden planted and harvesting from it, there is also a feeling that nature will take its own time. There will be periods of activity and periods of rest. Periods of big growth and periods of little growth. Indeed, little by little, our garden grows and rather than feel that I am β€˜working’ on the garden every day, I feel that I am responding to it in a circular way.

Some days that means adding more stones to line the paths and some days that means not adding any. I trust that eventually all the paths will be lined. I feel like this approach is what I imagine for our next garden, which will surround the house that we are staying in on the ranch. We imagine creating a herb spiral full of basil, oregano, cilantro, thyme, chamomile, and more. Rows of tropical lettuce, arugula, mizuna (an asian type of lettuce), and mustard greens will be tucked near the house with ready shade and easy watering. Perky sunflowers and other flowers will line the walk way up to the house, inviting creatures and people to come in. We want to create a path made of brick from the back walkway to the outdoor kitchen and level out the back of the house by the veranda for placement of some hammocks.

Or maybe not. This is the plan but we’ll see what actually unfolds…little by little.

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

Letting Go Of Who You Are Not: Life At El Rancho

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

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Β By Wayne Vriend

It’s been a couple months now just about since arriving at our destination: Rancho Amigos, though my sense of tracking time is way off from what it used to be. It sure doesn’t feel in any way like January, sitting here at 9 in the morning in shorts and a tee shirt on the veranda of our β€˜guest house.’ I occasionally glance at the date on my cell phone, when I’m using it for it’s main purpose lately: the Spanish English dictionary app. I haven’t received a call on it for months now. It feels new and strange to not have reason to track the date, or the time of day for that matter.

We have a 250 watt solar panel, an inverter, and 4 very heavy batteries, that works great to power our laptops, run a few kitchen appliances etc. It’s kind of like camping on steroids. The blend of technology on what feels like me to be the edge of civilization provides quite the contrast. I tell myself to enjoy while we have it, because we don’t have the means to replace this stuff when it gives up. Thank God my 8 year old laptop isn’t complaining.

As I write this, I can feel the question of β€˜Why am I writing, what am I wanting or seeking?’ or does it have more to do with contributing, giving back? I’ll keep feeling that as I write and see where this goes.

The last several days have felt intensely full. We moved from our tent camp on the ranch into the guest house after the workers completed some bathroom and outdoor kitchen tiling and plumbing connections. It all had to β€˜hand bomb’ our stuff up a hill, as part of me likes to call it, as the ranch truck is waiting for a part from town. Then we planted our 900 square feet garden. The garden has felt like such a lifeline. We’re hoping to drastically reduce the amount of fruits and vegetables we buy in town on our weekly trip, in keeping with our budget predictions, more or less.

Back to the questions above: I can feel a part of me hesitant to write, not sure what tack to take. Shall we share the content of what life is like and what is changing externally with some commentary on the internal changes that afford that? Why bother writing about it at all? Is anyone being helped by it? Is part of me hanging on to an old identity of a blogger, writer, and healer as a steadying handrail in the midst of so much change? The questions are all here and baking in the oven so to speak. The answers aren’t clear.

I can so feel the surrender that it has taken to choose this path over the past year, and how that has been a continuation really of the past 10 years…letting go of the familiar when it feels time. When something feels complete in your life, staying any longer inside of that place has a signature feeling of you stagnating, of dying. Something wants to die all right, but only to make way for new life. Death can be so full of life, if we surrender to it. It is actually the refusal to surrender to natural deaths in our lives that brings on a kind of death we were not meant for.

Surrendering into an unknown is avoided for the fear it brings of being with the questions the unknown brings with it. Why am I here? and Who am I? What makes me fulfilled? I’m really curious at this point what another year of this so much simpler life will bring in terms of meaning and fulfillment, how I will perceive myself, and others, how I will perceive my own power in the world around influence or money?

Unanswered questions are the best, so I’ll leave those to bake and yield whatever insights they may. Maybe when all of our questions are answered, the quest of life itself is no more. And whoever came up with the idea that God himself, herself or itself actually knows the answers? What if us questing with our questions is god just goddin’ through us? Huh? Way cool shit man. Way cooler than the β€˜to hell with you if you don’t get it figured out right shit.

Letting go of the contextual quest for the moment and just being okay with the sacredness of the content…the changes here and now on the ground, in this phase of life I live. Can you feel the difference? Do you know the part of you that can get lost in content, all the doing of life? And the heart and soul part of you who seeks to rise above it? Both are necessary and need to be baptized into the sacredness of a whole-some you.

As I was saying, about the content:

Internet: Getting the Internet here on the ranch is a $3,000 satellite installation away I’m told, and we’re not so sure we actually want it, even if we could afford it. That leaves us two hours drive away from the internet cafes and means that it has to fit into the trip to town day which has meant for me 20 minutes on line for every 2 weeks. It continues to open out for us how big a step it is to get out of the internet grids 24/7. It makes space for returning to our essential beings, being in nature and in our humanity. It’s kind of like those weird kids of my generation that grew up without TV, and how they were the most creative kids on the block.

Money: I did the last of my painting contracting days in August of last year in Canada, earning crazy good money. Doing something for 30 years enabled a finding of the best situations as far as easy money was concerned, but it also left me in a frequency zone of being a painting contractor, ready, willing and available, that was becoming less and less of who and what I am. Not that I’m real sure of who I am as I said earlier, but oftentimes, it’s about letting go of who you are not, or who you are not any longer. We alchemized and pooled all the money we could for this move to Mexico beginning when we decided to come in May of last year. We have about a year or more of money on hand to buy necessities if we live very simply, and partake of the yields of the garden, as well as the many fruit varieties on the ranch.

There isn’t any money income coming our way that we know of or expect. That’s an ongoing adjustment for me, at times that has felt totally scary, but each time, as I feel the fear and what’s behind it, it opens out into a trust and a rest. It births a trust in who we are and the value that we bring to life and others that will translate into our needs being met, but probably not so much through the fiat currency channels as the means of exchange that we have all become so entrained in. Today for example, I just brought a very welcomed coffee to the construction workers and one of the workers promised to bring me cocoa plant seedlings next week. Another promised me something yesterday from his garden that I didn’t understand. The energy of being in exchange with people feels like the natural and necessary future for us.

Social: Our English works well of course for the four of us on the ranch here, but that’s the end of it. Everyone else here is a Spanish speaker at the moment. The other β€˜members’ of the ranch that have homes under construction are still waiting to move in and only visit here occasionally. So we practice our growing Spanish every day with the 4 ranch workers and the 6 construction workers that either camp out for the work week or horseback it daily here. It’s a bit of a euphoric experience to speak English with anyone outside of the four of us.

Pausing here in the writing for now, other things call in the moment….mostly life to be surrendered and responded to.

Wayne Vriend is co-creator and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life.

Sowing Seeds Of Beauty And Hope: Life At El Rancho

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment
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Jillian and her dog Koda at Rancho Amigos

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 β€˜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 β€˜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.

Fire Among The Ashes: A Mid-Life Awakening

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

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By Christopher Tydeman

I am typing this on New Year’s Eve 2014. A typical time for reflection. It is also a few weeks before my birthday. Those two events always elucidate a form of taking stock and evaluation. They just happen to be really close in proximity for me. A double dose in this case. I find that to be a blessing in the moment. It signifies something big for me. I know that time is just an illusion, but to a part of me it has much relevance as a marker or a yard stick. If I hold it with a larger context then this part of me doesn’t get mired in the content of what didn’t happen this year or what should happen in the following year of my life.

I was staring at a bed of coals from a campfire. The burning embers were glowing with their hot orange and red hue while surrounded by the dead gray ash of the previous flame. It was like looking at a pulsating heart in the middle of a dying body. As each moment passed the life of the fire became smaller and smaller until it would eventually merge with its lifeless surroundings. There was a message or a metaphor in that for me.

I am entering a new phase of my life. A completely new life to be honest. I am no longer a part of the old structure and conditioning I was used to for 43 years. I am in a foreign country with basic yet emerging language skills, a dwindling fiat currency supply, and, at present, no generation of future funds. This couldn’t be farther than what I was taught to believe was the β€œright” way to live life at this age. I β€œshould” have a house. I β€œshould” have a career. I β€œshould” be planning for my retirement. As I sit from where I am, that just feels like the ashes surrounding the hot coals. The death that smothers the fire of passion, desire, and life itself.

Many would call this a mid-life crisis. I would prefer to call it a mid-life awakening. An opportunity to take back what was given to me by the Divine Itself. The power and choice to live a life of freedom, self-reliance, and joy. Not some fabricated, name-brand, β€œthis is what makes everyone else happy” type of bullshit. But authentic, down to nature, human to human, self to self type of contact. Life is not an Easy Bake Oven for Christ’s sakes. But it’s not torture either. It’s a daily round of the ebb and flow of hard work and rest. Of desire and surrender. Of challenge and ease. Of getting to the guts of what really matters while eating a plate of home grown vegetables. Anything else is just corporate politics trying to sell you a life they convinced you was better than the one that God gave you.

I don’t have any clue what will happen this coming year. Hell, I don’t have a clue what will happen next month for that matter. Before my deconditioning, I could more or less guess what my life would be like one year to the next. Work would be the same. Daily routines would be the same. Even the unknown parts would be planned and then made known. My sustenance would be easy and never be in question. I would spend my β€œfree” time trying to forget that I wasn’t free at all.

But now each day is an unknown adventure. I am helping to grow our own food by creating a rich soil foundation and utilizing limited space to produce an abundance of nutrition. I am learning Spanish by fumbling my way through understanding and speaking. I am beginning to make connections with others who live in a nearby community to help strengthen a bond of genuine respect and collaboration. I am continuing to delve deeper into my own being, both emotional and spiritual, through my daily relations with my SoulFullHeart family. As I type this, I realize how rich my life really is in comparison to what it was.

Interesting. So the less I know, the richer life becomes. The more I know, the duller. There is a wisdom here in Mexico that eludes the rest of industrial society. Life doesn’t happen later, it exists now. In the moment. Anything that happens has a solution, one way or another, at some point. It will get taken care of and life will continue while you enjoy your cerveza. People will take care of one another, even if they don’t know you. There is always something to share with each other, even if it is a smile and an β€œHola”. I am honored and proud to be in Mexico in my next life journey. I don’t know what happens this coming year and I am okay with that. I am here now. I am enjoying this paradise I co-alchemized. I look forward to sharing it with others, to help them feel what it is that they truly want in their lives. For a moment to let go of all they have been trying to be and allow themselves to be just as they are . . . a fire among the ashes.

Christopher Tydeman is a SoulFullHeart facilitator. Visit soulfullheart.com for more information.

The Me In The We: Feeling Myself Within Community

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment
SoulFullHeart Mandala designed by Christopher Tydeman
SoulFullHeart Mandala designed by Christopher Tydeman

by Christopher Tydeman (now Sequoia Heartman)

Since I can remember, a part of me has generally been a loner. Not in the lonely sense of the word but in the β€œI enjoy my me time” sense. When I wasn’t playing with friends (yes, I did have them), I was in my room playing with my Star Wars action figures, building with my Legos, or outside climbing trees and acting out loud some dramatic scene of me saving the world. Though I had a few close friends in my life, ones that I spent a lot of time with, I still found myself enjoying my β€œme” time.

In regards to my family, I can remember liking my space from the volatility of my birth parents. The stresses of everyday life found there way energetically into the house and my room was a respite from that. I remember having close family friends that I spent weekends and summers with. That was my first taste community outside the family unit. As kids, we fought, argued, did the silent treatment, forgot what we were mad about, and then continued on. All within a span of 30 minutes most times. Having fun was way more important. But when I got into my room, I felt like I was home. I could rest and be me.

When I became a teenager, this need for personal space amplified, as it does for most. I had a core group of friends that I partied and hung out with quite often, but, again, I found solace in my room. This time it was with music, television, and art. Staying up until the wee hours drawing album covers for my favorite heavy metal bands. I felt a β€œme” in my room that no one could touch. When I was β€œout there”, it was about fitting in, staying away from the assholes, and following the rules. Community was a much bigger and scarier place.

As I entered college, and moved into dormitory life, community felt a bit safer and more real. So many different people coming together with so many different ways of seeing and feeling the world. It was exciting and engaging. I was not feeling the need as much to have my own space, plus it was impossible anyway. During that time, I felt another β€œme” that I hadn’t experienced before. One that saw life through a bigger lens. My β€œroom” got a whole lot larger. Then, I began to wonder who the hell I really was.

During my time in the dorms, I met my former wife, Jillian, and we became a community of two. We had friends, but it was our relationship that felt more like the room of my youth. Together we explored who we were in the great dance of Life itself. Not long afterward, our daughter made her way to us and community changed once again.

Suddenly, my β€œme” became a father. I had to became a provider. I stopped exploring and started working. The part of me that felt unsure about being a father, held on tightly to being responsible in the Western-style ethos. I was too tired from work and child raising to feel me anymore. I continued on the path of being a good provider that led me to a β€œsolid” job an elementary school teacher.

As a teacher, you, by default, become a member of β€œthe community”. The neighborhood, the families, the teachers, and students. You are trained to leave your Self at the door. It’s not about you, it’s about them. So for someone who had been not feeling himself for sometime, teaching young children was not going to get me there anytime soon. A good teacher is dedicated to their students. That is the mantra of the Good Teacher Brigade. You also go to concerts, sporting events, meetings, conferences, social events, recess duty, bus duty, field trips, and on and on. Who am I again?

During this time, I was no longer married and was living on my own with my daughter half the time. After a few years of teaching 24/7, I realized that I had ignored that part of me that I used to hang out with in the room of my youth. The care free, happy, creative part of me. I began to be with myself more and do things that I enjoyed like exercise, hiking, and playing guitar. And through that, I began to feel the depth of my unhappiness. I missed Me. The Me that could create a world from scratch. The Me that could stay up all night with a piece of paper and a pencil. The Me that saw beauty, love, and magic in all things. The Me that felt the Great Spirit and wondered about the Great Mystery. Where had I gone?

Enter SoulFullHeart. Jillian, my former wife, had been on a healing path for many years. She offered to help me with this question. It started as an exploration and has evolved into intimate community. Through my process I have been healing my way back to Me. There are a lot of layers, more than I ever imagined. To feel those, there has to be vulnerability or else they can’t move. And that is hard for someone so inclined to be alone. In essence, to be hidden. For a while, it is necessary. I wrote about it in a blog I wrote a couple of years ago. But then there is a graduation to another level of intimacy.

Beginning in March of this year I, along with Kathleen, moved to an RV campground with Jillian and Wayne. This was a new level of community, in that we began to share meals, exercise together, and generally spend more time together and in closer proximity. After coming to the decision to exodus to Mexico, I sold my RV and began to live with them in their camp site. My personal space had gone from a one-bedroom apartment, to an RV, to a tent in 4 months. For a part of me, that tent was my room from years gone by. He felt safe and comfortable just as he had when he was a child.

It is important for me to feel the needs of this part of me. Without doing so, he gets depressed and tense. The feeling is similar to having a hard time breathing. This certainly goes back to more than just this life. I haven’t gotten there yet but there is something soul-based about it. It is more important for me to feel it, than to figure it out right now. Especially, now.

Since we left Canada for Mexico, I have not had much of my own space. This is the most intimate I have been my whole life. We are currently living in a studio-type dwelling, which is more reminiscent of youth hostel than an apartment. We eat, sleep, change, read, write, cook, talk, process all within 750 square feet. We are waiting to get to our sanctuary on the ranchΒ while the home we are staying in is completed, the roads get grated and the river water recedes. Though this is temporary, it is the perfect trigger to highlight my relationship to community and my Self. How do I feel the Me in the We?

I have to feel the needs of my parts alongside the needs of the group. There are times when I have to advocate for my space even if it means not being a part of something that I may be needed or desired to be a part of. That is hard to do when another part of me is a people pleaser. An internal conflict arises. But the more I advocate for that, the less I actually β€œneed” it. There are also times when a part of me will need to be negotiated with because my community, my family, needs me. It won’t always be on its schedule, but I will always find the time. That is what it means to hold a part of you.

This experience has highlighted something that I have forgotten. While my community needs me, my parts need me as well. And sometimes my parts don’t want to be in community, and that’s okay. It actually get me back to Me. Remember? The one in the beginning of this blog. It gets me back to my roots. The reason I am here in the first place.

I am an artist. I want to create art. Art for me, art for others, art for the Divine, art for the earth. I am a healer. I want to heal myself and the earth, and I want to help others heal themselves. I want to use art to do that through sessions.Β That is the Me in the We. That is my heartsong in the choice. That is what I will continue to wake up for and be a part of in the way of life called SoulFullHeart.

Sequoia Heartman (previously Christopher Tydeman) is an apprentice facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information.Β 

Letting Go Of Cultural Assumptions : Mission To Me Journal With Wayne and Yeshua

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

missiontomewayne

By Wayne Vriend

Wayne – Whoa, Yeshua. Can’t guess where to begin just now. So much changing…Are you up for dialogue?

Yeshua – You know me, I miss interaction of heart and feeling. Nothing satisfies like it.

W – I know. I’ve always hungered for that my whole life it seems. What is it that makes way for that and what is it that shuts that down between people?

Y – It has so much to do with your assumptions about life, how you deeply and especially subconsciously feel about your life, your relationships to everything, the planet, others, divinity.

W – Somehow, though knowing you, I don’t think you have a β€˜change your belief system’ prescription answer to this though.

Y – That has been a popular prescription, but it is now being realized that this is such an outside-in approach, trying to deal with the unwanted symptoms of the much deeper held felt reality of someone’s life. When something is truly addressed and moved on this deep heart level, there isn’t any need for belief system adjustments to tidy up the mess.

W – This whole realm feels so alive for me personally right now as we’ve just left Canada permanently, embraced Mexico, and are being introduced to a brand new, to us at least, culture. Then, on top of that, preparing to live even more remotely and deeply off the grids of western civilization at the ranch.

Y – That will wake you up for sure.

W – It so does. It wakes up a lot of stuff. Desire, passion, joy, for sure, but that’s not all. I’ve also felt some pretty deep fear places that I didn’t know were still there to the level they were.

Y – Which brings us to one of humanity’s biggest and longest surviving assumptions about life itself……

W – Here comes the heart and soul interaction, please go on, seatbelt’s fastened.

Y – One the single largest and lasting false assumptions about life is that fear is an enemy. Fear is not an enemy, but a very natural part of life. People don’t go crazy because of their fears, but because of their resistance to feeling their fears. Being human is being in fluent contact with whatever fears come up. Most people structure everything about their lives to spare them this sovereign responsibility. Keeping life the same as much as possible, (which is such a rinky-dink achievement at best; because life itself will always undermine the best of these change-less fortresses) is an attempt literally against your true human and divine nature.

W – I know I could use some more kindergarten around this one because I surprised myself lately with what fears are still lurking, and don’t feel very far away from me even right now.

Y – That’s nice and humble of you to make the beginner kindergarten reference, but really that’s another thing rooted in the fear picture.

W – I was feeling that as I said it.

Y – Well, what was the fearful part of you trying to cover over?

W – Fearing not being seen as relevant and relatable.

Y – Being real is the very definition of being relatable. Hiding a fear is the very essence of withdrawing yourself from the human experience. Can you tell me the texture of this fear of not being relatable?

W – The texture is something like being estranged or excluded from a source of love, which then manifests in a shrinking-to-fit the people I’m relating to.

Y – Being more than or less than you truly are, are both equally an expression of an unfelt fear. And this unfelt fear that is disowned and unacknowledged in this way, goes on to remove the heart and soul from your sacred grounding in your real sacred human experience and sovereign territory.

W – Which gets us back to the assumptions you were talking about.

Y – How so…teacher?

W – When I’ve subscribed to the lie that a successful or meaningful or powerful life is about having less fear or anxiety, I structure everything in my life, my relationships, my spiritual, emotional, and physical health right down to the very cells in my body in an attempt to live inside of this assumption about life…..which given enough time, only eventually proves the falseness and uselessness of the assumption.

Y – Which ties into what?

W – Which ties into that one of our deepest soul fears is being in life without a clutching grasp on what reality is, what really matters…why I’m here and all of that…along with what really is β€˜here’ for that matter. Honestly, I don’t know. Admitting that I don’t know enters me into true learning which isn’t about decoding the universe, but rather being caught up continuously in its unfolding wonder. Observer vs. knower and all of that good stuff.

Y – And what about all of the God shit religious people peddle……what’s that about?

W – When I feel into the god shit I peddled to myself and others, It’s really about our collective need to feel secure in having others living like we are, which is the very essence of culture, and cults for that matter.

Y – Which brings you back to what?

W – Well, if hiding from fear is a common to man assumption, albeit a hindering one, in this phase of our consciousness, it brings me back to a shared common denominator that I share with all men. None of us are excluded. We are all learning a similar lesson.

Y – But…what?

W – But, even in this common denominator, we are not the same. Each of us is at different places in this journey.

Y – Where are you at in this journey…I mean as near as you can tell?

W – Well, I’ve been doing a lot of letting go of my acquired cults and culture for a long time now it seems, courageously moving on from one life cycle to the next when it no longer felt like me. I just let go of another few big ones, with leaving my country, oh, and my livelihood career security blanket of the past 30 years.

Y – I’d say that’s a whole lot different than where the majority of humanity is at.

W – Yes, that is.

Y – Well then, fuck that kindergarten shit, man!

W – Thank you.

Y – Good answer! πŸ™‚ Thank you!

In this blog series, Mission To Me Journal, Wayne Vriend shares his unedited and vulnerable journal conversations with Yeshua, who he experiences as an ascended teacher energy available to everyone.These blogs offer Wayne’s process and digestions with Yeshua as he undergoes internal and external process moving to Mexico to be inΒ anΒ eco-conscious community. ReadΒ 90 Days With Yeshua: Modern Message From An Ascended TeacherΒ and Ending The Money Madness With Wayne And Yeshua for more conversations between Wayne and Yeshua.