Poco a poquito or poco a poco means, “little 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 “path” 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, “poco 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 ‘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.
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 ‘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 ‘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 ‘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 ‘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 ‘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.
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.
Nature is our partner, not our slave– Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway
By Jelelle Awen
Being here on the ranch has brought into my awareness another part or subpersonality aspect which I am calling our industrialized self. The industrialized self is a false self version of us that has been created from industrial society. It is entitled, disempowered, reliant, and overly medicates with material goods attainment and easy access to life’s essentials and also internet. It is a creation of the modern age. Often it exists in a virtual reality and is non relational. The industrialized self’s message is about shoulds: You should have a nice car. You should have a good paying job. You should have a mortgage. You should invest in the stock market. You should do what everyone else is doing.
On the ranch, we are living off grid and currently camping in tents while the house we are staying in is finished. We have no internet or cell phone service and no city electricity or water. We get our water lines hooked up in a series of water lines to natural springs at the property and we get some electricity from our solar panel. We take dips in the river daily to clean off (even though showers are available) and we handwash our laundry and hang it on a clothes line. Our industrialized self is not used to this sort of living and generally would resist this kind of lifestyle. I have been deconditioning from my industrialized self for a number of years, especially when I moved out of a home and into an RV last year. This part of me that was used to fairly spacious and nice places to live had to get used to the small yet cozy space of the RV. This part of me had to adjust to shared laundry and shower facilities, a very small kitchen with a propane stove and oven, and sharing our ‘front yard’ with many people passing through. But now, this part of me is being challenged even more by the lifestyle we are living.
I feel that with the most likely impending collapse of industrial society, all of our industrialized parts will need to make intense adjustments in lifestyles. In some cases, people won’t be able to survive because they haven’t done enough transition to self sustainablity, especially in the crucial areas of providing themselves with fresh water and growing their own food. I feel it is the industrialized self that resists making these changes in a proactive way and keeps many people in denial.
I feel that the industrialized self heals to more expressions of what we are calling our wild self as it is felt by you, negiotated with, and you begin to make changes toward a more sustainable lifestyle. Negotiating with this part is crucial to be able to proactively make changes prior to collapse. If not negotiated with, it will sabotage your efforts to become self sustainable in some of the following ways: drawing a mate who doesn’t support your desires for self sustainability; becoming economically dependent or sabotaging your money resources related to becoming sustainable; receiving harsh judgments from friends and family about your plans and agreeing with them; learning very much about collapse but not taking action; being in denial about collapse and very resistant to hearing about it. The industrialized self heals to become our wild self.
The wild self is an aspect of our sacred humanity that has been unformed by industrialized society. It is untamed and unconcerned with rules and societal norms. It is connected deeply to our gut instinct, our primal nature. It thrives and comes alive in natural environments, the more natural and wild the setting the better and the more ‘unprepared’ the better. Our wild side naturally connects to all animals and plants. If it must kill, it does it with honor and reverence and gratitude. Our wild side can merge in with nature and become one with it. The wild self arises without personality in response to the environment. I feel it cannot really come alive until you have negotiated with and deconstructed the industrialized self to a large degree. Weekend wilderness trips give a taste of it, but not the full meal. The wild self doesn’t care about the latest and great camping gear or spending lots of money on it or keeping up with friends related to the latest trends. The wild self prefers to experience nature alone or with a deep intimate where talking isn’t even needed. The wild self feels the sacredness of nature, respects the rhythms, leaves no trace of its presence and exists in partnership in nature rather than trying to dominate it. The wild self can take care of all of its basic human needs and also its spiritual and emotional ones. It is naturally in abidement with the Divine in every moment and doesn’t need religion or church or a guru to experience It.
After global collapse of industrial society, it our wild self which will survive and thrive amongst the ruins of city infrastructure, highway systems, obsolete electric grids, declining fossil fuels, and shattered economic and political configurations. Even prior to this collapse, we can experience the healing of our industrialized self and the emergence of our wild side, which allows us to take in more of nature and our surroundings.
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.
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 “right” way to live life at this age. I “should” have a house. I “should” have a career. I “should” 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, “this 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 “free” 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 “Hola”. 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.
All of my life I have been plugged into the grids. These grids provided in an anonymous way, all that I needed of electricity, water, food, and gas. I flipped the switch and currents coursed through. I turned the tap and water flowed out. I squeezed the handle and gas pumped out. I cruised the aisle of supermarkets and food was harvested. Flipping and turning, squeezing and cruising, that was all. I never thought much about this process until a few years ago when I began to increase my awareness of the environmental consequences of our modern lifestyles. Connecting the dots from resource allocation to resource acquisition to resource exploitation, awakened me to how all of these things came to me and the impact on the world. Also, I became more convinced that a major global collapse of easy access to these finite resources is inevitable. Therefore, becoming conscious and self sustainable related to these resources became crucial to me and led to the decision to move to an offgrid ranch in Mexico.
I think there can be a romanticism related to becoming self sustainable. A romanticism that can lead to inaction fueled by overwhelm and denial. What I have discovered after living in a sustainable way related to these resources is that this lifestyle offers many gifts, both sentimental and pragmatic. Once the crucial paradigm shift happens that separates us from our fusion with the grids, our adaptable and resourceful human instinct for survival can kick in. We have been greatly separated from this instinct by the insular reality of our industrial society. In order to truly live sustainably, we have to reconnect with both our gut and our heart.
Here on the ranch, we live without city water and city electricity. But, we get to live with wonderfully nourishing water from underground springs and any electricity we need is provided by the sun’s rays. We live without internet and cell phones. But, we get to live incredible sunsets, hikes in the woods, cleansing dips in the river, spontaneous horseback rides, evening bon fires, encounters with many creatures both wanted and not (scorpions-not, geckos- yes). We live without grocery stores and restaurants. But, we get to live with fresh bananas cut in a bunch from the tree; papayas prodded down from their lofty birch by bamboo poles; incredible superfoods noni and morenga harvested whenever we want to; lemons and limes picked from organic trees. And, we get to live with crafting and alchemizing our own organic garden spaces with a combination of book smarts and soul retrieved knowledge.
There are still things that feel challenging to give up, but we are finding our way. The most difficult for me has been refrigeration. My whole life I’ve had access to cold food, another thing that I never thought about. Open the fridge door, and there it was. We have one solar panel and four good batteries, which allow us to charge our devices (kindles and computers), use some appliances (blender, crock pot, hot water kettle), and light some twinkle lights and lamps. But refrigerators take a lot of juice, so, we decided to see how it would be to live without one. We are vegan, so our refrigeration needs are lower than people who eat meat and dairy. We’ve been using two zeer pots(evaporative cooler pots made out of clay) that were already here on the ranch and we find that they keep leftovers, beers, and wine somewhat cold. But it’s been an adjustment for sure.
I didn’t use the internet regularly until I was in my 20s. I grew up without it and my imagination flourished because of it. I was outdoors most of the time and when I couldn’t be, I would create elaborate play worlds out of basements and bedrooms. Like most everyone else in western culture, I got deeply into the internet and even most recently spent many hours online creating and keeping our blog and website up to date. It had become my creative playground and I have moments for sure where I miss that outlet for my creativity. But, also, I feel that the internet becomes yet another grid that we connect to, that we plug into without being conscious of it and that there are consequences to it, especially doing it as often as so many do. The internet is an alternative reality. It encourages us to leave our present, physical reality to engage in a surreal and alternative one.
I have been online once in the last few weeks and that was for only a couple of hours. We have to travel two hours into town right now to get online. There are rumors that satellite internet connections are coming to the area where the ranch is located. I am hoping actually that it doesn’t, at least not for a while. I have been living without internet. But, I have living with much more awareness and connection to every present moment and more engagement with others, the incredibly nourishing natural setting around me, and other venues for my creative expression.
I feel even more appreciative of the gifts being offgrid have brought me and what it will mean when and if the grids collapse altogether. There won’t be much sense of that here as all the systems that we have created self sustainably will not be affected much by a global industrial collapse.
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.
Seeking knowledge about current world conditions that contribute to an overall sense of impending collapse is important. It’s a necessary phase that provides a growing sense of urgency, like putting kindling on a fire before you light it. The kindling could be scouring the internet for alternative news sources, reading social critics who provide a more radical and controversial viewpoint such as James Kunstler or Thomas Lewis and connecting with like-minded people in online and local transition communities to receive validation for your growing certainty about collapse coming. The sticks pile up and grow as your mind deconditions from cultural conditioning and seeks to separate from the group mentality that is so pervasive in our culture.
But, then what? You’ve got a nice pile of kindling going but it isn’t actually keeping you warm. When are you going to light the match? When are you going to start throwing logs on to get your fire really going? Lighting the match is about actually taking action, doing something in response to all that you’ve learned about collapse and are digesting with others. For us, lighting our match was about initially assessing if where we were living was going to provide us with the four essentials of survival: the logs of our fire, if you will, and then, taking action to find our sanctuary. We asked ourselves some hard questions, including if where we were living in British Columbia, Canada near the city of Vancouver on a coastline that is only accesible by ferry was really the sanctuary we wanted post collapse? Due to its high cost of living pre-collapse, short growing season, cold winters, and the significant impact that post collapse life would have on the people there (we imagined a lot of looting and panic), the answer was ‘no’. There is fresh water there and perhaps more chance to survive related to climate change, but, for us, the need for warm climate that provided a long growing season and less reaction after collapse from local people outweighed all that.
Once we decided that we weren’t staying in the same area and needed to leave as soon as possible, the match was lit to begin researching a place to go with a warmer climate. We decided on Mexico because we could drive there by car; we were more familiar with it; it has very fertile land; and the infrastructure collapse will be much less jarring than in western cultures. Quite quickly we found the ranch here, a 700 acre ecovillage about two hours from Puerto Vallarta with hundreds of fruit trees already planted there and multiple natural spring water sources. Solid infastructure has been built there for many years, including extenstive water pipelines to every house and trees. There is a community kitchen and bathroom/shower building, plus two large palapas which would allow us to host groups, couples, and individual retreats. We also liked that it wasn’t a community based on a guru or religious belief system, but was about individual lot and home owners living in a community that offered the potential of collaboration without a set expectation around it.
The ranch provided the most essential logs for our survival fire post collapse: shelter, fresh water, fresh food (the fruit trees plus organic food we would grow ourselves), and safety (being in a remote location that has good challenges in traveling easily to it.) With the potential of being at this ranch and feeling the logs of survival taken care of, we lit the match and began our exodus journey from Canada to Mexico, which I describe here.
The point of this article is that it feels as if more and more people are becoming aware of collapse and are in the kindling gathering stage. But, if they do not take action and light that fire and find those survival logs, all of their knowledge won’t mean anything when collapse happens and, sadly enough, they will perish along with those who never saw it coming at all.
Taking action is scary. Very scary. This is why parts of people debate endlessly about which place to go to without actually going anywhere, (if they decide that they can’t stay where they are, which is of course the ideal decision if the four ‘logs’ of survival are available). We feel strongly that the winter of this year and going into spring of next year will bring some major changes to the industrial world, economic and political systems especially. This is based on research but, also, it is based on our own intuitions and guidance from the Divine. For those who don’t feel or experience Divine guidance, I imagine that it’s hard to get what I am saying. But even if you don’t, I am urging you to take action based on your own instinct then. And start taking action immediately, way before collapse makes it so much harder and maybe even impossible to do so. Basically, stop talking about it and do it.
Yes, there will be fear and anxiety. There was and still is for us, even as we are now in the final stage of moving onto the ranch and hoping to begin planting seeds in the next few weeks. We’ve spent many years of focus on our emotional and spiritual healing, which I feel does make it easier for us in some ways. But, even with that, I feel that anyone can move forward from where they are and begin to find their sanctuary and making their way there or creating it out of what they have. Living ‘as if’ collapse is coming brings a purpose and momentum to life even if it is years before the ‘official’ collapse of industrial society actually happens.
We have already experienced so many gifts from making this life change, from living ‘as if’ collapse could happen any moment. We have left a cold and dreary climate to a warm one that doesn’t have frost or snow. We have increased our knowledge immensely of native plants, edible weeds and flowers, making our own soups and cleaning projects, living off of solar, etc. all of which makes us feel more empowered rather than dependent on the ‘grids’ to provide for us. As a community, we’ve increased our sense of collaboration, trust, and love with each other- even as we’ve had issues to sort out at times along the way. For me, as a healer and teacher, I feel a renewed sense of dedication to what I feel I am here to bring the world because I am even more deeply living my message with integrity. I am ‘walking my talk’, which is rare in the world of spirituality and emotional healing. I also feel more surrender into accepting that my form of service may come more in growing vegetables than in serving others.
We have thought of our own survival first, and yet, as healers for many years, we want to offer what we’ve experienced, learned, and drawn to ourselves with others.
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.
In the moment, I am on my back. For the past ten days I have been mostly on my back. At some point I strained a muscle and it has caused much pain in sitting and generally moving around. Except when I am laying on my back. My first response was to determine the origination of the injury from a physical stand point. While there was definitely a physical component, doing a strenuous exercise before I was ready and not having strong core muscles, in SoulFullHeart we ask ourselves what was the larger emotional preursor to the injury. Since the emotional body is connected to the physical body, there is an emotional root cause. Now, I could look at it energetically, in terms of a dis-ease in my first chakra, which is true, and get some relief through some energy work, but that still doesn’t take me to the deeper layer, where if left unfelt, would just come back around again at some point in my life. I have not truly “healed” myself; I just kicked the can down the road.
All the physical and energetic remedies should come secondary to the emotional. Now, if I was in absolute pain, I would self-lovingly find relief, but I would still need, and desire, to feel the emotional root at some point afterward. I have been doing exercises and using cold and hot compresses to aid in my recovery, but I have been offered to feel what the injury brings up for me. What is my back trying to tell me? What part of me needs me to feel it so I can help heal its wounds? What is the greater context to being in this state of incapacitation? If I spent my time taking drugs, watching movies, or trying to solve my “problem”, I am missing out on a sacred gift.
How could back pain be a gift? A part of me would ask the same question. But by asking some questions and being vulnerable, we get to feel a bigger relationship to life. What was happening in my life when the injury occurred? What was I suppressing or resisting? How do I feel about myself in this state? Where do those feelings come from? Are they really mine or do they come from a part of me that has held them? What can I offer this part of me to feel that it has a safe place to express itself? What is my current connection to the Divine and what support and guidance can I let in? These are SoulFullHeart questions. They bring in much more consciousness than what western culture in general would just see as a situation to fix or something to power through.
In my case, before the injury I was feeling a deep tension around this new chapter of my life. I left Canada with my SoulFullHeart family to exodus from the unsustainable culture of the western world and seek sanctuary in Mexico for its climate and ideal growing conditions. It was also a choice to feel myself differently, more authentically, away from the conditioning and comfort zone of that world. Who could I be? Who would I be when all the default toggles and switches didn’t work anymore? This brought an immense control/fear response from a part of me as I engaged in the journey from Canada, crossing borders, driving in a foreign country, trying to communicate with minimal Spanish, not knowing whether our desired destination would work for us or if we would be welcome. There was a sense of just surviving each day for a part of me, holding a need for control and knowing. I did not have much authentic me in the room to feel the joy and the adventure, as well as the fear from this part.
As we eventually found a welcome home at Rancho Amigos, we had to find a temporary home in nearby Tomatlan until the home we are staying at on the ranch is ready. This is where I feel the tension swelled and pooled up in my lower back and created the perfect condition for a part of me to be felt in its fear. It also created the space for me to reconnect to the Divine Mother, which had been lacking for some time. I have needed this time to feel my desire for being in community with those who see and encourage my bigness and gifts, being in connection with the Divine and the context and love that comes with that, and being in relationship to my parts that need to feel me holding them in all they need to be held in.
Being immobile brought me to feelings of inadequacy, frustration, control, burden, and a need to ‘do’ to in order to feel my value and worth. I began to journal with a part of me that had the voice of punishment and judgment. This is a big place for me to go, as it has been a lifelong crucible for me to value my own worth and feel my own power. This is amplified in community when others are having to do a little more to make up for the resting body, and to feel the love with which they do it because you are genuinely cared for. THAT is what ultimately triggers the underlying lack of worth. That is the water that brings up the oil that Kathleen referred to in her last blog.
I am still in dialogue with this part of me. It takes time for them to feel comfortable enough to really feel the depth of the pain that they hold. But it is starting place from which true healing and transmutation can happen. Over time, the voice and energy will soften, transform, and integrate. It will lead me to my true power, in heart and spine. Hmmm. Interesting. This is something I would not have felt if I hadn’t gone into the emotional and spiritual aspect of this injury. That my back represents my growing spine, my inherent self-authorized power and creativity, and my energetic ground to the earth below me. Wow. How cool.
With resting parts, a new wave of creativity has been unearthed in me. A desire to reclaim my heartistry through designing meaningful mandalas for myself, for others, and the Divine. I have felt my authentic desire to be a healer, to claim my place within an intensely beautiful community, and to feel the greater context of what this life has to offer. There will still be moments of uncertainty, doubt, and fear, but through this experience I will have more of me to be able to be with that. This, I’m sure, will be a gift that will keep on giving “back” to myself.
So the next time you find yourself sick or injured, I hope you find some inspiration to ask yourself some bigger questions. Questions that may lead you to take stock of the why and get you on a path to truly healing yourself authentically and consciously. If you wish to know more, visit our website at www.soulfulheart.com to learn about our body consciousness retreat in April that focuses on this type of conscious, integrative healing. It will change the way you relate to your body, heart, and soul. Guaranteed.
Christopher Tydeman is a SoulFullHeart facilitator and healing arts facilitator.
The following is a message that Jelelle received from the Divine Mother directed toward the false self in us all:
I see you. You there, reading these words. I feel you. You there, taking in these words. I know you. You there, blocking out these words. I want you. You there, curious about these words.
You there….I see, feel, know, and want you. I see you because I have witnessed your creation. You were a necessary aspect of human evolution. You were a surprise, an arising that I didn’t expect. Your time of unconscious dominance is nearing its inevitable end. Yet, you are wanted. Wanted by me and wanted by the sacred human seed that you protect so vigilantly.
Wait, was I not supposed to see that seed? Was I not supposed to want that seed to grow? I planted that seed in every human being. I planted that seed so that it would grow. Seeds need to be watered. Seeds need to bloom. You have been so long protecting that seed, you’ve forgotten the nature of that seed and of yourself.
Let me introduce you to that seed: That seed is the sacred human. That seed will blossom into a sacred human heart that can hold you. That seed will grow into a sacred human heart that can feel you. That seed will become a sacred human heart that can heal you. Rather than protecting that seed from growing, you are meant to let that seed grow and feel protected by what it blossoms into.
Is this difficult for you to accept? Do you resist what I am offering? That’s ok. The sacred human self can hold those feelings too. You feel resistance because you haven’t experienced enough real love. You feel difficulty in accepting this because you haven’t experienced enough real love. You don’t want to let in what I am offering because you haven’t experienced enough real love.
I don’t know how much of this you can let in right now or much you are supposed to let in. I only know what is possible if you do. What is possible is that finally you can experience real love. In the experience of real love, you are able to share your reactions, your tensions, your feelings, your pains, your joys, your desires, your fears, your dreams, your resistance, your ache…ALL of it.
You can finally let go of what you’ve been holding so closely that you haven’t been able to see it. You wear all of it like an armor that blocks out and resists real love. You can be released from this armour, but the process and pace of removing it is completely up to you.
I see you choosing paths and teachers promising you bliss, promising you enlightenment, promising you freedom from everything that you feel, promising you that YOU get to remain as YOU without question. This is not what I am offering will lead to real healing for you. You must become real….come out as what we are calling the ‘false self’ and all of its parts….in order to experience real love. No more hiding. You must step forward and say, “Ok, I am open to being a false self. I am curious about this sacred human seed. I am ready to be felt.”
That’s it. That’s all you have to do and the rest will naturally happen from there. That doesn’t mean there won’t be challenges and difficulties. Giving up what is false to experience real love is painful at times, very challenging at times…..but the challenges are worth the reward of experiencing real love and finally being able to rest and breathe and heal. To finally be real.
It’s your choice. You can keep seeking and searching down paths that don’t directly challenge you as a false self. But I think we both know where those lead. You are just putting off the inevitable need for you to experience direct healing. Or you can choose to begin your journey into healing of your heart, discovering your true essence, and experiencing real love. That’s the choice I want for you. That’s the choice I’m waiting for you to make. That’s the choice that brings you to me and into my arms of real love.
With love,
Your Divine Mother
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.
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 “I 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 “me” 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 “me” in my room that no one could touch. When I was “out 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 “me” that I hadn’t experienced before. One that saw life through a bigger lens. My “room” 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 “me” 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 “solid” job an elementary school teacher.
As a teacher, you, by default, become a member of “the 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 ranch 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 “need” 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. 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.
Divine Self Embodiment Blog (Formerly SoulFullHeart) 