Tag: living off grid

Life Transitions, Trust, And Surrender

Published on by Jelelle Awen2 Comments

by Jelelle Awen

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Raphael and I were just digesting how much has changed for us since coming into Puerto Vallarta exactly five months ago. We had about $40 on us with just enough money coming in to live very cheaply for he and I plusLeena Colibri and Sequoia Heartman. Prior to that, we had been living for 19 months in a remote setting, off-grid, limited to no internet connection and our nest egg that we brought with us from Canada to buy land, etc. had been spent six month’s earlier.

Thanks to the efforts of Leena and Sequoia teaching english online, we were able to move to Puerto Vallarta so that all of us could be together in community. For a month, we lived in a space with three rooms, with Leena and Sequoia sharing a bedroom with two twin beds. We got our three bedroom apartment after the first month and at least could all have our own bedrooms. We felt grateful for everything that we had even though it was very little. Living on our ranch, eating what came from our gardens and very simple food, not going to restaurants or movies or shopping…it had taught us to appreciate the very simple things in life and that which matters the most: love and connection.

Eventually, people began to become drawn to SoulFullHeart and having sessions with us, all through connecting here on Facebook. We had only been on FB for about three months prior to that, so it was all very new to us. We didn’t and don’t have a ‘marketing or sales strategy’, we are just ourselves as much as possible – offering a way of life and process that we live as our daily reality within community. I was shocked and stunned in a very good way to begin serving women in session space after letting all of it go in terms of being a ‘teacher’ or ‘facilitator’ and surrendering it to the Divine while I was at the ranch.

Just this last month, through a freelance opportunity for a tech startup, we are earning quite good money (especially for Mexico) plus with facilitation donations and Leena and Sequoia’s pay as teachers. We are now able to afford eating in restaurants, to buy new clothing (after two years of wearing the same things all the time), and for Leena and Sequoia to rent their own separate studio apartments that happen to be in the same building as us! This living arrangement more fits our vision of sharing community space for meals and group circles when desired and for everyone to have their own individual living spaces otherwise.

The Divine has given us so much since coming to the city….abundance in the form of people and, yes, in the form of money. Our desires that had been suppressed somewhat on the ranch are now coming forward for higher quality things that will last over time, not fall apart, and are truly worth the money. We are also now dreaming of buying land in San Sebastian where our SoulFullHeart community may come about, in addition to or in place of the ranch.

So much trust and surrender has been needed over the last few years….willingness to live with very little, ‘give up’ so much of what we thought mattered, only to be shown over and over that when we are not expectant or entitled so much love can come to us and in so many forms! Now, that we are going to visit the ranch again for a few days starting tomorrow, we can check in with who we are now, who we were then, and maybe get some sense of who we will become….although that, of course, is in Divine hands!

* This photo is of the cabana that we built out of cob (clay, sand, water, and straw) and some of our organic gardens on our plot of land called “Tranquila” at the ranch.

Jelelle Awen is co-creator, facilitator, and teacher of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information.

Eighteen Months In (Raphael’s Version): Life At SoulFullHeart Sanctuary

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

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By Raphael Awen

As my wife, Jelayan said in her blog yesterday of the same title, it has been 18 months living here in a remote sanctuary. Four of us along with three dogs and a bag of cash set out in two vehicles packed with everything we owned, to leave Canada, drive south through the United States to find sanctuary in Mexico.

The decision to leave behind home, country and career was strangely both difficult and easy.

It was difficult in that I was choosing to let go of the security of a 30-year long career as a painting contractor that had gotten easy and comfortable over time. In our last 2 years in Canada, we had relocated from busy Vancouver to the quiet of a ferry access only community on the Sunshine Coast. We had simplified life considerably, went through personal bankruptcy as part of that, and at every juncture, asked ourselves ‘What are we doing and why?’

What made the decision easy was the conviction that my calling in life was not to maintain a standard of living, and then see if there was any leftover time, money or energy to pursue what really mattered to me. I knew, with ever increasing awareness, that to hang on to a career whose time was winding down, even though it was more rewarding than it ever had been in many ways, was to miss a window of purpose and calling.

Jelayan and I had been intensely together for the past six years before we left Canada. Our love and connection seemed to burn up setting after setting in our life together. Just putting in time in some collectively idealized lifestyle of ‘getting ahead’ we both knew would be the end of us. Every spirituality or healing modality we checked into did not draw us. The one we were offering in Canada wasn’t drawing people’s attention beyond a very select few. Life was calling us and asking us to take a big step into the unknown. My attention had been given also to a growing awareness of the unfolding collapse of industrial civilization. Expecting life to continue as it had I knew to be a child’s demand.

We ended up here at what we named Soulfullheart Sanctuary, a place to ‘be’ what we are about and offer to others who feel drawn to what we offer. The external changes were rapid fire. Living without an income meant that every purchase had a feeling to digest connected to our dwindling nest egg. We began by living in tents out of suitcases and plastic tubs. The tent zippers and poles soon gave out and keeping up with some sort of jerry rigged repair regimen soon fell apart. A feeling of powerlessness came up often related to not being able to just haul off and buy new stuff, or go out and get the tools and materials to perform a skookum repair. Our two wheel drive vehicles had to be parked on the other side of a river a kilometer from home. That meant doing more things on foot, like carrying groceries and hauling dirt. Our single panel solar system was a god-send, but was soon tested by lightning and our 2000 watt inverter had to be replaced with our 250 watt standby. Holes in shoes and shirts, and straps falling off sandals were and are a daily part of the commentary here. I’ve never seen what a pair of shoes could come to look like if I simply kept wearing them.

The nest egg of money pooled together has since run out, and we have found new ways to draw modest income, after learning to live on less than 10 percent of what we used to. I was shocked after a year in doing some budget arithmetic to learn that the four of us were living off less than what I used to spend on a daily trip to Starbucks habit.

The transformation of lifestyle change is almost too difficult to describe to someone deeply embedded in a western culture and lifestyle. I couldn’t have imagined how this would have looked and felt before choosing it. I knew we would survive. I knew life would help us find a way. I knew that I needed to choose a lifestyle that was about giving back to life the deepest gifts I had to give and that only then could I ask life to support me and help me live into the transformation that would follow. I didn’t know what it would come to look like.

As Jelayan wrote, the experience of rarely hearing a sound of industrial noise, being with plants and animals, being with constructing homes from natural materials (our first cob structure has all of 100 dollars invested) has expanded us to feeling and tracking inner guidance and reflection. My personal sense of being a human being continues to expand and grow. My sense of connection with love, with god, with parts of myself, with guides, with nature opens out more and more.

The quiet here and the natural beauty here has also been a challenge to let in and be with. After 50 plus years in cities and towns along with the industrial trappings, one doesn’t let go of that without a reaction. Many could easily project onto the picture of our setting and choice an idealism that doesn’t square with the reality. No, we don’t need an alarm clock; we don’t commute to work. I am in a vehicle for less than a couple hours a week, instead a few hours a day. All of that could look quite appealing to people who are feeling stuck in a dead-end lifestyle. There are deep challenges to come to terms with that come with these changes.

The dead-end lifestyle, as difficult as it is to bear and be with, has for most one thing that makes it nearly impossible to part with. That something is a feeling of predictability and security. It’s not that I no longer have these needs. I am more in touch with those needs than I ever have been. Because I feel my need for feeling provided for and cared for, rather than suppressing it, I have chosen a lifestyle that allows me to feel that for myself. Above all, there is time, space and permission to feel everything.

I have a few feelings bubbling up right now. A big one is gratitude. I actually ‘get’ to do this. I get to be in this adventure. Another feeling is anticipation of things to come. Life never stays the same unless we are employing some big resistance mechanism trying to keep it that way. I get to live into that unknown and that anticipation. Even if that means something fearful like running out of money and facing hunger, (something that hasn’t come up yet) I get to be all of me; I get to experience that from my heart in touch with all of life; I get to experience that and navigate that in deep and profound connection with my mate, with myself, with others and with the divine.

THAT’s hot stuff people!

Raphael Awen is an author and teacher at SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. Visit SoulFullHeart Sanctuary for more information about staying at the Sanctuary and virtual sessions. Please visit our Patreon Page if you’d like to support SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. 

Death and Rebirth: Life At El Rancho

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

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By Jelelle Awen

Death is a necessary and unavoidable result of being alive. Every beginning brings an ending. Yet it is hard for most people to embrace death as a natural and sacred process. On the ranch there is death and rebirth all around us. Many lambs were born this winter and some will die from predators and getting sick. Every day we plant new seeds and pull up other plantings due to thinning them out or when they are ready to eat. Death and rebirth can also be metaphorical- a letting go of something that is complete in order to let in a new arising.

We had a death ceremony this week for my husband Wayne’s expression as a painting contractor. He has run his own painting business since 1984, a young married man supporting two daughters with his first wife. Running his own business offered autonomy in one way and yet, always, there was the customer to think of and respond to and many details to hold. For a number of years, he had felt pressed with time and energy, wanting to focus more on our healing work and serving people. As a symbolic death, we burned a painting shirt of Wayne’s in our fire pit and he shared feelings and memories from his career. We honored what his career had produced, the family members it had supported, the clients it had pleased. Wayne felt how he is in an in between space now as his authentic expression emerges from the ashes of his painting career. Out of this death and ending comes a rebirth into a new form, as it always does.

There are now chicks at the ranch. Fuzzy yellow and black beings with rapid heartbeats. I held one in my hand that I had rescued when it ventured outside of its fenced area. I placed it back in with its mother and it quickly tucked underneath her, seeking out safety. This is life in all its chirpy and adorable form. We have started eating eggs again after being vegan for almost two years. It was just too difficult to get imitation meat products and even tofu or tempeh in this part of Mexico (other than driving to Puerto Vallarta). We still haven’t found nutritional yeast here which provided a good source of B12 for us in the past. Eating eggs again yet holding a chick in my hands brought up the death and rebirth cycle again. Appreciating the sacrifice of the unborn chicken (if it was fertilized) to feed my needs.

We are creating our third garden here, this one on the lot that could eventually hold our own house if that alchemizes for us. Our first garden is what we call the ‘river garden’, a more conventional (although still organic) vegetable garden with curved, raised beds. Our second garden is a ‘zone one’ garden, the things that we will eat and pick daily so need to be near the house. We created a herb spiral and a bed of lettuce greens, kale, mustard, radish, tatsoi, and mizuna right by our outdoor kitchen. Our third garden is called tranquila and our vision is to create a true sanctuary with winding paths, clusters of microclimates, a shady area around a tree inviting conversations or rest, a small pond created from a circle of rocks, a visually diverse offering of native and tropical plants, shrubs and trees. Many of these plants I have never grown or even heard of. These are heirloom plants, some from Africa and South America, all able to survive the heat and humidity here.

This is birthing, putting all these seeds in the ground. Watering them from nothing to something. And then, death by pulling and pinching. Sautéing and eating raw. Boiling and baking. The sense of both death and rebirth here makes it feel more alive, less cushioned, and more real.

The bigger context of death and rebirth seems so poignant now with the state that our world is in. Violence and war are a continual reality in many parts of the planet. There is the grand death, the slow dying of the industrial age as it winds down after a feverous and fast paced life. What will be reborn of the human species after this death, whether it is in 1 year or 30 years? What will arise from the ashes of technology? These are important questions, yet, here, the heart beat and rescue of one little chick seems equally important. Or, at least, more immediate.

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.

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

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

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 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 ‘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.

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