My life is about to change radically. I feel like I have just stepped out of an airplane with a parachute, both fear and exhilaration filling my soul. Wait, I am not ready! Give me one more minute on the plane! Did I pack the chute correctly? What if it fails and the backup fails? Where is my instructor? Why am I not riding tandem for more security? No turning back. Time to look down, spread my arms out wide and enjoy the exhilarating ride. It started two years ago, with a free invitation from Stephanie and Eric to join a group of guests on a catamaran trip to Tola. I barely noticed the landscape or the sea life; I spent the entire time engrossed in a deep conversation with Zutzanna, a young woman wise beyond her years from Czech or Slovakia. (I should know this, but that detail is a blur.) It started my need to find a sacred space for meditation and to deepen my connection with the natural life force. By the end of the sailing trip, I was committed to finding a spot out of town, a few acres of privacy and access to water. That night I walked on the beach under the light of a full moon, focusing my energies on healing the ocean. I was planning a ceremony on the beach the following month to honor the ocean and the the sea turtles. I do not know how long I stood standing with my eyes closed, but when I opened them, a wave come forward and deposited a perfect sand dollar at my feet. It was a sign. Ever since the Gulf of Mexico BP Blowout, I have been almost obsessed with the health of the ocean and all of its life forms. I have shed many tears and prayed long and hard for healing the ocean. The ceremony was beautiful, with drumming, guitars, and silent meditation. Under the light of the moon, a dear friend asked me to put my prayers and intentions into the water. He stood over me, singing and praying. It was the most beautiful moment of my life. I was the ocean. I was every life form in the ocean. Pure bliss. Magic. It was also the basis for one of my tattoos that reads, The ocean called my soul and I answered with all of my heart. The tattoo includes waves, a sand dollar and a starfish, another favorite sea creature. I flew to Florida a few days later. I have a habit of walking on the beach late at night (though not in Nicaragua). A few nights before returning home, I walked to the end of the island. When I turned around to head back, I saw two large feathers laying side by side with the quills touching. A few minutes later, I saw a sea turtle scoot onto the sand, looking for a place to nest. I had never seen a sea turtle on the beach in Florida. The following evening, the same scenario repeated itself. Two feathers in alignment and then sight of a mother sea turtle looking for a spot to bury her eggs. A month later, I had a series of visions in the forest, strong messages from the Divine Spirit that showed me my destiny. At first I fought the message, but each piece of resistance was forced back into my face. You can do this. You are ready. You have the tools. You have divine blessings. Every once in a while I looked over toward an old soul whose eyes were upon me. Am I dreaming? I asked in my head. He smiled and closed his eyes. Another questioning look, another smile. More resistance and more trust. Canta com amor. Trabalha amor. Confia com amor. Juntado tudo sou. Amor, amor, amor. Todo es mi familia. Sing with love. Work with love. Trust with love. Were all in this together. Love. Love. Love. Everything is my family. It is impossible to describe what went through my mind. The harmony of life on the planet, everyone and everything living in balance and the need to reduce our impact on the planet and to heal the earth, water and air. Saving sacred stories and traditions. Plants and gardens and mushrooms and herbs. Happy people using simple tools to construct a paradise. Houses in the forest. Music. Freedom. Curious children. Classrooms in the jungle. It took a few months to accept the visions. I resisted the message from the Great Spirit. It seemed to overwhelming. Finally I accepted what I always knew, that the strange and winding path in my journey through life was all for a reason. Everything I love, everything I am passionate about, is coalesced into one. I took the plunge and revealed my vision to a few people: Harmonia. A natural resources education center and sustainable community in the forest of Nicaragua. It will be structured like university course work, with several classes offered in two or three hour blocks over the course of a few days to a month so that people have time to delve into different subjects and break up the day, as well. Courses will cover just about everything one would need to homestead: permaculture, composting, bee keeping, raising chickens and killing them with dignity, cheese and yogurt making, alternative currencies and economic systems, emergency medical care, homeopathy, nutrition, foraging, emergency survival, installing and repairing solar systems, building wind generators, dowsing for water and digging a well by hand, root cellars, navigating by the stars, astronomy, plant and animal education, fermentation, Superfoods, building shelters from natural materials, natural paint finishes, medicinal mushroom cultivation, herbology, homemade wine, working with clay, fishing... There is such a huge potential and many people with these skills (and ability to teach) living in or frequently visiting Nicaragua. The land will also be home to an eventually sustainable eco-community. People can build any type of house they wan provided it falls within my aesthetic guidelines! Tree houses, yurts, dome houses, earth block, adobe, earth bag, bamboo, stone or a combination of elements. All gray water will be recycled. We will grow radiation free herbs and medicinal mushrooms to export, as these will be extremely important for healing as we finally accept the truth about Fukushima. The natural health clinic will have acupuncture, reflexology, massage and a body cleanse program for detoxing, too. It is also important to preserve the palabras, stories and traditions of the indigenous cultures of the Americas. I want to creat a space to invite the elders, the abuelos and abuelas, shamans and medicine men and women to share the traditions of oral story telling. Through stories, dances and ceremonies like the sweat lodge we can regain our connection to the Earth and the Creator. Harmonia is a spiritual community in terms of respecting nature and acknowledging the divine life force that is everything and all. Those who decide to live there will be the creators or traditions, incorporating or mimicking ways to honor and regenerate the earth. One tradition that will be incorporated into the space is a silent sitting each evening after sunset. Although I am not a yogi despite my best friend owning a yoga studio and a few more classes on my card that I bought a long time ago, i envision (free) yoga classes twice a day. Eventually it will be a bilingual community, but most classes will be in English initially. The properties I am looking at are all on the lake and have ample opportunity for sailing lessons, kayaking, SUP and windsurfing. With 700-1000 acres, there will be plenty of trails for mountain biking and horseback riding. I am looking at three different properties, though 700 acres on a lake has called my soul. I have difficulty explaining the project because it is so big and encompassing so many different areas of expertise. I have had the idea for a while and talked to several people about it, but it took a while before I was ready to pursue it. It has been a frustrating year because I knew that I had to get moving on the project, but it requires a lot of love, something that was missing in my life. When I finally found that wild, passionate, soulful connection, I stopped working on the project. Even though the man I fell in love with shared most of the same interests, I preferred to spend my time drunk on love. It was beautiful and the happiest time in my life. I wish it had lasted a little longer, but the universe had other plans. I also needed to put some more love into El Gato Negro, as I bought my partner out on January 1st and it will be my sole source of income for a while. I do not plan on taking a salary for Harmonia. The main problem I have had is trying to make it all flow and to determine how much the project will realistically cost. By Divine coincidence, I came across the right person and through a strange series of circumstances, i found the missing piece to the puzzle, a permaculture expert who (I think!) can see my vision and help me turn it into reality. She arrives tomorrow and so tomorrow it starts...and I will have no life for a while because I have to utilize every second of her time before she continues onto another project. I hope that in the next 60 days I can have a real proposal put forth so I can start trying to raise donations to fund the project. Asking for money is a huge ordeal for me. I never ask my friends for help. I have always been fortunate to take care of myself. Now I am having to ask for $5 million dollars in donations so I can do the project and do it right and in a tiemly manner. Without the donations, the classes will be too expensive if I had to carry on debt. So I am working on a few proposals for Kickstarter, Omkash and a few others. When I have the details narowed down, I will get the webpage and FB page up and running. It is a lot of money and it is not like I am a guru or specialist with a big following willing to follow me down my path. However, I have met many people who have expressed a genuine interest in being part of the project and I just have to trust that I am doing the right thing and trust that it will be funded because it is doing something good for the planet. I joke about my I have a dream!: project and I just need someone to blindly trust that I will do the right thing with five million dollars. But I cannot have pure faith - I need numbers and a real campaign. Hopefully in the next week I will have the email set up and a web link and FB page, at which point I will be sending out mass emails and Facebook request to find teachers and volunteers so I can begin to work on the physical plan and the marketing campaign. A lot of people have commented upon the size, but the truth is that even though it is big for Nicaragua, it is manageable. I know that I can do this and that it will be a success. Now I just have to roll up my sleeves and do the hard work. Or maybe keep the sleeves down because there are a lot of bugs in the woods! I spent Semana Santa walking through the property, meditating and holding a two private ceremonies on the shore of the lake. I found a turtle skeleton when walking on the beach. It appear that someone hacked into her shel for the eggs. I found all of the bones and pieces to the shell and created a little alter for her. I also had an alter for my friend Julie, who was my source of inspiration in my mini Vision Quest. Originally I had planned to do more of a traditional Native American quest, but the severe allergic reaction to my tick bites (obtained because I sat down on the land where I thought I wanted to quest and the universe found a way to tell me to look for another spot) and need to consume Benadryl non-stop for two weeks kept me from pursuing my traditional quest. I have had this incredible need to sit in the forest and become one with nature and to communicate withe the Divine Spirit at that level in hope of some awe-inspiring visions. It was pointed out to me that I have no problem conjuring up visions; I am simply trying to find a connection to the vision, much of which requires me to spend time alone in the woods but not necessarily several days and nights without food and water. I spent the days wandering around the forest, connecting with the trees, following the water sources, praying, meditating and looking for signs. I followed two blue morpho butterflies along the almost dry creek bed. I saw a troop of Congo monkeys and then a smaller troop of dark brown spider monkeys, which was unusual because they did not look like a typical spider monkey in color and normally the spider and howler monkeys stay away from each other. It was wild. There were parrots and so many interesting bird calls in the jungle. And insects. My tick bites (and the ant bites I obtained in the woods, which also involved me running around topless under 20 monkeys, trying to avoid their piss while searching for enough water in a little rock pool to soothe the stings of the nasty black carpenter ants - but that is another story!) have been a medicine for me. I have had a new breakout of hives almost daily for two weeks, although now they are dissipating to about 15 a day instead of 100s. Seriously, I looked like I had chicken pox and poison ivy at the same time! I know it is a test, or at least that is how I perceive to view the sitaution. Everything is starting to flow. The write up in El Nuevo Diario, while not exactly accurate, was very sweet and the reporter mentioned my project. So it is out there. People have read the words. People have heard rumors. Now it is time to manifest it into reality. Whee!!!
Posted on: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 00:01:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015