It didn’t rain last night – that’s really nice. I love the rain and lots of rain has never really been a problem, but the heavy rains have visited us early this year, early at least by what I have come to know around here and thus what I am accustomed to. However, what is ‘normal’? A setting on the washing machine is as close to it as I can venture a guess about. The years and the seasons are what they are, there is no ‘normal’ anymore, if your experience is with pleasure, what more can you ask for? Yes, for me it is with much pleasure – however I must say that it is really muddy out there and this is causing some challenges, especially in getting around – I fell on my arse yesterday as my feet went out in front of me! There was no chance in recovery at the moment, merely a disciplinary reminder to slow down or else! (Pea gravel and/or sand are a good fix – lots of it.) We shall find the pleasure in making it easier to get around here as the rains return…which is a good thing for us here, much needed (this is the jungle…).
A little bit more than a year ago was my last blog post – and what a year this has been ! 2013 was very much for us a search…we thought we were looking for a good place to be where we could relax and live for a while, not have to think about moving again…and we looked at so many places! Each one was a definite ‘no’, like it would be a big mistake to go there and jump into that one, so we kept passing them by with the faith that a ‘good one’ was up ahead with our name on it. LOL, the year had begun with a mantra of sorts, ‘Expect the Unexpected’…like, duh! So much for ‘plans’ or looking for something that we could define as ‘good or not good’ – we ran into a wall instead.
Push came to shove in August of 2013 and all of a sudden (um, really?) we had all of three days to be out of the house – and we still did not have a place to go. We actually considered moving into the place we started out in over two years ago when we first moved here…we contacted the owner about the possibility, and then we stopped by to check it out…OMG, it was shocking. 
We had lived in the house for a year and completely transformed it with some landscaping, much needed paint, a nice dog yard and greenhouse put in to grow vegies; we added screen doors and shelves inside and out; and the house we left was in good shape for another renter at the time of our departure. However what we were looking at one and a half years later was far worse than what we had stepped into to begin with! It had no upkeep in the yard, the greenhouse and accessories were pilfered – the electricity had been shut off, garbage was everywhere, the house was…do I have to go through this to live here?
What to do – yay or nay? We had no other options that we would even consider at the time (checklist: no, no and no), but then we ran into a friend that lives nearby, and he said that we should speak with a friend of his…he would surely be able to help. Immediately we connected with the new link and met him, did he have anything that could help us, considering the fact that every bit of funds we had would just cover getting us moved with only a pittance leftover for ‘rent’…? In the meantime during all of this we are packing up all of our stuff and getting ready to go, while the alcoholic pedophile (forgive me for labeling, but…) the owner of this property…well, he and ‘the gang’ were partying up a storm, with all of the relatives and friends they could invite there to share in the ‘removal of the enemy’. Yes, we were ‘the enemy’, not because we are bad people, but because our energetic imprint here on earth this time is extremely opposite of theirs…and this, of course, is fodder for another story (polarity/duality/etc)…suffice it to say that our exit was far from pleasant and there was intense action required to get out of there asap, as the rain moved in and visited us during the process. (Ahh yes, lessons in ‘how to clean up your karmic closet of current assignments’.)
Now we had a choice as to where we would like to move…the new friend showed us a house that was in a community farm that was designed in permaculture, and this was a very nice alternative to the ‘other choice’, and we jumped in. The downfall was that because the house was a rental owned by his friend, we could only stay until it rented out…we were at the time like three months away from tourist season/summer here which meant that we might be asked to leave at any time. The interesting part is that the community was set up totally as a permaculture farm and had ponds and greenhouses (totally gone to bare lifeless dirt), outdoor gardens and fruit trees all over! Wow, had we come here to be a part of a community? Egads! This was NOT on the itinerary ever for us…not like this, anyway (there are lots and lots of communities that have failed or are failing because of the challenges of community co-habitation). We are talking about a chunk of jungle about seventy acres big divided into lots which are then sold; a water system that was not quite set up to accommodate the development that followed and thus it had become totally dysfunctional requiring major work to re-route; a gardening system that was abandoned and begging for attention; and lastly, only a couple of the owners were present, so the ‘rest of the story’ was not there to participate in this new scenario – yet. We were looking at a nice temporary house on a farm that needed lots of help to resume productivity and we had the skills and experience to do that…however, the reason we were there was not quite that obvious, which we soon came to experience.
The option to move into this house was really good and very interesting, however we had to make some big changes in the process, which included finding a new home for Otis, our male Australian Cattle Dog – there was only space for one dog, as this house is strictly a tourist type house on a hill top overlooking the valley and yes, we could still see the ocean – we still had views. It was a fortunate outcome for Otis as he is now working on a cattle farm, doing what he does best: work cattle. He is now a ‘dad’ with lots of offspring and everyone is quite happy with the transition. But as with all moves, there were adjustments that had to be made in a new house in a new place with new neighbors. At least the house was furnished, and we fit our little bit of acquired furniture into it and settled into being tourists…LOL, at least that was ‘the plan’…except for the part of maybe digging up some dirt on the farm, so to speak.
Ah yes, for us to merely kick back and simply relax for a spell,
maybe keep occupied with getting that house up-to-date in some yard work and housekeeping – this would be our ‘payment’ for staying there; the road up to the house was merely a tunnel the little truck had to creep through, and the jungle had all but moved into the house (definitely the rain gutters), so we had work to do. However, the excitement of being able to grow food in an already existing greenhouse was too overwhelming…dr dirt just had to jump in and talk dirty to the locals…and first things first, would they like for us to get the greenhouses back into production again? This is what Mate does: rebuild the dirt with all kinds of good stuff, plant seeds, and grow food. The in-residence owners were hesitant…they had experienced a few harsh lessons involving other ‘gardeners’ living there previously and were very unsure as to whether they wanted to repeat that – or not. We were not really interested (at the time) in moving in on a permanent basis, we just wanted to help ‘pay’ for our stay on the farm by growing some food – when the rest of ‘the gang’ showed up in a couple of months there would be plenty of food to supply them and everyone would be happy…right?
Famous last words, ha ha ha.
This story could get really long in details and I don’t want to go there, but suffice it to say that there was absolutely no resistance with us when it came to growing food, especially on a farm with everything available for doing it. It started with rebuilding the soil and reorganizing the greenhouses, then we planted seeds for transplanting later; when that was going well we stepped into the outdoor gardens to look at the possibilities there, and then it was on to the ‘community table’ for pondering the question of whether they wanted us to stay or not and where would we live if we did stay? Did they like having us around? There was obvious enthusiasm with everyone around as they watched things take shape and food was growing like crazy, there was going to be a bunch of it ready to eat when ‘everyone’ returned for dry season, which is what they asked for.
As far as house options go, the choices available to us on that farm for moving into for a duration were far from our idea of comfortable, we are not young hippies anymore and we had already experienced living wide-open-to-the-elements in jungle living and this is NOT what we choose…
in other words, what they had to offer us was not in our ‘comfort zone’,
so we stayed where we were until the house was rented – we stayed for about four plus months.
Reviewing the options for living there on a semi-permanent basis also included plenty of pondering the concept of whether this life was our own ‘cup of tea’, so to speak. We had never lived in the ‘confines’ of a community, ALWAYS we have lived on big ranches way out in the middle of hard-to-get-there, and having to ask permission to do anything at all as prerequisite to living on this farm, including but not limited to some common sense areas, was what really turned us away. It was a lot of responsibility and a lot of work with restrictions and parameters and living condition choices that did not add up to a profound ‘yes’ in our hearts. And it would be totally a donation on our part, except for the house they would provide for us to live in.
Back to the lessons of our stay in this valley, which is why we were there…it was the end of 2013 and a lot of chaos was being wrapped up and with grand intentions our desires kept the redirected focus on positive changes for us. To accomplish this it was necessary for more of those ‘hidden buried shadow issues’ to come out into the light for resolution, and this included very much the clear identification of what we want for us in our life, and absolutely what we DON’T WANT in our life – since we are stepping into the shoes of being creators, yeah? We realized that living in this kind of community does not allow for personal integrity in making individual decisions…the group must agree on all things (including some very private things). Not to say that we disagree with group decisions that seek harmonious living, it is the nature and personality of the group that it revolves around and through that speaks loudly to us: was this group representing the energy that we wanted to step into and live within and be governed by – work for, not with? The question was answered as there was much disorder and dysfunction within the community, i.e. they needed to refine their own hierarchy among the patrons – or rather, their balance. It was very out of balance and they did not know what they had or what they were doing or their potentials or was there a flow or no? We were outsiders with grand energies for restructuring, a lot of knowledge, but still outsiders and probably most importantly, we chose not to live in a community on a level of working a job defined by and governed by these lost souls, simply for a place to live (only) that was seriously not meeting up to our own comfort levels (the house we were in was not available for the ‘help’).
Wow, this is really hard to put into words, even though the clarity of it all is so much more now one year later, but it was all good. The community made some huge changes as a result of our being there (yeah, we tend to be catalysts for change, everywhere we go…LOL, kinda like forcing a needed purging), but more importantly is that we met some really amazing people that live in that ‘neck of the jungle’ that share the same energy and vision of living sustain-ably that we do; AND most importantly, while we were there a bunch of those shadowy parts of our own selves came to light in the process, to be released forever, allowing us to leap along our own evolutionary path! That community has since also made huge leaps having been ‘forced’ into making decisions for change that allowed for their own progress and evolution (we are thrilled to see the folks that are living there now and helping them, together they are very cohesive, compatible and happily making big strides in their community) – by answering those same questions: what do they want and what do they NOT want? The doors opened with solutions…for all of us.
And we ended up moving into the house that we started out in almost four years ago…the one we passed by so that we could be a part of the transformations needed to propel (all of us) on our way to where we are going. It took a lot of work to bring this place back into condition for living, but we are extremely happy here, it is everything that we need for our own comfort zone and happiness and it works…at least until we manifest the next leap, yeah? What appeared a year ago to us as a monumental task of ‘oh no, not this!’ to a space that is everything and more than we could hope to find. After all, who cares if the lizards run through the house? They eat lots of bugs…
It truly is powerful to watch this Journey we are on, as life and transition speed up dropping ideas, issues and opportunities in front of us like bait…Needless to say, the end of 2013 – and we did find out at Christmas that we would absolutely not be staying on this community farm – prepared and launched us into 2014, come what may.
And so begins the next series of stories…all in the name of personal progress during these amazing times of transition.
junglecuentista 