Life gifts many detours and forks happen/happenstance in the road. Knowing the path to take is often a spaghetti junction where with eyes shut and wide open (at the same time), you traverse and land in most perfect places even if the detour took you off somewhere else for the time being. Sometimes the detours are the most precious wanderings.
Since I have been a little girl, I dreamed of the under seen nature of gardens. Not too many people get a glimpse of this space. It is usually well hidden. It is a shame really because it is a most beautiful and mystical place. They say you should stop and smell the roses. I think you should stop, get on all fours, crawl under the foliage and breath. It is like the “forts” and caves of natural spaces and it is where you will meet the mythical beings of other ethereal spaces un-noticed or glimpsed upon by most two leggeds.
Our new land is in Masanamca just outside of Vilcabamba. It called to Jim many years ago after the passing of his late wife Ruchel. But, they had already secured a lot and the building process was to become a healing process of Jim when Ruchel flew to the other spaces. At this time, I was also in healing from “wake-up to reality” experience of being in a relationship with a blue blooded psychopath who shook my word insane. True to my nature though, I set up a camp in a remote valley and just started working and living outdoors. Jim was building a house. I was building a landscape. We didn’t know each other then but our paths were similar in that we were healing from that thing called human suffering.
Many years later, my daughter joined me in Ecuador and played the match maker enlisting other youngens to join the force of Jim and I coming together. So we did! Youngens sometimes have spunked wisdom.
But our lifestyles and living situations were on opposite ends of the spectrum. I had roughed the outdoors for 4 years. I was also in the process of understanding the sacred lands I inhabited and the dysfunctions of the characters around me. Like a night in shining armour, Jim gave me options and a key to release myself from the drama of people. “Come back to the real world” was his offer. Basically to live in a house and have the luxuries of modern living (electricity, piped water and a fridge and stove). And, I realized that the little people of the land, the one’s who worked with their own two hands, had to leave the sacred valley. This is another story, but a deep and profound one too. So, I graciously accepted Jim’s key and left that space I called Magical Forest.
The Magical Forest started as a barren, dry, useless tract of land. I did prove otherwise. And with it came the dark energy that wanted it to end. I had laboured crazily to transform and bring to life the correlation of man, plant, animal and insect creating together. Leaving that space was a massive heart ache that went deep into the recesses of my Soul. But, as I have learned from past experience, “bloom where you are planted” and I did so on Jim’s land. But, I waited and held patience for the next step. I longed. I ached. I practiced patience. Jim and I talked a lot about the troubles of the world, the importance of reclaiming our names, Spirits and Souls. We shared many talks on the “problems” we all face as a race that is no longer connected. But, talking about the problems doesn’t change things. You need solutions. You need little people to take a step towards inner liberation. You need to see something different.
We, Jim and I, are not rich meaning we don’t have a lot of “means” so important in the world to secure ourselves. And, we don’t “work” like the culture we came from for security, safety and slavery need. But we dedicate ourselves to doing what we love and providing a little income to sustain ourselves. In other words, we have choices daily and the freedom to either chill or work depending upon the times. That in itself is work…and real work. That, in itself, is a blessing beyond and something in my 50 years I am proud to “be” in. It is freedom. We started talking about the solutions. We needed to move and find the pure source water and soils and really get to a point where we were free? Where? How?
You know when you on the right track when the synchronicities land in your lap. Synchronicities are events connected to one another not by strict cause-and-effect, but by what in classical times were known as sympathies, by the belief that an acausal relationship exists between events on the inside and the outside of ourselves, a crosstalk between mind and matter—which is governed by a certain species of attraction. Jung believed that synchronicities mirror deep psychological processes, carry messages the way dreams do, and take on meaning and provide guidance to the degree they correspond to emotional states and inner experiences.
We found the property. Actually, the property found us and its’ owner really wanted us to collaborate. We were helped and assisted to gain title to the property by various peoples. This is a group effort. And, we are so grateful for the gifts and allowances that were offered. We began the process and placed the property in Miss Kaya’s name (the grandchild). And, we, together and as one plus one equals three are doing it.
What is “it”? It is creating a space where, as human beings we can exist and enjoy the fruits of our labour. “It” is working and co-creating with the Nature around us so that we all flourish. “It” is a teaching site for others to meet their natural selves. “It” is being fully human. Fully human?
I recently read ALL of Tom Robbins books like a mad women in thirst and hunger. In “Fierce Invalids From Hot Climates” there is a philosophy in the book about what it means to be human. It stuck with me, both for the simplicity and profundity it contains. The idea is that the characters in the book believe that the human race is not all one species, but exists as a continuum between two poles: on one end we find the “Missing Links,” and on the other end we find “real” human beings. Robbins heavily weights towards the Missing Links, estimated to be about 95% of the population. While they appear human, Missing Links tend to be easy to manipulate, lack critical thinking, are highly reactive, and have little compassion. Not surprisingly, they tend to be far less happy than ‘real’ humans.
Human beings, on the other hand, possess six distinct characteristics that allow them to express and experience their full potential.
These are the six qualities that make us fully human:
1. Humour: The ability to laugh—to find life funny and entertaining—is key. Robbins’ characters focus a lot on this particular trait, believing it to be possibly the most important of the six. I agree. If you’re not laughing, you’ve missed the point of this existence.
2. Imagination Sadly, we all have the capacity for great imagination and creativity but our goofy society tends to educate it out of us fairly early on. Our human awareness, which also gives us the capacity for abstract thought, is our greatest gift, and yet so few of us ever fully use this trait.
3. Eroticism Other than bonobos and dolphins, we’re the only species on the planet fond of copulating just for copulation’s sake. Sex—the thought, craving, and experience of it—is an essential part of being human.
Of course this characteristic is on a spectrum, like the others. Not everyone is going to have the same intense experience of sexuality, but for it to be there (and cultivated, even) is hugely important. It is nothing to be ashamed of, but is rather a source of power and insight.
4. Spirituality Robbins doesn’t say that we all need religion or dogma, he argues that a sense of spirituality—a belief and faith in something bigger than our existence—is key. Such awareness is also a wonderful effect of our conscious mind, separating us from the animals with whom we share the planet, and allowing us to live without fear, should we choose.
5. Rebelliousness Tell a human being not to do something, and you’re guaranteed they’re going to do it just because it’s forbidden. But our rebelliousness is not something to be trained out of us so that we all fall in line behind each other like good Missing Links. It’s a symptom of self expression and exploration.
6. Beauty Human beings are able to perceive beauty in the way that one may perceive the perfection of the universe. We are beauty because we are a part of it, though are also capable of creating and experiencing beauty in millions of different forms. This idea relates to our individual style and appreciation of beautiful things, so often usurped by the impulse to fit in to cultural norms.
And so, that is what I think we are doing. We are creating a space where humour, imagination, erotism, Spirituality, rebelliousness and beauty are encouraged, witnessed, practiced and honoured.
I call it Magical Forest Two. And, I am also off on a tangent of discovery of JRR Tolkien whose very good friend C.S. Lewis was a personal study as a young teenaged. You will find the spaces of the middle earth, the shire, the elven forests and the 9 rings of man being played out. Have I lost it? YOU bet I HAVE NOT! I got this more than anything else in my entire life. Call me crazy! We will have the last laugh!
So, off we go…now with the legal deed in hand….title is ours and we are doing “it”!