May 25, 2010

Tuesday May 25, 2010

Guilford Vermont

Dear friends and loved ones, It’s been a while since I’ve communicated much although I did recount some of the details of our travels back to Vermont from Brazil in case you missed them. It took so long to complete that letter and post it that I did not send the email notifying you of the post, but it’s there none-the-less.

This has been a more than difficult transition for me and because of that I haven’t felt much like writing. I preferred to wait until my perspective had a bit more of a positive slant. What I have noticed in this process and it becomes more and more apparent to me is how little our inner state is affected by any external factors. Body chemistry on the other hand seems to play a vital role in mental health and good attitudes!

We returned almost to the place we left, just three miles down the road from our old home, only this time we have no “home” nor all the things that once filled that home. So I’ve been contemplating just what makes a place a home? Does it require ownership? No, how could it, many people rent their houses and feel just as much at home as a person who owns one. Even if you think you own, do you really, or does the bank allow you to think you do while you pay them a hefty mortgage resulting in the overall cost of your home being three times the price you agreed to pay for it? Is home where you hang your hat? What if you are a guest in someone else’s place and your hat is hanging there? I’ve been asking myself these and other questions like these because I came here with an over-riding sense of urgency to find land, buy it and build a home, thinking that what I really want more than anything is just to have a home again; a place where I can grow a garden, providing my own food and a place where nothing is expected of me other than what I myself deem is expected. Freedom.…Especially if I can pay for it without any loans from a bank.

But with all this said, I’ve been busy making ourselves a home here on our friend’s farm. Paul is incredibly happy! This is why we’re here. He knew what he needed to be happy and he found a way to have it. He tells me everyday how happy he is. This to him is the perfect place. We happen to be two of the luckiest people in the world. There are many things that support this statement and I will tell you one of them. We have two friends who own this beautiful two hundred acre farm. It happens to be one of the most beautiful places anywhere in the world. Acres of wide green rolling meadows cover this south facing mountainside from where we sit, perched atop a knoll in a thirty foot long trailer. Outside our door, just 100 feet away, is a huge tilled garden plot, large enough to feed a family three times the size of ours well into the winter season. Between here and there is a fire ring where just last night Paul and I sat in front of a campfire eating dinner from our borrowed lawn chairs while we watched eastern peewees flying over the field diving for insects with a ring of mountains in the far distance, the closest displaying hundreds of shades of green while the furthest extending well into New Hampshire revealing as many shades of blue and grey. Rocket sits at our feet wherever we are or maybe just outside the door when we’re inside, warming his belly in the sun. He has a friend here on the farm too and watching the two of them is enchanting as they are the same size and seem to delight in the company of each other. Behind us and just to one side, the shade of the woods helps to keep us cool on the hot days and bring all sorts of sounds of wildlife up close and personal. So here we are. Incredibly grateful to our friends who have welcomed us to use this place while we land and regroup and figure out what’s next.

So what is next? Paul is encouraging me to slow down and not move too fast towards anything. Funny but that’s one reason why we left Brazil and came here when we did, because we were in a hurry to find our homestead before the end of summer. We thought it would be most important to start planting and building and secure a place with good water and the ability to feed ourselves before the summer events we foresaw coming. We were sure then that world war three was in the making and there was a good chance something big would take place likely on the fourth of July. Maybe it still will, though you’d never know there was anything out of the ordinary going on in this calm idyllic pastoral setting. All our family, friends and acquaintances seem safe and secure in their same world as when we left without any change. They don’t seem to be encountering any economic hardships or even down turns. Perhaps with an unspoken feeling of pity for our misguided ways, we are treated with just the slightest sense of care and coddling while being acknowledged for our bravado at trying something so daring as our move to Brazil. It could be my imagination which does tend to run wild, but on the other hand I’m more perceptive than most give me credit for.

So what exactly is going on in the world and does it even matter? Not too many people around us seem to think about it much or care, but then we haven’t got out much yet, so maybe I’m wrong. More time out with people might tell. It’s not easy to live in the moment while at the same time preparing for the future. And preparing for a future is merely guesswork anyway. I suppose with a 50/50 chance of getting it even close. Lao Tzu would say, stay close to home, keep it simple. And Rumi reminds me that like the cows in his poem who eat grass every day and worry all night that there wont be any grass to eat in the morning, I too whine with my mouth full.

I do an awful lot of worrying about not having enough money lately while sitting with my little balance in the bank waiting for the right little piece of land to buy. I’m afraid to spend too much on coffee and donuts because just around the next corner is some government regulation costing me hundreds in registration fees or taxes and I wouldn’t want to come up short. There’s no way I’m going to go to an acupuncturist to fix my injured wrists because surely that will blow my limited budget and the possibility of buying some land will dwindle away. But damn it I am tired of worrying and being afraid and absolutely over living at the affect of that.

We don’t have the kind of access to the internet we once did and so are not getting the kind of information we were once more easily exposed to. Taking the time to do it seems more of an annoyance than an easily obtainable thing, but Paul has been listening to local radio and reports that everything on the airwaves is designed to keep people afraid and in a state of anger and lack. What I’ve noticed since returning to the US is that daily I see chemical trails in the skies and I know we are being sprayed with barium among other poisons and I feel the effects of it. I am almost constantly in a state of agitation, confusion and often argumentative. This isn’t like me. But how to avoid it here is the big question. I’m sure Dr Rima’s health network connection could sell me something to combat the ill effects of it but then there goes that pesky budget again. I’m with David Icke these days, we both know an awful lot about what’s going on in the world, but we can see a positive outcome in all of it and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that consciousness is changing. We’re coming into a new era and this one has to go away to allow the new one to take it’s place. We need to change our vibration to one of love and get out of fear and live in the world we want to see now. It’s not so easy, but I’m staying focused on that outcome.

So possibilities abound at the moment. Who knows where Paul and I will be three or six months from now. I can no longer guarantee or even say with any certainty that you will find us living on a Vermont homestead because we could be anywhere. Ambiguity is without a doubt more open to possibilities, yet unsettling in a foggy surreal kind of way. Like the cartoon I have framed and hanging on the wall, Coyote loved that nothing was real, the wind remained favorable, the weather fair and the unreality felt firm beneath his feet.

May 16, 2010

Sunday May 16, 2010

Guilford, Vermont

USA

Today makes 11 days since the start of this newsletter. Much has happened since I began to write this and recording our journey has had many skips and starts….

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Day one of a more than 24 hour journey home, we left Nossa Hotel in Cidade Eclectica at six o' clock this morning. We spent the last two days there so we’d be closer to the airport as the paperwork to travel with Rocket required subsequent trips to the airport since Monday. A small mix up at the airport turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we were rushed onto an earlier flight than anticipated because TAM was unable to find the confirmation on the last leg of our trip for baggage space for Rocket. They wanted us to have plenty of time in Sao Paulo to work with United Airlines to resolve our travel issues. It saved us two additional take-offs and landings, as the original flight had us flying from Brasilia to Cuiaba in Matta Grosso onto Campo Grande in Matta Grosso do Sul and then to Sao Paulo, over a nearly six hour period. Instead we took a direct flight and were here in less than 2 hours. Before long we were able to discern that the confirmation for Rocket was associated with Paul’s reservation rather than mine and since he was already traveling with Paul there was no more room for him to also travel with me. Ahhhh airlines are delightful, are they not?

So we are spending the day in the airport while we await our 9 pm overnight flight, eleven hours in route from here to Chicago and another two hours afterwards to Burlington. It’s fine. Having spent most of this last year in South America I have learned the art of patience and waiting long times no longer ruffles my feathers. I have no urgency to be anywhere and I can now be peacefully where I am even if it’s at an airport.

My abilities with the language of Brazilian Portuguese have improved to the stage where I no longer fret overly much at being able to communicate as needed. I have in fact taught complicated psychological models and systems, like the Enneagram and Ego Development to friends in Portuguese. I have spoken to people in Portegnol (a combination of Portuguese and Spanish) whom I once was unable to conduct even a basic conversation, thanks to my time with Uta. So even without the aid of a friend to translate I have dealt with complicated affairs at the bank and several factions of authorities at the airport and veterinarians and agriculture departments. I leave Brazil with a sense of satisfaction at having acquired this skill. I feel confident that I can bring people here now as a guide should that opportunity present itself in the future.

This is something I would like to pass along. It would give me great pleasure and honor to act as a tour guide to accompany groups to Brazil whether to come for healing with John of God or with the numerous mediums at Cidade Ecletica, to visit and know the esoteric places where there are many different kinds of spiritual work being done or the ecological places where the landscape reveals magnificent arrays of waterfalls, the tropical birds in their magnificence and the flora which offers an abundance of natural medicinal and healing properties. I may perhaps plan to return during the coldest of the winter months should you or someone you know wish to accompany me.

Friday May 7, 2010

En route from Vermont to Massachusetts

After many hours of sitting around the airport waiting to check in for our second flight from Sao Paulo to Chicago, we had our first unpleasant encounter with an American company, United Airlines, as a representative of the company approached us in the line with the bad news that there was no way we could travel with our dog in his “un bolted” although formerly FAA approved kennel. With an unpleasant and overly authoritative attitude, he barked this news upsetting my then sense of calm state of acceptance at our long travel day. I admit, I lost my cool and burst into a short spell of tears ands rage directed at everything American in general. Sixty dollars and forty five minutes later Rocket was sent off to his eleven hour flight, two hours early in a new and larger FAA approved kennel, but not happy with the situation as he was quite at ease in his old familiar and very cozy one. Typical to most upsets, which are never really about what they seem, I was disappointed with my lack of emotional control and the fact that “they got me.” I was probably ready to be pissed off at any sign of anything associated with the US government and the fact that I was reluctantly returning to subject myself to their invasion of my personal freedom, not to mention that there always seems to be somebody with their hand out for my money.

That behind us we next had to pass through Brazilian immigration and wait while they reviewed our passports to allow us the ability to leave without imposing a fine upon us for staying beyond the 90 day period stamped on our passports. Knowing this could be a problem, we had taken the time to visit on separate occasions both the federal Police at the airport and the Ministry of Labor who were reviewing our permanent visa applications as well as having our friend visit the attorney who had an appeal process in progress to reverse the denial for our original application. With a paper in hand that showed our process was underway awaiting determination we were prepared to have this encounter. Just another delay for beaurocracy from the governing slave masters….

We did after all choose a mercury retrograde time to travel in, so what did we expect, smooth travels? We boarded the plane on time but sat on the runway an extra hour before take off. Assigned to the row that has wonderful extra leg room, but no space to put your stuff under the seat in front of you, we waited for the movie screen to drop down from the ceiling having heard a garbled announcement that the movie was about to begin. However it was half way into the start of the movie before we realized it was being shown on the individual screens located on the seat backs and since we didn’t have seat backs in front of us, it occurred to us to ask, “hey, what’s the deal?” and be shown that we had a flip up screen attached to the underside of our seats. No big deal, just another little example of the mercury retrograde.

It wasn’t a bad night really. I’d quickly recovered from my former upset with United Airlines and the FAA and we both managed to sleep. But before that we had two really cool interactions with men in our row who at first seemed cold and withdrawn until they realized we could speak Portuguese and they could carry on a conversation with us in their limited English. With our Portuguese, they lost all reservations about trying out their English knowing they could fill in with Portuguese if need be. They wanted so much to chat and be friendly. I point this out only to illustrate how often people seem to be unfriendly when in fact they really want to be but feel limited by language ability and hesitate to even try.

The transition in Chicago wasn’t too bad. We found Rocket and all our luggage, went through the ridiculous interrogation at customs where we had to explain in detail why we were traveling back from Brazil with a dog and let them examine his papers, both old and new along with his dog food and then have his two kennels examined by a rubber gloved TSA agent. Paul at least did have a chance to take him outside before we had to check him back in for the last flight. I watched through the window of our small plane while Rocket was loaded onto the ramp and up into the baggage compartment of the plane, followed by all four of our suitcases and last of all, his old, now empty travel kennel. That flight was short and easy and we thought we’d arrived in Burlington with all the hassles behind us until Paul arrived at Enterprise where he had reserved a rental only to be refused the car because he does not possess a major credit card. We have eliminated credit cards from our life and only use a bank debit card for electronic purchases. Not a terribly big deal, as Avis was only too happy to rent us one even better at the same price, excepting the fact that the insurance rate was $15 higher per day. We were pleased though when they said all they had was an SUV as we stood looking at our two rolling carts overloaded with luggage and dog crates and knew without question we would fit. “I knew we’d be driving a dark blue car,” Paul told me, “though I didn’t know it would be an SUV.” He was happy. Vermont of course is beautiful. The spring has come early this year and the sun was shining, the air was crisp, but not cold.

Stopping first for a bagel, as passing by it called out to me though we’d been shooting for a diner, neither of which exists in Brazil; all was well in our world this sunny mid day afternoon. We couldn’t resist traveling the back roads so we could see some of Vermont we’d never seen, opting for a few extra hours of driving so we could pass by two or three parcels of land we’d searched out on the internet before our arrival at our friends farm. Arriving just at the dinner hour, our friends were ready and waiting with a delicious dinner and Paul was again very happy.

I must admit I have mixed feelings about being back in the US and in Vermont. Though it’s certainly beautiful, the harsh realities of how costly it will be to live here, to build a home from scratch, the extreme weather conditions we can count on dealing with all have me momentarily wishing I was still in the chapada’s cerrada where it’s never cold or more expensive than I can provide for. But seeing Paul so happy, I keep pushing aside my doubts and keep myself focused on creating great outcomes for our future.

This morning was a fortuitous one. We stopped at a car dealership to see what kind of used trucks they had on the lot. “What are you looking for exactly,” the salesman asked. “I want a standard transmission, an extended cab, but not one with four doors so it doesn’t shorten the truck bed, a six cylinder engine and I don’t want to pay more than $6,000,” Paul said adding, “I know that might be almost impossible to find.” Five minutes later the salesman returned to take us to see one which had arrived as a trade in only that morning. It was exactly what Paul had determined he wanted after more than a week of shopping all the sites on line in a one hundred mile radius of Brattleboro. It was even the color we both wanted, not that color would have had any affect on our decision; not exactly under $6000, but close enough.

We also stopped to see if the two cell phones we had could be made functional, not expecting to really have any luck, but to be told we’d have to purchase new ones. This too went easily and smoothly; perhaps a sign that things will flow easily from here; that this is where the Way wants us to be? Maybe…. I’m not thoroughly convinced yet but so far so good.

Our sweet friends have offered us the use of a great trailer while we find our next place. It sits on top of a hill on their farm with a view over a gently sloping field and beyond to the mountains which ring the distant valley. Out the other three sides we look into the now budding forest of trees which nestle this corner of their homestead. There’s a huge new plot already tilled and sitting ready for me to plant our summer garden just outside the door. Theirs already has perennials growing and early spring seeds planted. It appears to be the promise of a great summer as we manifest the future we have decided to create.

Tuesday May 11, 2010

Guilford, Vermont

Nearly a week since traveling back, with full days of activities and not much time to write. I added the last entry while driving in our rental car from the Brattleboro area to Cape Cod on the eastern coast of Massachusetts where we spent the weekend visiting Paul’s daughter Kiki and her mom and mom’s partner. On the way down we left a deposit on the truck I described. However not having the night to sleep on it which both Paul and I really need before making any of our decisions, we later realized it was not the truck we wanted and spent some unnecessary time undoing our hasty decision. More on the truck saga later but I’d like to elaborate just a moment on this design we both have in our personalities that strongly suggests all our decisions be given a night to sleep on it.

When we were in Alto Paraiso we encountered a group of people working with a system of personality development called Human Design. The system incorporates the I Ching, astrology and the Kabbalah to create what is referred to as your personal human design. It is uncannily accurate and also quite intriguing for us as psychologists interested in models that describe human behaviors and inherent characteristics. Although Paul and I are entirely different in design, we do share this characteristic of needing time to respond.

Thursday May 13, 2010

Guilford, Vermont

So little time these days to write that I see I’ve barely even been able to complete a thought. A quick review, just to catch you up and then I will let things settle a bit and resume writing when I can actually focus on it for more than a stolen moment or two.

Today we drove to Connecticut and bought a truck. I’ll spare the details because in the end they are not all that interesting. Tomorrow we will drive up to Burlington and return the rental. We are here today one week. We are moved into a roomy trailer with a slide out breakfast nook, a dedicated bedroom with windows around three sides and the most fabulous views as we are perched atop a knoll with a long view that goes for miles and miles to the far mountains on the other side of the valley. Vermont is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world and this spring it is a hundred different shades of green. This morning a thick fog lay in the valley giving the illusion of a large body of water. The sun shone today and the air was warm enough to leave the jacket inside, wearing only a turtleneck and a corduroy shirt. After Brazil’s tropical climate, it felt fresh and crisp and comfortable compared with yesterday’s chilly grey overcast and rainy skies. The grey days do have a tendency to make me feel a bit blue and color my perspective like the day, grey and dismal. But the flip side of that is that when the sun comes out and the skies are blue, I appreciate them more in their contrast. Day after day of sunny skies and they just become another day, nothing special. Here in Vermont weather is a factor to be reckoned with. It is an event. When the rain stops, you drop everything and get outside to do all those things you were unable to do when the rain kept you in, snuggling by your cozy mug of tea or your woodstove if you’re lucky enough to have one (we have an electric radiator.)

So that life shouldn’t get too easy, this morning while hanging laundry I tripped over a root while retrieving a pair of pants that fell into the rock garden. Falling forward onto a large flat rock I braced my fall with both wrists, but not in time to prevent my chin from a violent whack on the rock and the painful injury to both wrists. Surprised actually that I’m able to type tonight, the injury makes my busy life a little more complex and dependent on the help of others. Sucks! But in spite of the pain, today I feel positive. So strange how much one’s internal state changes our perceptions and thus our reality to such a degree that one day life seems void of everything worthwhile while the next unlimited possibilities abound.

Monday May 17, 2010

Sunrise Farm

Guilford, Vermont

At last, I have more than a stolen moment to review what I started writing now 12 days ago when we were leaving Brazil to return to Vermont. We are settled into our summer home. We have an additional screen room tent which Paul will use as an art studio and holds some of the overflow items we don’t wish to crowd the trailer with set at the highest spot on the hill looking out over the same (only better) view I’ve already described. Now at last with our transportation and housing needs met, we can begin to resume life again. Although Paul will continue to be on the lookout for opportunities to consult as a developmental psychologist, his focus now is upon returning to the world of art and artisans as a painter. In my opinion an artist needs to be creating art. Since I’ve known him I’ve been encouraging him to return to his art and now at last he has arrived at a place and time to do that.

We continue to be on the lookout for the right piece of land in the hopes that we will find something in time to be under shelter before winter comes. We are determined to create a life free from debt with as little involvement with the system (a system which, in our opinion, does not work) as possible. I will continue to journal our progress as we attempt to reconstruct a working life outside the system on a manageable yet very small economy. Perhaps there are some of you who will find this kind of information useful, or at the very least amusing and entertaining, maybe even inspiring? Today, however I will wrap this one up so that we can move ahead in a more timely and up to date manner. With a heart full of love for each of you, thanks for following along with our adventure.

April 28, 2010

April 28, 2010

Alto Paraiso

Loved Ones,

A few disjointed things I wanted to pass along before forgetting:

Last week when Paul and I visited Abadiania to see John of God, we noticed a flyer announcing an upcoming event in New York in September. Should anyone with a health problem be interested in personally seeing John of God, or if you know someone else who might be, he will be at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York from September 27 through 30^th. I wrote about volunteering and just heard back that there is limited housing left available for the event, should you want to take the opportunity to see him while he is closer than Brazil. Here’s a link to Omega’s website:

http://eomega.org/omega/workshops/07f3db91f6c14ef5c8a3d6b4e9646249/

It’s unfortunate that there is a fee charged to see him at Omega, when there is none charged in Brazil. It’s quite important that money not be involved with spiritual work, but this factor could be the very thing as I sort through my feelings on differences that exist between living in the US and living in Brazil, that has my comfort level be so much greater here in Brazil. I’ve had to give very little attention or thought to money since being here. As I make my plans to return back, I am finding several events, workshops and gatherings I am interested in attending, but the costs of attending seem prohibitive. I recall all throughout my life times when I’ve wanted to learn something or go somewhere but couldn’t or didn’t because the cost was too high. But these money concerns are my lessons to deal with this lifetime and perhaps for you these concerns do not play a role. Covering the costs of producing an event are valid and indeed I would venture to guess less than the airfare to Brazil, so well worth the expense should you have a health problem you wish to treat.

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The last few days we have been listening to an internet radio show broadcast on YouTube that has given me some inspiration. I wanted to also send along that link, should any of you be interested in listening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7zG8Cfh6FY

It’s with Max Igan entitled “How to Save the World” about 50 minutes in length in 5 parts.

He often talks so eloquently about the very things I often think about. In a strange way I’ll sometimes find my way to one of his talks just as I’ve been thinking of the very things he is speaking on, noticing that we are both coming to the same conclusions. I appreciate him so much.

Actually more along this same line of thought…. One of the people we most appreciate listening to, David Icke, has been doing many new interviews to promote his new book, Human Race, Get Off Your Knees - The Lion Sleeps No More. This evening we are listening to the following one: David Icke interview on April 24, 2010 on Journeys with Rebecca Radio. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTTnriwxJsk

Again, something I really enjoyed listening to……..

Both Paul and I have been on this long journey of discovery as some of you have been following along with through my journaling. Like these two researchers, Max Igan and David Icke, we have come to many of the same observations and conclusions, if you could call them that because we are far from having a conclusion. We have come to these things both on our own and through these two and other sources. As I listen to the main points of what they are saying, so much better than I could ever do, I want to share with you that what is most important now is to change our vibration from one of fear to one of love, compassion and empathy. The era is changing to a new age and we will break the chains that hold us in bondage to a system that doesn’t work and serves only to control and subdue our inherent nature. I resist now listening to some researchers whose focus is solely on uncovering the horrendous activities of those in power. Because they often cause me to feel anxiety and agitation which raises my fears and keeps me in a low level vibration, exactly that which those who wish to control me are going for. On the other hand, it’s also important that we discover the truth, and stop going along without question.

Our focus now and before now has been on the development of human consciousness. When we look at the events that are transpiring and the revelations that are being exposed, we look from a perspective of how all this is changing who and what we are, not just individually but as a species of humanity. Something like 98% of our human potential has been systematically denied to us but all that is changing.

The other key point that is coming to light now is the interplay between good and evil. In the old TV Westerns you could tell who the good guys were and who the bad guys were; at least who they wanted you to think they were. Now that nothing is what it seems questions keep popping up relating to this very thing. If all that is occurring is for the purpose of evolving consciousness, then are the players who would appear to be absolute evil necessary in this unfolding? In the final analysis are they really playing a role for the end good? So much of what we have discovered in our quest to know more about spiritism has shown us that it is highly likely that both forces are equally present at one and the same time. When we first discovered this our tendency was to shy away from things that could easily be open to dark forces. However we have since come to believe that in all things like yin and yang, one can not exist without the other, one creates the other. More on this topic at a later time……

As we prepare to leave here and return to the mountains of Vermont, we have been doing some preliminary scouting over the internet. Today Paul was thrilled to find a group right in Brattleboro of people building with natural resources and helping each other to learn and share techniques and people power. What joy! They are building with cobb and straw bale, salvaged materials and using what is readily available. Ah, my heart sings with joy to know there is already a support group there we can band together with to bring our dream into reality. Stay tuned to the newsletter if you’d like to share our journey in building an off the grid sustainable house and creating a life free of the banksters involvement in our affairs.

May 1^st

Happy birthday to Phyllis Selesnick, my mom!

This Saturday morning starts my last weekend here in High Paradise (Alto Paraiso.) I will shortly walk around the corner to the feria (the weekly farmers market,) more to find and say so long to the friends and acquaintances than to shop, as with only 2 days left I resist buying more food than I will use. The last days in a place are difficult, with one foot already out the door; it’s not possible to continue routines up to the last minute. There’s also a pull between sadness at leaving one place and happiness at arriving at another. I know this expression is over used to the point of almost being trite, but it still holds so much profound wisdom in it that it bears repeating, “When one door closes, another door opens.”

Paul and I both have always thrived on change. Even when things are unfolding beautifully and smoothly and we have found routines that really work, we begin to feel the call for something new. This one factor perhaps more than any other holds us together in times when we notice we are going in different directions desiring different things- yet usually with the same outcomes. I personally also like a challenge. If things seem too easy, there’s something in my nature that wants to take it up a notch and make it more of a struggle. That’s my personality type though, the beautiful struggle, but always the victor over the struggle in the final analysis. Though these days, more and more, I am yearning for easy.

Honestly I would have been quite happy, delighted and content to stay here in Brazil for a while more….. not in the town but outside of town, building a home and planting a garden. This is still my desire – the call to create a home again, whether here or there now doesn’t really seem to matter, as I adore both places. For a while now I have had this yearning to create it all with my own hands, the art project of a lifetime and now I have the confidence to do it. I’ve been gathering the pieces of the puzzle that will have it all fit together. I invite any of you who are interested to come and join us for a while, as a way to learn, spend time together or simply help if you like.

We have already begun our search for land upon which to build and found through the internet some viable options to pursue. We’ll be in high gear on our return with the intention of breaking ground this summer and being in by winter. We welcome helping hands and hearts – come pitch a tent and get your hands in the mud!

All for today…. Until next time…. Happy May!