October 9, 2013

Ecuador

It seems long past time to chronicle what’s been happening in my life and from my perspective here on planet earth. So many changes! I do love to write and yet it’s been months and months since undertaking that effort. It seems I went through some sort of metamorphous in regard to making public my inner thoughts. With the world wide web as my forum, I think I became wary of exposing what I was thinking so publicly, now that the web has been exposed as a spyware tool for the controlling elites. But so be it, they have lost their power of control over me as I no longer acknowledge any authority above my own sense of what’s right. That said, a quick review.

While I won’t reveal my exact whereabouts, I will say that since last posting I have moved and though I’ve been in this location for 10 months now, I feel an imminent change brewing. At the time of my last move nearly a year ago December, Paul was quite seriously ill. We were living in our own little mini paradise on the edge of town in a corner of a small community of 5 homes tucked behind high walls. There we’d made ourselves quite at home thinking we could stay as long as we’d like, so we brought home 7 hens, or so we thought, from the animal market and built them a high rise bamboo tiki hut behind our garden. Turned out 2 of our hens were roosters, but it’s so hard to tell when they’re not much more than 4 inch balls of fluff. Anyway, forgive me for getting lost in the details, but one afternoon the phone rang asking for permission to see the house. Two days later another call came to say our house was sold and we would need to leave. Shocking us out of our peaceful reverie, we had to mobilize. As luck would have it, the Way stepped in and located us an even more perfect home on the outskirts of town at the edge of a Kichwa village. There on a small farm with 2 other small cottages, was an abandoned, dare I say Italian style villa, just waiting for our energy to be brought back to life. I proceeded to dig up the plants in my garden and move my very ill husband, my chickens (less one rooster who got donated to the neighbors) and transplant all of us to our new home.  It didn’t come free from drama, but I won’t elaborate on that right now. Suffice it to say that the drama escalated to a point at which the family who was here at the time we moved in, left, leaving one cottage empty, but the absentee owner who comes and goes, comes more frequently now.

Many months later, 11 to be exact, we are as much at home here as we’ve been anywhere. Our original 6 chickens have become 20 and are now sharing their yard with 3 ducks. Paul has recovered from that long illness, the garden has been harvested and replanted 3 or 4 times since and life goes on from this mostly tranquil location. I say mostly, because our neighbors, these wonderful kichwa indians, do love their all night dancing parties.

So our personal life has been good, though that incredible sense of gratitude we were feeling has gradually diminished. Too bad, really, because that was quite wonderfully remarkable.  Still when we compare our life here to the life we lived and the lives our families and friends are living in the US, we remember that while we are not feeling that overwhelming sense of daily gratitude, we should be. Granted we are old enough to be retired and receiving back some of that money paid into the social security system, we still would have found a way to opt out and not comply with that life we left behind. A despicable life in our opinion. One devoted to full time survival in a world where there is never enough.

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October 23, 2013

This seems to be the way of things for me now.....time slips away and although I start writing with the best of intentions to complete a full entry, I do seem to be called away to something else before finishing. It’s 2 weeks since beginning. Well our attention is focused on other things. Mainly we are concerned that we need to find a new place to live. The owner of the farm and house which we rent for close to a year now, made it clear from the beginning that one day he would likely ask us to leave so that he could move his in-laws in, should the system collapse. Well as some of you may realize, the system is in imminent danger of collapsing. How horrible would it be (for us) to find ourselves homeless in a time at which chaos roams rampant with the collapse of government (that wont come soon enough from our perspective) and the monetary systems which rules all. Now for us, this would be a dream come true, however many hardships this creates during the transition. Everything in our world has been given a monetary value. All life has been converted to commerce. A person can not be born on the planet without having to devote their existence to “making a living” to survive. It’s time for this to end. We are infinite consciousness here to have an experience within which to grow, not to be a slave to a system which creates more wealth for a few who deem themselves to be so special that they deserve all at the expense of the rest of us solely because of their “pure” bloodlines.

Now I realize that for many people reading these words, it might sound like pure gibberish, because for them, none of this makes any sense. Afterall the programming since birth has been very effective. They think everything is cool with the world. Of course a person is expected to earn a decent living and take care of themselves and their families, should they choose to have one. Their education (so called) since the age of 4 or 5 has taught them so, as has the television programming they’ve watched, the newspapers and magazine journals they’ve read. After all everyone agrees, so they must be right. Everyone, that is, except for these crazy conspiracy theorists who are seemingly mislead. Hah! It’s no theory that there is a global conspiracy to control everyone’s thoughts, actions and emotions so that they (these chosen few) can own and control everything. I know that some people think that all you have to do is work hard, be a little smarter than the rest and you can get ahead. Well, damn it, it’s not about getting ahead! It’s not about competing with your neighbors so you can have more than they do. We’re all in this together and until we all realize that unless everyone around you is doing okay too, than you aren’t.

Look, I’ve been around. I’ve lived in other countries from the one in which I was born and raised. There is NO difference from a person born in South America to one born in North America, or the far or middle east. We are all the same. We all love our babies, want the best for them, enjoy time with friends, get hungry, need sleep, get ill sometimes and eventually die of old age. Why should any of us have more privilege than another. Think about it! Really!

Sorry I got off on a rampage. Let me get back to where I started which was a kind of chronicle of where we’re at. So, we’re looking once again for a new home. We’re back where we started several years ago, feeling that the best way to do this is to find friends who see the world much as we do, who can help each other. Now, however we’re a little older so a few things have changed. We’re not as strong or as healthy as we were when we started thinking about how important community is, but that fact only makes the whole idea even that much more important. Now we’re in a phase of life where having family and friends is the most important. One observation I’ve made is that families in South America where I currently reside are much closer than families in North America. Because of economic necessity, generations of families stay together in the same house or on the same land, building more houses as the children get older and have their own families. Grandparents take care of grandchildren as the parents need to leave home to find work. Not so in the US. Children leave home and go far and wide to find work and have their own families. They rarely return home except for the occasional visit, but even then sometimes not at all because they can’t afford the expense to travel or lose wages from time off from work. It’s sad. In my personal experience, I’ve had to choose to leave my country and leave the ability to watch my grandchildren grow up because each of my children live so far apart and because I can not stand to see what has become of my homeland with it’s cookie cutter cities and towns. For gods sake, you can’t tell one from another anymore now that the UN’s agenda 21 has turned every community into a cardboard, white bread version of the same thing everywhere you go. There’s no more mom and pop establishments; no small business’s showing the diversity and creativity of human consciousness expressing itself. No, instead you have the same choices of where to eat and what to buy everywhere you go because the same dozen (maybe it’s less now) corporations own everything! You are not free to express yourself any differently than the person next to you and if you do, my god, if you do, you will be ostracized....probably burned at the stake for having different ideas....metaphorically, although that practice will probably reinstate itself in my lifetime the way things are going.

I’m ranting again. I can’t help it, there are so many reasons to rant. Well, where was I? Okay so we’re at it again, god damn it, looking for a piece of land to buy.....only this time we have less money than ever because, well you know why....everyone’s in the same boat. It costs money to live and if you are not working because say you are retired or your job options were cut off or whatever reason. Hell even if you’re still working, your dollar buys less than ever. So now more than ever it takes community. We happen to think it’s a very good idea. Why not one well for 3 or 4 families, one internet service, one shared car. Think about it! Why not 3 or 4 families sharing the work of growing the food in the garden, caring for the farm animals who provide eggs and milk. This way we help each other when one of us is sick and needs to be cared for. It makes sense, especially now that our families are spread so far and wide. So we’re looking. We’ve found friends. But we haven’t as yet found land and this puts us on edge because time is short to be prepared for the worse. We can’t tell the future but we suspect that harder times loom in the near future. We have many possible extinction events looming. For example, Fukishima is spewing radiation around the northern hemisphere. This is not speculation or theory of conspiracy, it is a fact, even if your TV news channel isn’t talking about it. The water supplies of several countries around the world are being contaminated because of fracking for natural gas. A disaster! There are cosmic events transpiring that astronomers are watching closely as comet ISON for example moves closer in its orbit to our sun and the earth is predicted to travel though its tail and debris field as soon as this November and December. The sun is sending solar flares that could conceivably take down the power grid world wide. There’s more, but this alone is enough to mention for now. So what’s a knowing, thinking person to do?

For me personally, it’s a challenge to keep a positive attitude from day to day. I like to live my life close to nature. It’s here I find the only peace and comfort from something that is real, without question. I plant my garden, watching the seedlings emerge from the earth, nurturing them as they grow into plants that I can eat and share with those around me. I enjoy having chickens who provide us with eggs and more chicks for more eggs later. I’d have more animals around me if I could, but we keep waiting to have our own place again, hopefully one day soon. It’s too hard to keep moving all of us and our family has grown so much bigger now with 2 dogs, 3 ducks and 20 chickens.

But that’s not all we’re doing. Paul’s writing a book about beliefs. It’s very good and I think very important.He’s a deep thinker and has been watching this experience unfold since he started  as a young boy, sitting in the lap of his very wise grandmother. It will help a lot of people reading this book and getting inside the mind of this extraordinary man. He’s making a bi monthly podcast as well, with my help. He writes and explains while I do the technical production and throw in my 2 cents from time to time, hopefully to help clarify the complexity of his thoughts.

That’s our life at the moment. We feel blessed to live among a culture of people we greatly admire. Their culture is mostly intact through centuries of change on the planet. Little by little we get a glimpse of understanding of what it’s really about, but daily we feel the impact of living near people who are still very much connected to the land on which they live which provides their subsistence. They honor her and uphold their long standing traditions of celebration. And they welcome us, sharing all that nature provides.

So my friends, I thank you for allowing me the space to share my thoughts and continue our connection in these troubled times. Know that we are moving towards an expanded state of consciousness. If the grand Yuga cycles the Vedics speak of are true and real, then we are on the ascending arc of expanding consciousness on the long slow way back towards the golden age once again. Take heart.

News from the bulge

Trumanville, Planet Earth

May 8, 2012

In the midst of planet wide chaos, of which so many of the anthropos remain to some degree in relative unawareness, I reside under blue skies, filled with billowy white clouds. The sun is sending me healing rays, stimulating and activating my Qi, tickling my pineal gland and opening my third eye. Each morning I awake and begin my practices. Tomorrow we, my loving companieros and I will have reached one hour in our meditations, progressing one additional minute each day. Now we will add a 2nd session later in the day. Following our meditation we stretch and then do the 5 Tibetans, a series of exercises to strengthen our physical bodies and open our chakras, bringing us rejuvenating energy, after which we practice QiGong energy work to heal and generate even more energy around our personal fields.

Each day we feel an overwhelming sense of GRATITUDE for being here out of the fray of the onslaught of Arcontic eugenics.

As we sit in our newly fenced in back yard, safe from the antics of the neighborhood oversized retriever/lab puppy, enjoying the healing rays of the sun, we can’t help noticing the daily growth of the plants in our garden. They all grow about three times the size of any we’ve ever seen and this at about three times the rate of speed. It’s amazing to me that having planted this garden on March 14th, we’ve been eating salads and fresh greens for the last 3 weeks since mid April. And even though there’s been an excess of rain, everything is thriving. This morning I was mesmerized by the newly forming teeny tiny lemons which even at a size of 3/16th’s of an inch, are perfectly formed. There’s dozens of them coming into being.

I’m learning about plants. I’ve been asking them to talk to me for quite some time and it’s beginning to happen. My indigenous friend points out the medicinal ones and tells me about their healing properties whenever we happen to see them. And sometimes now I’ll walk past one and it reveals it’s usefulness to me, so I’m experimenting and learning. Another friend has been teaching me hands on healing techniques and I find I’m quite good at working with this king of energy healing.

So more and more I am feeling the authenticity of being a Telestai. A couple days ago I was sitting on a park bench in a square where children were playing while their parents were in church. They’d maybe never seen a woman who looked like me before and they came to me and brought me flowers, smiling with so much curiosity and love and let me hug them and kiss them with my gratitude for their gift. The children here are more beautiful than I’ve ever seen. And with so many coming in here in this part of the world, while so few are being born in other places, I can’t help but wonder.

So I know we are not immune here to the dark forces which are wreaking havoc around the world, but for some reason, we are being spared from so much. Our skies have been untouched by geo-engineering as far as we’ve been able to tell although for the very 1st time in the months we’ve been here, this morning we saw one chem trail. Everyday I give thanks and blessings that we are not being sprayed; that we are breathing clean pure air free from airborne virus’ and chemicals meant to turn us into transmitters, dumb us down and kill us slowly while we fuzz out and can’t figure out what’s going on. I don’t know yet what to think about this morning’s trail....

Our other blessings include locally grown real live food, none of this horrendous genetically modified crap the controllers are forcing on us around the world. And water free from flouride and psycho-actives. So we’re breathing deeply and getting healthy. Living on the edge of town is fantastic. It keeps us in good shape because we walk daily. I adore not having to have a car. The public transportation is always available and more than affordable. Just two days ago in fact we travelled with friends to visit the lake of blood.

We met our friends at the bus terminal, arriving a few minutes before them, long enough to scope out the Sunday indigenous market. This week we couldn’t shop but we got a feel for what was happening at 8:30 still early in the day. Normally it’s close to 10 by the time we get there after our celebratory Sunday morning breakfast out. It is a different feel, more plants and quite a bit more bustle....certainly the early shoppers have more to choose from. I saw Jhordan first, running through the crowd with arms outstretched ready to give me a big hug, followed by his little brother Allan and slowly more sedately their older brother Lenin, more fitting with his more mature status at 12 years of age, he walked along side his mom, dad and two aunties, all of 11 and maybe 16. Where was the new baby we asked as we saw Maria did not have him. Her little sister who had barely just turned 11 had him tidily strapped to her back just as all the indigenous women carry their babies. After exchanging greetings we boarded the bus about to pull out of the terminal. The first stop was Atuntaqui where we walked several blocks up hill from the main road to the square at the top of the village. Maria wanted to attend the church service and was joined by her sisters and eldest boy. Luis joined us in the square with the little boys. I’m always delighted at the response I get from the children who see me and smile and stare with curiosity and wonder. My smile seems to reach them and draw them to me. And this morning I was gifted with flowers and hugs! 

So we crossed back over near the end of the church service while Luis went inside to find Maria and the rest of his family. We waited outside, watching the children play. We stood near a young boy and his sister while he watched his other baby sister. We smiled and tried to make conversation and he demonstrated his few English words and his acrobatic abilities, delighted in his shy way to be interacting with such exotic foreigners. It was a total exchange of love and wonder and appreciation. A women approached with bright excited eyes and welcomed us to her village eager to share with us something I’m afraid I didn’t fully understand, but the love was palpably present.

We climbed into the back of a camionetta (a pick-up truck used as another means of taxiing larger groups- and generally less expensive than a taxi) then, all 10 of us and caught a ride down to the main street where we boarded another bus, this one all the way into the main bus terminal of Ibarra. Happily following along with our friends with no real idea of what was coming next, how close we were to where we were going, or how we were going to get there. Stopping along the busy thoroughfare to buy bags of fruits from the street vendors and shops, we crossed a set of trolley tracks, and another set of train tracks and were once again on another bus. This one made it’s way through the busy streets of town and turned onto quite a narrow one lane road which wound its way up and out of town high on a mountain road. Traveling by bus high up in the Andean mountains is quite an experience. One must just give it up and totally trust in the Way that a safe arrival is in your future. After climbing quite high and riding for a while, the descent began to the large lake that was our destination where the main attraction was to be a freshly caught large fish lunch. And it was delicious! After pricing a couple different fish restaurants, Maria decided we would catch a couple cabs to the other side of the lake where it was quieter and would be more affordable. Again she inquired of the fish sellers until she found one that would not overcharge us because her group included two Gringos. We climbed a narrow staircase to a sitting area overlooking the lake and enjoyed 10 fish dinners with boiled potatoes and salsa.

The boys then went across to the lake and rode a fly-wheel from a platform to the tire stop at the far end of the ride where they bounced back a few yards, jumped off and pulled the swing back to the starting platform. The smiles on their faces were priceless. We all took a boat ride around the whole lake and then rested in the grass for a while while the boys fished and played.

Several bus rides and a while later we said goodbye to our friends and headed home by cab from the bus terminal, too tired to walk the last 20 minutes home.

It’s amazing to be here in this place, surrounded by these beautiful indians and to be given the chance to really know them and be included in their life from time to time. It’s a little different with the Mestizzos, the spanish Ecuadorians. They are more caught up in the material world, concentrating on economic concerns, worried a bit about how the foreigners with so much more money are driving up the costs of land and housing. It’s a dilemma because for us foreigners, the cost of living here is so much more affordable than what we are accustomed to. When we can rent a house for $450 a month we are thrilled that we are not having to spend $1200, but for an Ecuadorian, when the price is much over $80, it is unreachable in their economy. It’s a worldwide problem as people migrate around the world, leaving the hardship of their own economic conditions to seek out a more hospitable environment. But it is an unfortunate by product of our Arcontic times.

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November 3, 2010

Back from a long silence my friends. I have begun many times since last posting to detail the ins and outs of this experience and thought otherwise about making public my thoughts. So many reasons why this is so which include the teachings of Don Juan to Carlos Casteneda in his instructions to erase his personal history. I thought long and hard about this as it struck a deep chord of resonance with me. It came up again in the writings of Jose Triguerinho who teaches the wisdom of eliminating the personality. Said another way, he speaks of removing the ego so that what is left is our higher self, the part of us that exists beyond this short experience we are having as, well for me it would be Mindy, for you, whomever you know yourself as. David Icke calls it “Little Me.” Hmmmm, so there we are. In my writings on this blog and in fact where ever and whatever I’ve written, it’s always been about my experience, my thoughts, my feelings; it’s always about me, me, me. Yuck! I’ve struggled my whole life to put me, me, me aside and put others first. That’s been one of my biggest lessons here. I suppose because of this, I’ve been much more introspective than most. I look at things and think about things that other people don’t take the time for and of course my point of reference is always me, how could it be otherwise? But on the other hand….perhaps that’s why my writing has some appeal. Maybe I’m shining a light in places most people don’t look. Holding up a mirror, perhaps?

Well, in any case, I questioned the purpose, the dignity, (?) of continuing to expose and reveal what was in my mind and in my heart, since I know that as well as connecting me to those who enjoy reading this, it also serves to isolate me by pointing out the difference between my experience and so many of my loved ones. It also creates an opening for judgment and in that process perhaps danger that I may be thought raving mad. Maybe someone who thinks they love me might even decide that for my own good, I should be committed to a place that could straighten my act out. It’s a strange fact that the line between brilliance and madness is a very fine line. You see throughout all time anyone whose ideas were different than the mainstream were written off as delusional. This then is how we are programmed to process things that don’t fit in with the accepted paradigm. “Hmmm, that doesn’t make any sense, the poor bugger must be crazy!” Well, call me crazy if you must.

I never intended to stick out like a sore thumb. Great expression, that, isn’t it? Brings images of “Even Cowgirls get the Blues” to mind. I love the play of words. Suppose that’s why I love to write. For one thing it gets the damn endless conversation out of my head and makes more space for new thoughts, such as they are. I also never intended to see quite this far down the rabbit hole. Or did I? I did start crawling down this rabbit hole an awfully long time ago. Like Alice in Wonderland, I wanted to know what would happen if I took the blue pill. But I got way more than I bargained for when I wanted to know what was really going on. I started to say damn Paul for asking to know and see everything, but I can’t do that, I love him too much. Besides it’s my problem that I have that “little sister” complex that makes me want to know everything he does and do everything he does. I don’t want to be left out of anything. Kind of wish now I might have been left out of knowing a thing or two. Geez! I didn’t want to know this stuff!

Probably by now, you might be wondering “What is she going on about now?” This is where it gets tricky, because where in the world do I start to articulate what I’ve been talking about? It’s even harder now than ever what with the aluminum poisoning that I’m convinced I’m feeling the effects of. What? Where did that come from? Have any of you looked up into the sky lately? Have you noticed the billowing jet trails spewing lines across the sky, criss-crossing and painting grid lines? Or what about all these new kinds and shapes of clouds that we never learned about when I was a young girl in school? Do you think there are suddenly new kinds of clouds? Think again, my dear ones. Those are not condensation trails billowing behind commercial jet traffic. Condensation trails dissipate in a matter of minutes. They do not leave lines from one horizon to another. Did you know that’s what’s in those trails of smoky looking clouds is aluminum, barium and strontium and other nano particles? Did you know that the safe levels of aluminum are 1,000 parts per billion and that soil and water samples are showing levels in Phoenix at 30,000 parts per billion. In Mt Shasta, California they’ve measured 61,000 ppb. I don’t know what they are measuring here in Vermont where I am, but I can tell you that my skies overhead are filled with more trails than I’ve seen anywhere! So here’s what they say are the effects on our health from these excessive levels of aluminum: neurological damage, inability to focus or concentrate, memory loss, depression, confusion, joint pains. There’s more folks. Those are just a few. Cases of Alzheimer’s are higher than ever. While I don’t have Alzheimer’s, thank God, I do have all the other symptoms I just detailed. Do you? Chances are you might. But this is a tough one because there’s any number of other reasons why you might be having these and other cold or flu like symptoms…. Now, if you use your logical thinking and ask, why would they be doing this, you’ll find with a little research that the government is proposing (note I say proposing) something they call SRM Solar Radiation Management to control the weather and mitigate global warming. They will say that they think the risks are worth taking to manage this problem. Bull shit. Sorry. First of all the government isn’t proposing, they already are and second of all, it’s not about global warming, it’s about population reduction and profit from illness and misery, but is that really all it’s about? Maybe not, I say….

Enough of that, let’s talk about something else, shall we? Don’t quite know what to do with this blog now that I’ve come to some of the realizations I have about erasing personal history and eliminating personality and such musings as these. After all that’s mostly what I enjoy writing about, but I do love passing along new information that seems worthy of sharing. I just might have a go at revamping the blog spot site and eliminating some old links. It always seems like such a bother when I remember that I want to do that. But these days I might find myself walking from one room to the next with some intention only to forget what that might have been when I get there. I KNOW it’s not age and it’s not dementia, folks. I think it’s something much more sinister than that. But I can hear so many unvoiced opinions saying I question things way too much. But my concern is that there are too many of us who do not question things nearly enough.

So let me just say this, in case it’s not understood. Like dying, there’s a process that takes place much like the grieving process, when one begins to awaken to certain truths that were previously unnoticed. There are certain steps that occur which include denial, anger, apathy and others that aren’t coming immediately to mind before one does eventually arrive in a state of acceptance. And for the most part I think I can honestly say that I am in a place of acceptance most of the time. That does not mean condoning what is so nor does it mean inaction to take measures that might change things. Perhaps now more than ever I feel the inclination to share information, to make connections with more people locally to really establish in more concrete ways a community network around me so that I don’t feel so alone and helpless when my mind wanders out into possible future scenarios instead of staying peaceably in the moment where all continues to be well.

Enough said for now. Any feedback?

Here’s a list of links if you want to delve deeper into some of the things I’ve been exploring lately:

(I haven’t explored some of them in detail yet but they come recommended by reputable sources and people I know and trust)

On Chem Trails (Geo Engineering, solar radiation management SRM or whatever you prefer to call the aerosol spraying of the skies):

www.californiaskywatch.com

www.iseelines.com

www.arizonaskywatch.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K9rXydMmfw a good overview in movie form in 7 parts by Michael Murphy

http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/

http://educate-yourself.org/ Educate-Yourself.org is a free educational forum dedicated to the dissemination of accurate information in the use of natural, non-pharmaceutical medicines and alternative healing therapies in the treatment of disease conditions. Free Energy, Earth Changes, and the growing reality of Big Brother are also explored

http://flybynews.com/

For some good radio talk show interviews check out:

Red Ice Radio on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=red+ice+radio+2010&aq=1

As I’ve often mentioned before I almost always appreciate hearing what Max Igan from Australia has to say and look for his latest offerings on YouTube. Here’s today’s search of new postings: http://www.youtube.com/results?uploaded=w&search_query=max+igan+2010&search_type=videos&suggested_categories=27%2C25%2C29&uni=3 Be sure to use the sort by tab and get the latest stuff. I usually sort for things uploaded this week. And David Icke remains one of my favorite sources of information and I search YouTube for him as well but you can also visit both Max’s and David’s websites at: www.thecrowhouse.com and www.DavidIcke.com

For any of you who wish to explore some more esoteric stuff I would point you to http://alphaspaceshipenglish.blogspot.com/ a site some friends in Brazil recently introduced me to.

Happy explorations!

So much love, Mindy

July 16, 2010

July 16, 2010

Dear friends and loved ones,

Since last posting, I have experienced a world of changes as I indicated with my closing remarks. I attempted to write and rewrite since the 5^th of July an accounting of all that transpired in detail, but today as I write this letter, having re read the final 5 page draft, it seems pointless to bore you all with the details. It would seem that what began as a journal of sorts for my benefit and a letter to family and friends describing our exploration through Brazil and South America had morphed into something completely different. My thoughts to attempt to detail the ins and outs of building an affordable off the grid homestead have over time changed as the process revealed to us a change of heart on so many levels that to detail them while once seemingly worthwhile, no longer seems so.

If I can summarize all that we learned in this two month sojourn since our return, with any clarity I can only say that in the latest analysis what seems best for us has dramatically changed. Indeed we found many lovely places where we could have established a new home base, yet intuitively none ever felt quite right. Fixing ourselves to one location seems tedious and problematical to Paul while riddled with anxious concern for me. Renting without long term commitment suits us better at this juncture, keeping the freedom alive to follow our hearts.

As you know, Paul and I see a rapidly changing world and are inclined towards knowing and experiencing all we can while it is still possible. As I become more realistic in certain matters, I can see that there are some limitations about what I can expect from my body. It occurs to me that building a homestead might be one of them. I think these physically demanding activities are better left to younger and stronger people and that turning within to continue my spiritual development rises to the foreground of what’s more important to me just now.

To that end, for the last 7 days, we have taken on the practice of meditating for one hour, twice a day. First thing in the morning and again sometime in the afternoon, we sit quietly for a time directing our thoughts inward, working to still the mental chatter. We are getting our whole bodies involved using the Vipassana techniques we learned at a 10 day silent mediation retreat at the Vipassana Center several years ago. We are endeavoring to be mindful of what might be occurring with us as we move deeper and deeper into this practice. This morning, after seven days of doing this, we attempted to list changes we are seeing that may or may not be attributed to the meditation. Here’s what we’ve noticed:

• We have a reduced interest in watching movies for entertainment. There seems to be more and more of an inability to be entertained by them. Although we have always had trouble watching violence in movies, (both verbal and physical) it has become almost impossible to subject ourselves to this genre of video entertainment. In me, it provokes a full body anxiety, while for Paul it is somewhat less vivid. He is less vicerously affected. Paul noticed last night that he is not as easily entertained by slap stick humor as he once was and I am quite easily moved to anxiety by music scores that are meant to induce frightening responses.

• We are less susceptible to emotional highs and lows. Initially I noticed that I was a bit bored by this absence but now I am finding solace in the “middle ground.” We think this might be what is referred to as developing a more equanamous approach to life. As you have probably noticed from reading this blog or knowing me, I do not have the reputation for having the most balanced and unflappable way of being. I have always rather had the tendency to over react and get caught up in the very highs and lows that life brings. Most who know me think of me as a highly emotional and deeply sensitive person, yet the meditation practice appears to be stabilizing my highs and lows and leaving me feeling more calm and in control.

• We are finding it easier and faster to quiet the “talking voice” during meditation and it remains less active as well when not meditating. We seem to have more space between our thoughts.

• I am finding it easier to be with the times when I feel a sense of dread and not be so rattled by it.

• Because of it forcing us to take a more mindful approach to life we are noticing that we are snacking almost not at all and generally eating much less than we were.

• Neither of us is as whiney. Feeling gratitude appears to be coming more easily and naturally.

• We seem to be more indifferent about things. What I mean by this is that we seem to be more accepting of the things we can not affect and less invested in particular outcomes.

As you know, I have kept you abreast of the activities of which we have been involved with, both inner and outer. This simply continues in that vein for whatever it’s worth, perhaps for inspiration, perhaps for consideration or simply as I mentioned earlier just as a source of entertainment or a distraction from the activities of your day.

Well then, we’ll leave you here for now until next time. I love hearing from you, anytime you feel inclined to write or call. Stay in peace and love.

June 17, 2010

June 17, 2010

Only 4 days away from the summer solstice. The days are very long here in Vermont, starting at 4:45 am (I think) and ending close to 10 pm. Yet it doesn’t really feel like summertime, at least not the summertime I remember. Feels more like spring; every now and then a good hot sunny day but more days of clouds and rain with the sun emerging when it feels like it. You better be ready to drop everything you’re doing inside and rush outside to get the full benefit of the sunshine or you may miss one of your few opportunities. Yesterday was one those days. It didn’t start out very hopeful but by midmorning it was sunny and dry. I mowed around the trailer and the tent and I put up a rain tarp creating a cool little area just outside the door for the lounge chair I picked up at the Saturday swap shop and an end table. Great place to put a thing or two out of the weather. This morning the wind is so strong the tarp is flying high above the trailer like a parachute. That’s the thing about this part of the world. The weather is such a force to be reckoned with, you can’t do anything half-assed. There’s one of those expressions that only works one way. You never hear of anything full-assed! Well, this isn’t a cool thing for me because most of what I do is half-assed. Need to work on that other cheek, I guess.

So these are strange days of waiting and imagining possibilities; waiting because we are working with a realtor to set up appointments to now see inside houses, where we were before driving by on our own to locate parcels of land. Now we are sitting with about 4 or 5 different possible futures to consider. One takes us well north of where we are now about 3 ½ hours by car to a 9 acre farm which sits well back from a well traveled route and across the road from a general store. It’s a typical Vermont farmhouse with an attached barn. There are two other large workshop/garage type buildings, open sunny fields for farming and it’s nestled against a wooded hillside with a long view to a distant mountain. It’s priced very low but makes no qualms about needing repairs. It’s full of possibilities and with little photographs up close, only so far a work of imagination. Will it be windy? How freaking cold will it be on the 44 and ½ parallel? It looks like we can get some privacy from drive-by traffic up against the hillside, but how much road noise will we have. Yet, art studio space galore! And the potential for great farming, not to mention room for other people, maybe even an apartment. And horses….. But until we hear back from David, our realtor, we can only sit and stare at the printout and wonder.

Another possibility is a cabin in the woods, already off the grid, remotely private, great views of the distant mountains with a little clearing on more than 20 acres, a year round brook. …Too soon to know without a visit. So different from each other; a different future and a different Paul and Mindy depending on what we end up choosing. And these are only two of several possibilities.

Whatever we choose however will need lots of renovations or additional building. It has to be this way because we are shopping in the bargain basement, still trying to have no mortgage or a very small one, preferably to a person and not a bank. The houses we’ve found are tiny footprints, some with upstairs space that isn’t finished. Some have some power, some are off the grid. Some have out buildings, while others don’t. One even comes with a jeep with a snow plow. The possibilities abound. But I have to put my head around being where it’s cold and rainy a lot of the time. This is not the tropics! Weather is the main event.

Speaking of weather events, when the sun comes out around here so do the airplanes spraying barium chem-trails. They criss-cross the sky as far as you can see. I’m longing for a place free from the chem.-trails but Paul won’t return to Brazil with me and that he says is where we need to go to get away from them. I’m kind of hoping if we get further away from the heavily populated areas perhaps in the upper kingdom of Vermont, they won’t be as prolific. Call me crazy if you want, but I swear I can feel the effects of them. With HAARP controlling the weather events who knows what’s in store for our coming future. Still some of the places I think I’d like to live are also heavily rainy…..Oregon, Wales…..

In other news, Paul has completed his first oil painting after many years of working in the field of psychology and away from artistic endeavors. It is quite beautiful and he remains a magnificent painter. Having an art studio in a tent doesn’t seem to have any adverse affects on his ability to produce remarkable work. I am simply delighted because anyone who has this kind of talent, in my opinion, should do nothing but create art.

June 24, 2010

Back to the keyboard after much time away and the possibilities of future imaginings abounding. What a week it’s been. On Friday we drove the three plus hours to the Upper Kingdom (what they call the northern section of the green mountain state) to look at four potential opportunities. The old farmhouse on 9 acres turned out to be 10 feet from a major thoroughfare. The photograph shown on the listing shot from an angle and a distance to enhance and entice the prospective buyer. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the house could barely be entered without a mask as the stench of cat urine permeated. Dolls and children’s toys were strewn everywhere and it looked as if the place had been ransacked by drunken marauding teenagers. A chat with the young girl working the counter of the general store across the street informed us of the elderly woman with some questionable mental capacity who had lived there with twenty cats before her daughter came to move her out. But with clenched nostrils we explored the interior of the house and attached barn and outbuildings. At its bargain price we explored the possibility of gutting the place and creating some kind of commercial outlet there. An art studio coffee and bagel shop sounded like an interesting idea for a minute before the reality set in. The folks streaming into the general store across the street and the combination bowling alley/tavern and gas pumps didn’t exactly fit the profile of potential patrons to support that kind of business endeavor. But down the road a mile or two a Cajun snack bar was doing block buster business with standing room only.

That ended a day of seeing fantastically beautiful landscapes with a thirty year veteran of real estate sales and a seventy year lifelong familiarity of the region. We explored the possibility of a twelve acre parcel of land with river frontage nestled into a narrow valley. I’ve yet to see a more beautiful place. Nearly all the acreage was an open sunny meadow bordered by woods and a thirty foot wide river with distant views of the surrounding mountains. At the far end a beaver pond. It did sit just off a road with some minimal traffic passing by, but the sound of the river washed away the noise of the occasional passing car and the road itself sat above the meadow so the sound traveled mostly up and away.

As beautiful as that was we felt more inclined to another piece of land arrived at by traveling up into the hills over the far side of the same river. This one had two adjoining parcels creating the ability to perhaps sell one off, preferably to family or friend. Two springs began a source which could have created a gravity fed water supply for the needs of the house and garden in lieu of digging a well. The fourth place we visited had a great unfinished cabin but was perched upon a steep hillside with a vertical cliff at one edge. As we walked the driveway from the very bottom at the road, arriving to the house out of breath, we lamented the passing of our youth and the flexibility of once younger bodies. The thought of falling off the yard yet another downside to what was a very interesting place. On the way out a newborn owl sat just off the cleared driveway in the tall grass, it’s bright round yellow eyes staring up at us. How I wanted to pick it up and carry it back to the care of someone competent, but we hoped that its mother might come to retrieve it if we left it untouched.

We spent the next two days remembering the land on the hill over the river and imagining the kind of life we could have there. The drive midway up through the green mountain state and then diagonally northwest couldn’t have been more lovely; each small town and village more charming than the last, a scenic photographer’s dream. We liked the wild nature of the region more and more the further north we went as the mountain ranges rose higher into the clouds. One can feel the presence of wildlife there, the moose almost visible through this layer of reality we seem only able to experience. Deer tracks are frequently seen and the occasional hedgehog is not an uncommon sight. Gary, our veteran realtor of the northern region took us by his home to show us the moose he had shot and mounted now to the wall of his tree farm office. Fifteen years he tells us he waited to get a license to hunt moose. What a fantastically magnificent animal. Personally I’d rather see them alive in the woods than dead with their heads mounted to a plaque on the wall, but I am no longer in a position to judge anyone for their actions. This moose which we were now seeing in its afterlife once stood over seven feet tall at the shoulders and weighed, I think Gary said, two tons? Surely an animal you wouldn’t want close by and angry or fearful of you.

In spite of the incredible beauty of the northern territory, my thoughts kept returning to the harsh reality of the colder climate of northern Vermont wondering if the beauty would always win out over longer colder winters. Yet the allure remains. Two days later on Father’s Day we were back in the car, this time with our friend and local realtor driving only two hours or less north of where we are in Southern Vermont to the western edge of the state bordering New York to visit two other exciting possibilities. I have to stop a moment and tell you how incredibly exhausting the process of exploring possibilities is. What is it exactly that is such a drain? I don’t think it’s the long hours of driving or the walks or climbs up the hills. I think it’s the emotional highs and lows of imagining what kind of a future each place holds. There’s an adrenaline rush that floods you with excitement when you resonate with a place. Could this be it, you wonder. Yes, yes, it could be. When the adrenaline leaves the body, so too does the zest for living life and all the energetic life force. It’s not easy to be the Buddha. It’s not easy to remain equanamous, in the moment of the experience of living life. It’s all future thinking. Sometimes I get so deeply in my head, remembering or projecting forward, I cease seeing where I am. I won’t have anything to remember if I’m not here where I am when I’m actually here. And don’t ask me to recount any details of any movie I’ve ever seen, because I don’t think I’ve ever remained conscious through an entire movie without hypnotically drifting into the hyno-pompic state between waking and sleeping. Ahh, if only one could remain totally present….. We once asked a very highly ascended person if she had a meditation practice. She responded that every moment was a meditation. It can be, but will I ever attain that ascended a state of being? I can only strive.

That was Sunday. Today is four days later. We have yet to have what we saw on Sunday leave our thoughts while waking or sleeping. Yesterday we drove back up to revisit this place and explore the surrounding area on every side. I believe we may have found our future. I hesitate to say too much in detail or specific so as not to jinx it or even force my will upon the natural unfolding of the Way, but in every analysis we find poetic metaphor answering each request, both spoken and unspoken, we’ve ever voiced.

So I’ll be somewhat vague for now and say simply the following: somewhere near the edge of New England where Vermont meets New York exists a small village. In this village is a little library with wireless internet. Across the street is a general store, but not your typical traditional general store. This one is owned by a woman who gets up early each morning to bake muffins and donuts. In the cooler along with the usual coke and Pepsi products are locally made soda pops from things like sarsaparilla. Green Mountain gourmet coffees are served from high tech pressurized thermoses, just like in latte style coffee shops. A selection of fine wines including a chocolate wine (?) line the shelves. A deli case is filled with sandwich makings and a lunch menu on a chalk board overhead details your choices. Not your typical general store but the homemade muffins and especially donuts answer one of Paul’s strongly voiced requests. Up the road in one direction you pass a long and very beautiful lake, lined with small vacation cottages built in the fifties, now lived in full time, on the way to the next town where an environmental liberal arts college which matches the look of every Ivy League college I’ve ever seen resides. Down the road in the other direction, a turn up the gently sloping hill takes you winding into the wooded hillside, twisting and turning into a remotely populated area back in the woods and hills just outside of town. At a fork in the road past a story book picture perfect farmstead, the road continues to twist and turn, rise and fall to a small bridge crossing a brook. If you’re going slowly enough you might notice the driveway and the little cottage that rests on the side of the babbling brook. The house is tiny with just under 700 square feet of living space, but has everything a person needs to live a simple life. A well exists, a septic system in place, the major expenses are already covered. The house rests in a cozy nook at the bottom of the hills with the brook meandering past. Across the brook an overgrown field looks easily cut and tilled to provide a large garden for two or three, while a lightly wooded knoll in the bend of the brook seems the perfect idyllic setting to construct the yurt where Paul will paint. At the top end of the field an old logging road crosses the brook and continues up the crevice between two hills along the brook to a level area near the top where I can imagine a future homestead. The possibilities are endless.

I speak a lot about possibilities, perhaps to the point of frustration on the part of you my readers, but the true nature of my individual reality is that possibilities are the essence of life. Given several choices, I always choose the one with the most possibilities. This week’s search showed me the most beautiful sunny meadow along a stretch of white water riverside with distant views of mountains on four sides. A home there would never cease to reveal beauty at every turn, food in abundance and an unending source of water for Paul, Rocket and I. But the little house on the brook with twenty acres of land could accommodate several friends or family members having small homes and gardens and living a simple life close to the land out of harm’s way. It is livable now but holds all kinds of potential for expanding possibilities.

Twenty five minutes drive south takes one to a town that likely draws more tourists than any other town in Vermont with access to the finest shopping and dining, skiing and boating and any other kind of outdoor recreational activity. I see it as a great place to market our artwork. The college fifteen minutes away offers possible employment opportunities, not to mention educational ones. In another direction is one of Vermont’s largest towns with every resource one could want or need. Yet nestled into the crook of the mountains is a remotely private place to live out the coming years of change.

In other but related news, I’ve been given an opportunity to apprentice on a natural building project with an artist of phenomenal skills in earth plastering. We are plastering with a cob like material the interior of an artist studio. With a natural builder’s colloquium coming up at the end of next month, the opportunity to intern alongside her during her presentation for the workshop should enhance my repertoire of building skills. I love this organic way of building with natural materials. Seems the Way is unfolding to provide me with the new skills I’ll need moving forward.

July 5, 2010

Just a quick note to end this post today.....As you might imagine everything has changed in the days (or is it weeks?) since writing this post. I am hoping to find the time to write an update so hold onto your hats as the winds of change are fierce around here.

I send my love out to each of you. Stay well, happy and in the moment.