Intentional Community. The time has come.

Last week I was doing my usual  morning contemplation/meditation.  There were two questions asked "What do you really really want?"  What do you value?"  I pondered as if the answer was going to be granted by a genie. I want spiritual, mental and physical health.  I thought about my answer because as a parent of a teen son, I am always thinking about his happiness and wanted my answer to ensure he was included.  He has his own life, he is the captain of his own ship, yet, if I am healthy, I can be the best mom, my very best self to be able to listen and be present and to love him through his highs and lows on his travels. I also thought about others I love... the best gift I can give, is my unconditional love and compassion and I can only gift something if I already have it within myself to give. And I thought about the environment, other sentient beings and the state of affairs of the people in the world... I can only stay conscious amidst the pain and be most useful, if I am strong, resilient, if I have a good attitude... in other words, if I am healthy. 

My definition of health is to have peace and joy that run deep, deeper than the world we normally pay attention to.  It does not necessarily mean to have a perfect body, or perfect mind, nor a spirit that has achieved enlightenment, but simply a positive attitude towards life and a will to continue to grow and learn and improve... an inner knowledge of my place in the whole, the understanding that I am the drop in the ocean and I am the ocean, to have a clear sense of the inter-connectedness of all beings, as if we were all cells in an organ which then belongs to the body of our Mother Earth.  So that I am very aware that what I do matters, what I think matters, what I feel matters... and that I am then careful as I walk on the planet.

Connected to personal health is collective health.  As what I do affects others, what others do clearly affects me.  Therefore, it behooves me to help create the conditions, not just out of love and compassion, but out of common sense, to ensure every person on the planet, every sentient being is healthy at all levels because we truly are ONE.  It is in this spirit of love, compassion and common sense that my partner and I are moving into the next phase of our lives.  For a very long time, we have tried to be supportive of the community we live in facilitating education and self-employment opportunities, environmental protection, etc. But the planet has put a new spin on things... probably as IT watched us go straight to our demise, it decided to help us by placing a break on our activities and allowing us to re-set, to re-examine the course we were on as humanity.  We have taken the opportunity, this break, this complete re-alignment to establish our new course of action... perhaps not that it is entirely new, but that we have renewed energy/time-space to switch to it, thanks to the new socio-economics of the entire planet.  This is a time to realize our ONENESS and co-create the conditions that allow HEALTH to flourish as a prime directive for our lives and for our Mother Earth.
The idea of drawing more people to our community from other communities around the globe has always been present.  It makes sense to balance the scales.  Our community has what many others don't:  clean air, clean water, fresh food, healthy soil, forests, rivers, wildlife, peaceful and healthy people- i.e. an environment already conducive to good health.  Now with the new world situation and what is coming due to the COVID19, more than ever, our community needs people with good intentions that can inject their own energy into the system to help co-create an intentional community based on the value of personal and planetary health.  It is like building a home, or a body; we need different parts, different organs. We can't build an entire system with the same type of energy. We realize that each country, each town,has its own type of energy, its own strengths and skills to develop, and in this co-creating, we can all help one another balance the scales.

We invite you to take a look at our community, and if you think you have something to learn and something to teach, something to contribute and something to take, and your main life directive is collective health based on personal health, then living in our community is worth exploring... to live a life worth living and at the same time to collaborate in the healing of our planet and elevating the vibration of our collective human consciousness.  It is a win-all!

Earth Stars

Earth Stars

My partner called me out to come “see the stars”.  We do have some amazing views of the stars so I put on my sandals and out I went to join him and our son.  I had a little light on, so I did not notice what I was walking into… Then they turned off their flash lights and asked me to turn off mine… We were in a sea of lightning bugs that twinkled and appeared and disappeared as if the entire area had been decorated with flashing beautiful Christmas lights.  It was as if after the first rains, the very stars had come down from the heavens and turned to "earth stars"  for us to take notice of the magic we live in every day; the miracles that our Mother Earth performs each day and displays right before our eyes... if we allow it and notice it.  I was in awe and overjoyed. 

And these days I wake up every morning to a gift of mangoes freshly fallen from our tree in the back gardens of our Sustainability Demonstration Center.  As I walk to our worm-composting area with a bucket full of fruit skins, I see the avocados ripening and the monkeys swaying in the trees, and I stop to eat a juicy mango.  Then I walk to the veggie garden and see the leaf-cutter ants have eaten some of my very precious moringa plants.  

As I ponder what to do, the “earth stars” remind me to carefully evaluate what to do about these farmer aunts… The lightning bugs are here because they are safe from pesticides. The mangoes I eat are also free from poisons, which is why the monkeys and we like them so much.  So, I am moved to further research how to encourage the ants to relocate and eat something else out in the forest.  When we move too fast, we are pressed for time, have more on our plates than we could ever do; there may be little energy left to evaluate the choices we make… but every little choice we make, has an effect on the Whole… we are all interconnected. 

The Corona issue has allowed us more time for a great deal of reflection, appreciation, contemplation, contact with nature, and it is my hope that there is a transformation in my own consciousness, an evolution, towards a healthier and more joyous way of being.  And as I am a part of the Whole, when I heal and do better, the entire planet will also do better.  I would like to think there is something similar going on in a great number of people around the globe, and that when we come out on the other side, there won’t be “business as usual” because the “usual” was killing us all and our planet.  But that we will do a different kind of business; the business of being joyous and healthy on all levels.