Day 265 - The Farmies

It’s been coming up in me for a while now that I’d like to share my experiences with the farmies. This is because for the past year and a half now I have been living on the Desteni farm and have been integrating into the group of 12 other people through living together, working together, eating together, laughing together, crying together, facing traumas and emergencies, losses and celebrations, all very much: together.

When I use the word ‘integrating’, I am referring to an integration on another level as well, which I think happens when you live so closely with a group, especially one where sharing what is going on within self on deep and intimate levels is normal and commonplace. The experience is one where it feels like I am integrating into a living organism, where every person is a vital organ, playing a role of mutual support - like breathing - a giving and a receiving, each according to their needs, abilities and location point.

As I’ve come to know each person here, it has been like an opening up and a letting in on a level that I have never before experienced. One where each individual is like an ocean of depth, a vastness and profoundness that is like getting a glimpse into Life itself, having my breath taken away at the value of Life itself and so the value of each person and living thing on this earth, a value that is beyond words.

The cool part is that: you can only recognize in others that which you can recognize in yourself, and since the beginning of my stay here at the farm, I have been recreating, reconnecting with and rediscovering that value in myself that I had abandoned so long ago.

Each person here supports me in a unique and individual way that only they can, and then that support works together like an entire network or intricately woven web where each strand supports the next, and together they form something stronger than the individual part alone.

For example: It’s as though Gian scoops up my potential when I need it most, and hands it to me as if saying: “remember this?”, and then trusts me to walk it into a living, yet is there to guide me when I veer to far off the path. LJ supports me in ways that I don’t even see, that I think I’ve done completely by myself, until I walk the timeline back to the starting point of the change I see I’ve made, and realize it was a from a moment, or many moments shared with him  over time or working together. Maite’s laugh is the most beautiful sound you will ever hear, and is only one way in which you can see, hear or feel her expression coming through. She has been there in moments when my foundation has been shaken, and with a few words, a hand to hold or a hug, she grounds me back into myself to find my stability again. Her words can cut through the bullshit in a moment, like a ground-shaking blow, but with such a gentleness that it’s like falling into a cushion of self, where the tough self-seeing always ends in a self-embrace. Leila has supported me on a physical level, inviting me into my body to discover it’s ‘divine intelligence’ in the form of information that has always been there, I just didn’t know how to access it. She can open up difficult points by clearly and concisely pointing out the entire pattern and structure in such a way that is so undeniable that I simply have no choice but to change. Leila’s ability to be so comfortably intimate was intimidating to me at first! But I’ve now found a comfortability within it and can join her when we go there. Sunette and the portal support me in vastly different ways. The portal of course with the understanding, with the access, the showing – has brought me through intensely emotional points where it feels as though I’ve dived into depths of myself that go beyond the framework of this reality. And Sunette, through her living, her example, her process walking and her sharing has given me maps into uncharted territories, breaking down the belief that ‘I can’t do it cause I don’t know how’, not realizing that I was the one with the maps all along! Joe will listen to me, and within all of the confused and emotional ranting, immediately identify the obstacles and ask me just the right questions which, when answered, illuminate with clarity the path I must walk. I can struggle with something for days, and then go to Joe and present my difficulties, and with a few questions and insights it’s as if a tornado of information swirling in my head becomes a walk in the woods where I can now recognize the obstacles myself, and overcome them. He supported me to change my personal story when the one I was living was actually diminishing me, where I re-scripted it to one where I move on and grow. Adam has painted my process with an artistry of words, descriptions and explanations, redefining my understanding of ‘art’, where it’s not just paint on a canvas or sculpting clay, but living words into and as the canvas of Life, and sculpting self through shaving off those parts that no longer serve me, and re-shaping the parts that do. I never thought I appreciated the arts until Adam showed me that everything is art if you take the time to see it through his eyes, and then all of a sudden, you recognize the beauty and poetry of a simple moment in a whole new light. Francois has taught me the value of hard work, consistency and doing things properly and right. Of not stopping even when the road is completely uncertain, and of creating the best possible results by using the tools at hand. Fidelis brought me into my most vigilantly protected vulnerabilities, those areas of myself that I had walled off and sealed up for good, declaring them as ‘too painful to visit’, and with his unwavering stability of Who He Is, he stood as that point I could trust as I opened up those parts of me and walked through them – it’s been the most difficult thing I have done, but on the other side I can look back and see how much more of myself was also inadvertently locked away with those parts of me that I believed would break me if I looked at them. Too much of myself was busy protecting something that was in fact sucking the life out of me. Now I get to explore how to breathe Life back into them. 

And all of these people – ALL. Of. Them - have also showed me their own struggles, have been open about their difficulties, have walked equally through their own rough patches, their own breakdowns and falls. And then I watch again as they build themselves back up, stand back up now a little stronger than before. 

And all of this takes place within an environment of stability and absolute support, of enjoyment, of working together through big and small decisions and challenges, showing me how each part has a voice and can be considered equally. They honoured my value before I did, and it took me by surprise at first, it took me time to become comfortable with and sink into. But now I see it, and am starting to live it. 

And I can say with certainty that there is no other place on earth like this -except it’s no just a location, it’s a doing and a living and a being. And this is what I want for this world, this is my Why, these are but a sampling of the gifts I have received that I will spend my life figuring out how to share with others. So, thank you farmies, I know I got a little mushy there, but it must be shared, it’s very much the ‘unseen’ process support that this world direly needs (and I haven’t even touched on the animals or the kids!).

The Living Word: 'Routine'

I have recently been working with the word 'routine'. It is a word I've judged as boring, mundane, lifeless, robotic and underwhelming due having lived most of my life within routines that I did not enjoy, and having them imposed upon me. Breaking free from the routine was like finally living, getting to the fun part of Life.

Due to this past history and the baggage the word was carrying with it in my mind I have struggled with implementing any kind of routine into my life. But when I opened the word up and found the solution for myself, I realized that a routine is necessary for the cumulative effect: that process of accumulating small steps to reach or attain big goals - and this is actually necessary for any and all goals of any and all sizes!

A routine is a path, or a 'route' towards any goal, and the process one must walk is the moment-to-moment, the small stuff, the teeny tiny little movements and decisions that come together to produce actions as a step-by-step process of learning, growing, trial and error, and then eventually moving those proverbial 'mountains'.

When I started looking at redefining my own Living Definition the Word 'Routine', what I saw that worked best for me was to clarify my goal for myself, because a 'routine' is a cumulative process, so it's important to be clear with oneself in terms of what one is accumulating towards ,and what will the end result be! And then I will 'let it go', so to speak, where 'the END GOAL' no longer becomes the focus of my daily participation.

What I focus on daily is breaking the goal down to the smallest possible steps, the teeny steps (routTINE/teeny), so the the route I am taking is seen not as that loooong and arduous struggle, but more like simple daily steps that I can celebrate!

ROUTINE: The Route of Teeny Steps.

How and where I am applying this in my life currently, is towards the goal of physical health and fitness, something I have been struggling with keeping consistent with. I started a routine of drinking water in the morning for three consecutive days. Once accomplished, I added a healthy breakfast for three days, and then 8 minutes of light exercise (with the help of an app for reminders and structure!). I kept the steps 'teeny'. Tiny goals that I can integrate over time until they become routine, and then I can add, grow, expand upon them. But for now, I focus on the task at hand, the daily route, the tiny steps it takes to walk a process, no rush, no pressure, no time, just Here in the moments of my Life, taking steps to honour me!