Her gel nails came off nail by nail after one day working in the Earth.
The second day, they all lay on the wall and her own nails surrounded black soil.
She felt safe. She felt at home. She felt like a child. Playing in the sandbox. She created “clean” pieces of earth, in which she visualised beautiful flowers in all kinds of colours. A beautiful entrance to the place, to the house, to the land.
She created
She created her own garden. Where everything she visualised could grow. Without her realising it.
She came to Europe as a workaholic from South Africa. She has strength and a good intuition, she feels exactly what she needs herself and also the other person.
During a walk she took by herself through the valley, she realised that she was in Europe, she could sink into herself, into her being.
Right place at the right time….
We found each other through the workaway website.
Picked her up from the nearest bus station, along with my neighbour’s workaholic. Excitedly, looking around, they sat in the car. I told them about the place, the surroundings…and thus brought each one to his/her place. The beginning of a new adventure, both for her and for me. The first time. I gave her a tour of my land; the outdoor shower (currently on gas), outdoor kitchen and compost toilet. I informed her that I want to keep my land pure, there is no sewer, all waste water comes to the land. This means that I use biodegradable cleaning products. There is a choice of handmade soap and shampoo bars/clay. The luxury camper is her sleeping place.
We eat together and it feels good. With a warm hot water bottle, she goes into her first night under the clear starry sky. Without a streetlamp or any other light in the quiet valley. In her mid-twenties. What courage.
I will take her under my wing for the next week or maybe longer.
Tomorrow morning we will meet at the Agnihotra with sunrise around 7 am.
Meditation is what she would like to learn, -healing & healty food -and all about relationships.
I ask her what she would like to contribute. That is working in the fields. She wants to learn that…. She doesn’t know what weeds are. She can’t get a shovel in the ground. She wants to, that’s not the problem, she’s just never done it before.
In the process, we find out what is easy and what makes her happy. That is weeding. I give her the space to do this – and tell her what to keep and what to get rid of.
Wieden
There is plenty of weeding to do. Plenty of bits around the house that need attention. Where nothing was done after the fires of 2017. Just because other things had priority, like rebuilding the toilet and shed and the floors in the house where the longhorn beetle had found its way.
Preparing vegetable beds, converting compost toilets, collecting stones, pollarding willows and clearing masonry sand.
The garden is becoming a garden again, new plants have been planted and more can be added. It makes me happy. Creating in the flow of life, with so much Love and attention…it just exists. Just in Being.
women can’t do everything…
That is just the way it is. Sometimes something is just too heavy. Sometimes men are just more skilful, get on with things. Where we women can dilly-dally, fumble, bitch…
It is wonderful to talk about this with this generation, the generation of my eldest children.
What else is possible than this?
Her boyfriend comes for a few days, from the city, to breathe in the countryside of Portugal.
We do extra work, well tuned to each other and eat with taste vegetarian meals prepared on the woodstove. This time of year, there is a lot of cabbage on the menu – and potatoes, salad with chickweat & watercress that grows abundantly in the stream, and the first flowers; calendula. The rest of the vegetables we take with us from the local market, where I also sell: water falfir, kombucha & wool products – and nowadays I offer ear reflex massages next to the wool spinning.
round of numerology…
And then it is Sunday afternoon. The workaholics on top of the mountain come for a walk. The five of us are sitting around the kitchen table and a round of numerology ensues spontaneously. The interest is wonderful, they want to know everything…. about themselves and their relationship to each other.
Draw a card
The last day. In the morning, we finish our work outside. Eat together and draw a card from the “Source” card deck. Everyone is free to ask an intention/ a question. It is nice to share and to experience how each of us has been busy with his own process these days and what it has brought by being here, on the land, in nature and with your hands up.
I take them to the bus, when I get home I find this note on my chair…
Ina,
Thank you so much for sharing your space and wisdom with me. Together with you, and with your quidance I have reconnected with nature and I am so grateful for that. You are an amazing soul with a beautiful heart and I am so happy I got the chance to meet you. Thank you for doing so much to our earth, mother nature. I will always cherish the things you have taught and shared with me. Lots of love,
Reconnecting with Yourself and the Earth
….this is part of my soul mission and I may receive so much gratitude in this.
” Grateful to live my mission.
Grateful for everything that is called life.
Everything that has a soul.
The energy that connects.
Humans and Nature,
animals and the elements,
Earth, Water, Air and Fire.
Focus on life,
on Light and Love.
The only thing that is “real”,
in us.
What nourishes us,
from which we may share,
rays,
-and receive “.