Walking on Water

Bom Dia. For those of you who have been following our blog over the last 5 years, you'll know the adventures we've had here at Vale de Moses and the times where we've needed more than a mustard seed of faith. Through all the restoration work to the houses and re-cultivation of the land, we've always known that one day people would come to this valley to find rest here.  But we never imagined they would also be able to walk on water.

We've just finished our 4th Yoga Retreat of the season, and it's a wonderful thing to watch how our guests relax and open their bodies and their spirits through the course of the week. Even their faces change. They soften.

Yesterday we all went for a wee trip down to the River Zêzere, for a mud bake and swim in isolated paradise. It is one of my favourite places on earth. The feeling of swimming out to the middle of the warm river, with not another soul for miles, floating on your back, admiring the Herons and Kites and Eagles as they circle overhead eyeing their next fish meal swimming beneath them. It's an experience I treasure.

And to top it off, thanks to a Portuguese artist, João D Filipe who was born in our village of Amieira, I now know that the River Zêzere is also the purist river in Portugal, as it runs to Lisbon for its drinking water.

The mud bake thing is a ritual too in its own way. We discovered the therapeutic and cleansing effects of mud baking in 2007 while wild camping in the Abruzzo mountins in Italy. And have since taken any given opportunity to smother ourselves in river mud and bake hard in the sun. Just as floating in pure flowing water of a river or the sea connects you to all the waters on our planet, so in some way smothering yourself in mud connects you to all the earth too.

We love it and it's a real joy to be able to share the experience now with others.

We have a week off until our next guests arrive first week of June for our "Rainbows on your Eyelashes" retreat. You'll be pleased to hear that we managed to get that big list of projects done in our last week off. Patio in the courtyard now has a red limecrete and stone, easy to clean floor. The chicken shed (more like palace) is finally ready for layers to move in. The kids have metres of new wooden bookshelves in their rooms. The farmhouse roofs have their boarded trim to protect the wooden structure underneath and the saloon doors are hanging cutely in the library so Moses and Saphira can sleep in the hall. Next week I'll be making and hanging kitchen and bathroom cupboard doors, and an outside fox-proof (here's hoping) fence for the chicken run.

The work never stops. But neither does the water flowing in the river. Nor the thanks for the life we have here in the forests of Portugal.

May you all get to walk on water this week.

Namasté

Memphis