Caught from Freefalling. By River

Sometimes, just sometimes the spirit falls, falls into poverty.  Sometimes we see the signs of death of loss of all that we have lost along the struggle, for personal freedom and integrity at every turn.  This falling to me feels very much like a dance, a leap and a freefall into sadness, fear and despair.  I fell recently, I fell so hard and so fast my head spun.  In truth, it span and fell with love.  It’s funny when that happens when we walk with the soul bare and stripped.  Recently, my tears just fell and fell unheeded sometimes with love, sometimes in fear sometimes in just having lost my compass.  

It is at these times when we feel our most alone, when we feel that the sun will never shine again.  When we feel the dying pains of the earth and those around us that help is required.  And, oh what help has come to me.

Today, my Memphis came home from a trip to see his family with my old car from London full of my Mummies life and presents from his Mum, Dad and Aunty Sally for the kids.  How to explain the feeling of receiving a car load of soft velvet curtains, and string, and knitting needles and all the lovely soft aspects of the feminine, of the womanly?  We Winters have moved 8 times in three years, we have spent some hard winters here in Portugal and some glorious springs.  This winter was most definitely the hardest for me, we arrived in our home so to speak and I unpacked and saw all that had been left behind.  What grace, what joy to still be here, to be finally indoors and playing with soft things.  To be reminded that though I may belong to the clan of the wild woman, a woman who gardens on the edge of wilderness and fights with all her strength to provide for her family that I am still someone’s daughter, daughter-in-law, neighbor, friend, niece, sister, cousin, lover, mum and of course dog mum.   

Finally the great deep depth of earth we will use for our vegetable patch is drying out and I have dug over 5 beds now.  My heart is so full of gladness to still be here, to finally be here. To be here with my Mum and my kids and to have so much of Memphis’ family all over our walls and in the kitchen cupboard and on the kitchen table.    Yes "Tom"  all we do need is love and an infinite amount of patience.  

I still hope for everything we came here for.  A thriving vegetable patch, flowers at every turn, repaired stone walls, chickens, ducks, sheep, more dogs and of course people.  Will those things happen?  Who knows, but how can we live without dreaming, without hoping beyond hope.  At the end of these days of daily action and single steps, step by step, the only thing I can now do is bow to devotional love, the love of karma of joy of fulfillment in each day, irrespective of the actions taken or the success of individual projects.  

Thank you for the encouragement Sally, Papops and Aunty Sally.

Om shanti, Peace and Love. Beloved. 

River xxx

Wwoof Wwoof!

Hey ho peeps.

A couple of updates on the restoration work and then a piece from River I'll post up after.

Our third Wwoofer arrived yesterday. Liz from Kentucky, via Oz and Dublin and Edinburgh, who is new to Wwoofing. As is Peter who arrived direct from Hungary on Sunday, via New Zealand and Germany. As was Linwei, our very first wwoofer who came for a fortnight in February from China via Florence Uni. So our first 3 "willing workers" have all been first timers. As are we. And its going well.

Linwei helped us gather eucalytpus branches from the midst of the forest to make posts and fences and gates around the kitchen garden. Pruned one section of our woodland bushes then shredded the cuttings to make 22 bags of great woodchip to replace the sawdust we were using. And cooked the best egg fried rice ever!

Peter this week has helped put the soil on the green roof (finally!) ready for seeding shortly, dig over the new herb garden, countless wheel barrow trips with bark chip and compost and rabbit poop for the veggie beds, and an afternoon sawing down the young pine trees in the woods above the house. Plus a cheeky fishing trip to the Zêzere last night.

Our bedroom looks like a greenhouse as River has begun her annual seed push. Little veggies and flowers are in the process of taking over the house. Which is good cos we like veggies and flowers. Alot. And outside we've been busy preparing the beds to plant out the seedlings currently growing inside.

The wee mezzanine storage area is up in the treatment room, the new wood brushed with linseed oil and pigment, and fresh mimosa yellow lime paint caressed onto the walls. My first massage on that table was bliss. And boy how the back holds 2 years of physical labour. Looking forward to giving and receiving regular treatments with River.

And meanwhile Springtime relentlessly pursues her inevitable arrival as the Mimosa explodes in patches of yellow out of the forest heralding to all of nature around it to consider the possibility of allowing themselves to flower at some point soon. Stuff to soothe the soul.

May the Spring sunshine warm all your hearts.

Memphis

"Anyone can sing"

Lots happening here at Moses. We'll put up a proper blog soon with more pics and videos of the forest and gardens restoration work. But read this poem today sent by Panhala. They have some great poems and accompanying photos. (If you fancy subscribing to Panhala, send them a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)

Anyone can sing

Anyone can sing. You just open your mouth,

and give shape to a sound. Anyone can sing.

What is harder, is to proclaim the soul,

to initiate a wild and necessary deepening:

to give the voice broad, sonorous wings

of solitude, grief, and celebration,

to fill the body with the echoes of voices

lost long ago to bravery, and silence,

to prise the reluctant heart wide open,

to witness defeat, to suffer contempt,

to shrink, lose face, go down in ignominy,

to retreat to the last dark hiding-place

where the tattered remnants of your pride

still gather themselves around your nakedness,

to know these rags as your only protection

and yet still open - to face the possibility

that your innermost core may hold nothing at all,

and to sing from that - to fill the void

with every hurt, every harm, every hard-won joy

that staves off death yet honours its coming,

to sing both full and utterly empty,

alone and conjoined, exiled and at home,

to sing what people feel most keenly

yet never acknowledge until you sing it.

Anyone can sing. Yes. Anyone can sing.

~ William Ayot ~

And if you're struggling to have anything to sing about, watch even just 1 part of this documentary on the Monarch butterfly and be amazed. Surely we are the same as butterflies....

There is no movement without rhythm.

Thanks to our friends Martin and Rebekah for posting this piece of heaven on screen.

Arcs of Light in the Forest. By River.

Nature’s fluffy softness begs us to forget that we are tender and fragile.  Inch by inch, step by step we seek to learn a new way to live.  Every every stone laid, every wall plastered, every nail hammered, every seed sown we hope leads us closer to home and the illusive, corner of the eye vision we seek.  We breathe in and out and appear brave, while caution pricks on like a thorn for Eve’s rib. But ashes to ashes and dust to dust it’s just us the Winters playing and singing and shredding and feeling the firm dark earth. 

Each new detail brought into focus clarifies a little more of the picture.  Each picture we see shows beauty and perhaps the need for a little more effort, more work, and more projection of will or is it subjugation, surrender?  Inside we are moving and slowly tuning into a smooth groove.  We now see clearly where effort honours will, in this grounding, wisdom like a Forest grows, but on the other hand let’s call it what it is a thrill, a  joy to be here right here right now.

Nature weaves her seasonal tapestry around us, we become more attached, interwoven.  In a swiftly fleeing arc of revolutionary light we glimpse ourselves connected to an ill formed but nonetheless growing body of people seeking a new way of life built on old foundations and places forgotten by the many but held by a few.  We seek not an escape from work, for here there is work a plenty.   Instead, we seek another kind of release, a break free from the title of slave, wage, slave, a new tune of living, jungle book style for a little while at least. The boundaries of our golden vision are linked, chained and fenced in by joy.  In this context of links growing, connections forming, relationships blooming we feel a little more secure, rich in green fields, blue skies and roses out of stones. 

Within this glorious light of courage there remains a sense of disconnection of not yet rootedness.  “What can I contribute?  How can I earn and stay out of the business scheme?  Will my children receive all that they need?  Am I enough or do they really need all that stuff the advertisers say they need?”  Ripples of consternating sensation prostrated in the face of a beautiful dawn or sunset but heard, in the dark when we lay awake and wonder, “Are we crazy?  Should we return to the city?  Are we more secure here or there?”  Here.  For sure. 

If you should ever come this way may we suggest a little game, better than counting sheep or hiding the head in sand.  Stretch your eyes over the land and set a square vision.  Try with all your might to replace every tree with a sky obliterating tower block.  It has never been the case that we have managed to replace even one tree.  So, though fragile we may be we dance and play on to a life of creativity, learning and await the call of revolution beyond what we here can offer.   We shred Olive leaves and get ready to cover the earth for this year’s garden.   An old skin, of an old self is dropped, a wet, heavy, suffocating coat to be stripped off and thrown.

A new celebration, where pictures are on walls and the firewood in the new shed.   Where time has been spent in family and in friendship; where at the end we will still feel warm, not coldly enslaved but free to learn over a slower pace, thank God.   I hope we minions take our festivals back.  I hope, we return to tribal unity, brotherly affection and sisterly love and the bosom of light bringers wherever they are to be found even if it all seems upside down.

Strike up the band and play a new blues.  Let the Light shine through the impenetrable undergrowth of debt.  Let the snakes run to their holes of commerce and we earthlings, return to our Forest homes or to the nearest still alive tree.  We are cashing in our coupons, checking out of the swelling need to buy something, taking our toys home and refusing to play.  We are fragile, tender and bravely trying to save our souls and honour the complex rich family life of us, just us and yes indeed yes it helps when you fall and there are so many lovely friends and family to help you get back on track.  Spread a bigger net, enlarge your tent and coppee down to the daffodils, tinkle on the piano, read nice notes from Aunties,   O + Live, O + Love, honour the oneness all around.

The depth of a wiser gaze

Thanks to our friend Toby Leetham for pointing out an amazing series of videos by Nic Askew called Soul Biographies. Truly beautiful. Beautifully human.


A LIFE BEYOND from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

Happy 12th Birthday Eloise! By River

As those of you who have been reading our blog might well know, I have not been very well over the Christmas holidays, but it’s a New Year, 35 litres of olive oil pressed and today is my daughter’s birthday.  I never knew that there was so much love in my life.  I am the kind of head down get to work sort of girl, with a tendency to skim my eyes over the tops of trees and feel the blue skies endlessly stretching over head.   It’s the light here that I love the most, it sparkles and bounces off every surface and calls me awake every day. 

Today began with a warm fire on and frozen pipes, after all it is still winter time, my favorite season.  The sun is rising over the little village of Amieira and the mist has already passed over the river and been on its way. 

My daughter came into this world ready, blue eyes steadily gazing at us as if to say I have been waiting to meet you. Why does everything take such a long time?  She was desperate to get out and stretch those beautiful long limbs of hers.  After an hour and a half of labour, there she was and next to me alone in our bedroom my beautiful husband and best mate.  When we crawled into bed and awoke Joshua such a feeling of completeness took over me that I knew I would never recover from this kind of loving.  

So we called her Eloise Grace Winter.  Eloise, warrior of light and the name of my grandmother Grace a state of loving kindness which we all hope to live under and Winter, the family name of my beloved husband and his beautiful family. 

This morning, while the children were still sleeping, I took a walk around our frozen patch of heaven and felt the ice and stone crunching under my boots.  Moses our dog is all too keen to get going in the  morning and I can never resist his eager dawn greetings, so, slightly frozen I ventured out.  I am now walking in my daughters’ shoes of two years ago, she is twelve but she is bypassing me so fast that often my mind is in a blur.  Slow down girl, I always want to say but how could she when there is so much beauty and laughter she wants to share each day.

We Winters have finally moved into our home and are finding our rhythm, the daffodils planted by the previous owners of our house over 40 years ago are flowering, soaking up and dragging each drop of sunshine to the ground.  I have started clearing the vegetable patch and the forest s as green as anyone can imagine as green as my little girls eyes today.  The sky is blue and crisp and I know I will see this in her eyes too.  How could there be anything else but joy in our lives today?  Another day of play.

I have always loved the children’s birthdays best and today we will be hanging out with our gorgeous friends Shanti B from Angola and Emma from Ireland and Ellie’s lovely Portuguese  friend from school Joanna, and the  cacophony of heritage that we the Winters represent.  Praise and love be ever present.  Today, on my daily walk in my daughters’ shoes I am reminded yet again of the many actions that needed to take place in order for us to be here.  I see the sign of my daughter to remind me that I am home, “Moses”, I see the boat of some friends waiting for their return, I see Olive leaves and upturned trees, the hard crunch of stone and the ever-present sound of the river below combined with the wind in the trees and the birds chirping the morning sound remind me of how grateful I truly am that we are finally at home, again.  

Thank you all my friends for your loving kindness and the big net you have all spread to help me come all the way back round to the same rising lights.  Obrigada.

Here is a Poem for the Girls who will Rip your Heart Out and Show You How to Love

Her colour vibrates

She awakens and enlivens

Every moment with Sound

Intuitive

A spiritual gift

In her I see

Healers

Empathy

Mission

Connected numbers

Chronic pain of a toxic world released in laughter

Physically, Emotionally

Environmentally, Spiritual

Remarkable

When, 

schooled in love

Every emotion is held in her presence

Crystal light is this child

All the while still the same as she came

A veil is pulled back in each generation

Her every utterance s a heart string pulled

She sits pink, divinely feminine

Unabashed energy held within a structure

All power, all gravity and light

She sees sickness before the tide swells

And vibrates, shake and tell

Loving forgiveness

Cuddling touch, kiss and hugs

This way to play

Her mass of rare precious light will not be

Patronised, manipulated or lied to

Give me beauty and truth

Telepathic or just switched on

Come into the world as royalty

And act that Way

Fearlessly sensitive

Not afraid to feel and live

Draw to the light

Moths die at the heat of the bulb but still come

A multi- coloured dress enters my world
And I forget to breathe

Thank you Ellie

For the heart song you give to me

 Introducing Eloise Grace Winter, 12 years of age, princess of Moses........