Home from MyceliOm! The desert sand surrounding Garth’s Boulder Gardens is made of all quartz crystals, a highly conductive mineral used to transmit energy. The air is fresh and clean; the landscape and trees are Seuss-esque. It is interesting to back in Santa Barbara after the surreality of a seemingly alternate world.
Day One
As with most adventures, mine did not start without obstacles – I ended up bringing along one of my friends and left town a lot later than I’d wanted to. Despite these stresses, eventually the urban sprawl of LA became sparser; my breath became deeper; and the mountains became closer as made it into the fields of wind turbines. Farther and farther from civilization we went to the edge of Joshua Tree national forest, ending up at the sanctuary just before the sun set over the mountains. We oriented ourselves and heard a deep vibration from atop a hillside. Up we went and found a circle of women and men gathered around a digeridoo, just in time to include ourselves in a gratitude ceremony for the passing day and the gifts it gave us.
Community. Comm – a gathering, commonality – unity – togetherness.
This core principle of Permaculture pervades every goal we set out to accomplish. Every individual of the group drops their guards and judgments in order to respect and honors one another as we move forward.
Following our gratitude circle where we sang to the sunset, we did group yoga and then had community dinner. Everyone pitched in ingredients and labor to share the end result, which was delicious. We followed this by a fireside group poetry writing workshop. We sang songs honoring the traditions of our ancestors, and then transitioned into sharing words for every individual to use in their own poem. The energetic space of safety held us as we shared our words, and then transitioned into an ecstatic dance group. Finally, exhausted and full of love for all these strangers, we separated to our own tents for bed, ready for the projects that awaited us in the morning.
See what we have to say about relationships between men and women in our book The Word 2.0
So Much Love and More to Come,
Sonya
