Arriving to the valley of my dreams - Being an apprentice to my soul work

Life! Humps and twists and turns and bumps all to teach us love, love to teach us all. I wrote these words 10 years ago when my family was going through a rough patch. (LINK) The words still resonate. The path is not linear, and it has ups and downs. As Asia Suler shares, everything happens for us. Life is for us to live and learn. Life is for our soul to express itself and fulfill its purpose. Life is magic. MANY things have happened since those times. I am now a husband and a father of 2 and I have been able to transition into the work I have been put in this world to do :). The journey has been magical.

In December of 2019 we finished a big chapter in our lives, we moved back from the Netherlands to Costa Rica. The Netherlands taught Elke and I how to be a couple and how to live a simple but fulfilling life and it taught us how to be parents for the first time. We honored the chapter by biking from the Netherlands to Costa Rica. This is another story for another time.

As the chapter closed a little flame within me started getting stronger. This flame has always been there but it was surfacing once again. In that New Years holiday my little flame had the courage to speak and it spoke “I need a world event to shake me out of my comfort zone to start doing the work I was called here to do”. Everything was good in my life. Elke and I were dreaming big and were doing well, we had a beautiful son, I had a great job that allowed me to work remotely, but I knew that my true work was not being done.

In early 2020 we moved back to Costa Rica and were taken in by Elke´s parents. We had a safe and nurturing place to arrive to and then….. COVID happened, lock down, the homestead started becoming increasingly important and my interior flame talked to me again, this time louder. IT´S TIME. This was my calling. What did this mean though? What was I to do? My gut feeling told me I needed to create space. I was not sure what was going to happen but I needed to create space, so I decided to quit my job. I felt I needed to do this to be able to create the necessary space to explore. Of course I talked to Elke, my guiding star, and she fully supported me. I also needed the rest of my tribe to support me so I contacted them all. I told Elke´s parents, which I was scared of doing, because I thought that they would think I was a bum living with them, taking advantage of the situation. In reality, I was taking advantage of the situation because this was a safe place for my family. I told my parents, Philip and Elena , and I told my brothers, Tommy and Chris. They were all onboard. I think I was so convinced with my decision that they all resonated with it and none of them presented any obstacles, they were all in full support. This was extremely empowering to me. I felt I had a solid foundation. So, then I told my bosses at my job. They were also extremely supportive.

I was scared, I felt like I was leaving a place full of light where everything was familiar and I was releasing myself into the darkness, into the void. It was scary! But I knew deep down that the longer I was able to stay in this new unknown space I would be able to start seeing.

Life started guiding me. Before I had fully finished my job, I was invited to a medicine ceremony. In the ceremony a lady came in last minute and sat beside me. I was able to feel her energy. I knew she had a gift for me. After the ceremony Karen and I talked, and she shared her journey from bein landscape healer to a inner-landscape healer and that she now ran wilderness fast retreats in her nature sanctuary Samanea in the Mountains of Monterverde (LINK). I knew this was my first step towards my new life. The wilderness fast started the day after I finished my job.

At the time I was keeping in balance through my yoga practice with my yoga master and friend Javi (LINK). One day, Javi offered me an oracle card reading, so I took a card from the deck and the card was the Misty Mountains, with the main message being that now it was time to get ready for the journey. I had to gather the right tools and knowledge to make the passage and that I had to be persistent through the misty mountains, and that on the other side, I would be able to find all my dreams. This resonated deeply, plus I was actually heading to the misty mountains of Monteverde! And to make sure that the message was engrained, Javi had a poster of the misty mountains in his room! The message could not be clearer, this was the next step. (LINK)

My last day at work was approaching and the wilderness fast retreat was also approaching. Karen was preparing us, but I was still feeling scared. One morning I woke up to meditate and I remembered Asia Suler´s teaching, ask the Universe or Nature for signs. So, I did. I asked Nature to please show me an Oropendula bird if I had made the right decision to quit my job and then I went about my day. I had a normal workday in the morning and at lunch I packed my computer and as I was walking into the house I heard a bird and suddenly my entire body shivered and a big smile came onto my face. It was the Oropendula´s mating song. This was my invitation. I followed the sounds and there he was. Standing on the top of a Black Walnut just calling. I could see him clearly. I was receiving a blessing for the journey from this amazing weaving bird. And then he left. The signs were clear again. (LINK)

The day of the wilderness fast came. I was excited but also sad that I was leaving my son for the first time. The wilderness fast deserves a separate story, but it was deep, revealing, redirectioning, connecting, plus I felt I was held by this community of powerful and loving women including mother Earth. I was beyond words.

I came down from the mountain open, scared, and fully connected to myself. Karen held the container for several more months and this was extremely empowering and helpful. I also had created a support group of family members and friends that was powerful and extremely supportive.

I came back home to my loving family. I saw my son´s smile when he saw me, that cracked me open. I received the sweetest and warm hug by my wife. I was held and received. I had been reborn. Everything was new. The start of the new journey fully began.

As things settled I knew I had to start re focusing on Permaculture. A way of living within Nature, observing and understanding her patterns and flows and designing everything around us to live with Nature and let her support us as the container and mother she is to all of us. I had been learning about permaculture for about 10 years and had been practicing it by composting our organic waste, helping run a community garden in the Netherlands, having my own gardens, fermenting, making bread for the community, amongst other things. So, I decided to jump into learning Permaculture again and connecting with the Permaculture community. So, I started looking. I wanted a course that was as local as possible. Of course, because of COVID, there were no in person courses, so I found Ecoversity (LINK) which was starting a brand new PDC online taught by Stephen Brooks an American permaculturist in Costa Rica and Penny Livingston a permaculturist from the original permaculture movement. I was in! I was a bit wary about the online format of Permaculture teaching, but it ended up being amazing. There were so many people connected from so many places of the world, everyone sharing their wisdom, experience and knowledge that made the class extremely rich. Stephen and Penny made the class really lively, and they invited several amazing guest speakers including Itai Hauben, and David Holmgren, amongst others. I was teamed with amazing people where we designed an educational place for kids aligning the permaculture principles with the Sustainable development goals. This was the start of my full experience Permaculture Journey. Ecoversity helped me fully immerse myself in the permaculture journey.

I was in the first class of Ecoversity students and they are about to start their 3rd class on November 8th. If permaculture is your calling, jump in! You can use my link to join and get discount. It will change your life.

In parallel since I was spending lots of time with Paco, my son, and we were spending it outside, Elke and my mom encouraged me to take some classes regarding teaching kids so I took a Montessori Sports class and through my brother in law, Stefan, I enrolled into the Children in Permaculture course (LINK). An amazing and fun course. In this course I not only learned how to engage kids in permaculture, but I also met 2 amazing future colleagues, Annette and Chanel who were starting Permayouth Americas, a branch of Permayouth (LINK) started my Morag Gamble and her daughter Maia Raymond, which is a place for youth to have a voice in the permaculture movement and practice practivism. Annette, Chanel and I then went and founded Family Permaculture were we are designing youth and family permaculture education classes (LINK).

In our first Permayouth Americas festival we invited Morag and Maia and I told them about the design work I had done in my PDC regarding youth education and SDGs. I knew Morag was also working on combining Permaculture as a way of meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Morag then invited me to a meeting with other Permaculture leaders that were trying to connect Permaculture to the SDGs. I felt like suddenly I was at the top of the permaculture wave, it gave me vertigo, but I was excited. Then I also interviewed Morag for the Roots of Impact podcast where we had an amazing conversation (LINK). A couple of months later Morag contacted me pointing me to a permaculture job opportunity in the south of Costa Rica. So, I applied and the next day I was talking to Alexander Tinti. The founder of Refugio Tinti (LINK), a permaculture education center and wild life sanctuary. Alexander is a visionary and created a beautiful place in a really degraded area of the country. He was able to convert degraded land into a thriving wild life sanctuary in 3 years. Alexander needed help with coordinating a permaculture program for the local school and community, so we got together several times. I went to visit a couple times and ended up making the permaculture design for the school.

At the same time I was looking for design work, so I also did a design for my wife´s aunt. I was getting experience under my belt. Additionally, Elke and I launched a local, outdoor, movement, permaculture and storytelling program for kids at our son´s kindergarden the Montessori Learning center called Chispitas Silvestres. (LINK)

Slowly I was immersed in the permaculture world.

Even though I was immersed, the financial situation was not quite there yet. In addition to that Elke was pregnant again. Little baby was on his way :). The year mark was approaching since I had quit my job and my savings were running really thin. We lived some stressful moments because we knew we needed our own place with the baby coming. An option was to move south to help with the school permaculture project there, but that was remote. We found a house here but then it got sold. Moving south seemed to be the only option but then we found a new house that we loved. I was considering my old job but again my inner flame started taking and telling me that when I needed the money the money would come. I needed to trust the journey and have the courage to keep on going. The last month of my savings we decided to gauge if the people that were following us online would be interested in taking a course. So, we organized a free class. Many people signed up, so the excitement was high, but the day of the class only 2 people showed up. Strange. We had messed up the dates in the original flyer, maybe that was the reason for the low attendance. We planned for a new session. 2 days before the new session I went into the Facebook groups where we had posted our original flyer to see if I could find clues of why people did not show up. Right above our post in the Permaculture El Paso group in Facebook I saw a post by Jon at Food Forest Abundance (LINK) saying that they had a lot of work, and they were looking for Permaculture designers so I applied right there. This was a Tuesday. That same day Jon replied. I sent him both my designs. Both the designs were beautiful in my opinion. I had learned some amazing design tricks in the Ecoversity course (LINK). Jon then put me in contact with Ian the head of Design and we scheduled a call for Friday. On Thursday we had our free class again, and again, it did not take off. Friday, I talked to Ian and he already was offering me a position as a commission base designer. Friday night baby Jack started making a move and was born in the morning of Saturday at home with the help of two amazing midwives. This is also another beautiful amazing story. That same morning Ian sent me my first design client! And that same day my mom arrived from the US to help us. I was over the moon. I was on the other side of the misty mountains. The land of my dreams was in sight and I was becoming an apprentice to my soul work.

Be courageous, follow your inner flame, jump into your soul work, trust your heart and the journey.

Blessings to all :)