Woo Woo Blog Returns

In  a way, I thought that the spiritual journey recounted in this blog was over, that it ended when we arrived at last in Eugene.  But again, I was wrong.

So much magic has happened since we arrived.  Too much to include in this one blog post.  But I will tell you about the most recent development.

We got a house!

Yes, boys and girls, a real house.

Let me back up a couple of weeks.

I heard from a long-lost friend.  A friend I thought I would never see again, because the last time I talked to her, she was completely irrationally angry at me and refused to speak to me further.  She was in Montana and I was in Iowa.  It was near my birthday, and I had just lost my job as a social worker at a homeless shelter—a job that meant a great deal to me and provided me with a very powerful healing experience, a way to assimilate my own homeless experiences and make sense of them. 

So, in a short period of time, I lost work that gave me validation, and my best friend suddenly refused to be my friend.  I was devastated.

I put those events into my repertoire and tried to move on.  I had no answers, no closure, but one doesn’t always get such things.  So I endeavored to put it into perspective and move forward.

Then, out of the blue, I get an email from Robin. 

Howdy folks! Surprised to see that you have left iowa.  I am now living in williams, Arizona, camping in the Kaibab forest and enjoying the weather, although I'm heading down to Tucson for the winter. Got laid off the forest service for the winter.
So why did you guys leave iowa? I like your RV but it's got to be a killer on gas! How's oregon treating you? Do you miss the Midwest?

Very chatty, like nothing ever happened.  Like she never broke my heart and hurt me deeply.  Like I never noticed.

So I wrote back. “Glad to hear you are alive!” and some other things that sounded equally chatty.  Like nothing ever happened. Like she never broke my heart and hurt me deeply.  Like I never noticed.

Three emails later, still ignoring the elephant in the room (or in the inbox), I mention that if she wanted to work with the Forest Service she should consider Oregon.  Next thing I know, she says is on her way. 

Sure enough, three days later, Robin shows up.  And I am not angry, though I thought I would be.  I’m not hurt anymore, even though I planned on holding onto that until I got an apology, at least.  I’m not even reluctant.  Like nothing ever happened. Like she never broke my heart and hurt me deeply.  Like I never noticed. 

I am so happy to see my friend that I simply hug her and accept her back into my life.  (And I did get my apology!)

We were in the process of looking for a place to live that was bigger than an RV, someplace that maybe, we could call our own.  Robin’s arrival and commitment to being our roommate, accompanied by a cash deposit, helped speed up the process.  We tried to buy a place on contract, but that fell through.  Then we shopped for financing but the only financing we could get required that we borrow at least $65K and we were not allowed to purchase real property—only a mobile home.  Too expensive, and not sustainable.  

Robin's Jeep in the driveway.

Then one evening, less than a week after Robin arrived (she was sleeping in her SUV in our driveway), there was a knock at the door. Rick was not home.  At my door was the owner of the local convenience store, who knew we were looking for a place. 

“There’s a house for rent right around the corner,” she said.  “$500 a month, three bedroom. Stop by the store in the morning and I’ll give you the phone number.”

Sounded too good to be true.  It had to be something rundown for that price, right? 

But I stopped in the morning and got coffee and the phone number.  We drove to the address.   

Directly across Franklin Blvd from the store was a street—labeled 20^th Street. We drove down and found six or seven houses on this rutted dirt road nestled between two mobile home parks.  A road we never realized hosted actual homes. 

And when we passed the third one from the end, the yellow house with the garage, I had a feeling that was the place.  So I called the number, even though it was only like 7:30 am.  And Jean answered. 

The next night, we had arranged to see the place and I called her again immediately.  “We’ll take it.”

And so the three of us came to live in this wonderful, three-bedroom house with a big detached garage.  A home with a herb garden and grapevines and a firepit and a previous pagan resident who has already blessed the place.  Full of fairies and healing energy.  A vortex where the maple tree is twisted in a lovely dance the twin, yin-yang cedars grace the front lawn.  With a lilac bush, birdhouses, a place for chickens, and a lilac tree.

Kim Anne, the previous resident, showed us the house.

We closed the deal with our San Francisco landlady when she came to visit on the 5^th.  “Treat this place as if it was your own,” she told me.  And, “Women rock.”  She was as pleased with the deal as we were.  And there is even talk of us buying the place. 

There is not enough room to list all the things that make this place perfect for us.  And the dozens of little signs that this was meant to be.  But trust me when I tell you: never, ever, ever, give up on your dreams.  Because all those birthday candle wishes CAN come true.  

And the photos to prove it:

Selfie the night we moved in.

Dining room looking south into the living room.

The spacious kitchen.

At last, a bathtub big enough for EVERYONE to take a bath.

Dining to living room, with door to upstairs and our bedroom on the right.

Bathroom

Door between the laundry room and kitchen.

Laundry room--includes washer and dryer!

Backyard ceremonial space with firepit and koi pond.

This message taped to the bathroom mirror went unnoticed until the third day we were here. Like a message directly from the angels. I wept with joy when I saw it. Very, very grateful.

Welcome to Oregon

It felt like entering the promised land when we drove past this sign on Friday, March 14, 2014. 

Oregon looks like I imagine Ireland looks.  Lush.  Green.  The further north we moved, the lower my anxiety became.  I'd been anxious all the way through California, scared.  Of what, you might ask?  I have no idea. It was just a constant sense of the possibility of things going terribly wrong.  Part of my lifelong wrestling match with depression/anxiety. 

We visited a couple of bookstores in Medford and Roseburg and pulled into Eugene just around sunset.  We had no idea where we were going to camp, but a little internet research via the smartphone found the Eugene Mobile Village on Franklin Blvd.  In the dark, of course, we had no idea of the actual surroundings, but we found the place.

The office was closed, but we picked out a spot near the office and put our payment in the slot.  A few days later, we moved to a longer-term location. 

 

Our first spot at Eugene Mobile Village.

One of the first things I discovered on our new spot was a green stone that looked like jade.  I didn't see this particular kind of stone anywhere else, just in our lot.  Over the course of a couple of weeks, these green stones would just appear out of nowhere.  One day the yard was perfectly clear, the usual gravel, dirt and moss and hours later, there would be this big chunk of this green stone.

Our long-term location.

The green stones kept surfacing here beneath the trees.  Notice the orbs.

 Within the first couple of weeks, we had signed up for Piccadilly Flea Market and attended one Saturday Market. We attended a couple of pagan gatherings at the Unitarian Church and a shamanic healing journey at a private home.  I was lucky enough to get a scholarship / barter agreement with a local shamanic teacher for entrance into a year-long shamanic apprenticeship. 

The first weekend of my apprenticeship training  I returned home and we had new neighbors.  A long old tan RV was parked behind us and the couple that owned quickly became our fast friends.  Christie and Abijah and Abijah's son, Seth are delightful, open, honest, genuine young hippies.  Both had birthdays a couple of days apart in April and the three of us celebrated our birthdays (mine is April 19).

I later learned that the stone that kept mysteriously appearing was serpentine--very similar to jade, but associated with spiritual healing.  The signs just keep coming. 

Struggles in Shasta

Mount Shasta brought its own challenges.  We had planned to stay for three days or so, drink in the mountain air, connect with the spirit of the mountain and rest before we pushed forward into Oregon.
But the Universe had other plans and as usual, I was not given a memo.

We went to town to visit the bookstores, and stop at the auto parts store to get some brake fluid.  But too late!  Our brakes failed to stop us at the auto parts store, and if it hadn't been for the metal post, we might have landed IN the auto parts store.  Fortunately, other than bending the pole a little, no serious damage was done.  But there we were in a mountainous town with absolutely no brakes at all. 

We called AAA (again!) and while Rick waited for the tow truck, I visited my bookstores.  Luckily, Mount Shasta is a small enough town that all stores were within a couple of blocks of one another. When I got back, the tow truck had just arrived.

The repair shop was less than a mile from the KOA campground, but we were grounded, for sure.

A desperate call to rich relations obtained the needed funding for repairs, but we had to cut our stay short.  The campground hosts were very nice about refunding our camping fees and as soon as the truck was fixed, we gassed up and headed north.

But I didn't waste the rest of the day--I went for a walk around the campground, took some nice pictures and set and meditated in the "shadow" of the mountain. 

Here we are at Mt. Shasta KOA Campground.

I loved the tall, tall trees.

And of course, that magnificent mountain.

Gotta love my zoom lens!

One day, perhaps, I will have a chance to go back to Mount Shasta and drive up closer to the mountain and walk its trails.  I would love to feel the land itself right on the mountain, to feel its Lemurian connections, its magical place in the Dreamtime. 

A Poem

Drought Resistance

California is bound to become

A water battleground

A fluid prism prison where the wealthy

And the corporate “persons” starve

The non-corporate people into being

Non-corporeal victims of the greed

Wars over water.

Where golf triumphs over gardens.
--Catt Foy, 2014