About a year ago, I got the desire to buy some land in the Appalachian Mountain region.  I formed a list:  unrestricted, minimum of ten acres, water feature, three hour drive from where I live and preferably along the Ococee River Highway 64/74 path.  I drive through the extreme beauty of the Ococee River gorge, and a voice in my head and heart says ‘home’.

A couple of months ago, when I found the Land that hit every one of those requirements, I bought it.  I have been on the Land a couple of times since purchasing it, but last weekend was the first time to camp on the Land. Several people from my local Sacred Circle came with.

Before beginning the drive, I started the weekend off with a Breathwork class led by Leah Hastings Varner of Movement Massage and Breathwork at Mill Kat Healing Arts Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  Leah hosts the Breathwork class every Friday at 5:30pm.

Wondering what Breathwork is?  You can read more about this at  Mind Body Green article.

It was the first time I had ever done this, and it was an incredible experience.  Breathwork is very ‘active’, and it ‘gets you there’ much more quickly and easily than other meditation.   I recommend.

I quickly slip-slided away into a deep meditative state, and it was perfect for me after a long day of work, I regained the energy I needed for the three hour drive to North Carolina.

Leah and I got there late on Friday night so we stayed at a hotel in Ducktown.  It rained.  All night and into the morning.  Pouring.

Ug.  ‘What am I doing?,’  I thought, but replaced it with ‘oh well’.   I had a canopy that we could set up and sit under in the rain.  Where better to sit than the forest?

We headed to the Land, set up the canopy and did a Tree Meditation by my incredible friend Florencia Adúriz from Buenos Aires who I had met at Gather the Women events. 

‘It’s been so long since I’ve meditated in the woods.  I forgot how the forest breathes,’ Leah said after the meditation.

Yes.  Yes, it does.

We did some work clearing a space for camping.  More friends Maria and Zach showed up, and after we were all set up and had a fire going, we did another Circle.   More breathwork.  Breathing with the trees. 

After breathwork, we pulled cards.  I got Archangel Purlimick, the Archangel of Nature.  Of course. 

‘Being in nature calms and balances you so that you can see everything through a loving lens.  It also enables you to heal and regenerate.’

You couldn’t script my life lately. It just is flowing.  Just like earlier, I stopped at the convenience store to find dry firewood, and in the process found a local man who it appears will be a good choice to hire to help me on the Land. 

Good. Bad.  Good.  Bad.  If it had not been raining, I would not have needed to stop for dry firewood.  Then I would not have found this contact. 

Know that you are held.   Know that you will be given everything you need.  Know that life is full of cycles and opposites: good, bad, birth, death, light, dark.  Nature teaches you that as well.

In the morning another friend of mine Treebeard stopped by.  Treebeard is a tree expert, and he blazed a trail for us through the bog and the woods pointing out and talking about different plants and trees:  mulberry tree, blueberry patch, white pines, hemlock trees in need of care, Christmas berries.  So much to learn about and see.  You drive by the woods and often do not think about the WELLTH of information the woods hold.

Treebeard sat in another meditation with us. Lightly raining.  Again speaking of trees. 

Afterwards, we danced. We shouted, we ‘whooped’, and we opened the Circle.  The container of the weekend. 

All is well.  Yes, it is.

This weekend was very special to me not only because of my dream and intent of this Land but because it was my 53^rd birthday.  When my father was 52, he dropped dead of a heart attack.

And on the other side of my family, when my mother’s father was 52, he died of heart attack. 

For years now, the age of 52 has loomed large in my mind, and it was a year where I made a definitive fork in the road choosing to eat and live healthy and choosing to walk this path of things I believe in. 

Choosing to forego the dominant culture of work more, make more, spend more which has led to social isolation, mammoth controlling corporations and Big Pharma.  But instead to embrace a more natural and simple way of life that is being born at this time all over. 

My desire is to ‘own’ my Land as we humans should ‘own’ Land, working in cooperation with it and respecting it: a reciprocal relationship where we take care of it and it takes care of us.  Not conquering and mindlessly destroying.

Inviting friends and acquaintances to join me, to breathe in the trees and the forest and each other.  To heal and inspire.

Care to join me?