It’s been a while since I put pen to paper. Nonetheless, much has been going on. So, this blog is a bit of an epic and you might want a cup of your favourite brew to hand.

Part of the last month was occupied by a ‘dark night of the soul’ moment (well, 10 days, in fact), and the profound inner processing that accompanies this type of experience. I have had a few such episodes in my life, as I am sure we all have. But this time, it was heightened, probably due to the intense cosmic activity that’s been occurring – huge full moons, plus lunar and solar eclipses, culminating on 8^th November, all of which is a catalyst for raising consciousness, if we are open to this. And I certainly am. During this period, I felt utterly lifeless, empty, sick to my core and bereft (plus a whole lot more). At the end of it, I had a dream. An alarm clock went off, but instead of a ring tone, the words ‘WAKE UP’ bellowed at me. It was a literal wake-up call. ‘Time for action’, was the message. And, just like that, I was back in the groove, mojo restored and ready to go. What a relief.

In fact, it marked the completion of a three year process. Transformation in totality, is the best way I can describe it, including mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and lifestyle, with many ups and downs and some false dawns along the way. It started with the intention to change my life, become a new version of me and find a new purpose, but without knowing what any of this might look or feel like. I just knew I had to change everything and trusted I could. I had no idea how hard it would be, how painful and how lonely – a journey of utter surrender of my identity, possessions and my animal family. I have learned a lot.

Looking back, I can see that I had to reach this recent place of emptiness and surrender, in order to complete the transformation. Now that it’s done, though, I feel like the ‘Phoenix rising from the ashes’.

It might have been less painful had I had been able to go abroad as soon as I sold my property, which was the plan, and explore where I would like to live in the future. But the ‘madness of our times’ precluded this. So, despite my hard earned freedom, I was constrained and stuck where I didn’t want to be. And that’s where the plan to get a ’ship on wheels’ and travel around the UK came from. I am not a huge fan of caravans or caravan sites, so it was more than a little ironic that my ‘freedom’ entailed doing something that would never have been my first choice (or my second, or third). Cosmic humour!

With hindsight, this waiting period has been a good thing. It enabled me to finish and publish my book, ‘The Ultimate Relationship… the one with yourself’, further my research into how our world really works (especially re the last 3 years), and look further into alternate ways of living. And, at last, I have a plan. So, you will hear a lot more from me, from now on, as I aim to share my new adventure with you, and create a template for anyone wishing to do something similar. In due course, I feel many may follow suit because it’s time to redefine everything in our world and manifest the reality of our choosing. I suspect my experience of transformation in the last 3 years, is a microcosm of the macrocosm.

In fact, I announced my new project, the ‘Earth Collective’ in a previous blog, ‘What Next’. It is about creating a self-sustainable, intentional community with a small group of like-minded souls. Probably 7-12 homes, similar in concept to the ‘Earth Ship’, but incorporating sacred geometry and biomimicry, and taking account of earth energies in order to place the properties in the most beneficial positions. Also, the use of permaculture. I would like there to be a teaching element, as well, probably to do with self-sustainable living, personal growth and spiritual development.

In another previous blog, ‘The art of homeostasis’ I talked about achieving a state of being, where the amount of personal energy it takes to be balanced and achieve optimal health is minimal. Hence freeing up most of your energy for living life to the fullness of your potential. Right now, homeostasis takes a lot of time, thought and energy (if we even get near this), because we live in such a toxic world. Toxic in every sense. So, obvious things to master are eating a healthy diet that is compatible with your biology, doing inner work so you become aware of your thoughts and can re-frame them, where necessary, to ensure they help you create the life you want and not hinder you (a big theme in my book), and finding the right work-life balance. In addition, the building you live in and its location is also a significant factor, and this either supports your health or presents an additional unwanted challenge. Having spent much of my life focused on the former (and being pretty satisfied with the results), the Earth Collective project is about the latter.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me backtrack a little to provide the context for the project. Over the last 10 years, I have considered living in a rural setting with friends, sharing the land and having individual homes. The idea of living in a special community and enjoying life together, appeals. However, these were fleeting thoughts, long since forgotten.

Meantime, I became increasingly interested in taking myself out of dependency on the power and water infrastructure, and living off-grid, for ecological reasons, personal resiliency (should there be failures in the provision of public utilities) and also to reduce bills. I went some way towards achieving this at my previous property, albeit using conventional means which are not entirely ideal. I had a water borehole, a biomass boiler for heating and hot water (which doubled as a cooker), private drainage and several wood burning stoves. But I was still dependent on the grid for electricity. Had I stayed, this would have been next on the list. With an ancient property, though, it’s not possible to use cutting edge building ideas. So, knowing I would move at some point, I began to look at what I could build from scratch that would be self-sustainable, beautiful and cost virtually nothing to run.

Initially, my interest was piqued by the Passivhaus concept, which is a German standard of building. I bought the manual (and actually read it) and visited a rare example of a Passivhaus in Wales. They are, indeed, amazing. It beggars belief why all new houses aren’t built to this standard, though I believe a few countries have now adopted this protocol. The idea is that large areas of glass create solar gain for heating, along with heat created by people and appliances in the building. Heat is retained because insulation is of such a high standard, and there are no gaps to the outside (called thermal bridges), which would allow heat to escape. You can open windows if you want to, but there is no need as a mechanical air ventilation system brings in and circulates a continuous supply of fresh air. And as the cold air enters, it is heated by the warm air leaving. Photovoltaic panels provide power.

The house maintains a comfortable ambient temperature all year round (even in sub-zero conditions) but can be boosted by a heated rail in the bathroom or a tiny wood burning stove, or various other means. It’s a very exacting method of construction. There is also a way of ‘retrofitting’ existing properties, or parts of them, but because this is done from the inside it diminishes the size of the rooms.

I then came across the ‘Earth Ship’. “Wow! This has to be it”, I thought. These are amazing dwellings created by a forward-thinking architect, Michael Reynolds, who is based in New Mexico, where there is a large Earth Ship settlement. And many have now been built all over the world, as a result of training courses run by Michael Reynolds and his team. The buildings use recycled materials such as tyres in the structural walls, and plastic bottles and glass in the internal walls. They are beautiful too, with large glass conservatories used for growing food and for solar gain, a rainwater capture and filtration system, solar power, and water recycling. Passive heating comes not only from the sun but also from the thermal mass of the earth, as part of the building is under ground, or at least, covered in soil. Think ‘hobbit house’!

More recently, after deciding to do the Earth Collective project, I investigated what new developments there might be, and came across an Earth-Ship hybrid created by the visionary Alosha Lynov. Alosha teaches how to design and build your own affordable homes (online), or he can design a home to suit your location and climate. He has studied with many of the pioneers in this area, including Michael Reynolds, and his work is genius. His latest project is the Wautillarium, a self-sufficient home for sub-zero climates  All his homes are curvilinear, ie. dome-like, have Earth Ship features and a whole lot more including sacred geometry and consideration of earth energies. He is a designer, builder, innovator and artist. This is the new ‘it’ for me! I recently had a vid-chat with Alosha and found he could also project manage the construction. The building team would include members of the community, a few local workers and, perhaps, some of Alosha’s students.

So, the next question is where? Before I sold up, I knew I wanted to live abroad. I felt it would be more interesting to create a new life in a new environment. Portugal was a strong pull for me. It just popped into my head as soon as I asked the question. I had only been to Portugal once, a long time ago, but I acted on instinct and went out there to have a look around. I focused on the north, just below the Spanish border, because this is the most temperate part of the country and, at the time, I was planning to take my animals (large and small). It also appears to be slightly less prone to forest fires, which is a hazard the Portuguese people live with.

I scouted the area around Pont De Lima. Pont De Lima is the oldest town in Portugal, steeped in history, unspoiled and on a river which, in typical Portuguese fashion, has been made into a river beach within the town. Beautiful fertile valleys and hills are all around. The host of the flat I rented, turned out to be a small-scale property developer, and her father was a past Mayor of the town and well connected, and very much into ecology. They were so helpful. They showed me some land for sale and said that, should I move there, they could help me. Another plus factor for Portugal is that, from a residency point of view, the country is welcoming to foreigners and makes this relatively easy. This is not the situation in many other places. So, moving to Portugal was the plan by the time I sold my property, 20 months ago.

Recently, however, I thought I would review this to see if there were any other serious options. So, in the spirit of ruling nothing out, I had an interesting conversation with a chap in the US who had bought a 75 acre plot in the mountains, another lovely man in Maui (Hawaiian Islands) who had bought land and was looking to start a community and a guy in Puerto Rica (all contacts from an eco-dating site, would you believe). Also, a British woman who moved to Brazil and bought 70 acres of tropical forest and had already started a community. Fascinating people and projects which widened my vista as to what’s possible. There is more happening in this space than you would think.

But I didn’t see myself in the jungle, or in a country cloaked in snow for most of the winter, or having a marriage of convenience in order to gain residency! Also, after much consideration, going that far afield seemed like too big a deal. The project was big enough, without locating in an alien environment and culture, at a time of massive political, economic, financial and social instability. Actually, I felt relieved having come to that conclusion.

Back to Portugal then? Well, I thought so until a book I read (which had absolutely nothing to do with intentional communities) that led me to a revelation. Ireland!!!!!!!!!!!! Infinitely more do-able and fits the bill, which reminded me of the old acronym, ‘KISS’ (keep it simple, stupid). I don’t know the country well, as I have only been a couple of times but it’s stunning, underpopulated, mystical, fertile, and I speak the lingo. Furthermore, there are no requirements for residency for UK citizens. And it’s not very far away. Bonus.

In fairness, I did consider Ireland in the dim and distant past, but quickly discounted it on account of the weather. From the research I have done on climate, it seems most likely that we are heading for a period of global cooling - a natural cycle, which is preceded by a warming phase. This has happened before, and it could take temperatures down across the planet by some 2-3 degrees. This is an entirely different matter to the fact that we are poisoning ourselves and our environment which, of course, must stop. But as far as warming is concerned, it doesn’t appear to be man-made or a global emergency.

So, on revisiting Ireland’s climate, it has a narrow range of temperature between the seasons and, the south is not super-cold in winter. This means, if there is a gradual reduction in temperature, it shouldn’t be a problem, especially if using Alosha’s Wautillarium design.

There is more. I have followed channelled information from a spiritual entourage called Kryon since it started to come through Lee Carroll, around 35 years. Much of the Kryon information is about science, in particular, DNA - a lot of which has been verified over time. It’s fascinating, illuminating and life-changing. Information also covers all aspects of our lives and times, and when Kryon is on tour in different countries, there is often local information given too.

For example, in Ireland, Kryon explained that there are three planetary ‘grids’. One is the magnetic grid, which sits on the surface. Another is the Gaia grid which is huge and powerful and goes right to the core of the planet. And the third is the ‘crystalline’ grid, an esoteric grid which is both above and below the surface. This stores the memory of human events and emotions and it’s why, when you visit certain places, eg. an historic battle site, if you are sensitive, you will can feel something uncomfortable. Conversely, if you go to a site where many wonderful events have taken place, the energy feels beautiful. The crystalline grid has another function, and that is to temper the power of the Gaia grid.

Kryon explains there are anomalies in this grid structure in certain places on the planet. Mostly, they are at sea. One is the Bermuda Triangle, for example. But possibly the only land mass to have this anomaly, is Eire, in particular, the southern part of the country. The net effect is that the powerful Gaia grid is unrestrained. So, divas and elementals are omnipresent (seen by many and they are an enduring part of the Irish tradition and culture). They usually present themselves in ways that are acceptable to humans, hence stories of ‘the little people’ including fairies and leprechauns. Kryon tells us that divas and elementals amplify the fertility of the land and that, in the future, Ireland has the potential to be a world leader in agriculture, developing super foods through attuning to and working with the benevolent Gaia grid. Additionally, because the crystalline grid is absent, even though there have been constant battles throughout Ireland’s history, the energy of this cannot be felt. The land is pristine in this sense.

All this resonates with me and adds an interesting dynamic to developing the Earth Collective community on the Emerald Isle, so I will take ‘the ship on wheels’ will take a real voyage in the spring, and I will start looking around. I won’t go before then, as I feel it’s likely to be a dramatic winter, not just in terms of weather (rain of biblical proportions, I suspect) but also due to the increasing scale of ‘madness’ playing out in the final phase of a ‘great global deception’. It’s not new, it’s been happening for the best part of 100 years, probably more, from what I can tell. And painful as it is, we have to see and experience the ugliness of it, so we can decide what we don’t want and create a different future.

Meantime, I will be doing yet more research (an easier task, having narrowed it down to one country) and investigate planning for rural eco developments, as well as looking at examples of how communities work. On that note, I have signed up for a weekend course with a UK eco-community (next weekend) to find out more about do’s and don’ts, permaculture and community agreements. I am also reading a book called ‘Creating a Life Together’ by Diana Leafe Christian. The author researched intentional communities in the USA between 1980 and 2000 and found the success rate was shockingly low. Only about 10% survived and thrived and she wanted to know why. Her book is a treasure trove of information and advice for creating a successful community, from finding land to what to include in legal agreements and how to run a meeting by consensus. While it relates to US law, there is much food for thought.

So, there you have it. That’s all for now.

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