Vision & Dreams Behind @mountainjewel: A Center for Earth Connection | ReIntroduction & Invitiation To Ecotrain!

in #ecotrain7 years ago (edited)

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"Forgiveness is giving so give yourself this gift from time to time."
by Trevor Hall in Forgive

I'd like to start by expressing gratitude for all of the Steemians who have witnessed, uplifted, inspired, shared and connected with us. Our journey on Steemit has been a wonderful ride so far because of ALL OF YOU! So thanks to all of you for showing up and holding it down in all the ways you do.

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A big part of this has been because of our involvement with @ecotrain, a group full of positive and uplifting folks creating Earth-centered and consciousness raising content. Wren had seen @eco-alex's (the driver of #ecotrain) posts and felt an immediate attraction and asked to join! Soon after we were accepted aboard and away we went. We are all stronger together and we are continually inspired by the passengers! This is such fantastic group of souls who continually write things that touch the heart, inspire, challenge, educate and edify!! Love you all!

If this community sounds interesting to you please read this post: @ecoTrain has arrived at Discord, Join us - we want to discover you! So please consider joining the ecoTrain discord channel!

@eco-alex recently invited us all to write a post reintroducing ourselves, which I think is a great idea. We all read so much content on Steemit, but it's really great to get to know who is behind all this creative juiciness. So here's a bit about us @mountainjewel.

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We got on Steemit in early December 2017. Our friend @lauralee introduced us to it through Instagram saying, You should really check this thing out! It took us a couple months, but we are sure happy we listened to her advice and checked it out! Our "introduceyourself" article didn't have any pictures and didn't include too many details! We've learned a lot since then about how to sculpt blog posts, format, and so many ins and outs of Steemit! You all have also learned a lot out about us through our posts, but here's a little recap:

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We are a duo of Earth-walkers named Wren and Ini. We live on and steward 18 acres in the Ozarks of Southern Missouri and are working everyday towards a better, brighter, healthier and happier future. We do this by living our dream day in and day out through thick and thin. We share details, practical tutorials, thought pieces, etc about our journey into homesteading, off grid living, herbalism, natural building and perennial agriculture. We are living this life because because we believe in a more vibrant and aligned way of living than we see portrayed in modern culture. Truly, if we weren't living this life, we would likely both become unhappy and/or sick so we know it's the right one for us!

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We are a family, although many of the members aren't human and it is growing everyday. Our family includes the animals, plant, fungi, bacteria and other creatures that share space with us on our home turf. We are co-creating a space where connections happen and possibilities open up. Our larger vision is evolving into the Center for Earth Connection where folks can explore a variety of Earthly Elements in an immersive, harmonious and loving environment. Opening our homestead up so that others may grow, learn, share, collaborate and become infused and inspired by the Earth is a long-term goal and we're laying the foundation for that step by step. We are after all children of Gaia and the remembering and respecting this is not always a given for us humans. We seek to create a space for the embodiment of sacred Earth connection free from dogmas, boundaries, labels and "shoulds".

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We both traveled and worked on farms, visited intentional communities, wandered, hitch hiked, etc before we met and then we did that for another 4 years after we met in 2012. We met at OUR Ecovillage in Canada where Ini was the garden manager and Wren had come up on the bicycle on a solo adventure. I remember the night we sat around a fire talking about our dreams. They were so aligned I think then and there both of us were wondering if we should try it together. It's funny when you meet people; oftentimes we never know just how much a part of our lives they'll become. This happened here and we believe it was divinely inspired.

The blessings that we've been gifted on each of our journeys and then together from countless people, communities, farms, angels, plants, trees, animals, moments, hardships, lessons, etc are many and we realize that we stand on top of the shoulders of so many who came before us. We are a part of a long line of Earth Kin who use their voices to speak up for the ones who humans have a hard time hearing.

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In college, Wren got deeply into ecopsychology and spent a lot of time in nature on adventures and leading groups as she studied Outdoor Recreation and Resource Management. She'd always felt the stirrings of the questions of existence. You know, Where are we from?, How did we get here?, Why are we here and Where are we going?... She spent a lot of time prodding and exploring and feels not that she knows the answers, but is at peace with the questions. Those years of questioning and questing, along with later experiences studying Alternative forms of healing, therapy, and massage formed her desire to one day open a retreat center. This is where landing the dreams is so important.

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Ini spent time in college being exposed to exploring a lot of alternative and radical lifestyles, learning through direct experience and continually seeking the most aligned way to live.

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Through his studies in the Indigenous Studies Program, he was given teachings from elders and was invited to participate in numerous ceremonies. This helped inform his worldview and broaden the scope of his awareness and connection to the Sacred.

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As both Ini and Wren were travelers, there reached a point when they both felt within that traveling had served them for that time in place and there was something missing. That something missing was creating hOMe, manifesting so many earth skills they'd collected and, one day, inviting people in to learn, rejuvenate, rest, restore, play, make art/create, and share experiences.

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A Center for Earth Connection

This is how the Center for Earth Connection began and we call this, our home, Mountain Jewel. To us, to live in such close connection with the cycles of the earth and all of the beauty is truly a gem and we are so blessed to have this opportunity. From experiences in nature, we've come to believe that so much healing, wisdom, knowledge come directly from the source of being in nature. It's that simple. We want to provide a haven where people remember these wisdoms directly. Teaching and sharing what we have learned, yes, but also just leading by example and letting people experience what is there for them to learn on their own. That is the amazing power of the earth!

Cycles of Abundance

By taking part in cycles of abundance on the land, in our home, with our neighbors, and planting for the future, it is our goal to create a place that is teeming with life and has an aura of abundance about it. We want so much fruit we can't eat it all, full root cellars, incredible mind-boggling biodiversity. We want people to come here and palpably feel and experience the joy of living on Earth. And then we want to share that so humans can remember that, though the current cycles and economic systems are built on scarcity and one-upmanship, it doesn't have to be this way. We want to be living proof.

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As many of you know, we have built the buildings on our homestead from the ground up and though we had both taken part on building projects, neither of us had ever been totally in control and responsible for building. We have learned so much and have worked very hard. It was a bare piece of land when we moved there, with only a driveway leading up the steep hill. The first year we lived in a yurt without running water and we would pump water from the neighbors. We practiced the Permaculture principle of observation and didn't do much long term planting that year, only established a few annual food beds and built a composting toilet.

Since then we’ve established hundreds of trees, shrubs, medicines, natives, and cycled through many yummy annuals. We are completely off grid and self sustaining on a solar system we installed ourselves. We have a high tunnel and are looking at installing another one in April (that we got a grant for!). We are incredibly blessed on the land and have some great friends and neighbors. Wouldn’t be the same without them.

We also can’t imagine our lives without Steemit at this point! In 3 quick months we have fallen in love with this web of interactions and are here for the long term. Thank you again for each of you. We look forward to more wonderful shares and getting to know you all better over time.

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We invite you all to unfurl along with us. Listen to the deepest inner whispers in your being and allow yourself to live them into the waking light of day! Much love!!

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What a lovely way to start my day. Thank you for this reintroduction to you, and to ecotrain. ❤️

(btw, I did an intro workshop on Steemit last night and pointed you out in my feed as someone folks should definitely follow. I really love getting to have a window into your world, and know they will to.)

Oh you are so wonderful! Please join us on Discord if you feel it. You were one I’ve been wanting to invite as I feel you really resonate! Glad to hear you’re spreading Steemit skills & thanks for sharing us with others. 💕

I echo @indigoocean, this was a lovely way to start the day. I feel really close to you guys, even when I first saw you on Homestead Rescue before being lucky enough to meet you on here. I loved the way Into was so careful over the trees to be cut down during the show BTW. I was sitting there and thinking "yeah that's me!" Thank you again for your brilliant writing.

aw thank you @talltuk. we're so happy to have met you on here! and yes, it's so good to be able to see ourselves in others and feel that kinship. much love you way!

Yeehaw, beautiful souls!
Very nice post and summary to get to know you better.
Great stuff you´re doing there.
That´s what I see as the one big advantage the US has over Germany, still lots of land available to get away from it all and do your own thing.
We are now fortunate enough in Germany to have wolves moving back into Germany from Poland, and the fucking politicians are already talking about shooting them for public safety reasons.

thanks @likedeeler!! <3 <3 <3 yes totally, we have cheap accessible land that is amazing & rich! we got our land for under $1800/acre, which is amazing for US standards, not even to mention in Germany I bet it is crazy! uck... can't believe they'd shoot them. politicians are so backwards! do you still have many open & natural spaces (not necessarily owned by anyone in particular, but like the US park spaces, for example?)...

we have 16 national parks, 14 biosphere reserves, 98 nature parks and quite some state and private forest, so not too bad I guess

Wow 😻 maybe the wolves can hide out their from the nasty politicians 🐺

Lovely to hear your stories and get to know you both a little better @mountainjewel. Thanks for the beautiful post. 💙

Glad to deepen the relations and share a little more of ourselves, happy you enjoyed the post.

Y'all's beauty keeps unfurling :) truly a blessing to witness. Much love thru the aethers!

You're too kind... It's not even our beauty so much as the beauty that moves through us. Thanks witnessing and for sending the good vibes. Sending love right back atcha! <3

Trevor Hall music has helped me stay sane in the past few years. I had a part time job. I had to travel home late at night. After putting one of his cds in to play I would say Trevor take me home. It helped me to be calm and not afraid. I am on the ecotrain discord channel. Great post.

Your story is so touching. I'm glad you've found healing through Trevor Hall's music. He is bringing some serious musical medicine. It's amazing what certain musicians can tap into, and I can totally relate to the connection you're expressing here.

Look forward to connecting with you in the near future.

Beautiful reintroduction! Your stories are so full of love and vibrancy. I think mountainjewel is definitely a reflection of your hearts and passion and your love for nature. It's stunning to see what you accomplished in such a short time, I can only imagine a few more years, a decade and more... you will touch so many hearts, you have already touched many. Great work you two!!!

thank you so much @sagescrub for your kind comment! it touches our hearts and propels us forward for that is our goal <3 !! one step at a time XO

What an inspiring story! A real example that it can be done. I think I there are many others that would love to follow that same path. The opportunity for people to follow your journey will create so much inspiration. I enjoyed reading this introduction to who you are and I look forward to following you. The photos are beautiful as well. :)

You're so sweet.... I really hope you're right, because it's not about US, so much as it it demonstration what IS possible. We are following our calling and our deepest hope would be that others would follow THEIR uniques calling and find satisfaction in this. I truly hope that what we're creating is stoking the inner fires in so many wonderful folks bursting with potential, reading to live their life fully.

Thanks for such supportive and thoughtful words, much appreciated. We both look forward to getting to know you and further connection.

Wow, wow, wow! Just stumbled upon this from the ecotrain page and boy golly you two are so inspiring. What a beautiful world we live in that we have the ability to connect so deeply with the nature around us, creating and transforming our hOMes into such abundant stores of wealth.

I'm very interested in the eco-train, but I don't know if I post enough content within the aligned topics to fit the passenger list... I'll have to keep my eye out and see when I can hop on! (seems much more my style than some of the larger feed-frenzy style groups)

Wow, this is one of the coolest things I liked a lot, I loved the nature pictures.

thank you so much!