Mystical Facilitation - The OM Brings Magic to PNM's Earth Odyssey

So many stories…  where to begin?



Mayan glyphs on a wall in San Marcos, a village on Lago Atitlan.

I've been in Guatemala for over a month now, and my heart is blooming for the beauty and bounty this place has lovingly shown to me in reflection of my own gifts and gratitude.

It's All Coming Together

 
This week has been a culmination, a graduation of sorts, for this amazing team of awesomeness that it has been my immense pleasure and great honor to support through the deep work of learning how to be.. Together.

We now have a decision making process, project teams, core council, information flow.. and it is getting thumbs up!

A familiar refrain from back in Washington too, with our Sound Convergence crew - the coming together, falling apart, getting it together, breaking up and getting BACK together, and occasional moments of clarity in seeing that we already have it all, together.  And it was no different here..   I quickly discovered that no matter where you go, there are never-ending dishes to be done and random socks and underwear left in strange places.

Since my arrival, even our 'days off' have been filled with the continuity of building relationships, developing trust, practicing authenticity, and sharing experiences.  It has been a non-stop rollercoaster ride of emotional highs, lows, loop-de-doo's and absolutely everything in between.  I thought I'd be writing blog posts, sharing what was happening here on a regular basis, and here I am writing my first one several days after my original flight home departed without me.

This, because I am SO FULLY ENGAGED… all the time!  Yesterday afternoon was the first time I got to lay about in the sun and let it redden my white bits!  >~_^<   

And with only a week left to spend in this abandoned mill I've made my home, I can't help but marvel at what has been accomplished during the adventure.

At right, my penthouse bedroom in El Molina Viejo, an ancient grain mill that was subsequently a disco.. several decades ago.  And my new hand sewn blanket (on a sewing machine in this tiny shop by an awesome fellow named Gregory who also does our laundry) made of locally hand-woven fabrics.. Awe.

Awakening The Dragon

Flash back to May 2013, just weeks after I was blessed with a layoff from my job in the most timeliest of fashions.  I first met David Casey at Awaken, my first Tribal Convergence gathering in Mendocino, California.  I had seen his stickers around for the Cosmic Convergence in Guatemala, and was magnetically drawn to it, yet it seemed so far out of my realm of possibilities at the time. 

That was where I first heard of Project Nuevo Mundo - David gave a TribeTalk on it during Awaken, and my intrigue increased.  He was speaking my language..  dreaming in the new way of being that connects people and places by planning then doing projects together, building a web of tribes for energetic exchange, organizing celebratory convergences.. AND.. crafting an online platform to map, maintain, and manage the ongoing health and growth of the connective relationships being formed.




As a Tribal Convergence Ambassador,  I championed the clean up, décor, and use of 'El Molina' (lower level pictured at right) for TCN TribeTalks as well as the Republic of Light film screenings during Cosmic Convergence.  The set and setting has proved to be a sacred container for collective visioning, Econaut workshops and presentations, and a few amazing dance parties with fabulous musicians including new friends in the SoulFire Project, who have partnered and aligned with PNM's Earth Odyssey. 

The SoulFire Project, a self-sustaining musical collective that caught up with the Earth Odyssey Caravan in Panajachel during the Cosmic Convergence festival.  Econauts will be joining SoulFire Project for the next PNM adventure in El Salvador.

My TCN Sister Aokha, also Ambassador to PNM's Earth Odyssey

What!?  This is what had led me to volunteer with the Tribal Convergence Network on top of my work with Women of Wisdom Foundation and Evolver Puget Sound.  There was a new platform for online communication demanding to be developed and these folks were collaborating toward the same ideals.  Then the synchronicities REALLY began to show up - the Earth Odyssey campaign launched, and my TCN friends Aokha (right), Logan, and Willow were involved too. 

Something really big was starting to stir, not only in me but all around me, too.

A Knew Beginning

When I left my corporate career behind in May, I knew beyond any doubt that my life's work was really just beginning.  Just as the mountains called me to leave my Midwestern home state and to reconnect with nature on a much grander scale, now the waters were calling me to South/Central America to dive even deeper into the elements and my own true nature.  I knew it seemed crazy, and I knew I absolutely had to do it.

How could I leave my home, my family, my community and council obligations and go gallivanting around the globe?  What about the mortgage and maintaining my income, the land projects on Our Sacred Acres and growing Mercury's Outpost through the SonoSphere offerings, the people and pets that rely on my presence?  Every time I asked these questions, I heard a voice inside telling me to 'Let It Go'.  
 

So what was a Giveaway Goddess to do?  I gave it away. 

Please help us finish the route as shown by contributing today!  http://projectnuevomundo.org/odyssey/

I donated $1000 to 'Become an Econaut' on PNM's Earth Odyssey, applied for my passport, and bought a plane ticket.  I got in touch with David, and began to explore how I could best be of service to this mobile village and the organization behind it.  And I also began to prepare my loved ones for my absence.  It wasn't just time to let go, it was time to GO!  Time to go far, go wide, and go long.

 

Where Ever You Go, There You Are

Original dishwashing station at Joe's blacksmithing bus

And, back to the dishes.  One of the last things I did before leaving home was the dishes, the recycling, the compost…  and I filmed it.  Made a 'certification video' on how to use the kitchen at OSA and how to sort and take out the trash.  It is my certifiable truth that the most valuable person in any home is the one that does the dishes, sweeps the floor, takes out the garbage.  

I had already drafted self-employment plans for Project Therapy in the Kitchen - coming to your house to get your projects lined out, and doing the dishes, floors, and windows while we're at it..  Little did I know just how I would get to live that out!

I traveled to another continent to support my dream project, and arrived to find myself doing dishes several times a day, hauling gray water, and stuffing plastic into 'bottle bricks'.  I needed to just listen, feel into what else was needed, and in the meantime, dishwashers are always needed.
 

Communication, Communication, and Communication

I'm going to skip over about a month now and will tell those stories of the people and projects here in Guatemala for you in further blog posts.  You learn a lot doing the dishes with people!    Throwing the Cosmic Convergence festival, getting to know the Earth Odyssey Econauts, hosting the Village Building Fundamentals workshop, recognizing the need for self-organization processes, and bringing the Caravan crew and new Econauts into a coherent field… 

All these beautiful people, the sacred lands, waters, coming together and tuning to the home frequency..  in Fractals of the Rising ResoNation.   ;)

Gerardo leads a workshop on permaculture principles during the Village Building Fundamentals workshop.



Crafting our processes using Starhawk's Empowerment
Manual, Creating a Life Together by Diana Leafe Christian, and
techniques from many social organization and technology tools.

What can be said now is that clarity and a way forward can only come through clearing communication channels, creating authentic sharing circles, committing to a common higher purpose, and working together to iron out the daily kinks in the systems. 



Now, Here We Are

This is truly the dream of many lifetimes being delivered into the world, and not just for me..  Every single one of these beautiful people have put their past lives aside to come together and be here, now, with the skills and the wills to raise this collective vision up WELL!  I have heard it said by many on this trip that it is their dream too, becoming a reality, to play together doing what we love, transforming ourselves, our livelihoods, our relationships, and our world in the process.

Econauts tabling at a monthly market event in San Marcos hosted by our friends at the Laboratorio des Suenos

My own heart soared this morning when a letter from Hilton, an Econaut with Valhalla who recently returned home for school, was read as part of opening circle on this, our final day of the Earth Odyssey Re-Visioning sessions.  Several people were mentioned in appreciation of their gifts, and I heard gratitude expressed to me for 'bringing magic to the tour'.

Then I got to witness the magic, unfolding from the hearts of each member of this Nuevo Mundo family and pouring passionately into the project plans, as they were presented to the core council we formed to harness the collective wisdom of this ever-expanding clan.

Trusting The Process
 

At times it was torturous… every one of us was put to the test.  If any of us had been closer to home, I suspect that at some point we might well have walked there. 

And yet, every morning, every meeting, every moment, we each showed up for one another in some magical way that was just perfect.

 

Coming together is NOT presently the path of least resistance.  Humankind has been conspired upon to believe ourselves separate from one another, from nature.  It takes courage, strength of character, release of expectation, and a spark of faith in that more beautiful world to lighten up the dark nights and share the dawning of the new day - the Nuevo Mundo.

Cobra and Heather, the captains of the Cobra bus who hold down the Earth Odyssey camp, and keep it moving, too.

 AND IT IS SOOOOOOOO WORTH IT!!!!  We learned to trust one another, to lead, to follow, to step up, step back, set it free, set it aside, set it straight..   We set course together and set agreement on how we'll check and balance ourselves and each other.  We processed, then we came up with a process.  We seriously went through the process, we proceeded to resist the process, then learned..  to trust..  the process.
 

 On With The Show

All of this work, this month and a half spent on Lago Atitlan in Guetemala, has been lovingly crafted hand-in-hand by the Project Nuevo Mundo organization, by the Earth Odyssey Econauts, and by the kin, kind and kindred who came to Cosmic Convergence or to the region and found their way to our camp and brought their gifts to the network of people, places and projects that are connecting in this divine play here on Earth.

Now we get to get on with doing these amazing projects!!  Creating thriving, resilient livelihoods based in socially sound, permaculturally practiced, regeneratively responsible relationships - yeah, yay, WAHOOOO!!!!

The Projects:

Kem Ajachel - Women's Artisan Collective in Panajachel, PNM is partnering with JUSTA to build a natural dye plant garden with rocket stove for processing the dyes.

Konojel - Nutrition Center serving 60 free meals a day to children and elderly in the impoverished barrio above San Marcos.  PNM Earth Odyssey is designing and building a solar cooker and solar dehydrator while teaching how to build and use them.  This project is aimed at the creation of regenerative livelihoods in the community while providing healthy food and education programs. 

Chacaya - A school near Santiago, also on Lago Atitlan, where PNM has facilitated a 'sister school' program for ongoing supportive development.  A project team headed up by the Spora Bioarquitectura team of natural builders, this first iteration is the start of a long-term alignment to build new classrooms.

Earth Odyssey - The caravan of econauts travelling through Central and South America, building relationships through sharing skills, services, songs and silliousness to create the web of individuals and impact centers that will be the connective foundation for future Nuevo Mundo collaborations.