Ashland, Oregon - our future home

We are moving to Ashland, Oregon 10/20/11, home of spiritual healers, community-orientation, beautiful mountains and rivers, and more sun than northern parts of Oregon (I’ve discovered sun is very important to me!).

So, you may ask, what happened to Costa Rica?

Well, we are going there, too. This is called being in the flow, being clueless about the future and living in the present. I’m learning how to do it more and more…. I’m giving up certainty; I miss other opportunities when I am looking in one place for one thing…..

The current plan is to be in Ashland 10/20-12/25 (we paid rent, so that is a commitment!), back to New England for the holidays, then Costa Rica for 1-2 months, then probably back to Ashland to find a longer-term rental we can settle into, if that’s what feels right at the time. It feels good right now!

Ashland caught my attention in our first pass-through last October, but I fell in love with it end of August this year. It has the culture we are looking for – a magnet for healers, a very active dance community (contact improv, ecstatic dance, or trance dance almost every night of the week!), a city of artists and renown for it’s Shakespeare festival, a nature area with hiking, skiing, and river rafting, a hot springs center committed to sacred earth ceremonies and a goddess temple, a city commitment to sustainability, with an awesome food co-op and fertile Applegate valley up the road providing local produce, and it’s a small enough town easily accessible by bicycle and bus. Land and homes are more expensive than Eugene, and significantly less expensive than CA or MA, so it is doable for us.



Lithia Park, downtown Ashland



With proximity to California and Mt. Shasta (1 hr away over the border), it has the new age California influence and money to support the town. It’s 3 hrs from Eugene, 5 hrs to the Bay area, and 6 hrs to my brother’s family in Tahoe, so we are close to friends and family. With 100 more days of sun a year than Eugene or Portland, it has opportunities for Kule to do solar engineering work and other permaculture projects. With so many community-oriented healers, I feel the support to do my own healing work, the work I’ve been called to do since Jason passed 2 years ago.

The land in and around Ashland calls me. The forests, mountains, and seasons remind me of New England, the drier rock-ledged areas remind me of the southwest, and the mountain creeks, rivers, lakes and hot springs remind me of so many sacred places I love. The vista is characteristically Western and more open than in the northern rain forest, and with more sun I feel the vibrancy of all the elements.



Medicine Lodge at the Wells hot springs, my home for a few nights in Ashland



I hear the winters are cold but short (Dec-Feb), and the summers can get up to 100, but dry. It doesn’t snow much in the valley, but within 20 minutes I can be up the mountain skiing downhill or cross-country. Sounds like a pretty good balance for me. It’s convenient that Costa Rica’s best weather is in Jan-Feb, when winter gets old in Ashland. The growing season may not be as long as Eugene’s because of its colder winter, but I’m guessing with more spring sun the gardens may produce as much in a year. I’m excited about learning about winter hoop house gardening, and gardening in general, to produce our own food, perhaps in a community garden where we share the labor and the wealth.



We welcome our friends to come visit us in Ashland, Costa Rica, or wherever we are. We look forward to seeing our New England friends and fami

Jackson Wells Springs Goddess Temple

Ashland mountainside

Costa Rica Reflections

Our 3-week trip to Costa Rica ended up being 4 months! We are back in Oregon, staying in a sweet little cabin with a kitchen at Lost Valley Education center near Eugene. With better internet connection I am now posting photos some fav photos from our Costa Rica exploration. Enjoy, and come visit us when we are there in the winter!

Chirripo mountain waterfall

Hiking at the Cloud Forest Reserve, Chirripo

The best way to move bananas

Women's group in Chirripo - chumming with Suzanne of Finca Amrta

Our neighbor Noe's baby bunnies

Our deck facing the sacred Ceiba tree with toucans in ocean-breezy Platanillo

Our hammock at Glori and Gi's in Platanillo, with Sheya's prayer flags

Our community at Glori and Gi's, with Dennis and Enza

Newborn calf in Bijagua, northern Costa Rica

Fun with snakes in Arenal, northern Costa Rica - at the Serpentarium

HOME - Heaven on Mother Earth top-of-waterfall swim in Diamante Valley

Fun visit with Kyther and Tara in our Uvita rental house near the beach

With Sheya and Owl, our co-community buddies, in Pedrogoso

With NH friends Kyther and Tara in Dominical beach



Venemous coral snake in a bottle - transporting it to the Serpentarium in Arenal



Being vs Doing - Costa Rica 3/28/11

Being in Costa Rica has been a rich healing experience for me. And I mean Being. That’s what it’s about, that’s my life learning. I’ve been a Doer my whole life, my identity has been focused on what I achieve and what I plan to achieve – I’m a 3 on the enneagram! It’s awesome being a manifester, but I’m learning more and more about what it means to manifest. When I am guided (“prompted”) to do something, then I take action. When I really feel into what feels good to manifest, then I am on the right track. It’s not about making something happen, but to cultivate what I am guided to do.

All said, what I’ve really needed is to Do nothing.

I don’t remember another time in my life when I really did this for more than a few days. when I was on vacation, I kept busy. When I was grieving, I was grieving. When I was doing a meditation retreat or pancha karma I was focused on the cleansing and meditation. There was always something to Do.

I’m listening more to what I need, what my soul needs, what my body needs, what my mind needs. I’m fasting for 2 days, and it might go to 3 or 4. I’ve never fasted for more than a day (for colonoscopy prep), and certainly without complaining!

I’ve reconnected to Source. After Jason died I stayed very connected, but since we’ve been on our travel journey with so much change, something shifted. I wasn’t as connected, and I was feeling unsettled and low. I was part of an earth-based healing ritual a few days ago that revived my Connection. I have been feeling embraced by the Mother, and I hold her inside me to embrace others. I’m reconnected to myself.

I’m doing nothing, Being (what/who) “I am”, and feeling so at peace with that for the first time in my life.

Living in Costa Rica

Our swimhole at Pedrogoso River

Our finca (farm) view

We are living in Costa Rica.

Pura Vida – that’s what the locals say. Pure Life

Tourists believe there is so much to do here.

There isn’t anything to do here. It just happens. Being is enough.

The gentle breeze is calming, the mountain stream is purifying, the sun is uplifting, the grazing cows are peaceful.

The land is sustainable. The way of life is sustainable. We feel at home.

In fact, we are at home because this will be our home for at least a year. We plan to move here in the fall after spending the spring here and the summer between MA and Oregon, getting ready for our drive back east and our move in September-October.

Enchanted Bamboo forest by our river

 “Here” in Costa Rica is the San Isidro area, 3 hours south of San Jose in the farming foothills of the Talamanca mountains (and the sacred Chirripo mountain) where it is a wonderful temperature, and the hotter beach is 45 minutes away. There are great neighborhoods with alternative-minded gringos who are healers and lovers of sustainability; we’ve met some great people. Our first weekend we landed here our friends Sheya and Owl and we went to our neighbor’s cool farm on the river for Cantando La Vida (Singing Alive) where we made some new friends.



Cantando La Vida at Finca Amrta

Here’s an email we wrote yesterday to some friends and family (wow, it's really happening):

Dear friends,

I’ve been thinking of all of you as we hang out here in Costa Rica. It’s been an amazing journey – it’s been tiring, bringing up stuff, integration, and a much needed R&R  in a piece of Paradise. We have “settled” for 2 weeks in a small cabin on a farm near San Isidro in the south; our neighbors are our dear friends Sheya and Owl from British Columbia who we met at the New Culture gathering in Seattle when we hit the west coast in September. They are looking for land and new culture community and we are enjoying being a community together cooking, relaxing, giving each other healing and massage, and sharing the possibilities of moving here to Costa Rica. We'll post photos later at www.kulemichelle.blogspot.com (also photos of our time in the Arenal volcano area we really love up north).

It feels we’ve made the decision to move here for a year starting after the summer. Yes, it’s really happening. It’s brought up some sadness about moving further from our long-term friends and family in New England and our new friends on the west coast. It’s also showing me that there is no such thing as one home. I feel we will have many homes.

Just as we open our home to others, others are opening their homes up to us. We want to find a place where we can host friends to stay with us a while, and to host workshops and retreats. It’s also an inspirational place to write! I may bring my corporate business here to train Costa Ricans how to do what I do, to help their economy and perhaps get me long-term residency (a many-year process). Kule has many opportunities as well.

There are wonderful artists, healers, and musicians here and a sense of community and self-responsibility that we are looking for; it’s a hub for alternative and sustainable-minded gringos. This area is not touristy, but it is within 45 minutes of the Dominical beach which is a hot creative tourist spot; we have yet to see the beach because we have enjoyed our last week here in the cooler air and rivers of the mountains. Next week we rent a car and head east to the beach and then west to the sacred mountain Chirripo and the cool community of friends there (that we met at a singing gathering last weekend).

I could see friends and family joining us here some day. Perhaps my mother would  move here, to be back with Spanish speaking people enjoying great weather and beaches, with good health care in close-by San Jose. My sister Mariana may come visit in April, I look forward to that!

There’s potentially lots to do to get ready for our move, but I feel it will be very easy and in a flow.

Here’s our tentative schedule:

Orlando – 1/31 to mid-Feb for the Avatar course

Costa Rica – mid-Feb to April

Oregon – May to August, to enjoy the beautiful summer at Lost Valley to learn more about permaculture, and do a bit more exploring on the west coast, visit my brother Al’s family, the Oregon State Fair that I don’t want to miss, and perhaps the New Culture West camp.

Massachusetts – June visit to start organizing our things, and final drive back east in September.

Costa Rica move – October

We will return every 3-6 months to get our home ready to sell and to update our visa (we can go to Panama or Nicaragua across the border to renew as well, every 3 months)

We’ll let you know our firmer plans to return to Massachusetts.

We’d love your support, and we are there for you as well.

Lots of love!!

Michelle y Julio (Kule’s name in Costa Rica)

Simplicity and Sustainability - Yurt living, Lost Valley, Oregon

We have found a home.

In other words, we have found a place to stay for more than a week, in this sweet yurt in Lost Valley, Oregon, http://www.lostvalley.org/ . This is a permaculture education center, and an intentional community that we had heard a lot about, and were glad to finally visit in early October. We fell in love with the land and made some good friends in nearby Eugene, so we magnetically were drawn back to rent here for a while, at least until Christmas, and perhaps beyond….

I’m enjoying living simply.

We are living with what fit in our car, with a few loaned kitchen and household items from friends to get us started.

Why did I think I needed so much STUFF in my old mainstream life? It was so freeing to get rid of stuff before we moved, and now I’m realizing we are happy using a small fraction of what we had before. It feels good to finally have everything out of our car, after 3 months of travel; seeing it all laid out on our kitchen floor before we put things away, we were amazed it had all fit in our car!

Our goal is to buy little, so we can move again easily. We are modern-day nomads!

We are enjoying our yurt – 30 ft diameter with small partitioned bedroom and bath and a large loft and skylight, less than 900 square feet total, luxury by our yurt standards (and we have wifi and cell phone coverage to boot). Others in this community have a one-room cabin or dorm room with community kitchen use, so we are fortunate to have the full kitchen. We could imagine buying a yurt (for less than 15K), and renting land to put it on until we decided where to dwell permanently.

Here are some other things we are enjoying in our simplified lifestyle:

v     Lower cost – With this type of lifestyle we can retire earlier.

v     Being closer to nature – This is like living in a huge tent with modern conveniences. We are embraced by the forest and sky.

v     Greater eco-awareness – Being closer to nature reminds me to conserve resources and reuse more as well as recycling, and to buy local stuff with low carbon footprint. We are reusing items stored in the junk shed such as lamps and Christmas lights.

v     Creativity – Instead of buying a coffee filter holder, I made one out of an aluminum pie plate, and it was fun to do! We are enjoying decorating our yurt with simple cloths and prayer flags we had with us all along. Jason’s photos are up, as well as our small altar.

v     Less cleaning – A smaller space is easier to maintain.

v     Composting – The land wants our food and human waste, and we are happy to oblige.

v     Sharing community land and resources, and having community meals every other day or so. The vegetarian food here is so nourishing, and we can supplement with meat and other meals in our own kitchen. It is fun getting to know others in the community.

v     Cozy fire – Our woodstove produces warmth in many ways, including splitting and stacking. We need it here in Oregon where there isn’t a lot of solar this time of year, and especially the night we arrived when we had unusual lows in the 20s. We would prefer supplementing with more solar… we will see where we end up…

P.S. Stay tuned for updates, as we watch Michelle starting to miss some of the old conveniences (?), and as we watch Kule building creative things to make our home even more interesting.....

Nevada City and Grass Valley, CA 11/15-19/10



Yuba River, near Nevada City, CA

This trip to Nevada City we focused on getting to know the community and the less-expensive nearby town of Grass Valley. We discovered a gem in the Sierras - a town not only beautiful and dedicated to preserving its gold-rush history and wild-west appeal, but also a leader in sustainability and spiritual and creative arts, and a friendly town. It reminds me a bit of New England, blended with the wild Sierras. Where else can you get a mix of fall foliage color with bamboo and palm trees? The weather offers a nice dose of sun with rare snow and mild summers (except in valley parts where it gets quite hot). 

We enjoyed our time in Nevada City, attending yoga and dance workshops, a sustainability seminar at APPLE (an awesome town-sponsored non-profit with a model green building and educational books and products), and the Tuesday night special lobster and steak dinner at the historic National hotel, with live piano and audience musician jamming. We even enjoyed our budget hotel the Nevada City Inn, with its quiet neighborhood and beautiful trees, across the street from a local funky cafe with great rice bowls, soup, and juice bar. We spent some time at Ananda Village, a 800-acre ashram (Paramahansa Yogananda lineage) with beautiful gardens at the Crystal Hermitage, which has a stunning view of Yuba valley; we manifested a private tour of the guru's hermitage by some residents.

We knew as soon as we arrived, when we checked out the local member-owned organic co-op and saw the bulletin board full of spiritual workshops and sacred music and cool dance and open mic gigs, that we found our kind of place. The town is also not far from engineering opportunities (for Kule) in Roseville and Sacramento. Nevada City has a vision to be part of the "solar belt" from San Francisco to Reno, including Truckee, where a lot of green building and solar engineering is leading the nation.

By the time we left we made semi-plans to come back in March to stay here for a while. Having arrived back in Eugene in Lost Valley (more to come on this blog), we are seeing opportunities here for us as well, so we shall see what happens....... It's great to have so many great options!

Marin and San Francisco Bay Area, CA - 10/22-11/10

We landed in Marin County, north of San Francisco a few days before heading to NY to do the Zegg Forum training and a whirlwind visit with relatives and friends in RI/MA. Going back East after being on the West was a bit strange, especially leaving our car here (our home is where our car is!). It was great to see my family and friends who we miss!

We had a wonderful stay with our friends Marcy and Kim in San Rafael, a sweet hillside town near the water with great vistas of San Francisco Bay and the live oaks on the hill trails. Kule knew Marcy from the Abode Sufi community days (in his 20s), and we got to hang with other Abodians in a special reunion at their home.

We were grateful to stay in a cozy inviting home for a week, hanging with our friends, catching up with business as well as exploring the urban and rural areas. We loved Pt Reyes, less than one hour from San Rafael with deer, elk, elephant seals, and sustainability consciousness in the community.

Chimney Rock, Pt Reyes, CA

Elephant Seals, Drakes Bay, Pt Reyes, CA

Elk, Pt Reyes, CA

We checked out nearby city life, including Five Rhythms dance in Sausalito (great to be with the dance community!), UC Berkeley, and Oakland areas. We could see living near the Bay Area, outside the high-price belt and close enough to have access to so much, including good weather. We've always liked the San Francisco area. Jason might have gone to college here, so I am thinking of him during my visit; he's encouraging me to move here!




Golden Gate bridge