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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Jackson Wells Springs Goddess Temple |
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| Ashland mountainside |
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