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!

Santa Cruz, CA - 10/15-22/10

2000+ yr Granfather tree - 250 ft tall!

Santa Cruz is a cool place. We immediately loved the redwoods, the ocean, the old hippie-ness, the relaxed style, the diversity, and the center of consciousness exploration. We could see ourselves hanging here for a while, and we might be back in November after some more explorations north along the coast of CA and Oregon.

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I feel at home being near the ocean. The Pacific is wild and cold, and a great place for kitesurfers (see video – they fly!) A visit to Natural Bridges gave us not only a pretty coastline vista but also a not-to-be missed visit with thousands of monarch butterflies who winter over in the aromatic eucalyptus trees and feast on the local milkweed.

Nature is beautiful here. The walk among and inside the giant ancient redwoods was magical, and we got to hang with our buddy Rob who moved here from Gloucester 5 yrs ago; he loves it here.

Rob introduced us to Ahuti and Svargo, who rented us their backyard cabin in the redwoods. It was a retreat space for us, greatly appreciated after being on the road for 2 months. This one-week stay was the longest in any place since we left Ipswich, and it was a great temporary home. Ahuti is an acupuncturist and Svargo teaches zen art (http://www.svargozen.com/); they are long-time meditators and Osho disciples. We enjoyed getting to know them and following tips from them and Rob to get to know the area.

We went to an art show of a friend of Ahuti and Svargo, a woman named Coeleen Kiebert who lost her son several years ago. We talked about our grieving and her spiritual insights, and she showed us the sculptures she did to assist her in that process. Her latest series is the Bardo Navigators, whimsical characters outfitted in navigational equipment to move through the Bardo after death and before the next life.

Santa Cruz is a new age center, and that also makes us feel right at home and also inspired. We hung out for an afternoon with 80-year old silent Baba Hari Das at the Madonna Center on a Himalayan-style mountain and joined a ritual at the Hanuman temple.

Peggy Black's Water from 300+ sacred world places

We met an ex-surfer spiritual teacher named Moki, and reunited with Kule’s friends and NVC (Non-Violent Communication) leader Kelly Bryson (and his partner Torrie), as well as famous sound-healer and spiritual channeler Peggy Black (http://www.morningmessages.com/) who I knew through NESHRI (now Sound Healing Network).

I could see myself doing more sound healing and music here as well as networking for my book and getting Jason’s photography and music out there. Kule is also looking forward to launching is personal growth facilitator practice. This town has a graduate degree in consciousness!

Our next stop was Sebastopol to reunite and perform with Christine and Kem of our old healing music ensemble Bluegate, and to reunite with Kule’s friend Dakini from Sufi Abode days. We will post more about Marin county area in the next post….Now on the way to NY to do a training on Zegg Forum, a great tool to build community, something we love to do!

Oregon - Portland, Eugene, Lost Valley IC - 9/27-10/6/10

Oregon is awesome. We have been enjoying the tail end of the sunnier months here, before the overcast rainy season starts and goes until June.  I can understand why locals deal with less sun, when the tradeoff is lush magical rain forest, fertile valleys, and abundant waterways.

We started out our journey in Oregon in the cities of Portland and Eugene.  We were immediately impressed with the great public transportation, bicycle use/paths and bike-friendliness, and other awareness of sustainable practices.  We stayed with friends we met through our culture network that we met in Seattle the first weekend of our  arrival in the northwest.

It was great to hang out with Ross and Joanna in Portland and to check out some of the funkier artsier neighborhoods as well as the beautiful oriental gardens. Coming from Orcas Island, the high city energy was a bit much for us, and we gravitated toward hanging out in the beautiful Japanese garden on our arrival.

The gardens were extensive, peaceful, and very zen. Again, we were impressed with the city’s attention to green space and good energy. We got a great view of Mt. Hood!

Dining in Portland is fantastic, and we got entertained along the way with some creative art, including a decorated vehicle on Mississippi Avenue.

Our second day, after orienting ourselves to the city and doing some needed errands, we gravitated toward the Chinese garden. It was like walking through paintings, the place was exquisitely and authentically designed to be a piece of art. We also enjoyed a traditional and timeless (i.e. long and relaxed) tea ceremony, sampling different teas from China.

 

 

 

We visited the Baghadad cinema, where they filmed “What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole” (above).

In Portland we visited the intentional community of Tryon, a permaculture education center with a sweet children’s school and some agile goats and friendly bees.

Oregon is home to creative building of small structures, such as the icosa hut (icosahedrons – 10-sided domes) that can be raised easily and inexpensively for singles and families.

Maitreya intentonal community, Eugene

We moved on to Eugene, where we stayed with our friends Bodhi and Cordy in their home that invites healing workshops. It reminded us of our home in Ipswich, only bigger and older (classic Eugene). Bodhi gave us some great tours of the university and the surrounding areas. We visited the intentional communities of Maitreya, Hearticulture, and Maya’s small community with icosa huts.  We shared pancake breakfast and music jams with Reba and other friends at Hearticulture and made friends with the pigs.

Our Eugene friend Bodhi

Our Eugene friend Tara at her husband David's restaurant - great food and great nusicians!

We attended an art walk where we got to see some great galleries and Kule’s friend from 30+ yrs ago Sufi Abode community, Tara, and her husband David play in their Accordions Anonymous band (video below). They also have a folk band called Red Pajamas where they perform their own compositions. We enjoyed our music and dining connections with them!

We also enjoyed the great street food and awesome young street musicians; my son Jason would have enjoyed meeting these creative young people.  The Saturday market is the biggest and best organic produce and creative crafts market I’ve ever experienced; it was a joy to taste the food and hear the highly talented street musicians (including a young man playing the marimba like Jason used to do).

We got a chance, finally, in nearby quaint and hip town of Corvallis to meet Lawrence Cole (associated with new culture and the Port Townsend Ecovillage) who does a wonderful song concert, where participants weave in and out, connecting with each other on the floor singing different parts.  We thought of our friend Michael O'leary in Gloucester, MA leading wonderful songs.

We could see living in Eugene with the comfortable-size city, creativity, sustainability awareness, and cool friendly people. It’s a town of young and old hippies and “cultural creatives”, and we felt right at home.

Lost Valley Permaculture Educational Center

Lost Valley Madrone Trail

It was hard to leave our friends in Eugene, and it made it easier to move into Lost Valley, where we stayed with our friend Melanie, who we met through Bodhi. Melanie is working on bringing more spiritual community to Lost Valley, and she invited us to offer a Non-Violent Communication (NVC) mini-workshop (by Kule), a Zegg Forum demonstration, and a sound healing circle. The facilities at Lost Valley are wonderful, and the land is magical. I wrote about a spiritual connection I had there on my other blog www.jasonmichellefoster.blogspot.com

We got tours of the gardens, the trails, the creek and swimming hole, and the educational and lodging facilities at Lost Valley. We also sat in on one of their regular community meetings, a sacred circle with a forum for open communication. We plan to return to Lost Valley in Nov-Dec to spend more time on this precious land, practice being in community and sharing our gifts with them, and learning more about permaculture.

Yellowstone and Grand Teton - Wyoming, Idaho, Montana - 9/4-7/10

Yellowstone/GrandTeton – Wyoming, Idaho, Montana – 9/4-7/10


Magnificence and awe.

Tears welcomed me to Yellowstone. Tears of gratitude that we can experience this expanse of untouched land and wildlife, with natural wonders. Our first grand vista was Tower Falls, just past our rustic cabin at Roosevelt Lodge. (We received a warm free-chocolate birthday cake welcome at the lodge on our arrival at 10 PM the night before!)

The weather changes are as wild as the landscape. We could barely stay standing on Mt. Washburn!

It’s clear how Artist Point got its name at Canyon. The Falls are spectacular, and the colors of the cliffs add to the splendor. Sitting atop at Upper Falls and feeling the power of the water reminded me of my visit to Iguazu Falls with Jason and my sister Mariana 4 years ago; I feel Jason’s presence so strongly at times like this.

We got a respite from the crowds sitting (carefully) on top of a landslide cliff, the perfect meditation spot.

And yes, we did spot a grizzly. And yes, we were in the car along with a traffic jam, all trying to get a camera shot of the cute “little” bear. I guess we were one of the lucky ones!

We also saw several bison, elk, bald eagle, osprey, and some large prehistoric-looking waterfowl. One buffalo was so close to the car as we droveslowly by, I got nervous (as in Badlands). As I took the video, the non-agitated and presumably very relaxed buffalo proceeded to defecate. I would have had a priceless video but it didn’t take – got one last photo out of it (you can imagine the rest!)

And of course there are geysers galore. Our favorite spot was Norris. The geysers were more active than usual; a chemical phenomenon of mixing an acidic layer with neutral water added extra heat to the geysers and we got to see usually calm geysers acting up. This photo on the left was taken during a snow storm in Mammoth hot springs.

The next morning, Yellowstone was clad in white. We were appreciating the wood stove in our cabin, the “buffalo chip” wood, and extra sleeping bag that night!

Our new friends Ric and Richard (R&R) from Georgia let us know the Canyon pass was closed due to the snowstorm, saving us an hour backtracking on the way to Old Faithful. Last night we shared a wonderful meal, wine, and great conversation about community in their small town.

We will remember this next image as the river where we lost our car key. It was found again after a long search (it was in the car, nothing too exciting), but we swear we lost our thinking faculty walking through this wonderland. Another great meditation spot!

The river of the lost key

Old Faithful is the icon of Yellowstone, and it is truly amazing how it is so predictable; we got to see two eruptions 90 minutes apart, before and after our fully-satisfying meal at the Yellowstone Inn.

The Inn got more camera shots than the geysers; a man-made wonder of natural timbers.

Leaving Yellowstone would have been sadder if we didn’t have the Grand Teton National Park awaiting us across the border. So much beauty everywhere, and a more peaceful energy than Yellowstone.

We received a wonderful farewell from a family of moose in Moose (don’t they know how to name their towns). A row of camera-eyed humans and park ranger lined up across the stream gave us the tip. We hit the jackpot with a buck, his cow and calf. The park ranger warned us to get ready to leave if they got agitated; they were much closer than I could have imagined being.

After a wonderful organic dinner and "happy tea" at the Lotus Café, a night’s stay in Jackson Village’s hostel and a morning welcome from hot air balloons and mountain-launched parasailers, we headed across Idaho and Montana toward Washington. We celebrated Kule's now having been in all of the lower 48 states! We had to take a classic photo from each state – guess which is which. Yes, we did pass many potato fields in Idaho! We even stopped at an opal mining town (Spencer) and ate at a former one-room schoolhouse turned restaurant in Dell called the Calf-A!

As we left the wilderness, we got some nice shots of the Snake River… Later on, Kule was also excited to pass the exit to Glacier National Park, reminiscing about a high school wilderness trip he did with his brothers and friends.

To get to Washington we passed Idaho twice, with a stretch of Montana in-between, giving us the chance to briefly visit the hip town of Missoula. We enjoyed the huge whole foods store there. Since it is so cold there in the winter, we didn’t take more time to explore it, but it seems like a great town. We stayed in another hip artsy lake-resort town, Coeur d’Elain, Idaho, where we spent the night. We woke up to drive over the border into our last state, Washington, where we are now visiting Kule’s brother Joel and his wife Karen. It’s so nice to be welcomed into a home again! Next blog - Seattle....

S. Dakota – Badlands and Buffalo – 9/2-3/10

Over 100 yrs ago homesteaders came to these wild and windy plains from all over the world to claim their piece of land only to find out that much didn’t survive over the winters. The Badlands were good to us, though – beautiful sunny weather perfect for walking in the wild. Thanks, Lewis and Clark, for your explorations here. This is big sky country.

We were lucky to get cabin reservations at Badlands (and Yellowstone!) on Labor Day weekend, and we camped in the national parks; the night skies gave us the clearest milky way ever, and mule deer welcomed us in as we arrived with the late dusk glow. We were on another planet at Cedar Pass lodge.

Looking out over this harsh-looking landscape we never imagined seeing much wildlife, but it was a wonderland of life – from cliff-climbing chipmunks, hares, and prairie dogs to bighorn sheep to buffalo.

Don’t miss checking out this humorous video entitled “Honey, Start the Car” as Michelle tries to get Kule to move the car in the path of an oncoming herd of buffalo. The park ranger warned us that buffalo are known to charge cars, but Kule was having a moment of deep connection with this sacred animal. This visit was truly a gift. I can understand why the life of the Lakota-Sioux revolved around the bison.

The colors, waves, ledges, and hoodoos (animated shapes) of the Badlands are God’s art. Vistas abound with hay bales and grazing cattle.

An excursion from Badlands to Mt. Rushmore presented a 5th celebrated figure on this national monument (see photo below). We enjoyed the beauty of the Black Hills national forest beyond the touristy faux-ghost town of Keystone, with one-lane tunnels through the mountains.

Leaving Badlands, we discovered a magical place called Spearfish canyon. The town’s hip health food store owner loved living there; the winters are cold but the sun is warm and she would prefer living there than cloudy Seattle. Something to consider!

Over the border into Wyoming we visited Devil’s Tower. It really should be called Angel’s Tower; the energy here is so peaceful and the vibration so high. This is sacred land to the native tribes here – the Crow and the Sioux.

A full day’s drive to Yellowstone, with beauty surrounding us continually…….