Author: Claudine Desiree

Well well well it’s been a long road and a long silence since I have expressed myself to the Global Cob Family, including our students who have learned with us, all those that still want to learn with us, and those that are Cob lovers, supporters and fans of our work: spreading the essential and important knowledge of building with simple, healthy, local materials. Additionally our workshops become safe spaces for being and knowing and showing ourselves more authentically, when we live intimately for 5 weeks with like-hearted others, sharing, healing and loving. Just know that both aspects that we provide a space for are equally important in our mission. The first is our outward mission, in which we create a structured daily building & learning schedule, supported by great meals, a beautiful location, lovely Hosts, and a community of new friends. The second happens by itself, as a result of people dropping their masks upon arrival, grounding with the Earth, touching clay during most of the workshop, working at and past their comfort edge, allowing themselves to feel and share daily, and in weekly communal circles, and being open to “not knowing” while grateful for the group and all they receive.

While the workshops can only insure a training in COB Building, with a high success rate of completing the builds in the allotted time, the inner transformational journey people experience is unique to themselves and their own needs. After 20 years of holding workshops, we have found that the longer 5-week builds, which attract people serious to learn professional-level skills while working very intensively, are the incubators for deep internal experiences of all kinds. While the Instructors are not trained to facilitate and support emotional processes, as the focus of the workshop is building a Cob building, they do create a space for connecting and listening in the Morning and Afternoon Circles, and longer weekly Council Circles for unconditional listening and sharing. Apart from those built-in opportunities, we let the group and the clay do its natural healing magic, and it always does.

My 5-year GlobalCobTrotter Bike Tour (2015-2020) took me to Europe, Africa, South America and the US, many times over, circling the Atlantic Ocean. In the 9 years since the first Full Build workshop in Tarifa, Spain, our students have been from all the continents, and sometimes came from as far away as Taiwan, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Mauritius, and Kenya, to join these international Cob Pods that have planted Cob Bungalows and Ovens in over 50 locations in 30 countries, at the last count. Of course the ecological travel costs for those that traveled far is not aligned with our mission of teaching with local materials, but I believe the impact of each student going back to their region and teaching many others and having a local influence and beyond, compensates and leads to seeds of change that I alone certainly cannot plant. And the GlobalCobTrotter Tour was on bicycle whenever possible and reasonable and took ME to the students, which makes more ecological sense..

Last year, in 2023, was the beginning of my intentional stepping back from teaching ALL the annual workshops with changing assistants, after 20 years of an organically-grown unique career in natural building education. I have been writing in “Natural Building Education” on my tax returns for a while now, and noone has inquired about it from the powers-that-be. I guess it is an official profession now, for me and many others on the Planet. I am proud of all the Advanced Cobber graduates the CruzinCobGlobal’s 5-week Full Build workshops have produced since 2015, including my son Viva, who have gone on to create their own ventures and businesses teaching and building on all continents. (Well not Antarctica…yet. Maybe there is clay deep under the ice, but I pray we won’t know.) The most passionate, motivated, hard-working, consistent and persistent graduates, who have also demonstrated self-initiative in creating work and businesses for themselves, while sometimes also networking with other students, are the ones who have the qualities we look for in those interested in joining the CruzinCobGlobal Teaching path from Assistant to Co-Instructor to Instructor. While this journey has taken 20 years to get to where we regularly show up at the top of the first page in Google searches for Cob Workshops, it has also been laden with much trial and error, many hard-working minimally-paid workshops, many small workshops and cancelled workshops along the way. Each workshop has been followed by thoughtful and continuous work to improve and refine all the steps needed to choreograph the many moving parts it takes to offer an experience that delights and satisfies all the participants: Students, Instructors & Host(s). We have come a loooooong way, Baby!

I am proud of my budding team of CCG Assistants & Instructors hailing from the U.S., South America, Africa and Europe. Soon I hope to include continental Africa, Asia & Australia on the list. Unbeknownst to me when I took my first Cob workshop in 2000 and went home to my small plot in downtown Santa Cruz to ponder where I would build my first personal space, a studio for myself in the backyard of the “Streetcar House” my 3 sons and I called home, I was also planting the seed of my future profession. Aligned with my 2 Geography degrees and an MA in International Environmental Policy, the business I grew over the last 20 years would serve the Planet with much-needed knowledge, skills & empowerment. True to my studies, I played a part in the multi-faceted effort to mainstream Cob Building in the Building Codes and help open the minds of conventional Building Officials & Culture to the advantages, & benefits of Earth-based Construction. I permitted the first Cob Building in Santa Cruz, CA by retrofitting an illegal cob building I slept in for 10 years. In the Azores I have also exposed many people to cob building from local builders who helped me with finishing various cottages, to touring guests, to engineers, architects and builders from the Circular Building Conference in June 2024, who also toured the buildings and land.

At this time I am sitting in my oceanview 2-story Cob Villa (a permitted warehouse) in the Azores, which is my only home base today, and feeling so grateful for all that has transpired to make this Quinta Cob Ecovillage Farm happen. Between my own spiritually-supported and guided efforts and willingness to do the footwork, and the work of volunteers, students, and professionals, as well as the green lights of the local government, it is now officially online as the quintadavidabeleza.org. This summer I received endless reservations for the 3 bungalows and campsites. Alot of demand. People want this. They want to experience Earth-connected living, even if only for a week, to heal and remember what is real, to sleep and sit in silence, to do nothing, to be surrounded by Nature, to pee outside, to learn to use a compost toilet properly, to use resources consciously and sparingly, to walk barefoot and sing, to eat wild weeds and herbs and fruit from the trees, to read a book, cook with fire, and return to the roots of being a Human. The Quinta da Vida Beleza means Farm of the Beautiful Life. I baptised it from Day 1 and painted the gate with dancing bodies. It is so fulfilling to know that that is how people experience life here, feeling free and peaceful. It is definitely a retreat that feels isolated and far, yet is a short walk to the ocean and town. I am very happy to provide this space for people to connect with themselves and their inner Truth of who they are, and to find the courage to course-correct their lives to be more in harmony with this Truth. It is so important for our Planet to harbor happy fulfilled Humans, doing what each one’s Soul was born to do, living with respect for the Earth, Nature, each other and….most importantly…one’s Self. This is our Work as Humans in our lifetime. To be silent enough to hear the Inner Voice and Call and courageous and strong enough to follow our Heart.
Blessings to All and may you feel happy, peaceful and free…Aho

It’s August 14th and once again I am in the air in a plane flying back to California
from Portugal this time. This year started with Lisbon-Madrid-London-Buenos
Aires on my way to the Chile workshop where we were in the total wilderness of
the Bio-Bio region for 6 weeks. In a tent by a freezing creek every night I led my 10
new and old students in the building of yet another cob building. This time a
bathhouse with toilet and tadelakt-walled shower so beautiful the host was
pondering turning it into his home. The talent of the students in sculpting, even
those who have never sculpted, seems to grow with each workshop. Sometimes I
feel that is the reason they come. For the sculpting. Unfortunately it lasts only 2
days, but is worth all the challenge of the previous weeks.

Teaching a small group, as I also just did in Portugal, is a very intimate experience I
enjoy because we all become a tight family within a few days, working hard
together, playing, laughing, joking, crying, suffering, celebrating, and most of all
having endless conversations while dancing in the mud, helping each other make
the “breads”, tossing them in a chain to African beats, and of course on the wall,
trimming, sculpting, plastering….There is something about interacting with the
cob, the mud and straw mix that is like a dough texture you can mold and form
this way and that with ease, that feels like home. Recently my Uruguayan
colleague Hector Nuñez told me that there is serotonin in clay. Touching it relaxes
you. And in a cob workshop we are stepping on it and handling it usually for 3 of
the 5 weeks. Day in and day out gathering the clay soil and sand in buckets,
mixing them dry alone or with ur neighbour, and then little by little adding water
until it becomes the perfect texture, like bread dough. Not too wet not too dry. It
is in these moments that we become one with the timeless ancestors who made it
to build their homes, their pots, embellish their skin and hair and even consume it
to detox their bodies. In this last Portugal workshop some of my female students,
Lea and Clare, would begin chanting African chants repetitively like mantras as
they made cob, sorted, sifted, broke up horse poop with their hands and mixed the
plaster by hand to be one with the material and really know when it is ready. Same
with ur feet, only they know when the cob is perfect.

Students arrive on Sunday and by the Wednesday of cob week they are skilled
cobmakers. I realize my teaching improves with each workshop as the students
get it sooner and there are less really wet and really dry mixes. Each workshop is
an opportunity for me to improve my own teaching skills and organizational
managing techniqes. Each workshop is a new mix of wonderful humans that I get
to know for a month to 6 weeks. I fall in love with all of them and they with each
other. There is such a unique transparent closeness that happens almost
immediately, a comfort and familiarity. Nothing to hide, one heart, one love, we all
share a similar passion for what is real, earthy, beautiful, simple, healthy, clean.
For being muddy and tired and not needing to “look good” because we already do,
just being ourselves. Being seen, accepted, loved unconditionally and
immediately. An automatic community for the duration of the workshop becomes
very hard to leave and this last time in Chile, most of the students all went to Brazil
to build another student’s mother’s home. Today those plus some of the Portugal
students are all in Colorado building a previous host’s hom. A reunion of my
students from 3 different workshops getting paid to do work that feels good and is
gentle on the Earth.

My greatest joy is seeing the excitement when people are starting to get it, when
they are mastering the mixing from a one hour process to 15 minutes. When the
cob tosses go smoothly and noone gets slammed with mud or drops their hardearned
dough. When students begin, on day 3 or 4, to get cob fit and in cob
shape, and are enjoying the workout, especially when we have the playlists to up
the rhythm, I know I’ve done my duty. Almost like when ur child starts walking, or
your child leaves home, those stages of growth and independence which relieve
you. Of course there are many more things to learn while building a cob house,
but once the cob making is mastered, the rest flows more easily.

I amaze myself that I never get sick of cob. After a month-long workshop and
everyone is gone…. there I am making myself some horse manure plaster and
plastering my farm shed “jus for fun”. I loove i when the mix is so perfect in
texture that it just bubbles and expands wih each trowelling. One of my greatest
satisfactions, perfect plaster mix.
As I evolve I reallize how incredible cob is in withstanding a heavy reciprocal roof
with ten people on it, with hardly a crack. I never cease to be impressed and know
that one day very soon, Cob will be duly recognized as one of the best building
materials by all people young and old!!!

You’re never too old to do anything as long as you believe in it and start
stepping one foot in front of the other and don’t question it and don’t look
back. Most everyone supported me on the outside but I could tell they
were concerned underneath. But those who know me knew that if
anyone could bike around the Planet alone it would be me. My
mothering duties were complete, at least the physical part. Xica turned
18 and was ready to move out on his own and begin his adult life,
choosing not to go to college like his brothers did, until he was clear on
what his passions and interests were. I thoroughly respected that as he
had a clarity regarding the excessive cost of higher education and did
not want to be in debt unnecessarily, if even at all.

After helping him move out and preparing to sell the house on my own
after 2 failed attempts with odd real estate agents (Santa Cruz is also
known as “The Weird City”)…the footwork began. I had spent $16000 to
legalize my beautiful very first cob house on my property, which cost me
nothing to build. I had become enraged with Santa Cruz and its building
officials. After all I was the “Cob Queen” of Santa Cruz…I had a
reputation to uphold! Being downtown I could no longer hide or have
privacy from their eagle eyes and besides I had taken over all the space
I could with all of our Eco-Living projects. There was no room to expand
AND I was very clear that I could not and did not want to live there any
longer after 20 years, almost half my life. Santa Cruz had treated me
well despite the torment and suffering of dealing with a drug-addicted
co-parent and the increasing population of loonies and marijuana
plantations in everyone’s basement. We had many friends, a healthy
lifestyle, an easy lifestyle,and lots of travelling adventures to stay
sane….but the bubble of Santa Cruz was claustrophobic and my
European roots and African past-life passions were calling me
elsewhere…I longed for elsewhere…

I had trained my sons well to cook, clean, do laundry, build a house,
grow food, learn languages, read books, not use the computer and
phone so much, travel, appreciate world music and culture, be polite
(they might disagree on that one), eat and live healthily, trust in the
Universe with your dreams, manifest what you need and want, honor
women respectfully as Goddesses, and most importantly, to be free.
I felt very calm and serene that my children were safe and could get on
in the world very successfully and autonomously without me waiting at
home for them. And after solo parenting 24/7 for ten years….it was my
turn. That was what I had promised myself the day I knew they had to
be with me only until their Father decided to take care of his addictions.
I sold my House and reaped the benefits on December 7th, 2014, at the
age of 50. I couldn’t have found better new owners of our eccentric
property and they have since taken it to its next life, “upgrading” the
streetcar house to a very fancy remodeled version that starred on the
“Houzzz” TV show. They kept the treehouse and one cob house and
our cat “Sazzy” and the 2 banana trees and the avocado and apple
trees and the same bright yelow, purple and green paint colors. It looks
great and I am very proud of it.

Two days later, on December 9th, with my new handmade foldable Bike
Friday boxed up, my 4 saddle bags full, bungee cords, handlebar bag
and camping gear bagged up in a soft suitcase, I was escorted to the
Oakland Airport by my eldest son Viva. Usually it’s the parent sending
the child off to travel the world, right? Tears flowed as they always do
when parting from my beloved amazing children….and then there I
was….finally….living the dream, as everyone said….Viva waving me
off…not knowing when and where we would meet again.

Being an Aries, I have always liked adventure, jumping in, not knowing,
new things, new landscapes, new vistas, new people, new challenges,
new gifts, etc. That is when I feel most alive. Not having had much
experience with long-term authentically intimate and present
relationships with a partner in my life, which I imagine is another time
when one can feel most alive, all I have known to bring me this wave of
energy and buzz is the anxiety and excitement of arriving somewhere
you have never been before, not knowing what you will see and do that
day, what you will eat, who you will meet, and where you will sleep that
night. That has been the motto of my 4-year journey, except when I was
stable somehwere for 1-4 weeks to either rest and recuperate or to
teach a cob workshop.

I got used to it and I loved it. Sure there were hard moments, some
scary experiences like being mugged twice (both times I got my stuff
back in miraculous ways…see my Blog for the details 😉 and losing my
personal backpack with my treasures in the rain on a busy road in Brazil
at night (also recuperated!!!), but those were literally the only “negatives”
of my whole 4-year Journey. Well I can think of one more that I am not
really ready to share yet, linked to a male encounter, but I am sure it is
on my BLOG.

Goddess was with me the WHOLE time. I assure you. I would wake up
each day thanking the Universe for her support on this journey. There
was not one day that someone did not ask me if I wasn’t scared
travelling alone, in Brazil, in Senegal, in Cabo Verde, in Colombia, in the
US, in Europe, in Morocco. I smiled and always responded “No, the
people of this World are so kind, so generous, so helpful.” And it takes
getting out there on a limb and being vulnerable, new and
unaccustomed, asking for help, smiling, welcoming invitations and being
polite…to know that the World is really a safe place.

I should have counted my kilometers rode and the beds and places I
slept and camped in. So many different places. Some great sleeps and
many difficult sleeps, just from the changes. And of course I’m no
teenager. But in the end, when I look at photos of myself on the journey,
I looked beautiful, radiant, shining, healthy, youthful and happy. Now
that I have stopped the biking life since August, 4 months ago, I am
missing it terribly and feel the difference in my appearance and
aliveness. This whole transition from living on the road, changing places
day in and day out, seeing amazing vistas, landscapes, smelling new
smells, eating new foods, speaking new languages and most of all
transporting myself on a bike through Space with all my stuff….has been
very hard. I like and prefer being in limbo, being everywhere and
nowhere, not belonging to one place but to all places, being free
physically and mentally, being open to all possibilities, being very
connected to the elements, pushing my body hard all day and then
eating tons of delicious food in between, being very tired and very
worked out, and really enjoying the rest. For me it’s Paradise.
The part of this journey that I have not yet mentioned is the work, the
service, the love of my life that I got to share along the way and continue
to earn a living doing what I love and in the most miraculous ways.
Knowing I did not want to just use whatever resources I had for four
years of travelling without giving back significantly and in doing so
earning money, one of my very initial intenions I decided was to see if I
could hold cob building workshops along the way, somehow. Clearly
teaching cob workshops in California and the US where I was known
and had a following was alot easier than trying to set something up in
the dozen countries I was interested in exploring. I had no idea how I
would do that, and once again I put one foot in front of the other, and
when you are pedaling for 4-5 hours a day there is alot of thinking time.
Alot!

The first workshop connection was made using the Workaway website
where people put hosting requests online for people they need to help
them with anything. I found a woman (another Aries) my age in the
Canary Islands on Fuerteventura who needed help building a cob
house. In 3 weeks we organized a 25-person 4-day workshop and
finished her 2-story cob house (2 walls were already built). It was a true
miracle. A huge success and bode well for my income idea. While there
I connected with someone who also wanted to host a workshop later
that year. And I found another woman my age in Senegal who wanted
to host a cob workshop. And on and on. And from that first connection
and workshop in March of 2015 to the one I most recently completed on
the island of Faial in September 2018 I have completed 25 workshops
(mostly lasting 14-28 days) over 4 years in 12 different countries. Many
of the workshops were in new places but going back to countries I had
already been in because I would meet the next hosts while doing
another workshop. So in truth I have not been around the world but
rather circled from Europe down to Senegal through the Canaries and
Cabo Verde 3 times, after which I finally set myself free from this merrygo-
round and headed to the US and then South America. I never got to
truly go around the world and besides I have other plans for my life and
it would take a lifetime to see everywhere by bike as I have. I did meet
an Indian man while in Senegal who had been biking for 10 years on an
AIDS awareness mission and was intent on hitting every country in the
world. When we met he was heading to his last 2 continents, South
America and North America. I have to say he was a bit kooky and I can
surely imagine why.

Nonetheless, here I am now sitting in a little rented studio on the island
of São Miguel in the Azores which is part of Portugal, on Christmas Day,
alone with my computer, writing. It seems fitting that I write these words
now as I prepare, in a few weeks, to complete the purchase of these
magical 6 hectares of land in the Alentejo region of Portugal that will be
a new and future Homestead. Today, 4 years later, my Journey is complete                                   and I am ready to birth a unique Ecovillage in a sweet part of the world.
I have been transitioning from the travelling nomad
life to the Homestead life emotionally and preparing for a new project to
collaborate in with others. I want to create a Center for people to
come and rest, find themselves, experience community living and how
to care for and live close to the Earth. Something that we are seeing
more and more of today, thankfully. I hope to make this Center
accessible for everyone, bringing people from all walks of life, all
backgrounds, cultures, races, and ages together to learn true Collaboration,
Communication and Love. I looks forward to working with my three
sons who each have very special skills and interests that will greatly
support and enhance this project.

Shortly, in mid-January, I will embark to Argentina and
Chile, new destinations, where I will meet future workshop hosts
(Argentina) and teach a 6-week workshop in Chile on my student’s land.
My travelling life continues as that is the work I have developed over the
last decade and a half, though I will need to make the time to be still on
the land to begin my journey there as well. I am really thankful Karen
has asked me to put words down and tell my story, as I do have an
unfinished Journal/Blog waiting to be completed, a Book in mind, and
even a Screenplay. This has allowed me to summarize and start the
process energetically. As a by-product, I hope to be an inspiration to all
of you who read this, to know in your Heart that your desire and need to
feel ALIVE is worthy of taking the first step and the next, to do what is
necessary to honor your right and need as a Human on Earth to feel
Free to be yourself always and have a BLAST in this Lifetime! Ho!

It’s been a year since I wrote the last COBlog, or more. Interesting. The last year of the
Globalcobtrotter Ride went quickly though not without many an event to keep this Cob Queen
busy. Today I sit by an oceanview window in the tiny end-of-the-world village by the name of
Mosteiros (Monasteries) on the Azorean island of São Miguel. And ponder the last 4 years of
intent.

Riding like the wind down the Bahian coast of Brazil…struggling breathlessly up the unpleasant
climbs of Colombia… succeeding the highest peaks of the Pyrenées on my tiny-wheeled foldable
Bike Friday while the racers flew by and cheered…and chilling in a hammock for four days on the
Amazon River while my bike took a break too. Clearly the memories are endless and colorful and
have been and will be recorded and edited in book form and, with much new learning and help,
movie format. The material is too good to keep for myself.

My journey was dual, as those of you who have followed me know. I wanted to bike around the
world (glad I even got to do the 15 countries I did) and teach international intercultural cob
workshops along the way for the good of the planet and the people. I did not know how I would do
the latter and had an idea of how I would do the former, as I had already lived abroad and always
with my bike.

As all of you who commune with Great Spirit know, when you are clear and intent on manifesting
your Heart’s Calling, nothing is an obstacle, only a new learning experience faced with excitement
and even some healthy fear. This adventure had everything to keep me entertained, including a
couple of robberies with happy endings. I could not have asked for more support from the
Universe. I am utterly grateful and blissful that I am in good health, good shape, a better person,
more knowledgeable about a variety of places and cultures, more experienced in social relations,
got to share good times with my boyz along the way, and even have more money in the bank than
when I started!!!! (That was the plan)

SInce the last Blog entry there have been 5 cob workshops: Austin, Texas…Carrancas, Brazil…
Guatapé, Colombia…Trinidad, Colorado…and Faial, Azores. Oh and the first CruzinCobGlobal
oven workshop taught by my students Krystal and Bea. They were a combination of 3 month-long
complete builds (the roof is always a wild card), an oven/bench combo, and a 3-week wall
workshop. My intent for 2018 was to hold 4 month-long workshops and I managed 2. Brazil was
cancelled due to organizational difficulties and Morocco was cancelled due to cultural confusions
and my own tired self!

With each workshop it seemed the students were more productive and were able to build faster
and more. Even the Wild Woman workshop in Faial, which did not quite turn out as I had
imagined, started with a 2-story building with a 50cm wide foundation and bottom of wall which
took a week and a half, and was still able to complete the walls, sculpting and plaster in only 2.5
weeks!!!

Each workshop has taught me something and grown me. Whether it was about including more
Circle Time and extracurricular activities like yoga, dance and salsa, or joining the students on a
field trip to Taos for the weekend, or letting go completely of my plans for the morning and sitting
and processing personal issues all together instead, I always received something from each
workshop and each student. And I know that each student took away alot more than just a new skill
and knowledge of how to build themselves a house. Even if that was all they took away, hallelujah!
But CruzinCobGlobal is definitely fulfilling its vision and mission of spreading the COB throughout
the Planet while giving students a memorable intercultural experience in each country.

Often it is a challenge for Cob Instructors to sustain themselves teaching in Third World countries
where people have less or no funds to pay for a workshop, which is why the international format
succeeds by allowing the students who can pay for a workshop to subsidize the possibility for the
ones who can’t. In the end we all need each other to build a house, a village, raise a family, live,
learn and grow. Cob workshops are a microcosm of a Happy Planet, with its ups and downs,
different personalities, celebrations, joy, difficult moments, rituals, playfulness, hard work, good
shared meals and all in all an opportunity to connect with the Earth and People in an intense new
way. You are guaranteed to come out transformed and with new ideas.

For me personally, as a solo lone wolf mama, the upcoming workshops are always exciting to look
forward to, to try new things and meet another new set of students. Working with new hosts I have
never yet met in person has proven to be a challenge alot of the time and for that reason I have
decided to only work with hosts I know or have had a chance to meet with in person. Yes there is
nothing like feeling out each other’s energy and getting a real take on your ability to work intimately
with someone for a month and their ability to host successfully. After 14 years of organizing
workshops I know what it takes to host. It is no small feat and most people underestimate the work
they need to do before and during to make it work well on all fronts. With all the documents I
provide, and photos and videos online, and conversations…just like childbirth…you just don’t get it
until you do it!

Nonetheless the workshops have been separated by wonderful journeys from one to the next
through lands I have wanted to bike through, which was my intent in designing my route and
finding hosting opportunities along the way. Who knows how many kiometers or miles were
pedaled..ALOT!!!!! My legs know, my arms and wrists know and my back and eyes know. Some
of the people I met along the way who were biking or who hosted me are now still on the road and
a small part of me wants to join them! Small! Cause I dont know if this body wants to keep going
and sleep outside night after night in a new spot with new sounds, new things to be aware of, new
foods, new adventures. I’m a bit tired though short month-long journeys I can see in the near
future. Once a bike traveller always a bike traveller!

For now…I am trying to adjust to incorporating this vision I had of myself gracefully sliding into
settled living and finding the land, the partner and the community with ease. Yeah, right? Did
anyone remind me that I would also unbeknownst to me gracefully slip into emotional postnomadic
withdrawal symptoms and depression? Noooo! I am freakin’ out! I was hoping that if I
just quietly made a call to live in the Azores and shipped all my belongings (54 boxes) by boat for
$3800 from Oakland, CA to Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, posted it publicly on FB and and told all
the important people in my life….that all would unfold perfectly. NOOOOT!

I have been on and off crying for the last 5 weeks, feeling quite restless and bored as fuck (not my
usual MO) and wondering what the fuck made me think that a fun and easy free-flowin’ bike ride
around this island for two weeks 2 years ago, camping everywhere and feeling free, would qualify
this place as my future ideal home. Did I even think of the people aspect? Hello!!! Society,
friends, music, salsa dancing, good restaurants, organic farms, Black culture, art life, and a culture
that stays up past 10pm and opens their windows to the world??? Heavy Heavy.

Well after 3 retracted way-too-fast offers for land and weird old tear-down houses that woke me up
to the reality of “You will be based here for a whiiiile…if you put that money down”…and woke the
real estate agents up to the confused foreign woman who you should stay away from….I’m pullin’
back, chillin’ out, and even if my worldly and emotional possessions are on a boat on their way
here after travelling for 2 months through hurricanes and the Panama Canal…I’m cool now. As my
son Viva says, “ Just take this sacred time for yourself Mom. Be with yourself. Love yourself. Make
your scrapbooks you’ve been wanting to do. Read a book. Don’t do anything. Just BE!”
And yes that is the word I’m hearing from on high too. Just relax now. Stop tryin’ to make things
happen. Stop pushing forward with the next plan and the next to-do-list. Man it’s hard. The first
thing I do when my eyes open in the morning, actually before they open as it is what make them
open, is think about my to-do-list. But my happy to-do list. My exciting to-do-list. Not the one with
“Call the IRS” on it. The endless creative development one. Still, it’s a to-do-list. And what I really
need to do is just be now. Smell the flowers. Save the poor juvenile endangered cagarro birds
walking the village streets at night because they fall from being blinded by the street lights and get
disoriented and need humans to take them to the beach. Talk to my neighbor Tania about the
weather and the figs on her tree that she downt want. Watch the endless flow of tourists park their
shiny little cars and get out with their 8” long lenses to take a few sunset photos, walk on the sand,
see the Beauty, and get back in to head to the next stop. Watch the teenaged boys, just like
anywhere in the world, huddled up in their hangout spot under the trees, smokin’ cigs or joints, and
checkin’ out the white bulbous female bodies they will never have an exchange with. Watch the
short, older well-wrinkled fishermen also huddled together lookin’ at the same white bulbous bodies
they will never have an exchange with.

The only life in this village is the kids and the elementary school. That is the saving grace of
Cecilia, my landlady. The youth keeps her sane and motivated. Like everywhere in the world,
right? The pre-10 year olds that haven’t been corrupted by much of the world happenings and
technology yet. Maybe. Anyway here at the end of the island it’s still a safe place. Safety,
security…THOSE are the key things that stuck with me about this island actually. That I could
sleep openly on any unoccupied field and noone would care or try to rob me or bother me. The
locals are shy that way. That there were no “Camping Prohibited” signs along the way. That I had
alot of space to just be. Of course that was after travelling through Africa and Morocco. It’s all
about contrast. We learn what we value and what is a priority for us when we don’t have it. The
key is to find the middle point where we don’t need to be in extremes all the time. I guess that’s it.
What’s my middle point that I can live with with my greatest needs met and my not so great needs
partially or not met. Greatest needs: my children nearby, mom close by, healthy environment,
moist climate, good drinking water, healthy agriculture, ocean nearby, cool, progressive society
with Afro-based dance and music, community vibes, ease to build and create…. and economical!
Not too much to ask for and probably most people I know’s greatest needs list too.

It’s funny. So many people are wandering on Earth looking for “home” right now, like the Jews of
yonder, of which I am a descendant. Only we self-chosen nomads are very fortunate to be free,
have some money-making skills, know how to create our income while being mobile (thanks to
those devices), and how to live without a home base. We get very good at it. We recognize each
other and commune easily. For a while. And then we are gone again on a plane, a boat, a train, a
car ride, a bike, our feet, away from here and going there. Cause we heard sopme good things
about it. Got some good referrals for housing and food.

And then there are the temporary nomads that after having saved up their income opportunities
and had minimal expenses for years on end, are ready to stop and buy land and create their
Permaculture Homestead with a bungalow or two to rent out and a food forest, some goats for milk
and cheese, and maybe room for a few friends. That is what I am finding here on São Miguel too.
Perhaps it is the budding next mecca that will take over the traditional island culture. And create its
own new culture with some contributions from the old guard that also knew how to thrive here in a
different way. But the squared-up white concrete block or rock-covered-with-cement houses all
lined up and facing each other with a few windows facing the street and the rest of the innards
hidden from the ocean will then be replaced because the New Generation of Azoreans have other
ideas. They want to face the ocean, see the sunrise and sunset, ride the waves, feel the wind,
work the land productively and naturally, many people together, grow as many fruit trees as
possible, repopulate the island with juicy joy, music, dance, parties, festivals, communities,
gatherings playfulness, and electric geothermal-generated transportation. Maybe the people who
came here years ago had to escape, run, and then kept going to the Americas and Canada and
saw this place as harsh, scary, overwhelming. And so that is how they built their homes. To protect
them and hide them from the elements outside.

So there is change in the air. Many lands are being sold to the newcomers for a hefty price. But it
is allowing a slow takeover and transition. Maybe that is what I was attracted to. The possibilities
inherent in this place. I didn’t think of the people because I didnt feel connected to them, as the
others here also feel. And this is cause for a strange feeling to be here and not connect with the
people who have lived here for a long time. When I say the people I mean more the villagers who
are a tighter-knit community because they are the ones who remain here year in and year out, who
rarely leave to visit other parts of the island even. One woman here, my landlady, goes to town
once a month and has never been to some other parts of the island I asked her about. What a
funny contrast with the nomads of the world who can’t sit still!! This village, Mosteiros, really puts it
right in your face. Maybe it’s not all boring here. It just is. And we have been too overstimulated
with our phones, computers, ipods, even books and movies, etc. Maybe just being with what is is
happening right here right now, all around me, and I can’t escape. Mosteiros, Monasteries, an
enlightenment immersion, if you so wish to embrace it. May the Force of Self-Love be with you!