Embracing and Living Change
As we sold this land in June
2004 then this is a snap shot in time and lets you see what we did in two years
before moving on . . . . .
The Brazilian Story
Cris and I met in 1998 after Cris heard of me from
a mutual friend who had visited me in the
UK.
On the feeling she had about me through this friend she invited me to come
and work with her and her clients in Sao Paulo. We had such an
amazing three weeks together that I returned to get married 6
months later. Events then conspired to keep us apart for a
difficult 3 years and it was not until May 2001 that I came to
live in Brazil permanently.
We quickly moved outside the perimeter of Sao Paulo city to a
small art and craft village called Embu travelling to work in a healing
centre in Sao Paulo. Although we had rented a nice house in
an open forest this was still not enough for us. Since we met we
had a dream to live on our own land, out of the
rush of what is considered a modern life to somewhere more self
supporting and
peaceful. We wanted somewhere that would give us the space to get in tune with
our inner rhythms, that would help us to be creative in new
ways, and also to have a place that people could stay who felt the same
and who wanted the opportunity to experiment living differently too.
At Embu, we were still sick of working 10 hours a day, getting just enough money to
survive. We also felt stuck as I had been trying to sell my house in
the UK for 2 years. This break came in early 2002 in the same week
that we had arranged a
holiday to spend time on a friends land ata place called Extrema
in Minas Gerais state.
During the time there, in the rolling hills we decided to checkout what land was available and for what prices. We were not
thinking about buying anything at that time - we just wanted to
have a look.
We wrote down exactly what we wanted. It must have a stream with
waterfalls and a
drinking spring, areas that are forested and other areas level for building
and proximity of services. Cris had always talked about having some
monkeys which we don't think would be easy. To our
surprise the very first land we looked at was fantastic, there are no
building on it and the vegetation so dense that it was difficult
to get close enough to the stream to even see it. It has been
abandoned for years.
We were so astonished that we spent a few nights in the hostel in
the local town. We could not believe our luck so we insisted on seeing
other land - but none came even close to the first. The
confirmation came the next day when a family of seven monkeys
passed us overhead while we were giving it a second look.
Moving to the land
Having the money from Clive's house sale in the same week means we can go for it. So,
we do. As this is where it feels right for us to be, we move from Embu to a rented house in Toledo the town
closest to our land within
a month. A very quick movement to both save
money and focus our energies on what we wanted to do on the land. In
all, it took us a difficult 5 months to go through all the process
to buy the land and see it registered in our name.
Cris continued to work two days every 2 weeks in
Sao Paulo. She does this for 18 months before it gets too
difficult and stressful. During this time Clive works to expand
our www.soul-healer.com
web site as our medium term plan is to get enough money working
with clients by internet and our long term plan is to have our
land as a centre where people can come to reconnect with their own
rhythm, relax and enjoy the nature here, or where they can have
the opportunity to help in the garden, with building, or other on
going projects (if they want to).
We envisioned that land as a place for people who are interested in our SoulWork approach
to facilitating change to come to learn more, have a deeper
understanding and training.
We have spent 2 years building, landscaping and
otherwise
preparing the 6
acres of land that we had there. One of the locals Jeames (picture
on left) worked with us one or two days a
week, he did much of the heavy work on the land, the rest we did ourselves.
So, at the point where we were almost finished and were thinking
of starting to be open to people coming we had a shock. We
suddenly realised that this place had not been about manifesting
somewhere either for ourselves to live or for others to come but
that it had been about providing us with the experiences needed to
discover ourselves to deeper levels, resolve what we found and
move on. As this was always our true focus then it should not have
been a surprise, it was though. We had been so focused on making
it work that it really did take a shock to make us realize that we
were now finished here - that there was no more reason for us to
continue rather in fact it was now our greatest limitation and it
was time to get out. We realized this one day, thought about it a
second day and had a buyer by the third - confirming to us at
least that this was the right move. So, we sold the land and left
it in early June 2004. We then travelled the south of Brazil for 2
months, visited friends and relations for two more and then
decided to wander around Europe.
