Costa Rica Ramblings
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Practitioner Retreat in Costa Rica
A couple of years ago, at a conference in Malibu, I sat outside late with a group of friends drinking wine and talking. Every once and awhile one of us would declare ‘no more kinesiology-talk’, but it never lasted long; the conversation returning again and again to the work/research/politics of this fascinating modality. Some of these were people I had never met in person before, but we all felt deeply bonded by our shared experience with this work. Later, talking with one of these friends, he expressed some sadness that there had been so few opportunities to actually work on each other at the conference. Sure, there was a ‘Balance…
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If Everyone is Super, No One Is
It’s not that I couldn’t understand his point. The scene: an outdoor dinner table, surrounded by people sharing food and coming down off a community salsa dance lesson. As we ate, one of our guests and I got into a rather impassioned conversation when he took me off-guard by saying, “There’s no such thing as talent.” His contention was that everyone, if they work hard, can do anything well. I answered that this is the kind of “everyone gets a medal!” thinking that is making us weak. So who was right? Is talent a myth? I was born in 1981, which means that I was part of that strange transition…
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Homesteading Goals 2018
Last year around this time, I broke my rule of ‘don’t tell people your goals’ and published a blog post about three things I was hoping to accomplish around our little homestead through the year. I thought that this might be an interesting time to take stock of the situation: review what actually happened in each of these three areas last year and think about what the goals are for the next year. February will mark two years since we embarked on this weird little adventure, so this whole homesteading/self-sufficiency thing is still fairly new to me. I am genuinely curious as to what my family will manage to accomplish…
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Quiet/Noisy Life
This life is full of contradictions. The one that I am thinking of today has to do with noise and what that means to us. Because it is never quiet here: the river rushes steadily below us, the cicadas sing in the rainforest, the rain cascades unrelentingly through the leaves. The birds are calling, and every shift in the sky or weather is greeted enthusiastically by my over-zealous rooster. All this, plus a 4 year old with a personality many sizes too large for him who doesn’t stop talking even in his sleep. And yet, despite the constant noise that surrounds me, I appreciate the quiet of this life. That…
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Brush with a Hurricane
When I was little, I loved the book “I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Solew” by Dr Seuss. If you’re not familiar with it: there is a wonderful land, Solla Sollew, on the banks of the beautiful River Wah-Hoo where they never have troubles, at least, very few. But of course, the journey is weird and Seussian and generally not what it’s cracked up to be. This is how I felt this week. I arrived in San Jose Tuesday evening after a 12 hour flight from Switzerland. My poor brain was jet-lagged and scattered, I had a reservation at a nearby hotel and plans to travel on one of…
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The Power of One
Teaching a Touch for Health Retreat for One Student and What I Have Learned I didn’t want to come here to teach this class with one student. Not just because it’s financially ridiculous (which it is); but because I was concerned about the student’s experience. How would it work? Would she really ‘get it’ without having a variety of people (and their associated issues) to work on? Here’s what I learned form teaching a Touch for Health Intensive (all four levels over eight days) with just one student here for a retreat. A reminder of how well this stuff works. While this was an extremely challenging week for me in…
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Food Obsessed Homesteading
It is impossible to homestead in any way without becoming kind of obsessive about food. Though I have always been a self-proclaimed nutrition-geek and chef, my day now revolves around food as never before. First thing in the morning, before I even put on the coffee (now that’s love!) there are animals to be fed and watered. And in the evening, everyone needs to be fed again. The scraps go into the compost which the chickens are happily picking through and some tasty morsels get saved out for the goats who daintily nibble the best bits before dropping the rest on the ground and peeing on it. The plants need…
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Homesteading in Costa Rica, 2017
2017 Homesteading Goals Normally, I subscribe to the ‘don’t tell people your goals’ school of thought. Due to my introverted nature, I prefer to work quietly behind the scenes and then appear magically with finished projects no-one saw coming. But this whole homesteading/self-sufficiency thing is new to me and I am genuinely curious as to what my family will manage to accomplish this year and what other families are planning on doing in the same vein. So please, include your homesteading goals for this year in the comments below and let’s see how we can grow our Permaculture community (no pun intended)! Here are three areas where I see big…
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How to Make Tamales – Tico Traditions
Tamales are traditional Costa Rican cuisine. While the ingredients are simple, they are time consuming to make. They remind me of my Ukrainian family making perogies, women working together in an assembly line to make hundreds for a special event or holiday. Last Friday we were invited to join a Tico family to make tamales and, while it was great to learn how to make this local staple, the best part was that feeling of community. A kitchen full of people talking, laughing and working together. I have seen recipes for tamales online and in books, but learning from a matriarch is different. Family recipes are passed down in approximations.…
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Expectations vs. Reality
…In which I meander aimlessly on the topic of money and how it’s working/not working for us in the rainforest. It is always interesting to see what happens when expectations bump up against reality. We have been living in Costa Rica since late February and extremely few things have gone according to plan. The overall shape of life that I was looking for is here, but the path was not at all what I thought it would be. And for the most part, that’s ok, but in other ways we need to seriously re-evaluate where we are at and what we are doing. Money is one of those areas.…
