We thought thse would be our only guests!
Wow, i've just been to ONE EARTH festival at Elands Krans and did we dans? Yeh, yeh, yeh! Thank you all my dancing friends!
SPRING AT UMPHAKATSI!
I am back! On my own with awakening frogs – amazing croaking chorus through the night! Green and red sunbirds’ amazing cheeping songs while they catch the last of the orange and pink aloe flowers. A variety of other wee birds. An owl now lives in the valley! Cows roaming around. Through the dry season this year there have been many fires, everything is bare, except for the beautiful aloes which have been flowering. I am on my own again, Sarah in germany attending an ecovillage conference. Hilda, Sven and Petra come every 2nd weekend or so – they are wanting to come live here too, and build their space of Love in the valley. And Mark and Winnie, two enthusiastic recyclists too, who have great plans, wow, exciting the potential!
By an amazing flow of synchronicity, Sven and Petra and Mark and Winnie have spoken to the headman, visited the chief, got their certificates and their space of Love plots! Mark and Winnie’s is neighbouring Umphakatsi a bit downriver, and Sven and Petra’s is upriver a way, deeper in the gorge. With the help of builders and thatchers from the village, Mark and Winnie have erected a frame and thatched roof and made a basic fence to keep cows out. They plan to build the walls themselves with recycled material. Sven and Petra also fence their place and cut a track to it through the lantana.
SPRING AT UMPHAKATSI!
I am back! On my own with awakening frogs – amazing croaking chorus through the night! Green and red sunbirds’ amazing cheeping songs while they catch the last of the orange and pink aloe flowers. A variety of other wee birds. An owl now lives in the valley! Cows roaming around. Through the dry season this year there have been many fires, everything is bare, except for the beautiful aloes which have been flowering. I am on my own again, Sarah in germany attending an ecovillage conference. Hilda, Sven and Petra come every 2nd weekend or so – they are wanting to come live here too, and build their space of Love in the valley. And Mark and Winnie, two enthusiastic recyclists too, who have great plans, wow, exciting the potential!
By an amazing flow of synchronicity, Sven and Petra and Mark and Winnie have spoken to the headman, visited the chief, got their certificates and their space of Love plots! Mark and Winnie’s is neighbouring Umphakatsi a bit downriver, and Sven and Petra’s is upriver a way, deeper in the gorge. With the help of builders and thatchers from the village, Mark and Winnie have erected a frame and thatched roof and made a basic fence to keep cows out. They plan to build the walls themselves with recycled material. Sven and Petra also fence their place and cut a track to it through the lantana.
Visiting Ngwenya with Sven & Petra
Mark & Winnie
Things are moving! Here at Umphakatsi, Sarah’s dad erects a frame for a new sleeping pozzie with the help of a crowd of village kids, and thatchers also arrive, and he’s laying a pipe from a side-stream up to here as well. Every weekend loads of activity. And Sarah’s mango project collaborating with Mpumulanga officials, is also being marked out. Sarah is back and then gone to work in Joburg and then to ecovillage network in the Gambia, and Rainbow gathering about to start too. I am excited having been virtually on my own for about six weeks, watering all the vegetables and little fruit trees and seedlings on my own. Even composed a song about it on my ukulele, chorus goes like this: Filling up buckets at the river, Filling up buckets at the Jo Jo, and I carry them here and I carry them there and I carry them everywhere… I had a friend for a week! A domestic duck arrived out of nowhere and plonked itself in a pool down by the river, I fed it some of my food and maize corn and it quacked away and got quite friendly in the end. It was determined to be wild, trying to make friends with the wild ducks, but they were shy. And then one Saturday I had to go to the village, and when I came back it was gone. The pool was sad and silent. I wrote a story.
Well a month later, and Rainbow is finished, I am back here and recapitulating my life. Certainly was a strange rainbow, spiritual, profound in some respects and disappointing in others. I was imagining crowds of people as I do, but there were only a few of us at any given time. Rosa, from Holland, and Claire came to get it started, and we found a lovely site on the hill opposite Mark & Winnie’s, next to the river. But first a fire threatened the site, Rosa and I managed to put it out with buckets of water near the river, and with the help of Loverboy, a guy from the village and a few others working on Mark and Winnie’s place. Then rosa and I carried everything over in tins and boxes and bags. We had done a ceremony, us three, at the heart space calling the right people to come and giving thanks. We tried putting up the big rainbow tent twice, but wind blew it down. But we had a cool spot by the river under Alosha’s squeezie-stretchie, and a healing spot with a stone shrine of lovely stones that offered themselves, and a sort of a kitchen. Aumji came for a weekend with a load of abundant supplies, Rosa dug a shit pit and Aumji a trough around the fire pit. It rained and we ate beautiful meals, and Lara and Erin, Mark & Winnie’s amazing girls, kept us company and shared a beautiful ceremony with me, Chief Arvol Looking Horse’s Ceremony for Peace and Co-operation. The words they spoke were wise and sincere, I was honoured.
After the weekend Aumji took Rosa away, and Claire decided to rejoin after a time out by herself. Sam and Shine from Zuvuya arrived with daughter, Oriah, and the girls happily played days by the river. Sam and Shine were disappointed about there being no people, but we had a good few days, until Mark and Winnie left, and then them. A guy called Andrew arrived out of the blue and camped a few days, but disappeared when I got sick. I came down with some bug or other, but big doses of citricidal soon had me right again. And then with a big blast of amazing heart energy, arrived Haroun, with Suzanne, a biking warrior girl who had got stuck in Badplaas, and Tertius, who had brought a huge solar dish for cooking food for hundreds of people, a new solar oven and a sweet amazingly efficient little stove that just uses a few twigs to boil a pot – all donated by a company for demonstration. And then a wild few days with Haroun and Suzanne howling and leaping about, and a surprise arrival of Dan and Marie from Pretoria, amazingly friendly lovely persons, who brought and shared all their stuff, including a massage table, and we had a wild massage session under the stretchie before they left. And then arrived Linzi and Zahira, two lovely girls from Joburg, who also stayed a few days. With everyone we had some great evenings around the fire, omming and singing and jamming. Marie sang amazingly, Linzi brought her drum and flute and mouth organ and played beautiful stuff, and Zahira taught us a beautiful song, and Suzanne found her rhythm on the drum. And one day was Haroun’s birthday! And we made a wonderful psychedelic cake bread, with dates and coconut oil in it, and fruit on top with melted chocolate and played all day. Before Haroun left, we went through a ricocheting rocketing blast of a storm, rain, lightning, wind and thunder, omming and trusting in Spirit inside the little spaceships of our tents. Claire had gone to meet her friend Simon’s arrival at the village, and they got caught out in the storm in the dark, but they knocked on the door of a hut and were treated to an amazingly hospitable night of shelter and ubuntu, arriving back glowing the next morning!
And then Haroun had to leave, and a few more days we stayed – some chlled out hot days, me and Suzanne playing by the river and making small fires to sit around in the evening. We had a lovely final ceremony, each speaking for directions of the Sacred 20 count, and the next evening, speaking our experience of the Rainbow and giving thanks. We had also been visited by various youth from the village over the time, and Enoch the headman, came by a few times as well. All in all, although I was sad more people didn’t come, it was a lovely time we had those of us who were there. It was a lovely time sleeping on the land, sitting around fires, singing and harmonising, and bathing in the ever cool river, and sharing lovely meals. Thank you to you all for everything you brought and shared of yourselves. Thank you for the gift to the land of Love, and thank you to the land for having us! We all came through the challenge! I am stronger in me, Suzanne has found in her her breatharian wizard, Haroun found the spot for a rainbow geodesic dome, Claire been travelling through cycles of leaving and healing…
And now, hmm, a next stage dawns… not sure what it is… keep on going with spine straight sister… Oneness consciousness beckoning me all the time. Love.
Well a month later, and Rainbow is finished, I am back here and recapitulating my life. Certainly was a strange rainbow, spiritual, profound in some respects and disappointing in others. I was imagining crowds of people as I do, but there were only a few of us at any given time. Rosa, from Holland, and Claire came to get it started, and we found a lovely site on the hill opposite Mark & Winnie’s, next to the river. But first a fire threatened the site, Rosa and I managed to put it out with buckets of water near the river, and with the help of Loverboy, a guy from the village and a few others working on Mark and Winnie’s place. Then rosa and I carried everything over in tins and boxes and bags. We had done a ceremony, us three, at the heart space calling the right people to come and giving thanks. We tried putting up the big rainbow tent twice, but wind blew it down. But we had a cool spot by the river under Alosha’s squeezie-stretchie, and a healing spot with a stone shrine of lovely stones that offered themselves, and a sort of a kitchen. Aumji came for a weekend with a load of abundant supplies, Rosa dug a shit pit and Aumji a trough around the fire pit. It rained and we ate beautiful meals, and Lara and Erin, Mark & Winnie’s amazing girls, kept us company and shared a beautiful ceremony with me, Chief Arvol Looking Horse’s Ceremony for Peace and Co-operation. The words they spoke were wise and sincere, I was honoured.
After the weekend Aumji took Rosa away, and Claire decided to rejoin after a time out by herself. Sam and Shine from Zuvuya arrived with daughter, Oriah, and the girls happily played days by the river. Sam and Shine were disappointed about there being no people, but we had a good few days, until Mark and Winnie left, and then them. A guy called Andrew arrived out of the blue and camped a few days, but disappeared when I got sick. I came down with some bug or other, but big doses of citricidal soon had me right again. And then with a big blast of amazing heart energy, arrived Haroun, with Suzanne, a biking warrior girl who had got stuck in Badplaas, and Tertius, who had brought a huge solar dish for cooking food for hundreds of people, a new solar oven and a sweet amazingly efficient little stove that just uses a few twigs to boil a pot – all donated by a company for demonstration. And then a wild few days with Haroun and Suzanne howling and leaping about, and a surprise arrival of Dan and Marie from Pretoria, amazingly friendly lovely persons, who brought and shared all their stuff, including a massage table, and we had a wild massage session under the stretchie before they left. And then arrived Linzi and Zahira, two lovely girls from Joburg, who also stayed a few days. With everyone we had some great evenings around the fire, omming and singing and jamming. Marie sang amazingly, Linzi brought her drum and flute and mouth organ and played beautiful stuff, and Zahira taught us a beautiful song, and Suzanne found her rhythm on the drum. And one day was Haroun’s birthday! And we made a wonderful psychedelic cake bread, with dates and coconut oil in it, and fruit on top with melted chocolate and played all day. Before Haroun left, we went through a ricocheting rocketing blast of a storm, rain, lightning, wind and thunder, omming and trusting in Spirit inside the little spaceships of our tents. Claire had gone to meet her friend Simon’s arrival at the village, and they got caught out in the storm in the dark, but they knocked on the door of a hut and were treated to an amazingly hospitable night of shelter and ubuntu, arriving back glowing the next morning!
And then Haroun had to leave, and a few more days we stayed – some chlled out hot days, me and Suzanne playing by the river and making small fires to sit around in the evening. We had a lovely final ceremony, each speaking for directions of the Sacred 20 count, and the next evening, speaking our experience of the Rainbow and giving thanks. We had also been visited by various youth from the village over the time, and Enoch the headman, came by a few times as well. All in all, although I was sad more people didn’t come, it was a lovely time we had those of us who were there. It was a lovely time sleeping on the land, sitting around fires, singing and harmonising, and bathing in the ever cool river, and sharing lovely meals. Thank you to you all for everything you brought and shared of yourselves. Thank you for the gift to the land of Love, and thank you to the land for having us! We all came through the challenge! I am stronger in me, Suzanne has found in her her breatharian wizard, Haroun found the spot for a rainbow geodesic dome, Claire been travelling through cycles of leaving and healing…
And now, hmm, a next stage dawns… not sure what it is… keep on going with spine straight sister… Oneness consciousness beckoning me all the time. Love.
Dan & Marie and Haroun & Suzanne
Massage magic!
Aumji, Rosa and Winnie's kaleidoscope kids, Lara and Erin
The heart space down at the river...
Local friends from the village came visiting to join in...
Yup, me!
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