After 15 months away, I'M BACK!!!
Hello Hive community, friends and followers! It sure feels good to be back on my blog here after such a long time away, and finally able to get back to writing again. But I'm not only back on Hive and publishing my writing again, I'm also back to finally feeling truly alive once more, after what feels like an eternity in the realm of the 'walking dead' - though in my case I wasn't doing all that much walking, being physically pretty down and out, enduring a 6 month battle with intense debilitating chronic illness, a return of the 'long COVID' from a year prior methinks. It was a very long, very dark winter for me personally, a trying 'Dark Night of the Soul' type of experience for sure, full of countless dark days in which I felt like I was standing at death's door fighting for my very life - but I survived; and right as spring rolled around and everything in Nature began to come back to life after its winter hibernation, so did I!
It was a long and difficult, though also a beautiful and empowering healing journey that I will no doubt be writing about in much more detail in coming posts, but suffice it to say that once I hit that major turning point in the last week of March, my body has been healing quite rapidly, and miraculously I would say, or so it feels. And now, after a little over a month of fast and steady improvement, I'm in relatively good health and good spirits, feeling back up to at least 90% strength/energy most of the time, after an entire winter (plus the last couple months of fall) of being relatively non-functional and entirely unable to work, or even write anything worth reading - what with the nasty brain fog causing a total lack of mental clarity, among other debilitating symptoms.
My first order of business, after an entire winter without work, was to get back to working again, and so I have been for five weeks straight now, starting with one day/week and working my way up to where I am now, this past week being my second week in a row of working 3 days/week (for pay), while at the same time staying plenty busy doing work around the homestead on the days I'm not working for others. Not the same homestead I was at when I last posted on here, mind you, for I've been through so many changes in the 15 months between then and now, it's hard to believe it's only been 15 months! But a little more on my current excitement to be back in the land of the living, before I touch on that crazy adventure of a journey that brought me here...
Top photo is from my work day two Fridays ago, and my first week putting in 3 solid work days on top of all the work around the property I now call home that perpetually keeps me busy and practically incapable of ever getting bored. The snow-capped mountains seen in the background are the Sangre de Cristo ('Blood of Christ') Mountains of northern New Mexico, which east slopes rise sharply out of the foothills that have become my new home during my time away from blogging. My work for the day, which continued on Monday as well, - involved cleaning up some big piles of small dug up trees in preparation for a tractor to plow...
The dogs - as a second canine also joined my family during the course of my move up here - were absolutely loving this particular work day, due to the myriad of gophers living on the property; and I was thrilled, not just to be getting my first real 3-day work week in months, but also because this particular work is so close to my place - a neighbor that lives just down the county road from me, less than a mile away and about as convenient and beautiful as work can get, at least in my book. Between the views, the happy dogs, the beautiful spring weather, being back to working for this particular neighbor again, and being my first 3-day work week and my Friday (actually on a Friday this particular week), I felt like I was getting high off of the vibes all day long. I was actually inspired to write this post as I was working that day, but it has taken me a week to actually get around to it, and another couple of days before I'm finally ready to publish 😛
That's Shep, my new dog, seen above, jumping over one of the several irrigation ditches flowing through this property; and below is a view from the high point of the property where I was dumping all of the brush, with the landowner's horses seen in the pasture below.
Being the lover of gardening that I am with a passion for working towards food-sustainability, it is especially exciting, and enlivening, that my healing came just in time for the gardening season; and as one might imagine, I've been investing a majority of my free time and energy into the gardens and my little greenhouse over the course of the past month, as the grow season here will soon be in full swing.
One of my biggest fears as winter's end began to roll around and the oppressive grip of the debilitating chronic illness I was battling seemed altogether unwilling to let me go, was that I would have to live through the grow season on this gorgeous property that's a gardener's dream, entirely unable to plant any of the abundant garden space I had worked so hard the previous spring to prepare. Thankfully those fears were never realized, ultimately overcome by the strength of my faith just in the nick of time; and now here I am, in awe at how fast things have changed yet again, and full of gratitude as I complete the all-important multi-day task of tilling up the two largest garden plots, with a little minor expansion while I was at it - and with that tiring feat out of the way, planting 70 of the 100 red onion sets that just arrived in the mail, a wonderful and beautiful completion to my day on Friday.
But as good as it feels to be in good health and good spirits once more, truly alive and back to work again, it feels especially great to be writing again, and publishing my writing! For while I've been away from my blog, circumstances largely keeping me from my love of writing for 15 months now, my own journey of life has taken no such break. Those who were following my ever-evolving journey in my years on Hive are probably wondering where exactly I've been, what I've been up to, and why I've been away from my blog for so long. Long story short, my life circumstances got a little crazy there for awhile, and stayed that way for quite a while longer, with one major unforeseen change after another continually thwarting my intention to get back to a place where I could begin to consistently publish my work once again, and continue to share the amazing story of my crazy journey of faith and surrender to the flow of life with the world.
Much like the journey of the collective human race as a whole at this present time on the earth, it seems, the 'missing' months of my journey have largely consisted in walking through the fiery trials of life, one fire after another; consisting in so many and often drastic changes that, despite having personally lived through it all, it still often seems rather unbelievable! And while this period of my life has largely consisted in a ceaseless struggle to overcome hardship after hardship, challenge after challenge, and difficulty after difficulty - most of it largely unexpected and unforeseen - it also served as a wonderful period of tremendous inner growth, development and rapid soul-evolution; while at the same time featuring some of the highest highs this human soul has experienced in this lifetime walking the earth.
That crazy adventure of a story - the story of my journey from the small community I had joined and been happily living at for nine months when I 'went dark' with my content creation to where I am now, 'living the dream' on my dream property in a quite rural and remote area of the state I had never even heard of before - that is one wild story for its own post, a piece that I am already in the process of writing and which should be published rather shortly. That being said, what I will do here is give readers a sneak peak into that journey, highlighting with as little detail as possible the crazy series of events I've been through over my 15 months away from my blog.
For those wondering just where I've been all this time...
Last I was posting on here it was November of 2022, and I was battling COVID-turned-long-Covid, which, much through my own direct experience, I became convinced was the product of a bioweapon. During this time I was also beginning to transition into a three-month long period of slow but steady recovery from the persistently lingering chronic symptoms I was left with that inhibited my ability to do much physical labor of any kind without sinking myself back into the depths of the darkness that initial month of the most debilitating illness I had ever experienced had been. I was at the same time just beginning to question for the very first time since moving there, whether this community was in fact the right long-term place for me to be anymore. Turns out that was my intuition at work subtly preparing me for what was in store for me just ahead.
As soon as I was just well enough to begin functioning somewhat again, and through a series of community meetings that felt more like proceedings against me, the landowner ended up making an executive decision without forming a community consensus, the decision being that I was not a good fit for the community and needed to leave. So it was time for me to get ready to pack my bags and head off into the sunset for whatever life might have in store for me next, or so I thought. I had six weeks to figure it out, and now knew without a doubt that this was definitely not a good and healthy long-term situation for me any longer, and so I wasn't much worried about my 'predicament'. But then, seemingly out of the blue and only some few days later, I was utterly shocked when I was asked if I would consider staying on as a member under a whole new, and in my book totally unfair, living/work-trade arrangement.
So it was that, going against all sense of logic, pride and 'common sense' after what I'd just been put through, but with the full support of the Universe and my own inner guidance, I made the hard decision to stay indefinitely under the new arrangement - for the two special children there who were quickly growing on me, who had become the two little lights of my life during this period of darkness that kept me going while also keeping me centered in a place of love, and who were not at all ready to let me go just yet.
The three months that followed would be the most emotionally intense of my life, but also some of the most spiritually rewarding, as I was continually being tried by the fires of life, and ultimately walked away victorious by the mighty hand of divine love. These days were numbered, however, and eventually the inevitable became reality, and I was for the second time called to a somber meeting in which I was once again informed how I wasn't a good fit for the community, and the decision was made that it was time to begin the process of my departure. And this time I was in full agreement with the decision, though not at all with the methods by which the decision was made - again, without a community consensus; for as I now clearly understood, this community was no longer being managed through consensus as it once had, but rather by the executive decree of the landowner; and this among many other things would ultimately lead to the total implosion of the community and exodus of each one of the three remaining adult members (along with a total of three kids), one by one, each in their own time, following my departure.
As for me, I landed next at a house in the city - Albuquerque - which, little did I know at the time, would end up being just as dysfunctional and toxic a situation as the one I had just left; or at least would have become so if I hadn't gotten out of there as quickly as I did. After spending two short months in the city, busy working for cash under the table on various construction jobs and helping the couple who were putting me up with chores and projects around the house and property, divine guidance flawlessly orchestrated my 'escape' - or at least that's how it felt.
The stated 'plan' was for this temporary arrangement in the city to last only until April, at which point I would move up to a rural and quite remote property with obscenely cheap rent, in order to help make the place more move-in ready and help prepare it for their anticipated arrival in May or June; at which point they and their 'team' - myself and a younger fellow also living with us at the city house - would begin renovation work and rejuvenation of the property with the goal of starting a small sustainable community up here. But, as it turns out, things didn't go according to plan, at least not according to their plan.
It did very much seem to go according to the divine plan for my life, however, and in summary, I was guided in such a way that I ended up here without them - which is definitely for the best (for both them and I) - and likely spared me much time in a dysfunctional and unhealthy community endeavor.
It was my dream property in just about every respect imaginable, and I'm still here a whole year later; below is a recent photo capturing a small fraction of the gorgeous piece of land we're living on up here.
But as picture-perfect as my new place was, the crazy roller coaster ride I was on didn't end with the seemingly miraculous manifestation of my dream property as I supposed at the time it would.
About a month after my transition back to my new place out in the country, I drove five hours up to the Colorado/New Mexico border to attend my first ever musical festival; where my good friend, former fellow community member, and the mother of those two precious children I had come to care so deeply for over the course of my year living in community with them, was vending - selling her crafts and artwork. Come to find out, I really appreciate Reggae/Roots music, there's a lot of outspokenly anti-establishment musicians I had never heard of before, and music festivals are tons of fun! Especially in such beautiful country, with a river flowing right through the middle of it all, and friendly people all around with plenty to keep one busy apart from the music.
Perhaps more than anything, however, I appreciated the opportunity to spend some good quality time with the kids again, they were loving it after having not seen me in over a month, and it freed up lots of time for their mom to focus more on her vending.
It seems like the fastest three days I've ever experienced, but as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. So I departed early that Monday afternoon after packing up my camping gear and helping take down the vending tent, high off of the vibes and unforgettable memories I'd been soaking up over the past three days, but totally mentally unprepared for what would come next.
About an hour into my five-hour drive back home, my Subaru suddenly broke down on the side of the highway, where I was then stranded for the next two nights. But all was well, for I had camping gear and extra food, and was more prepared for roadside survival in the middle of nowhere than I initially felt. Apart from those first 30 minutes of panic as I went through a brief mental freak-out, and a miserable second night of 'sleep' (if you can call it that) on the concrete floor of a picnic table pavilion in a park miles away from the car, it was actually a really fun and interesting adventure. By the end of Day 3 of this adventure, I was back at my car and being picked up and given a ride back home by the fellow tenant back at the property, who, bless her heart, wasn't willing to let me stay one more night in my car - though I wouldn't have minded it in the least after the previous night's restless sleep on a rock-hard concrete floor. But it was good to finally be home again; all-in-all turning out to be a solid 6-day adventure and one of the best, most fun, most uplifting and most memorable experiences of my entire life.
All I had to do now was wait a week for my new premium AAA membership to go into full effect, at which point a scheduled tow would bring my car back home, where I would surely have a much better chance of diagnosing the problem than on the side of a remote highway in the middle of nowhere. The driver scheduled to tow me even told me the night before while confirming the tow that he would break protocol by picking up the car without my presence and would get all of the necessary information upon his arrival to my place, saving me roughly 8 hours of drive time. Well that was a pleasant surprise, but the next surprise wouldn't be nearly so pleasant as this. Shocked was I to wake up that morning to a phone call, with the voice on the other end of the line telling me, "Bro, you're car isn't here." Well now that was an unexpected surprise, to say the least. But sure enough, it was gone, and the police hadn't towed it. My Subaru had been stolen; and I had been robbed. I handled the situation quite well, and it hardly phased me, though it eventually began to get rather frustrating after months without a vehicle.
I've been without a reliable vehicle for the majority of that time until now, though not entirely without wheels since October. By September, I did find an affordable deal on an old Pathfinder that needed a little work, through some local contacts I was making, which also connected me to a lot more work opportunities. So I immediately began to work full-time as the summer came to a close so that I could make the purchase and finally have a vehicle again. In short order a deal was made, cash changed hands, and I had myself a vehicle and a small loan to pay back to the gal I had been working for part-time the whole time I'd been up here. So I kept working full time, ended up paying off the majority of the loan, and put in new front-end wheel-bearings - the one problem I was aware of; and for a short while there had a decently running vehicle to get around in.
During this time I also got sick with what felt like minor flu symptoms that only lasted for a few days, but as I recovered, I realized that the long-Covid symptoms from a year ago seemed to have weirdly resurfaced after all these months. I felt the urge to call up an old friend I had made during my days at the community whom I hadn't spoken to in months, and we had a great conversation catching each other up on all of our happenings. Turns out he had found his way to northern California where he was being trained in the 'art' of Christ-centered faith-healing, and by the sound of it, at least one of us had found our calling and purpose in life. He asked if he could say a quick prayer for me, and did; and that, my friends, turned out to be the very first 'instantaneous' and miraculous physical healing I had ever experienced. By the time I went to bed that night, I felt at least 50% better, by the next morning up to 80%, and then my life carried on as usual for another few short weeks, before my world would once again come crashing down all around me. This was after several days of the symptoms persisting, with zero improvement, even with no work and all rest.
My body was screaming at me to work less, while my intuition was really trying to get me to shift my focus away from so much work and back to what I felt inspired to do, whatever that may be; though I knew it included eventually getting back to writing and publishing my work. But after that miraculous faith-healing, I was feeling invincible; and besides, I had a small loan to continue paying off, a vehicle that needed more work done, and winter right around the corner when work would naturally slow down on its own; so I did what many an ordinary working man surely would have done in such a situation, and I ignored the signals coming from both my body and my intuition, and kept on working as much as I could.
I did at some point start to cut back my work weeks from five to three days at first, then to two; but it was too little, too late - and boy, did I pay the price. I woke up one morning ready to go to work, but feeling particularly fatigued, and when I could barely pick up my chainsaw when I went to load it up into the Pathfinder, I knew I was quite literally incapable of working that day, at least anything involving chainsaw work, digging, or heavy lifting of any kind. So I finally drew my line in the sand, sent off that text to the client, and took the day off. But again, it was too little, too late, and that day off was the beginning of my second months-long battle with 'long-Covid', and the darkest winter I have been through. I was largely incapacitated for the next five months straight, with the last and final month of the ordeal being this April during which time I was making a rapid, and once again seemingly miraculous faith-healing recovery; only this time it was my own faith doing the work rather than the faith of another.
For the first three months of that saga I was in a nasty mental fog, much physical pain, and feeling utterly trapped in the deepest darkness I had experienced since my first dog died suddenly of an ultra fast-moving cancer years ago, if not of my entire life. The next two months I spent clawing my way out of the darkness, dancing with the light but still finding no real, lasting healing; and seemingly unable to quite pull myself out of the pit of darkness I had been wallowing in
for so long. Finally my day of liberation came, however, following a nice extended visit with my parents and just as the spring season rolled around. But that healing journey is also its own story for its own post.
Shortly into the winter, my vehicle had also begun to develop serious symptoms, rendering it largely non-functional, save on extremely short excursions, and even then it was hit or miss just how long it would drive before breaking down. Not only had I been in terrible health for so long, I had also been entirely unable to work and financially support myself, and relatively 'stuck' without a good, running vehicle. I was always supported in the ways needed to at least keep me alive through this dark winter, though, and with the visit from my parents came an anonymous financial gift dedicated to getting my car back up and running. So I limped it into the local shop, had it diagnosed, had them do the front end work I was in no shape to touch, while I replaced the distributor and gave it a tune-up (new spark plugs and wires). I then had a running car again, finally, but only for a few short weeks. Last Wednesday it struggled to start and I barely made it home from work, and on Thursday it barely made it out of our long driveway before breaking down in the middle of the county road just a couple minutes from my house. I had just set up an appointment for it to be looked at on Monday, but now I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get it in myself, so I got it towed, conveniently by the same shop that would be looking at it on Monday, for they are also the only local towing business in the area as far as I know.
And here I am, still without a reliable vehicle a whole year after my Subaru was stolen, still eagerly awaiting the day when I have a good, running vehicle again and will finally be able to visit the kids that had become such a huge and important part of my life, and whom I only saw briefly one time this whole time since early November when the sickness set in for the long-haul. But at least I'm no longer waiting for the day when I shall write again, for that day has arrived. I can't complain, really, though; for I'm still residing on my dream property; I managed to survive a long and bitter fight with the forces of darkness and came out triumphant, both alive and healed; I have at least as much work as I'd like readily available, and I'm finally getting back on my feet again financially; within 24 hours I should have a pretty good idea of just what's going on with my vehicle and will hopefully be picking up a properly fixed and hopefully at least fairly reliable vehicle shortly after that; and, well, life is just so damn beautiful sometimes!
It sure is good to be back, back to good health, back to living life, back to writing, back to work, back to gardening and projects around the homestead; and really, it's just simply wonderful to finally be feeling like I'm finally back from the dead, truly living again after so much time spent in so much darkness. If you made it this far, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it, stay tuned for more posts coming soon, and catch you on the flip-side.
P.S. Oh, and I'm also now on Substack if you'd like to follow me over there - just another aspect of the 'new and improved' me working my way back into the world of writing, broadening my horizons it seems; and while I have currently only published a single introduction post, it might be of interest to readers here as it tells the story of my rise as a writer and my writing 'career' up to this point - nearly all of which is thanks in large part to Hive and countless people in the Hive community...
https://steppingintolight.substack.com/