Wild & Untamed

I live in the Andes Mountains. The mountain range is extensive, and the country I live in is small. Relatively speaking, if you combined California and Texas, that would equal the size of Colombia.

I live in a small pueblo (town) with an average of 12k inhabitants, which is much larger than where I grew up, a small town in Kentucky. I live in the countryside, where they call it ‘el campo,’ in the rural zone, or ‘zona rural.’

I live in a small house with a small piece of land that I purchased last September. The land is on the side of a mountain, like most farms here. We grow coffee, plantains, bananas, yuca, and lots of flowers.

When you buy a home here in these mountains, almost 99.9% of them will contain a few hundred or thousand coffee trees since coffee is a lucrative crop. On my small farm alone, I have between 1,000 and 1,400 coffee trees.

Already a small, working coffee farm.

I moved in and began to clean up the land and trees, transforming it into a mini homestead, where I am one of thousands who have decided to "go back to the land." A new-old movement, but for me, it was a simple return home to that which I already knew.

Once it is in your blood, it will always call you back.

I silenced the call for a long time, and Pachamama was ok with that, understanding that I had some things to do before I returned. She knew I needed to find a place for myself in this world, or at least try.

I like to imagine Pachamama sitting with her cup of coffee and the other cup getting cold as she waited for me to walk through the door, saying, ¨ I’m home¨. Let’s say she is very patient.

After a long career as a nurse, knowing that the system was broken, I decided to leave.

Yet I still was not ready to return home, but I was on my way. I packed my bags and began the search. After a long trip around the world, I knocked on Pachamama's door. She politely opened the door and said ¨welcome home¨.

However, it is not the land I once knew; it is warm, forgiving, and easily welcoming. Yet I often wonder if this is ¨it¨. Then I remember it doesn’t matter if this is ¨it¨, for now it is.

A relearning, a school, a place for me to gain the knowledge I once had and lost.

Lands that were once foreign and far away are now what I call home. At least for now, when this project is complete, who knows where the wind will take me?

I used to think once I settled, it would be forever, but now I believe some of us blow with the wind, who are wild and unable to be tamed. Those of us who need to sit, but when she calls, we then pack our bags.

Except when we sit, we create, we repair, we build, we are the creators of this earth, those of us who dare to step into the untamed spirit for that which we came. A coming home to that which we already knew, a tumbleweed that will sit and grow, and when the wind blows, we too blow dust in the wind.

A leaf floating in the breeze, sometimes we stay, sometimes we go.

As of now, I stay, I build my homestead, and I create and listen to my inner guide. Now Pachamama and I are sitting, having coffee.

She is my teacher and guide. The process of relearning the lands that were once foreign to me has become part of me.

We are one; there is no separation between us humans and nature, even though most of us forget that we would not exist without her — the vibration, the hum of the earth, as the vibration and beating of our heart.

As I sit here on the side of the mountain. Today, she has chosen blue skies over dark clouds; she has chosen a sunny day over rain.

The locals say summer is here, but the seasons never change; the weather is like a wild, untamed animal that you learn to work with and enjoy the beauty in all forms.

XOXO

S