Happy New Year!

As 2017 rides into memory, and the frost of the new year begins here on the prairie we give thanks and don our boots ( red rubbers and big leathers) for the start of 2018. 2017 was such a huge year of higher education.

We opened our hearts to the potential of a journey across the ocean to return to Hawaii and engaged the energy that swelled from that imagined path ... a safe passage.

The way unfolded. We discovered the details and the work involved in moving our golden wagon life from here to there.

In the summer we gathered a community of friends to listen as we told a story. This involved people who could have known us over time and twists in the journey; those who could offer their skill, support, and their unique gifts. We hoped for curiosity and compassion.

We moved our Vardo for Two from the woods for one night on the South Whidbey Tilth land on a full moon in July.

Sharing food, story and the potential to grow an 'aha a woven cord of connection we posed the hinged question of what it would take to take our life with Environmental Illness back home, to Hawaii.

Over the months since July Pete and I realize our safe passage and our place needs to be focused on this:

"Many people shy away from community out of a fear that it may become suffocating, confining, even vicious," Sanders adds; "and of course it may, if it grows rigid or exclusive. A healthy community is dynamic, stirred up the energies of those who already belong, open to new members and fresh influences, kept in motion by the constant bartering of gifts. It is fashionable just now to speak of this open quality as 'tolerance,' but that word sounds too grudging to me -- as though, to avoid strife, we must grit our teeth and ignore whatever is strange to us. The community I desire is not grudging; it is exuberant, joyful, grounded in affection, pleasure, and mutual aid...Taking part in the common life means dwelling in a web of relationships , the many threads tugging at you while also holding you upright." - Scott Russell Sanders

At this point the community we desire is right here on South Whidbey Island. Through the sharing of these posts via e-mail blasts and by living out in the open, on the Prairie Front, we hope our lifestyle becomes more understood; to read about it and see the steps involved.

We are learning all the elements of Scott Russell Sanders' "common life ... dwelling in a web of relationships, the many threads tugging at [us] while also hold [us] upright." 

For the winter we build upon the years of being known and living in this South Whidbey Island community. 

Loving the season of open sky and elemental reality that is making this cycle of life richly optimistic even while accepting that going back to Hawaii is not going to happen ... at least now yet.

Instead, Hawaii came to us this Winter.

And so our focus shifts inward with appreciation for the gift of being caretakers who observe and adapt. "We are a pair of makua o'o (elders in training) who live from a small golden wagon because we also live with Environmental Illness-- we must be mobile like birds. To adapt to the reality of the environment changing, we kilo (notice), record (over time) and make changes (adapt. Living on the "Prairie Front," South Whidbey Tilth, we live in rhythm with the land and resident Wild Ones including the Plant Nation." - from the South Whidbey Tilth Newsletter-- Winter 2017-2018

Our full-hearted aloha and mahalo, love and appreciation, to all our friends and family who have made 2017 one of the most wonderful experiences in creative living. Thank you all for the part you play in this shared experience of community. We embrace the start of 2018 with humility and wonder!

Happy New Year Hauoli Makahiki Hou from our place on the Whidbey prairie to your place you call home,

Mokihana and Pete