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Potluck and Sauna Night…..Yumminess on many levels

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After the completion of the community sauna we established what is fast becoming one of the highlights of the week here at Full Bloom: Potluck and Sauna night.   Its a night where we put out an invitation to our broader community to come and join us for a meal, catch up on the valley happenings, and then go for a nice sweat.  This past Friday we were blessed with some seriously talented and fun musicians who busted into a music jam and sing along. Singing, playing instruments, and dancing is such a natural thing to do at a gathering and yet there’s part of me that’s still getting used to it.  I just didn’t grow up with it.   When it happens here I’m so grateful and reminded that I want to build it into our lives here more often.  I believe it to be foundational to the long-term viability of an intentional community to have plenty of singing, dancing, and music creation happening.  Its the ultimate soul food and part of us begins to starve without it..  We are wired to spend time together in “musical communion”, its one of the most powerful ways of breaking the trance of separation, of our neurosis.

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Last Friday night’s sauna was the first time we took a sauna with the tile work and entryway mosaic completed.  As you can imagine its a wonderful image to just be absorbed by while in a sauna.

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“I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.“

Our New Community Garden!!

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Its an exciting time here at Full Bloom as we create our Enchanted Community Garden in the center of the land.  Above is Micaela measuring out the space as part of the garden bed mapping out.  She was our inspired designer of the garden, creating a mandala of shapes including a heart, a star, and a yin/yang symbol.  How fun huh?!

We will be planting an assortment of “permaculture” plants.  These are plants that serve multiple ecological functions such as food for us, food for friends (birds and beneficial insects), soil improvement, and of course beauty (a key piece of sustainability, for beauty will attract people to the place to the garden to take care of it).

Below is a picture of the beds actually being hand dug.  We are digging out the topsoil of the paths and putting the soil on the beds so they will be extra rich.  The final layer will be a couple of inches of premium local composts.  The plants will be ecstatically happy!

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We’ve sowed hundreds of plants in the Greenhouse to fill in the garden and have a nursery order coming with all kinds of perennial shrubs and small trees like lilac, elderberry, hawthorn, and serviceberry.

What a gift it is to be able to co-create beauty and abundance.

“There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.”  ~Mirabel Osler

 

Full Bloom is Gearing up for a Busy “Growing Season”

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The energy of spring is edging itself into our lives here at Full Bloom, as we sow seeds that will later be big beautiful heads of cabbage and lettuce and the sunny days invite the fruit trees to break out of dormancy.  Currently there are 5 couples, 3 children and Bachelor (say isn’t that the name of a movie or something?).  We are enjoying hearty communal dinners 5 nights a week, with lots of local Chicken soups and wild venison stews and Bread “Rise Up! Artisan Bread” that is based on the land here.

We’re also knee deep in the design process for the somatic arts studio that we will commence building next month.  With the help of a wonderful young architect John Hutton (a.k.a the Bachelor) we are going to be creating an epically beautiful space for people to come and shake off their self-limitations through dance or experience the grounding and liberating qualities of Yoga.  The completion of the studio will be a huge leap for us as a community.  We will be able to offer so much more to the broader community and be supported in our own efforts towards healing and awakening.

A enchanted community food garden is also on the horizon this spring.  We will be creating a colorful edible landscape right outside our community building soon.  It will be a place that combines the joys of harvesting owns lunch with the heart nourishment of winding down paths just to take in the miracle of mother nature.

All in all we feel blessed and fortunate to live in such a beautiful place with such kind and creative people all around us.

Till next time……Ryan