We live in the middle of a major City
in the U.S., Phoenix, AZ…we mean right in the middle….nothing but concrete for
miles and miles in each direction. Oh,
and don’t let the buildings fool you, this IS a desert. Seriously,
take water with you if you go out. You
will die. Today is 119 degrees….but despite
it being a desert, our house, our neighborhood, is in a forest!
According to information in Arizona
Archives at ASU, back in the 1930s, President Roosevelt initiated a program to
resettle disadvantaged farmers into sustainable farm projects. Land was assigned and homes were built using
locally available adobe. Each lot
allowed families to grow their own food, keep chickens and a cow. The plan was to have the families work on the
farm part time, while working in the city part time. Unfortunately, the plan was disbanded in 1942
due to controversy that the project was socialistic.
Apparently, independence, locally
grown food and cooperation with others makes too much sense.
There is a link to the archives
posted on the right if you want to learn more.
We are very lucky to have found a home in this neighborhood for sale about
two months ago. The land comes with irrigation rights (more on that in another post) so we have trees….lots of them. It’s a little forest in the middle of the
city – quite magical. It is the only house left in the neighborhood that is all original, we have some restoring to do and we have many plans to make.
Why “The Enchanted
Forest? Like most people, Jacques and I want to believe in magic. Not the kind of magic you get from pulling a
rabbit out of a hat, but the kind that bring miracles, healings and life-after-death-like
magic. So, like most people, we sought
our magic. I went to church. Jacques looked elsewhere. We searched for spiritual and mystical
experiences. Like most people, we
wanted something beyond this ordinary life.
We wanted the rare, the supernatural, the otherworldly. Like most people, when we were searching for
that, we were missing what IS.
Those of us who have reached a
certain level of awareness have realized that there is fallacy in
separation. We are One. We also need to realize the fallacy in
separating the miraculous from the ordinary.
Our ordinary, everyday, present experience IS the miracle, the
MAGIC.
We have named the place where we live
the Enchanted Forest because we want to constantly remind ourselves of the
magic we are surrounded with. Our current
language of separation confuses us and we believe humans need to disentangle ourselves
from that language that continues this separation. It is not us and them. It is not the miraculous or the
ordinary. It is We. It is Magic.
