My wife and I have been living off-grid for over 11 years and our approach is different than anything else we did in our lives. We decided to surrender to spirit and that meant a whole new level of living. Instead of working hard to achieve our own objectives, we surrendered to spirit and decided to work on the areas that spirit called us to do.
We quit our jobs, moved out of the city, sold our home, closed down bank accounts, got ride of credit cards, lines of credit and most other connections to the colonial system. We jumped in with both feet, no life preserver, no line line. We were going to make this work, no matter what happened.
When the money ran out we thought that we were really on our own. That is when we started to realize just how dependent we are on Mother Earth to provide for our needs. This whole time we depended on others to do the work that we are capable of doing ourselves. That is when we scrambled to start planting gardens, raising live stock and work at learning what wild food we had available to us and our family.
That is also when we started opening our eyes to the opportunities that spirit sent our way. For most of my life, I said 'no' and now I had to learn how to say a discerning 'yes'. I say discerning because not everything that comes into our lives is spirit driven. Lots of times it is driven by ego or temptations that will lead us astray. We had to learn how to touch base with our hearts and really FEEL our way through the decisions that we make.
Our potato crop (2018) from a different perspective
I'll be forthcoming, sometimes we did not listen to what our hearts were saying and made choices contrary to what spirit wanted us to do. These mistakes were wonderful learning opportunities and we often got through them saying 'we should have listened'!
Living in this way requires a significant effort to decolonize our minds as we are trained from the beginning that the goal in life was a big house, white picket fence, college degree, nice career, car, toys and lots of money in the bank. When we accomplish that goal we are 'successful'.
We don't live that way. In fact, I was taking to our neighbour years ago about our life style. She told me that she won't be making changes in her life as she does not want to live in poverty. This demonstrates the rift that is growing between spirit driven life and colonization. People view the decolonization process as living in poverty and it is really tough to break that mind set. If we want to live spirit driven life, we have work to do in order to decolonize our way of thinking and how we make decisions.
But there is something even deeper to all of this and it has to do with how we feel going through this process. There are times in our life where we have no money. None. Zip. Zero. The feelings that we experience when this happens is uncomfortable as our old programming kicks in. We experience anxiety, stress and even start to worry. It is so hard to deprogram ourselves from all the brain washing that we went through. It is even harder to deprogram ourselves when friends and family pass judgement or engage in their own emotional plague reactions when they witness what we are experiencing.
Baby chick hatch (1 day old) - 2018
It is important to disclose that in the 11 years we have been living this way, not once have we gone without food, had no fuel to travel into town, been cold because the gas got cut off, had the power company cut off our power, municipality cut off our water or anything like that. We have ALWAYS had our needs met, though not the way we thought they should be met. We had to meet them ourselves. The corporation cannot cut off anything for us because we cut THEM off instead. We have no relationships with those corporations other than the telecommunications company. But we still manage to pay that one bill, thanks to steem! I'm here on steemit because spirit asked me to be here.
This way of living requires flexibility and a willingness to surrender to spirit and do what spirit asks. The vast majority of the times, our needs are met through avenues completely unexpected to us. We don't 'see' the majority of the stuff going on and when it does arrives, it is a surprise.
It takes years to learn how to trust spirit in this way. Even after 11 years, I still struggle with the trust. Not that Spirit has ever let me down, but rather as a result of my continued efforts to decolonize my mind. It may take a life time to unlearn what I have learned so that I can approach life in a completely different way. It is the damn programming that causes my stress, not surrendering to spirit.
This does not mean I can just sit on the couch and spirit will serve me. Far from it. Living a spirit driven life requires a lot of hard work. My friend once told me "you cannot just lay in the middle of the field and God will build a house around you". Nope. God will provide the materials I need. It is up to me to build the house.
Living a spirit driven life requires action, interaction with others, hard work and being forever vigilant and open to the possibilities. Being ready to say 'yes' when the opportunities come but also discerning to ensure that ego or some other energy is not trying to derail our life. I know that over time, my trust of spirit will continue to grow. It is very strong already and I look forward to my faith and trust being even stronger. As I venture down this path, the decolonization of my mind continues to unfold slowly over time. I look forward to the day where I no longer have the anxiety and stress associated with the false principles of colonization. Being able to process those emotional plague reactions has made this journey a thousand times easier, though it is still difficult. I can see why most people don't do it.
Yes, from the colonial way of thinking, we live in poverty. We live on less than $750 a month and shooting for zero. But I will also admit that I think we are some of the most wealthy people on this planet. Our definition of wealth is not based on fiat currency, holding titles, how much fictional stuff we possess or the size of a portfolio. Our definition of wealth is in our capacity to experience healthy relationships with our selves, each other, Creator, Mother Earth, plants, animals, water and even the air we breath. Our wealth is spiritual in nature. The rewards that we have found comes from spirit, not the state.
The journey is uncomfortable and most lack the faith to take that leap. But for all those that do, bravo! No matter what the colonized people do, you have taken an important step towards the Kingdom of Heaven as it is and always was within YOU!
I love you all.
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