One Year at Chuckleberry Farm
I arrived at Chuckleberry on the 18th of February 2023. Today is the 26th of February 2024, and in two days I will leave the Farm.
The person who arrived here is mostly gone. What survived this time here of the person I was is hopefully continuing to die as I journey on.
I arrived here with the story in my mind, that I know how transformation goes. I know what it looks like, I even know how to do it with other people.
In my story about myself, I was walking on the path of transformation seriously committed for the last 5 years at least.
These ideas about myself got questioned if not even destroyed.
You might wonder now, that this doesn’t sound appealing at all. Having my ideas about myself destroyed, and dying? What is the use of that?
This notion is only appealing to a certain kind of people. People who are interested in waking up out of the illusions they live in. These people are rare to find. They are a certain kind of weird community that seeks out dangerous spaces and dangerous conversations for the sake of discovering what is real. They carry questions inside like: “What is going on behind the stories the mind constantly creates about everything and everyone? What is the reality of being?”
Those kinds of people stay around at Chuckleberry. It was a hard and long journey for me to discover the difference between the stories my mind has about people and the reality that lives in the heart of my being with those people. Nothing will ever make up for the value I got out of finding and continuously finding the beingness of myself and of others.
At Chuckleberry I got to live in a community setting. People come, people go. There is an alive tohuwabouhu (the German word for exactly that) of people living here for some time, bringing themselves in and leaving. It is all held by a structure of working together on the farm, daily check-ins, and two weekly opportunities to be together and discover and heal what is happening in the relational field.
Many people I have encountered here walk past the precious opportunity this place holds. For me, Chuckleberry is a place to heal the depths of what needed to find healing in myself. A place where I could learn who I am in relationships with people who are willing to see and meet all the facets of my being. My tender, wild, loud, quiet, chaotic, fierce, crazy, powerful, caring, in need, or giving sides were held in a nonwavering (of course sometimes also challenged and triggered) consciousness of the people here.
Chuckleberry is a wellspring of transformational opportunities. The work I did here 6 hours a day, 5 days a week taught me a lot about myself. I grew up never really enjoying work. Work was a hassle I had to do, but it was mostly just in the way of me doing what I wanted to do. Here, I got to encounter parts of me that need and cherish to work physically. Working is an opportunity to practice bringing all my energy forward. Practicing navigating the physical world with more skillfulness, power, ease, and elegance is growing my capacity to show up as these qualities in the world. Having something to do, no matter if “I” (the idea of me) wants to do it right now, allowed me to practice being something that transcends my self-image, and I learned (and am still learning) to enjoy being, no matter what I am doing. To have the structure of work created also a strong fundament of staying engaged while inside all kinds of storms were blowing. This strength seems to me essential for being able to move something in the world whilst being on a transformational path.
What Chuckleberry also is, is an open playground. I could bring my proposals, what I care about, and for example practice holding space for things I want to explore. In all that I got feedback about the things that are not working because I am ongoing in relation with other honest people.
This whole place is infused with the spirit of healing, evolution, and grace. The trees and the land itself seem to be eager to support each person living here. I experienced many wonderful encounters with animals, with the creek close by, and the mountains I saw every day became my dear friends.
Last but not least the spaceholders of Chuckleberry are holding a sacred connection with God, Spirit, Bright Principles or however you want to call that mysterious force that animates all of existence. They offered me the chance to encounter that force for myself. To be moved by it, to be shaken to my core. To see what huge commitment it takes to live a life dedicated to this mystery. In their example, I could see that my egocentric ideas, problems, and even pains are little to no excuse at all to justify my lack of love, my lack of dedication, and my arrogant ideas of not having to put all of myself into the work to live a life that serves something greater than myself.
The inspiration and dedication I drew from this time nurtured a sacred fire in me that I will tend to with my life. I am at the beginning of a long journey, and I am glad that I no longer (or at least not so often) delude myself about being further along the path than I actually am.
I am immeasurable grateful to have encountered Chuckleberry Farm as I did with the people who I met here. You have changed my life and you will be forever in my heart.
I love you, thank you!
