Here’s some great news. All this time at Gaia Sagrada a few of us have been
doing our best to keep up with everything that needs to be done, but it’s been
quite the challenge. Gaia Sagrada is bigger than we can do without more help.
We were trying to keep it kinda casual, but there just isn’t enough time in a
day to wear so many hats for just a few people. We needed someone to manage the
volunteer team, someone to take over the grounds, and another to run the
kitchen. Those are our three main departments, and we were getting worn a
little thin trying to run them all.
Help is here at last! We were getting a little too tired with only a
skeleton crew doing the millions of things that have to be done to make an
Ayahuasca retreat center run smoothly. We managed to pull it off, but finally,
as we go into 2015, we realize we do need to sleep sometimes!
So let me introduce you to some of the new helping angels who are here now,
taking command of the Starship Gaia Sagrada, and assisting you with your
journey into the final frontier, which is YOU!
Commander Stark is in the HOUSE!
Aron is helping us get it all on paper, creating systems, charts, training
manuals for staff and volunteers, and creating a whole new level of
organizational ways of doing things. It’s been really an answer to a prayer. We
call him Commander Stark (all kidding aside, this really does feel like flying
a Starship sometimes!) I’m so busy I can’t make the time to organize all of it.
Most of the techniques and methods of how to do things here are all in the
notebook in my head, so I am glad Aron is here getting everything all this
stuff about how to do things out of our heads and into a system that others can
follow so I can get some more rest and not have to be there for every little
detail that needs to be done. He’s going to get everything running like a top
in short order, and then has to go do some other things this summer, but will
always be back to Gaia Sagrada as a second home! He’s always welcome here.
Aron’s a great guy and everyone loves him too! A strange thing about him,
though, he runs around in shorts and a T-shirt and never seems to get cold at
night! Go figure. There’s a couple others like that around here, too, and it
just never ceases to amaze me that’s possible! It’s warm during the day, but
nights in the mountains can be a little chilly and yet he’s still in shorts. We
can’t figure it out.
The Amazing Carol, Tracy and Edith
Team!
We have three amazing ladies, Edith, Traci and Carol as the heads of the
departments. (Oooh boy, we have departments now!) They are beautiful, shiny
souls. I love these ladies, and they keep it all moving in a loving way. It’s
just wonderful to see. They are fun, sweet and everyone loves them just like I
do!
I’m trying to get used to my new role of not being the person wearing all
hats and stay out of their way. As you know, that can be a challenge for
workaholic like me. I don’t know how to act if I don’t have waaaaay to much to
do. What am I to do with myself if I start to have free time in life again?
(Gulp!) I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel though, it’s coming! I’m
actually going to have some free time soon. I might even sit in a hammock and
do nothing for a change and just watch butterflies fly around or something.
Hell will have frozen over, of course! Ready for that?
Edith – Garden Goddess
Extraordinaire!
Edith is the garden goddess turning Gaia Sagrada into a quaint paradise
village (working on the hobbit house in the shire area right now, I just bought
her a cute little birdhouse and mailbox for it that she doesn’t know about
yet!). She has great taste, really knows how to take a rather blah looking spot
and turn it into something magnificent. She’s the one who created the goddess
temple that you enjoy so much when you are here. It’s truly a special feeling
in there.
She has such great ideas that we simply cannot say no! She’s making this
place look wonderful. Green light, sister!
She is also a really positive gem, a red headed Aussie gal who says
“ay-deen” when she’s really saying eighteen. We love her accent! If you wanna
make Edith happy, well, go jump in the garden with her, get your hands in the
dirt, and learn how to say “ay-deen” RIGHT!
Tracy – 1st officer to Commander
Stark
Tracy is the
general manager for the time she’s here, and always has an open invitation to
come as she pleases. You know, scheduling the work exchange team, keeping track
of what’s been done and not been done, keeping everything on schedule, it’s no
easy task! Tracy
is worth her weight in gold!
When she says she’s passing through Ecuador, we open the doors for her
and roll out the red carpet because we love her so much! Her organizational
skills are amazing and she has a incredible smile that looks like the sun! She
is a world traveler who is blessing us with her presence for a while. Lucky us!
We would love to have her stay forever, but we’ll take whatever precious
moments with her we can get.
Check out her really cool travel blog at
http://thecuriousrambler.com/
and be impressed with her courage and perspective of the world. She has a
really thoughtful and intelligent input on all the places in the world she
visits, and she has no fear about anywhere she goes. She’s a true explorer!
Oh, and did we tell you she takes the most beautiful and interesting
photographs and puts them there for the world to see? Tracy has a real eye for detail. What a
talented lady!
Carol – Goddess of Nutritional
Abundance and Good Ol’ Fashioned Sweetness!
Carol is our food angel who is inventing stuff we never thought of, and
making sure you are healthy and nurtured as we take you on this whirlwind
transformational experience. She also has all kinds of cool knowledge about
strange and unusual things like how to maintain a kombucha mushroom project,
gluten free and non toxic things to use instead of what is usually used in food,
and she also has a wealth of information on all kinds of ways to take care of
yourself and stay healthy.
Did I also mention that everyone just loves having her tell them what to do?
Some people have a special talent where people WANT to do things for them
rather than feeling like they HAVE to do things for them. Carol has that gift!
Even if she has to remind you, in her gentle sweet way, no smoking in
the community center, or to wash your dish after breakfast, you ask, “How clean
can I do it for you, and do you have more dishes I can help you with? I’m
yours!” rather than grumble, grumble. We have seen her get even the most
stubborn amongst us to ask “How high” when she says jump because she is such a
wonderful person and says it in her sweet Southern comfort kind of way that you
just WANT to do it!
Now THAT is a rare talent and a gift in my opinion!
Thank you to the Bridge! My Prayers Are Answered!
I just have to say thank you to these wonderful people who have taken
command of the Starship Gaia Sagrada so we can all get some sleep sometimes now
that the work is spread out a little more amongst us! We are so grateful to
them, and they are an answer to our prayers. Gaia Sagrada needed more hands for
a while now, and now they are here!
One day I was in the sweat lodge during one of the ceremonies, and suddenly
I felt a lot of angels and spirit guides around me, the ones who work with our
shamans, participants, and this land, and they were embracing me so lovingly I
cried. They said, “You never ask for anything for yourself. We want to give you
something. You work so hard to make everyone safe, loved and provide a life
changing opportunity for them, but it’s time for you to have something you
want. What do you want?”
I didn’t have to think long about what I wanted. I knew. “Time. That’s what
I need and want. Time to just be with my husband, time to smell the roses, time
to have a private life again. We need more help so we can rest a little more
and enjoy the beauty all around us and not be working all the time.”
I felt something like a quake underneath reality, as if the framework under
my world was shifting, moving, and the spirits were all smiling and said,
“Done. Help is on it’s way.” With a last embrace, they were gone and on the job
of setting up reality to call the souls to Gaia Sagrada who would become new
staff and would benefit from being at Gaia Sagrada, and who we would benefit
from having in our lives and fall in love with.
Look! Proof that prayers are answered! Thank you dear beautiful ones for
being the answer to my prayer!
