The Queen of Bohemia is in the garden. She is in her little piece of paradise. It took a very, very long time to get there. There were many terrible earthquakes, dragons and fierce fires to deal with. They nearly killed her. But she prevailed.
The difficulty was necessary. Because the difficulty nearly killed her, she was able to find the key. The long-lost key. The key that unlocked the door. For it is death that opens up the doors of life. And in between those two slips eternity, rooting up from the crack like a world tree, embracing everything in its branches.
It is time to return to writing. To telling the story. It has been a long time since I've written. Buenos Aires was a pause of personal reflection and adventure for my own eyes only. And since moving to St. Croix I have gone through extraordinary transformations. So much has happened to me in the last five months that it is a show-stopper. A hesitation to inquire into eternity and a personal testament of faith and perseverance. I survived. I stepped through the threshold. Now I thrive. What remains is for my story to be told. The whole story. The true story. And it's a good one.
I sit on the porch on the new house I moved into March 1 here in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I overlook an acre of fruit trees, aloe flowers, a pavilion, and the basil garden that my Puerto Rican farmer friend, Tonio, has started. Just over the bush I can see aqua peeps of the Caribbean Sea. It is here that I will do my healing. My healing with story and yoga. For the garden is so healing. Truly it is paradise to witness the hours beneath the palm trees and night sky. To be surrounded by nature, four dogs and my beloved children. To do nothing but slow down, harmonize and balance with nature all around, and tell the story.
I return to meditation each morning on the porch. To just sit and rest in the peace that slips in between the thoughts. I return to yoga practice on the porch as well, where a cool breeze caresses my skin and reminds me how lucky I am to be here in the body, alive, in such a beautiful place. Truly my heart has journeyed arduous and with much despair to finally reach such a place. It is as if after so many years of obstacles and struggle I have busted through to the other side. The transformation is complete. The past is gone and only remains as a wing of a story on a shelf. For I am reborn anew. A radiant bird rising out of its own fire and ashes. Phoenix of the world recreated as me in a new setting, theme and body.
So I begin. In addition to my daily gardening on my little Herb Farm in St. Croix, I will reflect in memoir on my life. How did I get here? What is the truth of my life? What needs to be told? What story remains in my body to be witnessed and expressed. It all comes out in the garden, on the yoga mat, in meditation and in the story. For God likes stories and I like to give a good show.
Tonio has started the garden. Tonio is my 71-year-old Puerto Rican farmer neighbor who used to care for the first house I rented. My absentee cop landlord abandoned him and his dog. I fed them all and we bonded over gardening and sustainable living. Ultimately the creepy cop landlord evicted him when he would not do repairs he was not licensed to do, and then when I protested, made a list of problems with the house that had not been solved and took Tonio to Legal Aid, I was evicted too. So we fled and now he helps me drive my kids to school, takes care of my car, cleans and gardens in exchange for room and board. There are four bedrooms in the main house for me and my kids and my art/writing studio and a separate cottage for Tonio. The landlady, a woman from Granada, lives down below and gives us different things, tables, waffle irons, even use of her Jeep. Turns out we can have goats and chickens after all! Tonio knows how to care for everything. He's been on his own since age 10, doing every kind of job from taxi driver in New York City to truck driver in New Jersey, to working at a local cement plant for $5 an hour. He speaks in limited English, yet is highly intelligent and skillful, especially in the ways of gardening by the moon,(you cut wood from the bush after a full moon so that it does not rot) what it smells like if it's going to rain, and what plant is good for what medicine. He knows all the names of the trees and how to care for them and cook them. He brings me fresh passionfruit from the garden when they're ripe and teaches me to make tostones with plantains. He is the shaman that I should have studied with years ago when I was in the Ecuadorian Amazonian jungle. He is so valuable to know the earth. To be directly involved with your food, from its seed to the table, is so profoundly satisfying. It is at the heart of all yoga, this sadana of practice to connect to nature and its powers and wisdom. The simple act of life and home and family all roll out from my Householder Yogini heart. I am so grateful.
In my slow poke way, I'd love to create a perfectly sustainable place in preparation for economic downturn. At least it's already started here in St. Croix with the closing of the Hovensa Oil Refinery. The Virgin Islands is in a state of economic collapse. But that's what brought me here. I knew it was all coming. This was a perfect place to weather the storm that is happening all over the world. How to survive. Here, lots of food; everything grows. Warm weather, drop-dead gorgeous landscape and ocean. Good people. Lots of challenges but I could never deal with the mainland again to live, even though I like to visit for intellectual and artistic stimulation. Gas prices are going up, but avocados, breadfruit, passionfruit, mango, bananas, limes, coconut, carambola, guava, all are within reach of my eager backyard hands. What an adventure, to live back on the land, back with nature. The peace I feel. The joy and happiness. My little family is finally healed.
Tonio got started right away. First by transplanting two plantains from his old garden back in Estate Enfield Green where we lived, to also transplanting my basil. I want to grow lots of basil for pesto. And lots of green peppers and tomatoes and cucumbers and onions for gazpacho. And of course I write about and photograph the garden. I will be writing my memoir from the garden, and I will have a show of my photographs at some point. Happy storytelling, yoga and gardening. His friends Cholo and Max stopped by to see the garden. They knew everything about the plants too and identified a few chicken sheds from behind Tonio's cottage. I'm looking forward to learning how to make breadfruit punch and juices from the other fruit trees, some so exotic I cannot pronounce their names. I want to know the stories and medicinal values of the plants, and I want to use them. Like take a bath in bay leaves from the bay leaf tree, learn how to make shampoo from avocados and aloe and make bush tree from lemongrass and peppermint.
And so the story continues. From the garden, here in my little piece of paradise.
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