"Forgiveness is giving so give yourself this gift from time to time."
by Trevor Hall in Forgive

I'd like to start by expressing gratitude for all of the Steemians who have witnessed, uplifted, inspired, shared and connected with us. Our journey on Steemit has been a wonderful ride so far because of ALL OF YOU! So thanks to all of you for showing up and holding it down in all the ways you do.

A big part of this has been because of our involvement with @ecotrain, a group full of positive and uplifting folks creating Earth-centered and consciousness raising content. Wren had seen @eco-alex's (the driver of #ecotrain) posts and felt an immediate attraction and asked to join! Soon after we were accepted aboard and away we went. We are all stronger together and we are continually inspired by the passengers! This is such fantastic group of souls who continually write things that touch the heart, inspire, challenge, educate and edify!! Love you all!

If this community sounds interesting to you please read this post: @ecoTrain has arrived at Discord, Join us - we want to discover you! So please consider joining the ecoTrain discord channel!

@eco-alex recently invited us all to write a post reintroducing ourselves, which I think is a great idea. We all read so much content on Steemit, but it's really great to get to know who is behind all this creative juiciness. So here's a bit about us @mountainjewel.

We got on Steemit in early December 2017. Our friend @lauralee introduced us to it through Instagram saying, You should really check this thing out! It took us a couple months, but we are sure happy we listened to her advice and checked it out! Our "introduceyourself" article didn't have any pictures and didn't include too many details! We've learned a lot since then about how to sculpt blog posts, format, and so many ins and outs of Steemit! You all have also learned a lot out about us through our posts, but here's a little recap:

We are a duo of Earth-walkers named Wren and Ini. We live on and steward 18 acres in the Ozarks of Southern Missouri and are working everyday towards a better, brighter, healthier and happier future. We do this by living our dream day in and day out through thick and thin. We share details, practical tutorials, thought pieces, etc about our journey into homesteading, off grid living, herbalism, natural building and perennial agriculture. We are living this life because because we believe in a more vibrant and aligned way of living than we see portrayed in modern culture. Truly, if we weren't living this life, we would likely both become unhappy and/or sick so we know it's the right one for us!

We are a family, although many of the members aren't human and it is growing everyday. Our family includes the animals, plant, fungi, bacteria and other creatures that share space with us on our home turf. We are co-creating a space where connections happen and possibilities open up. Our larger vision is evolving into the Center for Earth Connection where folks can explore a variety of Earthly Elements in an immersive, harmonious and loving environment. Opening our homestead up so that others may grow, learn, share, collaborate and become infused and inspired by the Earth is a long-term goal and we're laying the foundation for that step by step. We are after all children of Gaia and the remembering and respecting this is not always a given for us humans. We seek to create a space for the embodiment of sacred Earth connection free from dogmas, boundaries, labels and "shoulds".

We both traveled and worked on farms, visited intentional communities, wandered, hitch hiked, etc before we met and then we did that for another 4 years after we met in 2012. We met at OUR Ecovillage in Canada where Ini was the garden manager and Wren had come up on the bicycle on a solo adventure. I remember the night we sat around a fire talking about our dreams. They were so aligned I think then and there both of us were wondering if we should try it together. It's funny when you meet people; oftentimes we never know just how much a part of our lives they'll become. This happened here and we believe it was divinely inspired.

The blessings that we've been gifted on each of our journeys and then together from countless people, communities, farms, angels, plants, trees, animals, moments, hardships, lessons, etc are many and we realize that we stand on top of the shoulders of so many who came before us. We are a part of a long line of Earth Kin who use their voices to speak up for the ones who humans have a hard time hearing.

In college, Wren got deeply into ecopsychology and spent a lot of time in nature on adventures and leading groups as she studied Outdoor Recreation and Resource Management. She'd always felt the stirrings of the questions of existence. You know, Where are we from?, How did we get here?, Why are we here and Where are we going?... She spent a lot of time prodding and exploring and feels not that she knows the answers, but is at peace with the questions. Those years of questioning and questing, along with later experiences studying Alternative forms of healing, therapy, and massage formed her desire to one day open a retreat center. This is where landing the dreams is so important.

Ini spent time in college being exposed to exploring a lot of alternative and radical lifestyles, learning through direct experience and continually seeking the most aligned way to live.

Through his studies in the Indigenous Studies Program, he was given teachings from elders and was invited to participate in numerous ceremonies. This helped inform his worldview and broaden the scope of his awareness and connection to the Sacred.

As both Ini and Wren were travelers, there reached a point when they both felt within that traveling had served them for that time in place and there was something missing. That something missing was creating hOMe, manifesting so many earth skills they'd collected and, one day, inviting people in to learn, rejuvenate, rest, restore, play, make art/create, and share experiences.

A Center for Earth Connection

This is how the Center for Earth Connection began and we call this, our home, Mountain Jewel. To us, to live in such close connection with the cycles of the earth and all of the beauty is truly a gem and we are so blessed to have this opportunity. From experiences in nature, we've come to believe that so much healing, wisdom, knowledge come directly from the source of being in nature. It's that simple. We want to provide a haven where people remember these wisdoms directly. Teaching and sharing what we have learned, yes, but also just leading by example and letting people experience what is there for them to learn on their own. That is the amazing power of the earth!

Cycles of Abundance

By taking part in cycles of abundance on the land, in our home, with our neighbors, and planting for the future, it is our goal to create a place that is teeming with life and has an aura of abundance about it. We want so much fruit we can't eat it all, full root cellars, incredible mind-boggling biodiversity. We want people to come here and palpably feel and experience the joy of living on Earth. And then we want to share that so humans can remember that, though the current cycles and economic systems are built on scarcity and one-upmanship, it doesn't have to be this way. We want to be living proof.

As many of you know, we have built the buildings on our homestead from the ground up and though we had both taken part on building projects, neither of us had ever been totally in control and responsible for building. We have learned so much and have worked very hard. It was a bare piece of land when we moved there, with only a driveway leading up the steep hill. The first year we lived in a yurt without running water and we would pump water from the neighbors. We practiced the Permaculture principle of observation and didn't do much long term planting that year, only established a few annual food beds and built a composting toilet.

Since then we’ve established hundreds of trees, shrubs, medicines, natives, and cycled through many yummy annuals. We are completely off grid and self sustaining on a solar system we installed ourselves. We have a high tunnel and are looking at installing another one in April (that we got a grant for!). We are incredibly blessed on the land and have some great friends and neighbors. Wouldn’t be the same without them.

We also can’t imagine our lives without Steemit at this point! In 3 quick months we have fallen in love with this web of interactions and are here for the long term. Thank you again for each of you. We look forward to more wonderful shares and getting to know you all better over time.

We invite you all to unfurl along with us. Listen to the deepest inner whispers in your being and allow yourself to live them into the waking light of day! Much love!!