Being embraced by a culture and its people, generally and locally, thriving under the winter sun, celebrating life and the adventure of new friendships – is our day to day life in beautiful Catalunia, and makes it impossible to leave
Af Cecilie Felumb Conrad | January 18, 2019
I am writing on the last pages of my diary in the mornings, and as such, I realize, the year is running out. The sun rises over the carob trees in the mornings, and sets in the horizon behind the mountains in the late afternoons. It is winter, when I wake up at 5 in the morning a bit cold under my blankets, and hug my children, so we can keep warm, until we get up and start the fire. Days open and close, moments come to us like sparks of light, like pearls in shells, like heartbeats and focusing eyes, and we stay present.
The balance of our adventure has shifted from one of moving around and being overwhelmed by all of the new horizons, to one of a different kind. Having one base for a long time in this vegan paradise, Mon La Bassa, opens different opportunities, an abundance of opportunities. The weeks passing makes solid ground for more nuanced relations to build, and for deeper understanding of the culture, for studies of local history, of languages. We have been here for a long time, and it is like a box with more boxes inside, like a present we keep opening.
At the same time, the not-moving around, gives us room to reflect in a different way, and on the practical level, to put up extra lamps, sort our stuff, adjust tiny house living strategies, find new solutions and options in the bus.
As such, it is an adventure on many levels, NOT to move.
As an example, we had an awakening thursday night, when we went to the supermarket. Yes. The supermarket can spark important insights. We have a conscious relation to money, the energy and symbols of money, the balance and flow, and actually, we want to avoid supermarkets. The transit to bus-living has been full of new things to learn, understand, new habits to build or change, and the adventure has been great. But we have also chosen to embrace the fact: Perfect is in the horizon, and we are coming. In other words: We have done most of our shopping for vegan, organic, local, wonderful food … in supermarkets.
Thursday night, we did it again. And, as we payed for it, we realized: This is not right. This is not what we want to do. So, we asked local friends, we now have, and we did our googeling, and friday we did a tour of the local market and the small organic / alternative shops of the city El Vendrell, which is closest. And guess what? It was all there. In abundance. The first press olive oil, the organic, local, fantastic broccoli and kale, the medjoul dates, the soy yogurt, the dried organic strawberries. All of it. And the organic farmer was all nice, in such a calm way.
It seems, life is awesome. Like in awe. Like in bow your head, woman, and be grateful. So I do, and I am.
Still equinox, on the 22th, we joined the perfect christmas market party at Mon La Bassa. Sun was shining, so was the bus, loads of people arrived, and we joined. Mon La Bassa celebrated Christmas with a totally loco nativity play. It was performed where the animals live with lots of different scenes, and funny music and faces, and even though we speak neither spanish or catalan well enough to understand any detail, we had so much fun! After, we joined the market and talked to many interesting people, some of which we knew already, and some new to us. The openmindeness of these people, the open hearts, the vibration so equal to the one of our family gave us a day of flow and of love. We shopped as much as we could at Mon La Bassas market as all money go to the project, and showed the bus to many different people. We played music in the sun and made good friends.
One of our new friends, Yasmina, invited us to celebrate her birthday in the church the same evening. We – that is I – felt immediately – we had to do this.
The sun set, we said goodbye to many people, the full moon rose and everything was so beautiful and calm. It felt a bit …. off to leave. We did not know, what kind of celebration we were about to join. Gospel? Family-religious-christmas-event? Sining? Mass? But we biked under the moon, alongside the carob trees and the vineyards, and eventually the mediterranean. Oh, the beauty!
Arriving, we realised: It was a party. With loud music, chips, beer, wine. Inside and mostly outside the church, with a playground just outside and awesome wonderful dancing music, nice loving people. We had wine and juice, chips and smiles, danced and sat on the swings. It was just amazing, the best party in a very very long time. The vibe was so right, so inclusive, so loving, so full of the happiness, life is all about.
The inner journey is just as amazing as the outer: The knowing what we have to do, based on emotion and intuition, and just day after day, from one location and situation to another, feeling the flow of the awesome life in love, happiness and abundance. This trust, eventually the trust God has a plan and has our back and the plan is very good, all we need to do is trust it, this trust is what we keep learning. It all opens, becomes more and more amazing, more and more evident.
And I must say: WE LOVE CATALUNYA, we love this particular area, this inclusive, open culture, this power of getting things done, standing upright for your values in a non-aggressive way.
The final day of the week, we picked up our friend Søren from Copenhagen, happy to know we will spend both Christmas and new year with him, even expecting more friends to arrive the day after.
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Af Cecilie Felumb Conrad | January 18, 2019
HUSK!
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Week 52 – A peaceful Christmas far away from home