2007-05-02

This entry is a true catch-up entry, spanning several visits I made to Avalon’s sweet acres, only two of which I shall describe in detail.

Firstly, though, I would like to offer some thoughts on the transition from November of 2005, when Hotaru (Vara) made her last entries in the Avalon Journal, until now, in May of 2007..

There was a dwindling of the volunteers at Avalon through the summer and fall of 2005. All the people left for their own, personal reasons. All left on good terms with us. But each did leave, until only Hotaru/Vara and Bear/Bruce were left on the farm. Hotaru decided to move into town and stayed with us briefly at Camelot before moving to another old farm near Shelbyville, Kentucky where she stayed until just this last month, when she departed for Georgia.

That left Bruce all on his own at the farm as of November. Bruce was in poor health. Jim and I decided to close the construction portion of the Avalon project. There was no crew to do Bruce’s bidding and without a crew, he could not function. Also we reckoned with the actual cost of feeding and paying the expenses for all the volunteers and discovered that we could not sustain the effort. We never could recruit donations from the public at large for this project and so the expenses had fallen on Jim and me entirely.

We offered Bruce the opportunity to stay on Avalon and begin working with the land bio-dynamically. However this prospect did not intrigue Bruce. He was not fond of living so roughly or of farming. He felt that he was better at construction than farming. At the time there were people out west whom he felt he could help more with his construction know-how than he could help L/L Research. So we shipped his back hoe and his chattels back to his ranch and Avalon was peacefully empty of living souls once more.

Just before Bruce left – I cannot find the exact date, but I believe it was sometime in January or early February of 2005 – I took a journey to Avalon, bringing with me Dr. Steven Johnson, an osteopath, alternative healer and bio-dynamic farming fan. He wished to see the land, as he had some friends who were looking for good bio-dynamic land in this area. He thought perhaps they and L/L Research could collaborate.

Johnson did not feel, upon viewing the property, that Avalon was a candidate for his friends' projects, which involved farming in the meadow area, our only cleared acreage. It both floods in wet weather and is draughty for several months at summer’s end each year. This removed our land from his consideration.

However he loved the place. He described it as a psychic collector. Whatever one brought to Avalon would intensify until one had to face it. This explained at least in part why so many volunteers had found it a challenging experience to live there! It was a real hothouse for transformation and if one was not ready to change, one needed to leave!

For Jim and me, however, this feature has always been a real plus. We experience Avalon as a place which loves us and can’t wait to see us. Perhaps after working with spiritual processes for decades, we are more willing to change under Avalon’s influence. For whatever reason, we have always experienced the farm as a wonderfully empowering place.

I was heartbroken to see the scars which had been left on our land by unfinished projects. The meadow was full of all sorts of metal debris; nails, bolts, pieces of metal and other building materials were apparently left where they had fallen. A failed effort to plow the meadow had ruptured the land with several huge furrows, far too wide for planting – more like ditches. These had been left as they were. Construction materials were placed here and there along the meadow as if planning for projects to come. When the projects were abandoned, the materials remained.

Two sides of a fence had been put up, presumably for a garden. The project lay abandoned. Our ancient well had been filled in with dirt.

Trees and bushes had been torn down because of their “negative energy” and left to rot where they lay. At this point Bruce was unable to work. So things of nature on Avalon were in a royal mess.

However, much work had been done to improve Sugar Shack. There were many jacks under the floor firming up the building, which is at least 150 years old, and looks it! Vara and Parnell had lovingly restored the old one-eye cook-stove. Vara had insulated the rooms in use in the Shack and she and Bruce had screened in the back porch. The tin roof was re-painted, a hard job done well by the crew.

And since we had solar power to the utility shed and Sugar Shack thanks to Bruce and the crew’s building efforts, there was minimal “civilized” comfort possible in the valley now. All of this was a blessing and Jim and I greatly appreciated the improvements.

An unfortunate decision had been made to take down Jim’s system of ditches and drains on the access road in favor of a system of culverts and pipes. This new system did not work, and the road was perilously close to dropping down into the ravine made by a feeder creek into the Locust Creek which bisects our meadow. Both on the access road and in the meadow, the big back hoe had been too much of a good thing, and the whole area was muddy as the big machine churned up pasture and road as it went.

I got back on the road with Steve J, my head whirling with the mostly bad news of Avalon’s situation! I had had no idea how chaotic and toxic things had gotten on Avalon. Yet at the same time I felt, as I have felt from the first time we saw Avalon together in 1985, that this land is sacred, beautiful and special.

Steve suggested that we look into growing wild herbs at the edges of the woods as opposed to doing traditional farming. We had no water on the land and no system of irrigation which could draw off the creek’s flow, so normal farming was out for us down there.

Steve and I had an interesting conversation on these points, and we were absorbed in it, only slowly becoming aware, as we drove along, that something serious was happening with the weather. It grew very bad indeed. We had driven over the bridge into Madison, Indiana, as Dr. J wanted to check out the downtown area there for his bio-dynamic researcher friends. The sky got so black and the winds whipped up so much that we parked and went into a coffee shop there to wait out the storm.

We found out later that several full-blown tornados had ripped through the area. It was a very good thing we were off-road for that short period of time! Steve and I had a nice cuppa and suddenly the world was smiling again, the storm having washed the weather clean and calm. So we got back on the road to come home.

About ten miles into the fifty-mile trip, we saw an amazingly complete double rainbow. All the colors were there, and there twice. It was just breath-taking! We parked for a while and just took it all in. After a few minutes, it began to fade and we took up our journey again, only to find another, equally spectacular double rainbow across our path. Again, we pulled over and communed with its beauty. This one lasted for almost half an hour.

Rainbows are traditionally signs of good news, promises for the future, and I believe that our rainbows were Avalon’s promise: it was still good land; community there was still a good idea; all was well.

A year has passed since those rainbows graced my eyes. Thanks to grants from generous donors, I have been able to spend this last year working on creative projects here at Camelot. I have not returned to Avalon except once or twice until this last Sunday. Jim has been going up on weekends and working to clear the debris left by our volunteers. All the metal and construction material is now picked up, so he can mow the meadow again. Fescue, a wonderfully aggressive grass, has re-covered almost all of the muddy places in the meadow that the big back-hoe had torn up. Jim took three truck-loads of debris from inside Sugar Shack and the utility shed and from the dooryard area and spruced things up tremendously. Jim continued to clean up during this visit last Sunday while I settled myself by the creek and just enjoyed the beauty.

In this past year, we have refined our own plans for moving to Avalon. We have retained a passive solar architect, Gary Watrous, and he has created for us plans for a house for us and the L/L Research work. We cannot at this time afford to build that house, so our plan now is to save and look forward to the day when we can make that move.

There is a Library in that house-to-be! How sweet it will be to have allof our books in one room! And what a beautiful space that will be for L/L Gatherings! We have much to envision and imagine into manifestation!

Jim intends to go up to Avalon on weekends all this summer and work more on the road, which is again washing in spite of our pouring a large amount of new gravel on the road. He recently poured concrete on the worst of the washed areas, an emergency save that worked. Under Jim’s tender care, I know Avalon will soon be completely recovered from our volunteers’ involuntary damage.

I have no ill will for any of the volunteers, all of whom were doing their absolute best at all times. The experiment of having people on Avalon without our being there to oversee and direct the work taught me a tremendous amount and I count it all as an experience well worth the gaining. I am just thankful that everyone’s patterns, which brought them to us with such high hopes, worked out so that all beings left us with their hearts and our hearts in good harmony and our mutual affections remaining bright and clear. These are the real treasures to store away in memory.

The future beckons. I would love to do channeling intensives on Avalon next year. By then, the place might be ready. We shall see! Meanwhile the land waits, singing its song of wildflowers and wind, running creek and limestone bedrock not too far beneath the soil. Fair indeed are Avalon’s hills and valley! I look forward to the ever-unfolding story of Avalon.