It has been three weeks since my last confession….I mean BLOG entry….and I can’t believe it has been so long since I posted anything!  it certainly isn’t because there has been a shortage of happenings with us Berries in the Berry Patch!

We left Monterey after Thanksgiving and camped back in San Luis Obispo, which we have decided is our new homeplace.  We just love it in SLO…the energy there is a GREAT match for us and where we want to go in our lives.  We are so very grateful to have found our new location, and so easily and quickly!  Now we have the task of manifesting actually living here!

We considered traveling around some more, but none of us want to, so we are stationed in SLO for the forseeable future.  We are looking for a long-ish term solution to camp in the RV, perhaps a spot of private land someone would rent to us where we can plug in and live until we sell the Colorado properties and/or manifest other miracles!  If you know of a possible solution or have a creative idea, please be in touch!

Today we are celebrating Solstice (Winter in this hemisphere).  We find the Solstice to be much more where our hearts resonate during the whole holiday hoopla.  For me, it is because the Solstice is not a man-made event chosen on some arbitrary day, but a celestial one, one that is way beyond our control as human beings to mis-interpret or twist to our agenda.  It is very simple….it is the end of the long dark and the coming of the light.  Good reason to celebrate in my view!       

I have felt since the election that we have all been very tired….bone tired, in fact, as though lots of us have been in labor pains for many, many years, and that we finally succeeded in birthing this new era, symbolized by the election of Obama.  I am weary from the effort, me thinks!  But this is just the beginning…this baby is brand new and it will take a firm, wise and compassionate hand to raise it!

It feels so perfect to me that the Winter Solstice is following so closely after the election….I think of Solstice as a wonderful time to reflect on what I have learned in the last year, and to thank the Whole of Creation for all that it has brought to me…..and then to dream about the new cycle that is coming, the fresh year ahead.  What do I desire?  What are the next steps in my growth and understanding?  How can I be the best Divine Human that I can be and be of service to the Whole?   What is so very dear to my heart?  These are all wonderful things to reflect on this day.

And tomorrow, we will have our version of the gift giving that occurs in other holidays…the day after Solstice feels like a day of abundance and celebration to me, an ushering in of the new energy that we are choosing to align ourselves with.

May you have a peaceful and fulfilling Solstice, and blessings to you and yours!

xoxoxo

Licia and da Berry Boys

I personally felt like the Pacific NW was our final destination point, as I feel a strong draw to the culture there.  The big hitch with living in the Pacific NW is the weather….my boys are all sunshine folks, so that was a major stumbling block to seeing us there.  I could see me there just fine, but what about my sweet Berry peeps?

But in mid-September, as I was sitting in session with the Angelic folk one early morning, I was told to “expect a surprise in November.”  Ooooh, mysterious!  I asked some questions about it, trying to unwrap the package early, but no go….nothing was revealed to me at that time except that it was concerning something good for my whole family.

Well, I think we now know what that good surprise was.  San Luis Obispo.

We arrived here after a gorgeous trip up the coast from Los Angeles (wow, Ventura through Santa Barbara is stunning), and pulled into the El Chorro County Park, just on the north edge of town off of Hwy. 1.  We immediately felt so comfortable…the hills are here, and some trees, but it is not a choking feeling of claustrophobia….we can still see the sky as there is plenty of open space.  We met my dear friend Terry Musch, a soul brother that I reconnected with last year, downtown for a fantastic Thai dinner. We walked around town in the dark, not seeming to mind the drizzling rain that was coming down….we were exhausted from the day of travel, but something was holding us up as we gazed upon the downtown lights and felt the awesome energy of place.

The subsequent days were mostly spent driving around with Terry….you could never want a more fantastic tour guide!  Terry is such a generous soul, and genuinely wants to share the goodness he has found in SLO.  He connected us with a beautiful friend Lori Steed, who among other talents is a professional photographer.  It was Lori who organized and invited us to the election party in Avila Beach on Tuesday, November 4^th, a historic day which we will all remember in this family until we croak!

The more time we spent exploring the area and checking in with our feelings, the more we felt how comfortable we were in SLO.  It was as if there was a magic curtain around SLO, and every time we went out of the area to explore a little further out, we felt a pronounced feeling of being out of that yummy space.  We talked about our feelings a lot, both intentionally asking each other and just spontaneously blurting out how god it felt to be there.  Very telling! 

We remembered that in 1993 Peter and I came through SLO on a west coast tour, again looking for our next location (we were living in Tucson at the time).  I was 5 months pregnant with Jess, and we were taking our last hurrah trip before our lives would be changed forever by having a child.  We had the sense of itchy feet then, and were looking for what was next for us.  On that trip, we drove through SLO and stayed in the area overnight at a B&B, and I remember having the best afternoon nap of my life as the cool breeze blew in the windows.  We walked around downtown way back then and thought this would be a great place to live.  Another contender on that trip was Corvallis, Oregon…..but the west coast was not to be our home at that time.  We wound up moving to Asheville, North Carolina to open the door to some healing work with my family of origin.

Now, 15 years later……it was on Wednesday, waking up in a country I am proud to live in, that the Divine Comedians (another one of my names for the Angelic spectrum of consciousness) told us, “Look no further, you have found it”.

Well, we are very tempted to believe this pronouncement from the Keepers of the Cosmos…. It sure feels right to all four members of my family, and SLO offers everything we hoped for in the next location we would call home.  But we also know that calling something a done deal before it’s a done deal has not been very smart in this last year….as I have been told, 2008 has been a year of so many changeable factors, all the balls thrown into the air at once, and it has taken several months of the majority of them to come down.  Somehow, with the election, I feel the factors settling in, and the future looks a lot more certain.  Maybe when we get guidance now, it will stick.  As a channel, it has been frustrating to hear and feel and see that so much was up for grabs this year, and that when my ego wanted to have The Plan and chart a course, the response from the Larger Picture was frequently “there are too many unknowns at this time”.

I sense a larger cause if we do indeed call San Luis Obispo home….a time of healing and expansion for us and those we love.  I already feel myself changing to fit being the mythic Californian, a creator of dreams, an embodiment of happiness, and knowing that I am worthy of all the goodness the Omniverses have to offer.  The next step in our evolutionay process.  Oh, my….a large future awaits us should we claim this place.  Here’s a prediction: a greater radiance of Who We Are, us four Berrys, as a family and as individuals.  Stay posted!

Next we head north to Monterey to spend some time with Pete’s Mom and Dad and Sister and her family…. 

If you have followed our story at all, you know that we listen to our inner guidance to determine where we are going and where to stay, etc.  This was a skill that we developed as a family during our last Big Trip that served us very well.  As a result of asking for input from the larger picture, God/Spirit/All of Creation, we have had the most magical adventures and met the most marvelous people. 

To navigate through the Los Angeles area, we were guided to stay “north and west” of L.A.  When I looked at the map, I asked about the places I saw there and got a “Yes” on Van Nuys area.…typically, I take the guidance I am given and search online or through other resources for RV parks in that area.  I found two, but one I got a clear “NO” on, and the other was just “Okay”.  We could find no other ideal RV park in the area, so we wound up at Walnut RV Park, where we are squished in like sardines, but it is very quiet and safe, and convenient to lots of amenities.

Jude and Scout, our travel vehicles, and the Lovely Tree

Our trip to the Getty Center was easy and wonderful…we got there early on Saturday and spent four hours enjoying the art, the architecture and the amazing space created there.  I found myself taking photos (which is allowed there, by the way!) of Madonna and Holy Family art…hmmmm, wonder why that is?   Of particular interest to me is a piece in which Mary is breastfeeding Jesus.

“The Madonna and Child with a Male Saint, Catherine of Alexandria, and a Donor” about 1496, by Michelangelo di Pietro Membrin, tempera on panel

It is such a phenomenal gift to the world that this resource is being made available to the public, and free of charge.  Thank you, Getty Family!

My visit with Joan Norton was delightful…I am a little wary about the social network craze, having been burned pretty badly on FaceBook.  It is easy to think you know someone when you are only interfacing with the persona they present online…but it can be a very different story when you get under the surface of the mask.  Joan is one of those genuine gems that came across my path while I explored social media this last summer.  She is intelligent, insightful, and heartfelt in her understanding and communication about Mary Magdalene’s story, and the blessed union of the masculine and feminine.  I highly recommend her blog, Mary Magdalene Within.

As we neared our third day in the L.A. area, I noticed that my sweet Pete seemed tired and a little cranky….He is mostly a pretty energetic person, and hardly ever is he a grump, so this was unusual.  When I asked him what was going on for him, he said he thought his sensitivity to density had increased so much it was really getting to him to be in the population center that L.A. is.  It was literally sucking him dry, draining his batteries to be there.  This was interesting to me, as I have struggled with this problem for years, but have found some way to center and balance now so that I am not so affected by population density.  I actually remarked on how good I felt considering how much energy we were in the midst of.  The kids seemed pretty balanced, too.  We did all remark, though, that it did not feel like the right place for us to live.     

On our last night there, the kids practically kicked us out the RV door for another date night.  We are very blessed with children who truly value that Pete and I actively love each other and spend time working on our relationship.  The kids know that daddy and mommy time is super vital to the health of our family, so they understand and even encourage us to take time out for us.  Plus, that means they get to play their video games without interruption!  So Pete and I went out to a great little sushi place that was literally around the corner.

We sat at the sushi bar, our favorite place to enjoy the sushi experience, where I sat next to a perfectly pleasant fellow who was there on business.  As we got to chatting with him, he shared that he travels the world, teaching about how to do day trading on one’s own.  This sounded lovely and exiting…what a great career, empowering people to take their financial destiny into their own hands!  But as we talked, I felt the presence of something tightly wound in him, something that felt repressed, as if the surface did not match his insides.  I found out later that, as I left for the ladies’ room, Pete learned from this man that he used to be married.  From what he told Pete, he and his wife came to a place that she requested that he choose between his career and her due to his long periods of travel.  He told Pete that he loved his career more than his wife, and they are no longer married. 

This made me feel sad and also caused me to remember back in 2003 when we left Asheville for our first Big Trip….I couldn’t understand why so many of my then-women-friends seemed to be so mad at me, and did not say in touch with me when we left.  I did not find out until months later, when one of them shared reluctantly with me, that they were jealous that “your man chose you over his career”.  You might remember that Pete left his promising career with Toshiba in order to go on the road and do the work of reclaiming us, his family. Back then, I was stunned that a beloved partner would NOT choose his partner over his career, if for some reason it came down to that in their lives.  Apparently, I am one blessed woman to have a partner who values me and our love partnership over anything else in his life.

We left Los Angeles on Monday, November 3^rd and headed north to San Luis Obispo.  It was there, a mere five weeks into the journey, that we got the biggest surprise of our trip thus far…. 

We have had an eventful time since we left Tucson! 

The drive over to the Pacific was merciless as we did not make reservations (BIG NO-NO when you are driving something 35 feet long and weighing 20,000 pounds), so poor Pete was stuck behind Jude’s wheel for 400 miles until we found a place to stop for the night.  That wound up being Live Oak Springs, a lovely hideaway that has been owned by the same family for 25 years east of San Diego off I-8.  We collapsed, ordered in for pizza, and zoned out in front of the TV for the night.

But the following morning as we shook the trauma of the long previous day off, we had an utterly easy drive and got totally high on the Pacific air.  We cruised through San Diego with minimal stress, and headed north on I-5, the road that we think will be the back bone of our west coast trip.  We will deviate here and there, but will come back to I-5 like homing pigeons as we journey.

We ended on Monday, October 27 at San Clemente, a lovely little beach town.  We stayed at the San Clemente State Beach, which is a gorgeous park right on the cliffs with trails down to the beach.  It was a completely perfect orientation for our being on the Pacific coast….I found myself to be in a little shock, still getting used to the changes in elevation since we departed Colorado at over 8000 feet, but what was more intense for me was the change in density, the energy of so many people in a concentrated area.  While the drone of I-5 is constant and loud, the San Clemente area is a great place to get accustomed to the Southern California (So Cal) vibe because of the prolific buffer zone of Nature.

We came here as a destination because Peter made contact with an old high school friend from Flint School, a sailing school that cruised Europe in over the 1978-79 school year.  We won’t get into what a bizarre and unhealthy experience it was here, but suffice it to say that Peter has had some healing to do about it; part of his process was to reach out to others recently to hear what their experiences were.  A true gift for him has been to hear his own experience echoed and confirmed.  As our guidance supported us coming here, one of the absolute gems that he found in his search for friends from his past is Janet Harder, who now resides in the San Clemente area.  She welcomed us with open arms into her home despite not having seen Pete for 30 years, was the most excellent tour guide with suggestions about places to go, made us wonderful food, and even hooked us up with the gorgeous state park we stayed in.  She is a delight, and I am happy to say, a new friend for me as well!

Janet, Peter and Licia in San Clemente CA

While there, we visited the San Juan Capistrano Mission as part of home schooling to learn about California history.  The oldest building in California, this lovely mission did a great job of linking its long and many-chaptered history together and presenting it to visitors.  I recommend the audio tour that comes with your entrance ticket (thanks for the tip, Janet!).  Of interest to us was how the local Indians, the Acjachemen, assisted the Spanish in building the mission, being close friends and allies for many generations.  To this day, the mission has a special ceremony when a descendant of those Indians passes away. 

Bells and Fountain at San Juan Capistrano Mission 10-29-08

Pete and I even got a date night….we haven’t had one in ages, so it was extra special.  The boys are old enough now that leaving them by themselves for a couple of hours is not a problem…in fact, they are both babysitting age.  We went for a romantic, fog filled night to the Fisherman’s Restaurant on the pier.  We had a delicious dinner, but the view of the foggy evening over the water was unparalleled.

We made a reluctant departure from San Clemente on Halloween, and headed north to Los Angeles (L.A. on Halloween, you say?  That IS scary!)   Obviously, I had to overcome some fear when we were guided to come through here.  But it brought another level of understanding and comfort level about southern California.  Here I have had to confront my judgments about southern California and the people who live here….as usual, what I have found is that judgments are such generalizations, and that they should be challenged and violently broken…..they just aren’t true, and don’t hold up when you come with an open mind and open heart. 

Our adventures in Los Angeles tomorrow……