Hi Gabriel and everyone else who is part of the Northern American group and the broader English Speaking Group.
My name is Dan. I live in England in Buckinghamshire County which is part of the South-East region. I am married and have 2 small boys.
I first read the books in approx. 2011/ 12 coming across the books in a shop in Covent Garden, London.
The vision of what life could be like on this planet really resonated with me in these books. Since reading them I have come away from them and back to them a number of times, but if I am honest and reflect on the times I was reading them and acting upon the vision, it always brought good things into my life.
Relationship to the Land
My Father's family are a line of gardeners coming to England 4 generations ago from Ireland. But I was never interested in Gardening. Until I read the books. Since then over some years my interest in study have gone from general horticulture, to wild-life gardens, to permaculture, and then a step towards ornamental gardens, Feng Shui landscape design (proper traditional Chinese metaphysics Feng Shui from a linage rather than New Age), and I am part way through a post-graduate garden design course.
I also have some influence from when I visit Colombia in my early thirties and ended up learning some things about Native American culture and the use of medicine wheels, totems. Relating directions on the medicine wheel to specific features of the earth walk.
>> In short land use is fascinating to me. From devoting a tree or plant to someone who is no longer alive, to productive land use, to the existing ecology, to creating a garden space that is like a portal to a different layer of the creation.
Ancestors
When we got married in 2013, I also created 8 paintings based on both of our Garden-parents. The theme was a summer meadow. So, I was drawn upon the idea of our ancestors giving us some land. It was mythical of course, since we have no land. But the creation of the images of the 4 ancestor lines coming together to establish a Kin Line. And to stage it as if we were inheriting a meadow or plot of land that can be used to establish a Kin's domain.
Collectivity
I really like what the North American Group have done collectively and feel it is an inspiration to us. Its one thing to embark upon our projects and ideas as individuals, but to come together and form a proper community is most certainly required if we are to take this vision to the next level.
Relevance from the past
In approx. 1996 I had a very strong dream of the sky transforming into an Eagle and coming down towards me and picking me up by the scruff of my neck. Also of significance, many years before reading the books is. In 1997 a black man from Bermuda come to our town. He was a wood carver. He used to sit in the park and carve from cedar wood. He had such gravity of being and used to burn the cedar chips as incense or some sort of prayer. I become very close to him and he helped as young, drinking, smoking, experimental youths find a bit more inner purpose and encouraged us to form a collective group which was called the brothers keepers. Yes there were sisters too*
This didn't work out in the end as the group all split and went different ways but whilst it was active, it was very benevolent.
One sense I got back then in 1997 was that the cedar tree was symbolic of a family.
Energy of thought and feelings
Sending you all luminous thoughts and feelings to come together and integrate an active vision. May others from the UK also come and join in.
Dan
