Summer Solstice 2021: Journey to Barichara
By: Cathy Holt
Tags: Transitions, Barichara, Water Restoration, Summer Solstice, Earth Regeneration

My journey begins with my life in Asheville and Swannanoa: a comfortable, enjoyable life, with friends, beautiful mountains, woods and streams, gardening, political-environmental activism. And beneath that, as I approach age 75, the strong feeling that I need to do something radically different, to make a difference, with whatever time I have left. What if I had just one more year to live? There are no guarantees. Yet the safety of the familiar reigned, and my resistance to real change kept me inside my “comfort zone.”

What is a comfort zone really? There is a deeper comfort in doing the work one feels most called to, and a nagging un-ease when one avoids or postpones it. How about the comfort, joy and satisfaction of being part of a team, a collaborative effort based on a shared hope and dream of like-minded folks? I believe that restoring the earth restores us, just as gardening a small plot gives us energy and purpose.

Enter Joe Brewer, a humble man with a grand vision of possibilities: that it’s our work to start regenerating the 37% of earth’s land surface which we humans have degraded. Native trees can be planted and tended, so that a river can return to the northern Andes of Barichara. A small movement can demonstrate the path forward, and grow and spread through a watershed, a bioregion, a continent… A Design Institute for Regenerating Earth.

“Who is feeling the call?” Joe asked one day, after I had breathlessly followed the unfolding of his knowledge and vision through months of webinars. “I am!” I typed to my mentor, without hesitation. A chance to make a difference within a collaborative movement to plant trees and renew the broken hydrological cycle! To be part of a beautiful, grounded and pragmatic vision. Instead of forever acting in resistance to the destructive earth-devouring culture, a chance to help co-create the world our hearts know is possible!

One-way ticket to Barichara bought, I’d crossed the threshold and committed myself. So much is yet unknown. Indeed, Barichara feels like a magical world, with the newly-purchased “Origin of Water” land parcel (so named for its key placement in renewing healthy water cycling) awaiting earthworks and tree saplings. I felt alive, empowered, finally pursuing my decades-old dream of restoring water and land in service to people and other life.

My allies and helpers are showing up: Margarita, eloquent advocate for the project among the local families, willing to rent me a room for a very reasonable rate, located close to Joe and family; Camila and Vicki, tree-planters, women my age, founders of the Bioparque; Andres, who will pick me up at the airport. Nina, a current volunteer, warned me: “You won’t want to leave Barichara!”

I’m already on the yellow brick road, with one large trial before me: shedding and sorting and packing away everything so I can travel free and open to guidance, without a firm return date. One friend cut off contact, and I felt sad but understood — she knew I would not be as available, being far away. Much to my consternation, trickster Spirit Air re-arranged my flight; but the mishap quickly transformed into the blessing of more time to prepare and connect with friends, and a credit toward a return flight.

Visiting my family up north was another step in the separation. It may well be the last time I’ll see my 103-year-old father…in this uncertain era of Covid. Experiencing the privilege of semi-rural picturesque Truro, as well as the limitations old age imposes on the family.

Enjoying the cold, clean streams of these Appalachian mountains, Montreat’s nature reserve, the glorious swimming hole 15 minutes away; refreshing, renewing swims in Lake Santeetlah and Lake Watauga. How can I bear to leave them for a place where the aquifer is running low and drinking water is scarce? My golden Honey-cat, warm and purring in my lap, burying her face in my elbow crease — how can I part with her?

Although it’s my mother country, the U.S. is hugely reliant on toxic chemicals and fossil fuels, with a deeply racist culture and mindless, wasteful consumerism; this entire economy is based on war, domination and exploitation. Many friends organize valiantly to gain incremental changes, but we know that the empire is destined to crumble. I prefer to cast my lot with a more land-connected people, with much less focus on consuming and screen-time, and more on restoration and relationships. As my brother Michael Holt’s song implores, “Put me out in the field!”

What is ahead for me? An experiment begins…a preparation for a bigger change? Might the Peace Corps still place me in Guatemala next year? What ordeals await me, that there is no way I can plan for? How can I enlist Spirit help and the power of Magic to help me overcome obstacles?

Suddenly confronted with low back pain and sciatica, scurrying around to find healing, realizing how little time is left to get strong enough to lift boxes and to plant trees… Then learning I need an MRI of my brain to account for the difference in hearing loss between my left and right ear!? My new mantra: “I am supported by the entire universe.” This soothes me and reassures my doubtful, fearful inner voices, which resist change. Realizing it’s up to me to ask for the support I need, I’ve reached out to friends, and they are coming through with generous offers of help packing and moving boxes. So many things are falling into place with ease, like the day I felt impelled to visit the storage facility I’d chosen, and discovered that the perfect unit with easy access had just opened up, at a lower price than I’d expected to pay!

“The power of myth is to live a dream until it becomes real,” says Joe. “Go against the cultural script by choosing to be an empowered agent of change, own the decision to make a difference.” And, “Joy is in the pursuit of the goal, knowing we might fail.”

Leaving July 9.

Sail for the deep waters only!