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One down, 6 more days of driving to go. That was quite the day. We were 2 hours later than we wanted. But we made it to Boise for the first night despite the rain, hail, snow, and horrendous wind blowing the RV all over the place. I’m getting the hang of driving this thing, though.
Not all had been glorious. The puppy doesn’t understand that when we go for a walk, that means potty break. She’s so excited about all the smells and exciting new things. I hope she gets it down. She also whined all night and I’m quite sleep deprived from her freaking out all night. Today is a short drive to Salt Lake City. Here we go!
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Letting Go of old identifications and Flying in the new intentions. We had a little family ceremony before bed to make some closure of this place and set intentions for the journey ahead. This hasn’t been easy for any of us. But we are all growing and here for the wonderful experience of being human. I was proud of the boys (especially Kaleb) with their heartfelt thoughts of what they wanted to leave behind and what they wanted to bring or practice more as we move forward.
There was a lot of symbolism as the four of us crawled into our sleeping bags last night. Like each of us settling into our cocoons where we will sleep while on this trip, only to emerge in a weeks time into a new life, new experiences. Ready to face the world changed by our experiences of letting go and closing a door. I’m looking forward to opening a new door. Perhaps the symbolism will be when I open the door to my new house (of which I have not seen) and am ready to embark on a new journey of country/farm/homestead living. All that packing, over a month’s worth, paid off today. We had a great moving crew! 6 strapping young men to take all our belongings to a storage place in PDX. Then to unload it into crates for it to sit for a few days while we begin our trek. The stuff will be loaded onto a semi truck and shipped across the country only to meet us there. However, it looks like we will get access to our new house earlier than we thought! We might have a week or so without our belongings. Nick says it might be nice....we might want to keep it like that. Lol. I currently intent to empty each box VERY mindfully. We shall see how that goes. Do we really need all that stuff? Do I find meaning in it?
Tomorrow is the big day. We are taking this evening to relax and prep the RV for the journey. Nick and I are exhausted and I see an early bedtime for us tonight! And we now have an RV! Looks like we are one step closer to Cruising across America in style!!
Funny, I’ve been dreaming of living in a tiny house again. Nick and I lived in a tiny house WAY before tiny house living was a cool thing to do. I’m slightly obsessed these days. Guess it’s looking like I will be able to try out tiny house living for a week! Not sure how this will look coming out the other side...... Reservations are Made, Boxes are Everywhere,
and Trip Meals are Planned Things over here in the Hancock House are getting a bit....um.....REAL. We have entered the final push for the adventure ahead. We have closed on our Oregon home and are packing and preparing like crazy. The road trip is planned and reservations are taken care of. We have decided to ship EVERYTHING and rent an RV, one-way, to get this crew across the country. That way we are self-contained and prepared. We are only planning to drive about 6 hours a day to give ourselves time to relax and enjoy the journey. We will also have the 2 dogs and 2 cats along. So it should be interesting. We've been calling it the Hancock Ark. Erin will be posting the adventure on Instagram and Facebook along the way. For those of you who do not have social media, she will send out an email when we land in NY and have decent internet again. We load up the Ark and leave Oregon first thing Saturday morning, April 10th. Over the past 19 years, Nick and I have had some wild and amazing adventures. For those people who know us well, our current adventure should not seem like a huge surprise. We have been told that we should write a book one day about all the things we have done together. Perhaps one day we will start adding history posts to our blog on our website. It is hard to believe that we moved here to Oregon about 17 years ago in a small two door sports car, owning only what we could fit in the car. Nick had his guitar, I had my djembe, we had camping equipment and some clothes. Now, as we are packing up our current belongings, I wonder how in the world did we collect all this stuff? What is the meaning to all these material items? Over the past several weeks we have been handling each and every item we own, one at a time, as we box it up, give it away, or trash it. As we shed layer upon layer of acquired material, we are reminded of the simplicity, the lightness, and the freedom that comes from having less. In working with our outer world, our inner life is also observed and reflected upon. What other attachments can be released? Does this thought-form or opinion suit me anymore? Or is it cluttering up my inner world like the broken old chair in my garage? How about my habits and my weird identities? What about social conforms? Am I living a life true to my deepest Self or am I living a life that is full of should's and long held dreams that will never come to fruition because it isn't "what people do"? Am I happy? Truly, deeply happy? Do I LOVE myself unconditionally? And do I remember who I am? What are YOUR long lost dreams? Remember those? We have had this wonderful opportunity this past year to go deeper inside and take a look at our lives. To evaluate what is important to us. In order to make change in the world, we first must learn to love ourselves, know ourselves, and be willing to change our lives to create a better space for learning, growing, sharing, and changing the world. With Light & Love, The Hancock's (Nick, Erin, Kaleb, & Isaac) Newts, Witches Butter, bird nests, and creek exploring.
As we know that our days here in this beautiful Pacific Northwest woods are limited, I'm getting a little nostalgic over seeing all the beautiful things nature has to offer in this area. I know, however, that there will be other amazing and beautiful things that nature will offer when we move. But the PNW will always be in my heart.  We are preparing for our new homestead! I snagged up these goodies the other day to give Nick and I something to read and relax with as things around here get a little hectic. Before moving to our home in Oregon City, we had an amazing garden and produced a LOT of food on our little city lot in Canby. When the housing market crashed in 2008 and we were stuck in our home (which was suppose to only be a 5 year plan before purchasing property....we ended up having to be there 12 years!!) instead of dreaming about property, we dreamt of producing everything we consumed off that tiny city lot.We did pretty darn good! We had chickens and a MASSIVE garden with lots of fruit.
Nick and I have a long history together (almost 20 years now) of working on various lands growing food and nurturing the land. As for our new home in New York, we will be moving to almost 10 acres. Some of that is forested (I see a maple syrup production for us in the near future!) and some will be perfect for gardens and greenhouses. For some reason, people think that we are moving to the middle of no where. But in fact, our new home will actually be closer to town than our Oregon City home!! There is a wonderful community there and we are only minutes from town/stores/schools. We are also landing in one of the best school districts in the state! MUCH better than the Canby school district that we were previously attending (no offense CSD). So, we are not moving to the middle of no where. Just to clear that up! Our first plan is to get chickens and a few goats for meat and dairy. The property is already set up for both AND has 6 fenced acres for the dogs and critters. For now, here we are, diving into these great reads and preparing for our upcoming adventure....guess I should put down the gardening book and plan the road trip or pack more.  For many years now, we have had a grand dream for Balance & Harmony Healing Arts. While running the business in the area for the past 16 years, and raising our two amazing kids, we have been actively looking for a property where our visions could be realized. We've always wanted property, a retreat center of sorts, where people can come and experience living and walking in balance and harmony. A place where we can weave our practices into our daily living in harmony with nature.
That vision has now come into a reality for us. As COVID has forced us to change the way we do our business, we have been able to visualize how this dream may finally come to fruition. However, due to the rising costs of real estate in this area, we were forced to look beyond this region. Both Nick and Erin are from the east coast. Nick is from Maryland and Erin is from way Upstate New York. We have found our dream property right in between where we grew up! We will be moving to a lovely small town called Chittenango, NY on 9 beautiful acres with a sweet log cabin. Here we will be able to drop right back into our regular ZOOM classes ASAP when we get there. We will, however, be taking a mini family vacation as we take our kiddos and dogs on a wild road trip across the country for a week in April. We are excited about this new chapter in our lives and to finally build our dream. As we also have family here in this area, we expect to eventually be traveling back for visits. We will also be eventually preparing for our retreat center to have people come for amazing courses and experiences. We realize this may come as a surprise to many of you, especially since some of us have lost touch during the pandemic. The housing market is moving really fast these days and the opportunity came up all of a sudden. Please know how much we have enjoyed being here as a part of this wonderful community. It is our hope that we will all stay connected as our classes will continue on Zoom as usual. We will still be offering private lessons via Zoom on a regular basis, too. As of April 1st, we will no longer have our commercial space open. We plan to be on the road headed east by April 9th. We will be posting about our journey as this all comes together on Instagram and FaceBook. Eventually, Erin has plans to begin working on our YouTube page, too, for fun videos of our new adventure. Please feel free to follow us and spread the word.You can find links to these below. Thank you for being such an amazing piece of this chapter in our lives here in Oregon. We look forward to staying connected and seeing you one day at our retreat center. With Light & Love, The Hancock's (Nick, Erin, Kaleb, & Isaac)  It has never been a more important time to remember the messages of peace and unity from great world leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. It is so sad how racial equality still seems to be such a political issue in our country. This nation is supposed to be a place of tolerance and acceptance for all. It is a mixing bowl of all the religions and ethnicities of the world. We get to celebrate the diversity of the entire globe here in the United States of America with a symphony of color, culture, and a variety of belief systems. We have all been fortunate to have experienced the richness, with great food, music, and style. Rather than living in fear and judgment, we need now more than ever to remember our humanity and practice tolerance and acceptance. It has been said time and time again by many great world leaders that We Are All One. In Christianity it is said “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Gandhi said “an eye for eye makes the whole world blind.” These simple words are so profound. If we find ourselves judging others for what they believe, we need only remember this: If we hate the hater, we also hate. If we are prejudiced towards prejudiced people, we too are prejudiced. We can have no room inside of ourselves for these things. By fostering those feelings we only become part of the problem. Hate and prejudice are a disease. We do not condemn people for being sick. We wish them well. Perhaps we can find the strength and patience to provide the necessary medicine to help. Sharing our love, peace, tolerance, and compassion is the only way.
Enjoy this beautiful day and remember the light inside of you. Go forth and create love and peace in our world. Heal the hate and anger inside yourself so you may help us heal the world of this disease.  Every morning I watch the sunrise. Some mornings are warm with clear skies painted with magical colors. Some mornings there are ice crystals making shapes over the porch and ground. Some mornings are moist and wet. Today was a very wet morning as I stood to watch the sky change. There were no colors other than shades of grey. Just like these times. All shades of grey telling a story of internal work and time to go inwards to search for meaning. I’m grateful for the sun. For its beauty. It’s warmth. It’s healing abilities. For its greatness and power to grow things and to give us love and hope. I’m grateful for the sun and it’s reminder that there will be a tomorrow. That we can create our own tomorrow by finding stillness, gratitude, and by remaining in its light of love. By sticking to the path of creation and peace. By not taking sides or subscribing to the separation. We are all one. We are all humans on this beautiful mother planet. We are all provided for. We need each other more then ever right now. Stay focused on the task to deliver a higher consciousness. To raise humanity to a new level of unconditional love. Let go of the fear. Let go of the hatred. Find a space inside yourself where you can practice sending thoughts of peace and love and staying away from those deep rooted thoughts of anger, hatred, and separation. Help me. Help us all. Be present. Be open. And be love. Because you are loved and you are an amazing manifesting being with the power to help humanity go forth into a time of light. I am grateful for you! 🙏🏻 ❤️ Erin |
The HancocksWe are stewards of the land. The land called us here to care for it. So, we bought 10 acres in Chittenango, NY in the spring of 2021 and left the hustle and bustle of our busy West Coast Oregon lives to build a long held dream of homesteading and living in tune and rhythm with nature. This is our journey to living our truest potential. Archives
May 2021
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