Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Living Life on Purpose, Amazing People, Building Cob

Hi everyone!! Hope this day is bringing you much love and joy and excitement for who you are and who we all are.

This past week has been amazing. I have been feeling an amazing sense of joy and peace, sleeping later at night and getting up earlier in the mornings, naturally. This space is very healing for me. For the first time in Verdenergia’s 6-year history, the farm has opened itself to WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities in Organic Farming) volunteers. I’ve seen people come and go, some staying for as little as 4 or 5 days, while others stay for 4 or 5 months. Some have made the farm their new home. There is something  about following your passion and your truth and that voice that calls to you with purpose (I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. We all have the voice, we just don’t always listen. In many ways, I think we desensitized ourselves to our passions and purpose and to our feelings. We sometimes accept and often embrace that which does not give us a sense of feeling whole, loving, loved, and connected to our essence and truth because we think it must be so. Not so!) Anyhow, there is something about connecting to your passion and truth that that allows life to unfold perfectly for you, that allows you to create your life and the lenses through which you perceive what is. At Verdenergia, I feel like I have so strongly connected to that essence. I feel whole. It’s not a wholeness that the farm has given me, but rather, what this environment has allowed in me. I have met so many beautiful people: WWOOFers and other volunteers, interns, neighbors, and tribe members (shareholders), who I have been able to communicate with authentically and often without words. Like-minded, like-hearted, but each different. I have found unity in diversity—a theme that has been calling to me since my study abroad semester in Ghana this past spring.

At any given time, there are several major projects active on the farm. The gardens (all three of them) always need tending, and some fruits and vegetables in the field need to be planted or harvested almost every day. This past week has been super, though, with the building of an earthship (sustainable home built almost entirely of tires filled with rocks…more to come on this next week), and the building of a cob oven. One of the friends I have made here, an intern who has been working with Verdenergia for 3 months, spent a lot of time working with cob, and as such, she is leading the project. She will be leaving next week, however, so I am learning as much as possible now, so that I may see the project to its conclusion. Last week, we made glue out of shredded yucca boiled on an open flame, and combined the yucca glue with cow manure to make a “poo smear” to hold the cob (made of sand, clay, and dried, hand shredded coconut husks acting as straw) together. I will upload some pictures later today. Everyone’s eating breakfast now (6:45am here) and it will be time for work in a few minutes.

Thank you so much for your attention and for being who you are. Have an incredible, love-filled, life-filled day living your life on purpose, with passion, and with as little judgment for yourself and others as you possibly can. Love and compassion is healing our world.

Sending you much love from Costa Rica.

Pura Vida!
Renee