Mario's Story

Mario is a Chilean co-founder of Casa Rosalinda, an urban mini-eco-village in Sonoma County, CA and a Google Earth software engineer. Santa Rosa, CA

What brought you to EOA?

For years I carried with me the persistent and blurry notion that there was something not right about this life. EOA seemed to offer that deeper glimpse of something, a kind of hope that my instinct wouldn't let go of even if it wasn't fully clear to my mind what it was about. I was completely new to the language of reconnection to our emotional and biological bodies, reconnection to the larger body of village and nature. My mind had lots to catch up to, but my instinct was strong enough to keep me where there was healing needed.

What happened during or as a result of your EOA journey?

The formal program was a very progressive process for me. The open and caring container held by the guides, the way my group received me, it would plant the seeds of deeper transformation. The trajectory that started back then towards a deeper understanding of my personal history, nurturing self compassion and caring ways, and being able to extend this new capacity to fellow humans around me, and the larger circle of life, this journey hasn't slowed down at all, it has continued blooming as I walk through life.

How would you describe the outcome? Was it more inward or outward or both?

It’s been five years since my first journey and it's constantly evolving and appearing with a new face, so much beauty! With the benefit of years of perspective, I would describe the outcome as an awakening of the ecology of life. An ecology is a virtuous chorus of relationships within a joyful and diverse family. This is how I feel about the many unforeseen and mutually related changes I started experiencing.

I think at first I thought most of the change was inwards, a gentler inner self without major concrete outward changes. Now I see the tide was relentless, popping in unexpected areas that my mind wasn't good at fully appreciating initially. With my wife (who participated in EOA the year after) we re-created our relationship that grows stronger and sweeter as time goes. I re-created my relationships with my two sons to become full of joy and father/son mutual learning. The same happened in time to my relationships with my mother, my brother, my close friends, all of them were re-written in their authenticity and depth of connection. I also re-discovered singing, dancing, relating to people and fostering new friendships in a way that was less familiar before. Maybe the most magical outcome is the indescribable sense of wonder I feel when I spend time in the wilder nature.

Our EOA journey gave me points of reference for walking in life. It wove a connected map out of all apparently disjoint shards of experiences which I was just dumping in the backpack of my journey. Instead of piling life experiences in a compacted bag where they lack oxygen, and don't relate to each other but simply add weight, now I'm weaving this spider web of a map where every experience becomes spider silk material, everything is connected in ways which create flow and sense. EOA took my hand in gentle guidance and started the core of the new web/map. It started a silky core out of slow, threshold, council, honoring, passage, elders, tiny, tender, gentle, sit-spot, surrender, together, fire, water, earth, air, song, village. A beautiful web where everything started to find its place, old and new experiences creating a new inner geography of relationship.

The EOA journey gave me a north star and southern cross of guidance to find my path on small daily things and larger course shifts. A reference map, a web of threads which connect at the core. It gave me a new language I can call my own that resonates with my heart language, as well as new words that I can fill with purpose and new ways to relate with the mosaic of life emotions, ecstatic joy, nurturing, grieving...a connection to freedom.

Expressions: Poem*

Esa puerta tuya, la que yace eternamente sellada
No es de las que abren hacia afuera, sino a la sombra interior
Y la abres, hoy aguerrida
En su espacio nunca visto, bravas corrientes merodeando
Como un rio caudaloso, como viento acerado
Un mundo paralelo de tormentas
Al que instintivamente te entregas
Cruzas el umbral y aun encontrando efimero refugio
Predomina la intensidad, que susurra en tu oido
Puedo desintegrarte, hasta tus celulas, cuando quiera

Cierto dia, despiertas con certeza, claridad, brillo y significado
Has resuelto el enigma, ha florecido la vida!
Al siguiente, eres desmembrada, la raiz trunca, la ruta extraviada

Quieres comprender, que gatilla el cambio de luz a oscuridad?
Dificil de asir, la leve silueta de una idea, una imagen pasajera, una palabra
El amanecer contrapuesto al aterdecer
El mundo abierto contrapuesto a corredores y rincones

La ventisca continua asolandote, inexorable
Comienzas a desgastarte
como un paño razgado en viento
Vulnerable

"Nunca No Quebrada", tan presente
Nunca No Quebrada, romantica al ser leida
Hiriente al vivirla

Nos hacemos nada, hebra por hebra
El tierno paño de nuestra vida se disuelve
Aun asi, cada hebra no renuncia su anhelar

El querer caminar este incierto sendero
Querer amar
Amar la vida, amar la tierra, amar la tierra interior