Two Year Nomadiversary!

Two years ago on January 15, 2011 we sold our house in South Florida and everything in it to hit the road full-time in the Eco Womb. We really didn't know anyone else in person that had done this, just a few connections through some blogs I followed. Looking back I am still amazed at how it all unfolded. We joined a local homeschool group when we moved to Florida in 2006 that I never really felt a part. It was ironically from this group that I received an email with a link to a blog to some homeschool family in Alaska. It was on this blog that there was a link to Walk Slowly Live Wildly, Sara Janssen's blog, and from there I discovered the Live Lightly Tour. I immediately felt a connection to living simply as I come from an environmental background and have always been this way in my own homes, but I then instantaneously felt that I was indeed connected to this world of homeschooling, free learning, living life fully, I just hadn't yet met my tribe.

I started following her blog and then Tara Wagner's The Organic Sister and my world opened up to the number of families actually out there living a life of freedom and an out of the box existence. I soon after found a much more consciously connected local homeschooling group that I bonded with, and then as if the path was already laid out before me, the original Live Lightly Tour Bus came up for sale from the second owners who had bought it from the Janssens and then decided not to travel. I remember clearly it was Thanksgiving weekend 2009. I intuitively knew that we just HAD to buy this RV! I wrote to them immediately expressing my interest and then discussed thoroughly with my husband.

After many long talks about life we decided to go for it, and well... six months later the Live Lightly Tour Bus was sitting in our driveway. Our house was not even on the market, our HOA didn't allow RVs to be permanently parked in our neighborhood, and we had no idea how we would make it all happened, we just knew that we would. We had taken a few family trips in an RV, it was so much more fun and cheaper and just easier than flying back to Maryland to visit family. And, we enjoyed the freedom and connection it afforded our family even on those small trips. So, we planned a trip almost as soon as we had the RV to the Florida Keys. Parked right on the ocean pretty much sealed the deal, we would do this full-time and start really living life.

We put the house on the market, started downsizing everything, and planning for an adventure. We also at the same time almost magically found our tribe, a local group of families that first met and gathered because of a book club invitation to read and eat by the lunar cycles. Full Moon Feast, by Jessica Prentice discusses how tribes ate what was in season and what was local, but also based on the lunar cycles throughout the year. We were all growing closer to our natural rhythms and the fit was seamless. We became known as the Full Moon Feasters. We also all started talking about moving out of South Florida and finding a farm and growing our own foods and taking a conscious journey.

Our second big trip in the Live Lightly was to Asheville, NC to the site of the future Colony Earth Farm where we gathered with friends around campfires, ate together, swam together, walked the beautiful mountain together. We knew this place would definitely be a part of our journey, and oh, how it has. November 2010 was a huge month for us... we got a contract on the house, my husband got permission to work remotely for his corporate job so he could be anywhere while telecommuting, and we launched the Eco Womb Tour all within a few weeks. We rewrapped the bus, redesigned our website, and refocused our energies to do events and tour and live out of the RV full-time. It was invigorating and scary and fulfilling all at the same time. So, it was on January 15, 2011 that we closed on the house, and moved out into a local campground for four days until we finished sorting everything. Then, yes, four days later we headed to Cape Canaveral, FL for our first Full-time Families Rally!

We met so many amazing people that were doing this crazy thing, that we felt normal, ha! We spent lots of time between FL and NC that first year, doing events and seeing family and staying at the farm. We enjoyed a whole season planting, caring for and then harvesting organic goodies with our own hands. We learned the ins and outs of how waste vegetable oil worked as fuel. We joined up with the Sustainable Living Roadshow for the Right2Know March in the fall of 2011 and toured through PA, NY, NJ, DE, MD, and VA, landing at the White House to speak out against GMOs. We were activists, educators, connectors, and everything we had been dreaming up with a Tour seemed to fall into place. We then headed back to SoFL for an event and ended up meeting up with Tara Wagner and her amazing family when we broke down, connecting as friends instantly, again reaffirming that every moment is perfect even the ones where you can't yet see why, you just intuitively feel that is all for a reason. We then headed to TX to see my sister, and circled back around through TN to NC and then MD for the holidays.

At the start of 2012, and following the lunar cycle and realizing how strong of a pull I had to connect with others on this conscious path, I hosted a Gathering of Intentions back in FL on the first full moon of the year. It was beyond amazing and so many friends came from so many different places on their own journeys that I again was reminded that when you openly trust to allowing your life to unfold, and you take the active steps to pursue your dreams, then it always happens as it should. I had a vision for The Conscious Caravan that day and then started meeting more and more friends who would become our tribe. We went to two more rallies that year, caravanned with some amazing families, got to know several more on a deeper level, either around a campfire, or dancing under a pavilion, or taking a walk. We leaned into trust and stayed in FL longer than we anticipated, but because we were connecting with so many spirited souls. We launched our Tour for the year and headed up the East Coast, through the Midwest, and then out to Colorado.

We are finally making it West, but I hesitate to say finally, because it all seems so perfect. Here I sit reflecting on our two years on the road... the amazing connections made, the awesome adventures we have had, the growth and changes for our businesses, the bond our family has grown tighter, and the forever friendships made along the way. And, we are in Colorado! We are heading out west, we are hiking red rock mountains, we are visiting family landmarks that connect my kids to their history, we are reconnecting with family friends from when I was a kid, we are continuing to meet up with our village on the road that ebbs and flows so beautifully as families come and go, and we just had dinner and spent the day with the original owners of the Eco Womb (Live Lightly) Tour Bus, the Happy Janssens.

I feel so full circle and complete and excited about what more this journey has to hold for us. I know whenever we have broken down or fallen on hard times or had a change in plans or direction, it has always worked out more beautifully than I could have imagined. I trust my inner guide, I trust my hubby and his instincts, I trust my kids and what they feel and know to be our path. I trust myself and this amazing journey that we are on, and I just know that celebrating two years on the road is way more than a date or stickers on a map from where we have been.

The growth that has taken place is immeasurable (and, I don't just mean our hair, hahaha) and the love that has multiplied in our hearts toward our ever-extended consciously connected friends turned family is simply amazing. If we have sat around a campfire with you, shared stories, gone on a mama walk or family hike, danced, played games, had late night conversations that just kept going; if we have met you at an event or march or protest, community gathering, women's circle, or even at the playground, then you are a part of this ever-growing conscious family connection that is changing how we all interrelate. And with a collective village that is grounded in living life to its fullest, trusting their own intuition, and connecting souls across all boundaries, we all can make a difference in this world of ours. For as Margaret Mead has said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." And, indeed, we already are.