The Tuesday Diptych Project: Week Twelve

Johanna (left): I got down on my knees, right at the level of an ant and looked up. From beneath the flowers I looked up to the sun and felt the warm rays soak into my skin. I felt grounded and centered as I surrounded myself with nature.

At this very moment I am feeling the need to reconnect with nature on so many levels. I'm feeling the need to be outside, breathe in fresh air, and take a break from technology. I want to simply and break away from my dependance of our car, my laptop, my need for things.

Maybe it's the changes that are on my horizon. The anticipation of going somewhere where nature and the elements will control my day to day living. I want to feel more in tune with the earth and it's cycles. I'm ready for this change. I'm ready.

Desiree (right): I’ve been thinking a lot about homesteading this week. About getting back to basics. About starting fresh. I want a garden, I want to raise chickens, I want to life a sustainable life – simple & wholesome. I want to learn canning and how to preserve everything and how live off the land to the very best of my abilities.

I want to raise my daughter in a home where simple is best, where greed is nonexistent, where value is found in the goodness of people and in creating things with your own two hands – with love and with care. I want her to know the beauty of family and sharing and honesty. I want to teach her everything I know and then some.

I want her to know that life is what you make it and that we all have the power to make it a wonderful, fulfilling thing.

It’s all about stepping back and looking at life in a different way – in a way that people used to look at life – in a way that we really need to get back to.

I feel so happy and energized when our lives become parallel to nature – respecting our earth & doing what we can do honour it. As I sit on our back porch, looking out at the pretty cloth diapers on the clothesline, drying in the sunshine, I feel a lifting sigh deep in my chest and I know that we’re headed in the right direction.

And I feel calm.