The tiny off-grid community where I live in Hawaii is accessible only by steep, bumpy, unmarked dirt roads which require four-wheel drive and courage to navigate. The valley walls feel like the moat around a castle, protecting us from an outside world that can feel noisy, harsh, and unforgiving. One of the things I love […]
The tiny off-grid community where I live has a lot in common with a fairy tale. Tucked away in the rainforest, connected by walking paths bordered with rambunctious fruit trees and flowers, you might stumble across the hand-made house where the weaver lives, cross paths with the carpenter on your way to gather water from […]
I've never been a particularly sentimental person when it comes to material things. Living in a small cabin in a warm and rainy tropical climate means being ruthlessly practical about possessions, as anything that doesn’t get used on a regular basis will quickly succumb to mold, rust, or other forces of decay. Yet among the […]
When I first moved onto the small piece of land in the Hawaiian rainforest I call home, my focus was on my own survival. For the first several years, I was completely preoccupied with clearing brush, planting a garden, and getting some kind of roof over my head. When friends came to visit, they had […]
Living on an off-grid homestead in the Hawaiian rainforest, my days are defined by encounters with plants. I pick lemongrass and mamaki to boil for tea, dig up a long, thin ‘awa root to chew for its relaxing effects, pull back the sweet potato vines that are trying to claim my spinach patch, chop down […]
This December marks the six-year anniversary of my moving to the small piece of land in the Hawaiian rainforest I call home. As I am drafting this newsletter, it is sunny and warm, and I’m sitting in a simple eight-by-twelve structure with pink walls, mosquito screens, and a sturdy metal roof; a painting by one […]
One of my favorite fall activities is mushroom hunting. I first got into this pursuit when I was living on the coast of Washington, many years ago. When the dark, rainy winter descended, I knew I needed an activity to get me out of the house, keep me connected with nature, and ward off seasonal […]
The off-grid homestead where I live in the Hawaiian rainforest is many miles from the nearest town. In the evenings, there are no downtown streets to stroll in, performances and lectures to attend, or restaurants to sample. Without the unlimited electricity and internet access that city dwellers take for granted, people here go to bed […]
One of my favorite things about my job at Hierophant Publishing is that when friends ask me what I do at work, I can say things like, “Well, this morning I had a Zoom meeting with a shaman in Peru…” Over the course of helping them develop their books, I interact one-on-one with healers, teachers, […]
Many years ago, and long before I moved to the off-grid homestead in the Hawaiian rainforest that I now call home, I met a shaman. He was a college sophomore named Sean, and we were both exchange students at the University of Otago in New Zealand. We quickly became friends thanks to a shared sense […]
