This man. I call him the pirate gardener. We can call him “the pirate” for short. He is evidence that magic is real, for me.
I had an initiation ceremony that lasted for three nights in January this year, when I was activated into land stewardship. Then in July I again found myself lying in a tent, in a soul excavation process that I now think of as my commitment ceremony.
That is when I fully accepted my soul assignment: To be an anchor in the grid. To pour my love and care and resources into a specific physical place on Planet Earth. To imagine, create and cultivate a beauty space for rest, for healing, for harmonizing with Nature both within and without.
I set down all the arbitrary self-imposed limits that were giving me convenient excuses for my procrastination, offering me low-rent housing for my fear.
I agreed to do this assignment. No matter what. Without any conditions. No more waiting for a business or life partner to show up and save me from my loneliness or indecision. No more trying to time the crypto market to ensure a false sense of security in finances. No more “if this, then I will…” sorts of internal bargaining.
I am using what I have and doing the best I can right now. Trusting that everything I need will be provided. Somehow.
While camping in July, I hauled my body up onto the rock that I’ve been using as an altar — aware that in doing so, I was shaping myself as the offering.
I spoke my vows and a request out loud, to the trees and creatures and spirits of the land: “Okay, I accept my assignment. And I commit to doing it as joyfully and gratefully as I can. Please send help.”
Two days later, the pirate showed up. We connected on social media because he was looking for a house. He offered to share his CV with me. But I’ve never seen it. My Higher Self had said yes already before even meeting him.
It’s hilarious now to recall how, just before that first meeting my doubts crashed in. I messaged a couple friends and said, “hey I am meeting this strange guy from the Internet to show him the land. His Facebook account doesn’t have a profile picture, and we don’t have any mutual friends. Oh, and he told me to bring a shovel. I’m sure it will be fine, but just in case I go missing…”
It’s funny to me now that I know him. Of course I was not in any danger. But it just goes to show how deeply these fear and mistrust programs are embedded.
After meeting the land for this first time, it was an instant yes for him. He immediately decided to rearrange his travel plans for this. For me. For the land.
The last couple months we’ve been on a wild ride together. I had no idea what I was signing up for. I only knew that working with the pirate was the next step.
For weeks we were joined at the hip. I received an intensive crash course in permaculture, with patient and painstaking one-on-one mentorship from an experienced backyard gardener, commercial farmer and landscape designer.
I learned about tropical trees and plants. We visited a number of organic farms and tasted many new fruits and vegetables. I got educated on soil enrichment and working with bacterial inoculants. I started to see my land with an entirely new set of eyes, understanding contours and erosion, rearranging much of the site plan in my mind and physically marking out structures on the land.
We organized a seed casting day, to plant a green manure crop across the entire property. That was huge endeavor both physical and energetic. It brought together a group of beloved soul kin to “blanket the property in love, as much as in seeds” as one described it.
But beyond all the mind expansion, vision grounding and physical movements that happened, this was a massive level up in my personal journey.
It has given me the lived experience of asking for help in a big way, receiving it and trusting it. I got a felt sense of the expansive capacity I can hold for manifesting things in 3D reality when I surrender to the unknown, relaxing my mind-based management and control functions. It has reinforced in me a stronger sense of trusting my intuition, knowing that I know (even if I can’t explain why). It has reminded me that I make good decisions about the people I let into my world. And it has also been an immense healing for me around my father wound.
Here is a mature, healthy, masculine man. One I can trust. And I trusted that I could trust him, which demonstrated trust in my own decision-making. His experience and mastery in his domain run deep. And his self-awareness and self-responsibility around his wounds and ego patterns are equally deep.
It was a charmed collaboration of yin and yang energies. I deferred to him in terms of knowledge and direction. And he was able to defer to me in terms of pace and intuition (even if achievement or logic sometimes wanted to butt in).
We were both learning and we were both receiving in our shared journey. We gave each other feedback and cleared the air after moments of hurt and misunderstandings with a lot of mutual respect and empathy.
He let me stand in my feminine power and lead myself. He was confident in his value, without being controlling. He did not need my validation, yet he gladly received my appreciation. I heard his opinions and received his advice, taking it all into consideration. But I made my own choices in the end, without pleasing or fawning, without extracting or depending.
What happened here feels like a miracle to me right now. Because it’s still new. But I know that for future me, this is going to become the norm.