Our journey started in 2004. Our children were respectively 6, 3 and 1. We never expected that having children would have had such an effect on our thinking, the way we looked at the future and the way we looked at our Western society as a whole.

 

 

We held up a mirror and asked ourselves what it was we were really trying to achieve. What was the value of our success? The more we had, the more we could afford, the more restless we seemed to become. What was our true contribution to the world our children would grow up in?

We felt an urge to break away, break out of the system.

We decided to take a time-out for a few years to re-connect with ourselves, re-connect with nature. And as we made that conscious decision, serendipity started to happen. Out of the blue we were invited to meet a clan of Native Americans in Upper Michigan. Meeting these people was the start of an adventure that would change our lives forever.

We both felt a strong draw to the land and the people: the Anishnaabe (first Native Americans), people who lived on those lands for thousands of years and whose way-of-being resonated so much with us. Looking back, it’s amazing how quick the decision was taken to pack up and sell everything. We bought a piece of woodland along the North shores of Lake Michigan, on the ‘Land of the Dancing Spirits’ and started a new life.

We went without any plan other than to learn and grow. We built a house, built a school for our children, and a garden to grow our own food and medicine. We saw it as an opportunity to do something completely different, an opportunity to find a renewed perspective on life. We had no idea that this move was only a steppingstone for what was to come.

 

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