The Edenhope Project

It’s almost a year since Ruth and I first returned to the Edenhope site by driving to it, having completed the one ‘vital’ step that was necessary to the commencement of the ‘whole’ Project: making viable access to it.…

Who could have imagined it would take at least 125 tonnes of materiel transported to it so that construction could begin…. And that yours truly would drive at least thirty five such loads of materials from the village to the site?

John Patrick had made the road – well over eight kilometres of it – with Peter’s ‘Cat’ D-7. We had seen almost all of it by then, on the last of our previous visits. But only this time, on his last day, did we think about the last vital piece that was needed to complete it – surely it would take only another hour or so to make access to the actual site where construction would actually start …..and where materials would be stored.

So, with the D-7 already gone, we had only the ‘Cat’ 950 Loader to do these last eighty meters or so from the ‘circle’ he’d made [really, a theatrical flourish] that signals one’s arrival at Edenhope. He had considered it the exclamation point to mark the end of his contract.

Now, with his usual good will, he agreed to drive up in the ‘Cat’ 950 if only for an hour or so…. We went up behind him in the Kawasaki ‘Mule’ ….and in the space of that ‘hour or so’, just over one and a half hours since setting out on the drive up, he pushed enough bush out of the way just under the high point of our village site to start construction; then parked the loader in a slip [that would one day, as it is today, be an access to the fruit orchard we would plant there]. Whereupon we returned, the three of us, to the shed [down at the village] to take possession of the keys ….and, of course, formal acceptance of ‘the road’. His boat was already waiting to leave ….. we’d pushed him to the limit.

It was much later in the afternoon than we had intended when we set out to spend this, our first night alone at ‘Edenhope’. In the rush we didn’t even consider flashlights but John had left a tool box, a bush knife and a small chainsaw in the ‘mule’.

At about 3.3kms of the road he’d made, mostly parallel to the beach, the road turns west into the deep forest. Three-quarters of a kilometre up that part of the road, on the left, there is an eye-catching torn and twisted stump of root beside the tree it was once part of. It’s a meter tall, but in silhouette, as one approaches, it appears to be a ‘feral’ – and seriously mechant – poodle glaring at whomsoever is intruding upon this enchanted place.

This was the third or fourth time I’d taken notice of it …..a chilly frison announcing the moment of recognition. Although giving me pause, I continued determinedly up the road. After another seven hundred or so metres, I had to brake abruptly; a tree had fallen across the road; it was only a short couple of hours since we drove down past this spot. Nothing so shocking an impediment could have been anticipated. Now night was near; sunset already begun.

It was clearly too big for the small chainsaw; besides, the many pieces it would have had to be cut into ….would still outweigh my ability to move them. The diameter of this fallen tree was close on half a meter.

Evening had already begun to set in and we were hard pressed for an immediate resolution. I just knew that the malevolent spirit was at the bottom of this ….but the direct personal challenge this represented would not daunt us…. Why on earth we hadn’t consider a torch [flashlight] though is still a mystery. I suppose it was the rush.

The Kawasaki was able to avoid the demised tree by going well around it, through the bush as we cleared it, Ruth and I. We made a pathway in an arc of about forty meters radius at its deepest, enough to get past the limbs of it that extended into the bush. That would get us back on the road. Using first the knife, and then the chain-saw, I cut a swath through the bush, fighting the increasing darkness in the headlights of the ‘mule’.

Little-by-little, with enough difficulty [including the drawing of a bit of blood on my foot] we made our way around the darkened bush and back onto the road. We still had almost four kms further to go.

Where we crossed the river – John had made a concrete ford with eight large tubes running through it – all the water passed easily under its roadbed. Then up diagonally across the farther bank. How poignant that it was not light enough to appreciate the beauty and wonder of this ride.

But we got there and parked the Mule in the slip with the Loader. Our arms full we set off in the dark to find our campsite – would we recognize the tarp that covered our hammocks in the dark? But, first, we had to find the site and neither of us were sure enough where it was….

On the second of the terraces we scaled down – or should I say: groped our way – in the dark, me with knife and overnight bag in my hands, I fell ….later having to nurse a few scrapes and a twisted knee [the latter would be remembered for many months]. I’m sure the arc we made should have been straight but it seemed an eternity before the shine of the tarp was at all visible before us. Nor did we realize that we had to descend three or four terraces to get back to this small sanctuary that waited for us.

It is a curious coincidence that one year later our campsite has become the bush kitchen that serves these two temporary cabins we now call bush cabin 1 & 2. And which both [since last week] have solar-powered electric lamps in them.

But that night, exhausted from our ordeal, and shortly after treating scrapes where the skin was broke with silver, we both forwent supper and tried to get comfortable wrapped up in the side-by-side hammocks. It was then that the silence and vastness of the forest around us – against the only sound we could discern: the river some twenty-odd meters below us – confronted the final threshold of awareness that lingered.

Then I heard the voices, along with other sounds like those of a crowd of perhaps women and children a kilometre or so away, ‘impossibly’ deep in the bush ….in the same direction we were facing. After a moment or two contemplating whether or not to ask Ruth if she heard them too, and before I could ….she turned toward me and asked if I heard these ‘same’ voices out there! Oh, yes…..

It was obvious to us both that the veil had been breached ….if ever so lightly ….to accept us in this [up until now] ….their home. And notwithstanding some opposition [let us simply call it that] we were made to feel welcome. Ruth knew it; I knew it. The comfort of ‘being’ was simply sublime. We both fell deeply asleep, curled up in our covers that dark winter night.

* * *

Yes, we’ve learned a lot about the respect one must have for the place one lives. One must come to it with loving-kindness, and humbly so. One doesn’t just step into a house that is – and has been – a natural home to the flora and fauna that have abided there forever. One cannot force ones’ self upon it.

All relationships mature over time; they require ‘give and take’ – surely more give than take. Life offers each of us the opportunity to find balance and purpose within certain delineated perimeters. This is the joy we have come to live with….

Soon the hustle and bustle of the construction phase will be over ….and our forest life turned over again to us. Thus we will learn to express the peace we have begun to know. God this is a magic kingdom! it is heaven. And Love is the path to Peace. And Peace to ,,,,Great Spirit

There are some ‘out there’ who don’t yet know us [though they are definitely not amongst the community of spirits with whom we share this sylvan space]. Nor do they realize that they are to establish communication with us …..as we have always been expecting them. But the two vectors that bear most on when this celestial/terrestrial intro will occur are: completion of the small village we are building ….and the state of the world outside this sacred space.

As to the first, well that is now less than two months away. All the building as well as additional scope in the contract have moved into the finishing phase. The transition wasn’t so subtle ….such that the times we spent in the bush were always quite exciting ….so much has been accomplished.

Yes…. the beauty of all this has already revealed a new and refreshing aspect of creation. So our efforts have counted, adding another dimension to the sacred space. Even by removing what they call here: ‘rubbish’ trees around the building sites ….what was most threatening has become more agreeable and caressing. We had left these trees initially because we hadn’t yet even begun to appreciate the balance we would need. We were also loathe to intrude precipitously on the life we found there, even in view of the growing crisis in the rest of the planet.
Now, we note with some relief that the world won’t end just yet ….at least not until we’re ready for it. That is not, however, a cause for, nor is there time for, celebration …. since it also means that there is much more destruction in the pipeline that will manifest first. Our relief is short-sighted though – our eyes turn back to the urgency of it all!

Everyone knows the ‘status-quo’ won’t just roll over and say: ‘enough – we’ve taken all we could and we’re leaving now’….. But we must say once and for all ….it is just not salvageable; rotten to the core, it is too late to regenerate. So let it go….

It is an amazing that the net result of aggression and perversion has not brought about its ultimate demise sooner! It was obvious to anyone who cared that what has been realized ….was just not sustainable! But even as we marvel in astonishment at this result, it is simply to understand that terrestrial events must be synchronous with those above – since there really is no such thing as ‘time’. So we are both patient and grateful for the wee bit we still have; at least until this phase of Edenhope Project is over.

Even as we speak so confidently…. of our own reality, the met office just gave us an additional surprise. It is forecasting increasing winds and high seas, with three and four meter swells in squalls ….right through our plan to depart this w/e by at least three or four days. And we were hoping to load one of the last few ship-charters we will have to make early this coming week.

Easter is almost here, after which [when work resumes] windows, doors and the many finishing touches of the carpenters will be the topmost on our priorities. The solar array and hydro installation are probably the last ‘building’ projects [apart from walkways and stairs] we expect to do.

We have had John back again, this time to undertake the difficult task of sourcing and completing the ‘penstock’ that will drive the micro-hydro. With both the flow and volume of our adjoining river, one would have thought it a relatively easy job ….but the water had to be sourced nearly a kilometre upriver, then siphoned to a reservoir [under construction as we write] one hundred and fifty meters below it ….from which the three-inch poly-pipe would deliver the appropriate pressure to drive the turbine ….another eight hundred-odd metres down-stream.

He will also establish a spring approx. 150 metres up behind us as our primary source of water [the river being an alternate]. Thus if it does not flow adequately in the dry season, when the always-fulsome river is at its cleanest, the latter can also serve our purposes.

Speaking of water, the boat has done us well, even if our satisfaction is somewhat marred by the excessive quantity of gas it burns each round trip: at ¾ of a drum, with eight people, a full tank and ¾ of a ton of cargo on board, obviously more than it was designed to carry, it reminds me of those heavy take-offs I often made in the seventies out of Miami ….when the tops of the downtown buildings were higher than we were climbing out toward Biscayne Bay.

Well, the day is ending ….the noise of the power generator is silenced and gone from all but memory; the guys have gone back to the camp; Peace & Quiet once more reign in the forest around us. The gentle flow of the river fills in the empty spaces.

In less than an hour it will darken – by when the fire will already be cooking the evening meal. John will return well after dark once the tracked-truck is loaded again with gravel and some more materiel – always more. He’ll pick Ruth up where he left her on the corner before the road turns inland from the coast – she planted about twelve coconut trees there that in a couple of years will quench the thirst of many who walk the trail along the coast.

So as these last days, of March [early April] dim, we wish you too a pleasant night.

It was inevitable that the weather finally slowed us down. So we won’t possibly leave as expected on Sunday or Monday, maybe not even until Tuesday. West coast Santo is taking the brunt of a low to the west. Winds are, met office says, blowing to thirty knots. That makes the sea more than the kind of challenge one volunteers for….

We’ve had at least eight inches of rain in the last twenty-four hours. The river is swollen and muddy, not the clear-running, effervescent source of life we know and [normally] enjoy…. today it’s rough, violent, deserving great respect. [see photo after 1st storm]

It was surprising to hear the power-plant fire up this morning – one would have expected Simeon’s men to wait until the weather really looked like it had cleared…. But there they were, hard at it finishing the floor in the Admin building. Now both that building and our large gathering-place is floored, including its attached loo and shower [photo stage centre].

As soon as the weather clears, the roof on our own bungalow [just started when the sky fell] – as well as all the others – will become priority. Then work can continue under shelter for most of the other tasks: wiring, plumbing, walls - interior, exterior, and fittings.

Adding to the mud here and there are open trenches the plumbers/electricians have dug. The serious part of this solar/micro-hydro has only been speculative so far ….but they’re getting closer. We know approximately where to set the weir. And our guys have cleared a space for the solar panels. Both are a few hundred meters from the constructions. Though, given the loss of sunlight this past week - and the state of the river – it may be that absolute reliability is a frivolous dream.

Trying to stay ahead of the priority curve [as far as materiel is concerned] gets more complicated as the job progresses. The last charter saw almost everything get mixed up in off-loading and is currently piled up in the shed. It will no doubt take a serious effort to sort through.

The solar/micro-hydro installations are also somewhat beyond our experience level, and now become an even more demanding part of the project in view of the river’s strong attitudes. So what do we do when it is, like these last five days, a muddy torrent….?

John Patrick [who made the road] is going to free up just enough time to come and accomplish the tricky construction of the weir [we got him on the line in Australia the other day – he does like a challenge]. Now, though, his time with us may also be necessarily diverted to the additional crises on the road. Where he built the bridge [ford] over river Pan part of the bank it terminated in has been lost, leaving a huge gaping hole with a meter deep water rushing through it. So until the rains abate and first-aid can be made by Manasseh and Dolson [our maintenance/mechanic team], we’re stuck; nothing can get across the river. At this point we aren’t sure whether we’re east of Eden or west ….’cause it just keeps rainin’….. Must be at least 25 to 35 inches now.

So we are forced by circumstance to consider and plan. Since we have all the power required for the construction phase, we can also contemplate a satellite-dish installation [we’ve ordered a dish (2.4m) – which will stand near the ‘observation platform on the bluff above the admin office].

Same goes for the entire system of utility distribution. So you see ….progress continues in spite of the weather. It’s amazing to watch the construction team put up with the discomfort here without complaint. These truly are a special people…

Yet the amount of water spilling from the sky when it opens up ….is awesome. Neither of us have ever experienced such an event – even with sixty years of hurricane watching. Each time it abates for a short while, one’s hope rises; then it starts again. The roar of the river, and the terrestrial thunder of earth on the move again …..is stunning. No, it’s relentless!

Which brings one’s thoughts back to ….what’s really going on! A lot of solar activity, for one thing; and terrestrial responses to it, like more and more earthquakes.

Yes we’ll have satellite access to the tired, old paradigm ….for a while yet?, but our commitment to it and its cyber-space communication system is fading fast. The flimsy perimeter of confidence in such methods is, after all, a pathetic excuse for the failure of consummate possibilities we know are there, just over our horizon. For us ‘high-tech’ lost its allure quite a number of years back …it was always limited anyway; so why bother? You see, we really do want to recover reality where only proper conventions [like those respected by our Indian brethren] are accepted because their consequences have been investigated for many generations hence.

Edenhope will simply dismiss the expedient technologies so readily available to everyone participating in the matrix; they were neither deserved or earned anyway…. In truth though the big ‘winners’ ….were the elite who stole and bludgeoned their way into a ‘world’ of luxury and ease ….leaving their detritus for the rest of us.

If only the ‘occupy earth’ thing was viable…. If only there was reason to hope…. Look at Chernobyl, Fukushima…. Look at deforestation, the pollution of land, sea and air…. look at the huge indifference to the suffering of the myriad species depending on the sacred circle….

Well, we spoke to the met office on the satellite phone [had to clear some canopy for it], and learned today that the winds now expected willl be 37kts. Maybe that will blow this tropical wave away.

What we didn’t expect ….was to have to go through it all over again. But the rains continued; and another big one, swelling the river massively once again, making more land-slides that resounded with the giant tympani of earth thunder. Who knew there was also a cyclone [cat 4] playing out to the southwest?

It took days more for our guys to fix the road enough to reach us with the crawler-dumper. And food! We were running out of everything, including water [if you can believe that] ….which led us to an outstanding moment! We found a viable spring just 150m away, up the nearest hill behind the bluff our reservoir stands on. And it’s probably 15m higher than the tanks will be. So that’s where our water system is now going to be fed from…! Can you believe it was there all the time…..?

Well, of course we did finally get down. The first-aid applied in so many places was just enough to enable the Kawasaki to pass, just! And the seas, which had been higher that 6m ….had abated with the wind swinging around to the north.

The amount of damage is considerable; nonetheless, work continues ….it’s amazing to see how much progress has been made in spite of the conditions we’ve had to face. But there are 25 men in this game, and, to a man, they’re a special sort….

The Edenhope Project is now four months into its construction phase, and probably about sixty percent through to completion of it. With this continuous progress and some quick short-term solutions applied, Ruth and I have become increasingly comfortable there, spending as little time as possible in town these days. The bush cabins were such a good idea – they will also serve as temporary accommodation for invited visitors.

The ship [Simeon’s - our contractor] was planned to have left on Monday night – we had delivered various timbers to it on Monday ….300 2×4s to finish the interior wall framing; an equal number of 2×3s to frame areas where there will be ceiling; and lattice for the showers which are semi-detached. Also on board and urgent was a partial shipment of roofing [for two buildings – admin and community] – it was all the supplier could furnish until next month. [The roofs were originally to be thatch ….but having kept most of the canopy, that was no longer practical; thatch needs full sunlight or it will rot].

Well, the ship didn’t even get out Tuesday night like it was re-scheduled to do…. I got a call at 5:00 Wednesday morning to tell me no one [in the crew] knew when it was going to leave…. So I woke Simeon’s manager, Ajesh, telling him ‘this wasn’t at all what he’d given me to expect ….let alone the rest of the crew in Tasmate’. What’s more, I was informed, this time the delay was due to the crew having drunk kava…. Ajesh called back about 6:30 to say the ship would leave before seven.

Since we had also planned to leave later the same morning we would no doubt pass him near Wusi. The seas were kind. We made a steady 23kts, overtaking them about five minutes after we passed that ‘remarkable point’ on the gentle peninsula of Wusi. The dramatic site is framed by very high mountains. including Tabwemasana, the highest peak in Vanuatu at close to 2,000m – we see it from the sea when we pass far enough out.

Michael had come down to the village to wait upon the ship, so he’d been there since Tuesday morning. As soon as we arrived, an hour before the ship did, he told me he was out of timber and work had mostly stopped. ‘Just-in-time’ doesn’t work at all in Vanuatu, but I could now assure him it would be there shortly [since we actually saw it], but it was already too late for today’s work.

Then we set about unloading the small boat. Actually, most of the food we brought was for his men. Some, too, for Manasse [our own driver-mechanic]. Most of the rest was hardware, and a dozen more fruit trees, including a couple of spiny limes. Small gardens are springing up here and there in the forest, where enough light allows us to plant fruiting and flowering trees and bushes without sacrificing canopy. Each trip brings with it a few more additions: this time it’s a pineapple garden, some jungle peanuts and ginger…next time, who knows what we find to bring….? Gideon, the magic tree grower [and our planting advisor] comes with us to help do the actual planting – he has ‘wonderful hands’ for this. A rainy season is upon us now – it helps.

As we were surveying the forest, we suddenly noticed a clearing that was not there before…how strange! On closer inspection, it turned out one of the older and bigger trees, already demised on another neighboring tree, had finally taken it down with it, thus opening up a welcome piece of sky - we quickly cleared the debris, preparing a site for four fruit trees….what a gift! And what wonderful guidance from the forest spirits, who were telling us that it’s okay to make light here and there.

We’re approaching the Christmas holiday so work will stop for a couple of weeks. A few days before Christmas, Simeon’s ship [the same one] will arrive to take the whole team home until the sixth or so of January. Ruth and I have been eagerly anticipating this first extended stay there [alone] for some time. You might recall we spent a couple of nights there just before the contract started, sleeping in hammocks under a tarp - it got cold during the middle of night. No one until then had probably slept there for generations [when missionaries first induced them to come out of the secluded forest and into a more civilized, sea-side village life they could now build around a church. So they left these beautiful lands …to clear land close to the rivers and the sea - and burned out the soils everywhere they cleared, going continuously further and further back inland for their gardens each successive year or so…. some of them now walk four/five kms to get to the garden - which they also destroy in short order by fire-clearing the land to plant ….and so burning it out again].

So, now, we are at the end of this ….the most exciting year of our lives. Night is drawing nigh - the world is sleeping - dreaming those terrifying dreams of more and more ….everything. So it should be most interesting to see whether the Christmas hiatus this appears to be ….will suddenly change and bring with it a more intense foretaste of the consequences [of the ‘titanic’ greed and selfishness that typifies our ‘civilization’] to come, like a calm before the storm. Or will we be pinned mercilessly against a wall like anesthetized patients trapped in their own nightmare by the inexorable events they’ve ‘created’, that lie just ahead? The inevitable has been closing in on us for so long now it ceases almost [but not quite] to have relevance.

It has become more difficult for Ruth and I to conjure up Life outside of Edenhope. Almost everything to do with the [degenerate] paradigm we, too, were part of making [and hence know it too well] ….has become increasingly alien, more upside-down ….and, it would appear, inexplicably continuing to worsen. How astonishing that it could ever have appeared ‘normal’ to us in the first place! But so it is; and for most, the slow-motion, cosmic-scale play ….is ironically all there is. It’s business as usual in la-la-land.

Thus we no doubt appear strange to those we barely know, and even stranger to those we do know ….perhaps just getting farther out ….but we are sure having one helluva good time!

So few really know the game is just about over…. So they continue to plan for some fairy-tale conclusion they are sure ‘real’ life will evolve into ….if they can not have to wake up. Each day they arise again to concentrate their seemingly endless energy and resources in realizing those personal dreams …..recognizing not at all that that such distinctions as between their goals and those of others are but a sad tale [and symptom of separation] of the sorry state of mankind ‘we’ have become, not the unity we once dared to dream! [”I have a dream….” - MLK]

Thus the spurious and never-ending efforts [essentially manipulations of reality] persist in spite of a patent rejection of Natural Law ….of course they are in vain. Isn’t it obvious that Peace is just not attainable this way? ….it never was….!

Good night.

“There’s something going on here….“, Michael wanted to share with me ….almost confidentially. [I was, however, already in the know]. “Yes”, I replied cautiously; “it’s because this land is sacred ….that’s why we’re here”. Truth is ….it hasn’t been defiled by anyone ….since the purification time began. It certainly has to do with why we’re here!

Then he proceeded to tell me about the strange things his boys [Michel’s the foreman of the builders team] have been seen. One: a black cat with a white calico around its neck passing in the twilight. And voices in the night…. [yeah, we know about them, don’t we?] But last night was quite special. Seems there was a commotion ‘out there’. Yes, there was….

And today the storm blew in with quite a bit of rain. Real good for the new plantings Ruth’s been overseeing the planting since the first day we came to stay on the land….. Thus we already have flowering white lilies, looking absolutely joyous and full of themselves. And smell? omg how sweet! We all love it here.

This is it, where the world enters a new cadence. The imminence of ‘civilization’ has little if any cogency left. Of course work continues apace and progress is made. But that is almost a background reality. It intrudes only somewhat with the sound of power tools and generator, hammers driving home their purpose.

We’ll stay here until Friday; have to be in Luganville so a last minute purchase can get shipped and packed in the container. The Southern Reef will dock here around the 14th of December. So, sometime soon after is the time for another charter.

By then, though, work will have stopped for the xmas holiday. So we’ll have to schedule the next barge after new year…. We’ve already decided we’re going to be all by ourselves over this year-end goings-on. What a lovely contemplation….!
Everywhere is evidence that we’re in a divine situation….

It may rain again today. But the air is much drier, and the insisting winds that do manage to make themselves known are from the west. That should make us more comfortable when we go back this week – last time was tough. It took us almost four hours.

Our withdrawal from the ‘real world’ – as some would have it – also continues. I mentioned to Ruth we’re really getting so far out…. our kids may not be able to recognize us anymore. It’s become so terribly clear that the only way to deal with insanity is to withdraw from it. Whatever it takes….

=
Well, we’ve made the few changes to the Management Plan [for the Conservation Area] just as requested by the Environment office after the visit of the Director and Project Officer. And Ruth has confided the task of a Bislama translation to our friends at the Baha’i school. So no further impediment to official designation ought remain – which also means that as soon as it’s done, the ‘Notices’ we post ….will have teeth.

The EdenHope Nature Preserve. What a trip this is….!

PS to this last trip: the sea-voyage back to Luganville was a dream – like an arrow over the ripples we flew, all in less than two and a half hours …..as happens all too rarely!

The Saturday before we went to NZ, the ship-charter was to arrive in the early morning. Of course we’d meet it and left our Edenhope ‘bush cabin’ not long off 6am. It had been light for at least a half hour. Michael - the contractor foreman - was already at the spur-road corner to their campsite. Down below, in the village, everyone was ready ….ready? But the ship? Frederick suggested we check the other side of the rocky outcrop that protects Tasmate village; the long beach beyond it gives one a view as far as Wusi, some fifteen miles south, which today occupies the site of a Lapita settlement a couple thousand years ago, almost at the birth of the entire Vanuatu archipelago.

In the distance, unexpectedly quite far out to sea, was what we could not see ….the ship. Our eyes are not those of a ni-Vanuatu [local, whose vision is extraordinary by any standard]. It was still at least twenty-five minutes away; and turned out to be forty minutes. The ship, surprisingly, was the bigger sister of the one we had previously chartered ….so it took another couple of hours to ‘make’ a landing pad on the edge of the sea so it could drop its ramp. Our boat, much less exposed to the sea, nestled just behind the rocks, was riding gently up and down with the small waves sheltered by the rocks. The landing site, though, is just nearby, where the ship can come straight in this side of the big reef.

First to come off, the new Kawasaki Mule, the most practical [and secretly-loved] tool we’v got. The trek to Edenhope which used to take us four or five hours [on a good day] ….now takes twenty-five minutes. And it goes virtually anywhere. When that tree fell across the road in August, as we were heading back to spend our first night alone in our bush camp - the last chance to be completely alone before construction began - we tested its resourcefulness in the emergency, literally cutting our way through the undergrowth, around the demised tree and back onto the roadway again. It took a good twenty minutes though, and we had to drive back in the dark to [approximately] where we knew our campsite to be. We were without a flashlite too! So finding the campsite - actually some fifty or so meters from us - and having to make our way down the descents with trees and bush equally obscured in moonless night ….was another sort of adventure. My right knee, almost three months later, still feels like I just twisted it.

But we were here, home! Okay, not quite a ‘home’ ….it was just a couple of hammocks under a tarp. The fifty meters to it took at least fifteen minutes on account of the unintentional, circumferential path we took. So by the time we treated scratches and scrapes ….had our small snacks and prepared for bed, night had fallen deeply and silently, around us like a soft and warm blanket. Only the sound of the river persisted - one quickly becomes not just accustomed to it, but possibly even a part of it.

But then…. way off in the trees, deeper into the rising forest, with the river behind us, maybe some 150 meters into this new place we were finally experiencing, I heard voices, mostly women’s voices, some quite young. But no one could possibly be out there, especially not nine kms from the village and at the level of the canopy! Thinking I’d better ask Ruth if she heard what I was hearing, I turned to her, that question on the tip of my tongue. However she spoke before I did: “do you hear voices out there ….I hear women and children’s voices?”

Sometimes, in moments of synchronicity or other flashes of enlightenment, the same profound feelings of satisfaction, delight and connectivity arise just like this, spontaneous and humbling. We savored this one such moment …to remember forever.

But then, encounters with ’sprites’ can be another story - one such creature is quasi-permanently exiled to the edge of this, our enchanted forest; he’s way back not too far from where the road turns inland from the beach….mute, like some tormented fiend frozen into the twisted remains of a torn out root. Though another story with not so much pleasure or satisfaction, it was just after seeing ‘him’ there that night on the side of the road, several hundred meters perhaps further on, that we had to halt …..where the tree had fallen squarely across the road…It was much too big for the small chain saw we carried in the mule, but easily cut the young saplings ….the more formidable of what resistance we had to overcome that night.

Anyhow, back to the ship. We finally got it off-loaded ….only it took much longer than it was supposed to because the Cat Wheel Loader broke down, a delay that took us well into the night [approx 10:00pm] before I could leave the village and head back into the bush. This was the last night before we returned to town to prepare the Auckland trip.

Well, we keep trying to end the trip but there are always new ends that keep popping up on the way back to our beloved forest. It was a successful trip in every way we hoped, beyond what we expected [we’ll get around to it at the appropriate time]. Our adoration and humility before the unfolding universe knows no bound …..it’s awesome to know this embrace!

So now we’re landing in a few short tens of minutes, and - before catching the late afternoon internal flight back to Santo - and get as quickly as we can to a meeting with Director of Environment and his Bio-Diversity Officer. Then on to another meeting with our attorney immediately after that. The curious scenario ironically juxtaposes implied threat …..and really loving placability. We really won’t have to sue the Director for dragging his feet on the formal acknowledgment of the Edenhope Nature Preserve …..but we could have ….as we were truly exercised by the unconscionable delays this precious, shining example of eco-enterprise has experienced….

We did put him formally on notice, though, just before leaving for Auckland, that we expected him to not only grant us the Certificate we applied for one and a half years ago, but to get it to us between the two flights we took that day. So, we shall see ….what we shall see. Perhaps the current efforts of the meeting. were only baby steps away from our mutual goal More soon….

Addendum. No, not quite. The meeting was a little strained. Donna, more than the Director, was apparently discomfited by the implication of confrontation. But the meeting turned positive, and once Director Albert joined it ….we established a joint visit to the neighboring village of Vasalea that weekend ….so the principal outstanding question could be put to bed: is there or is there not a dispute hanging over our land. Wasn’t the written reassurance we shared with them - signed and sealed by two chiefs [President and VP of the Supenatavuitano Provincial Council of Chiefs] - adequate? They wanted us to sponsor their eye-to-eye meeting.

So we agreed to pick them up on Friday night, the 4th, at the airport in Santo, got them two rooms at one of the local hotels, and departed with them at 0600 the following morning. That afternoon we showed them the progress made at Edenhope proper and let them move about freely to experience it… They would spend the night in the village guest house and on Sunday, after services, we’d go to Vasalea together. At least twelve of us were on board Sunday afternoon, and a community meeting got underway by two-thirty or so; the substance of which took at least an hour and a half….

But finally we emerged from it ‘without incident’. There was now no impediment to the ‘registration process’. So we returned to Tasmate for another community meeting. By the time Ruth and I drove back to Edenhope, night had settled its calm amd quiet on the bush. Morning could wait till we returned to the village to take Albert and Donna to Tassariki. Three hours departing once more, I returned to the village, so pleased to see Ruth there, waiting….

Only the formality of completing the Certificate is outstanding. But we’ve been patient for so long, what’s another week or two….?

This is the third time we’ve come back to the bush in the last fortnight. The two bush cabins are quite comfortable after the ‘tarp and hammock’ camping out we did in earlier times. Sleep after a vigorous day now, is sweet and complete. We’ve begun to spend as much time on Edenhope land as in Luganville town. It’s a sweet beginning; living in the bush invokes that curious perspective that at last everything is right side up ….and peace is everywhere, immeasurably real.

Our part of the deal with the contractor doing the building ….is to provide all the materiel. That means everything! …..getting it first to Tasmate [the village] from wherever it comes; chartering the ship, loading it, off-loading it onto the beach at the village, assembled in some sort of order there, much of it stored near the soccer field, high-value and other necessary things carried to the shed; just such a manoeuvre can involve the whole village doing stevedore work! It’s happened a couple of times already; the results chaotic, taking still more time to reorganize what is always a push by the ship’s captain to get out.

To date logistic demands have already occasioned several ship charters – a real exercise in the preparation and aggregation of what is needed where, and when …..it’s not simple. So far we’ve managed to keep ahead of the builder’s requirements; as of this writing, that has meant twenty-four round trips, the ‘tracked-dump truck’ full-up each time. Sand, gravel, cement; timber, machinery, fuel, tools. Even the materials to build the contractor’s camp had to ply the road that John built. That’s close to 100 tonnes already.

Simeon, our contractor, has fifteen of his own people there [here], and has added a couple more from Tasmate village to the group. We also have three more of our village people depending on the hospitality of the camp even though we are engaging them ourselves. They bring food up in exchange for their accommodation; taro, yam, etc. We’re on a clean up the forest binge with our guys, so we’ll probably increase the scale of that job by 3x.

All in all there’s a lot going on…. Much progress has been made. The foundation timbers, essentially ‘four by four’ posts, some fifty or more in each bungalow – totaling some four hundred odd – have been set in concrete and rocks. Onto these posts, ‘six by two [inch]’ bearers have been bolted and then ‘four by two’ joists strapped on them. The work is proceeding essentially in waves across the panoply of construction sites, so outside wall frames have already been started one or two of the bungalows while the next to last of the seven bungalows is just getting ready to have its bearers bolted in place ….the posts of the last foundation was cemented in today.

Small progress also in our own ‘campsite’: today we got a spigot in the ‘kitchen-to-be’ area between the two bush cabins and [on the terrace just below] a shower. We’ve installed a 6,000 liter tank which will continue as an auxiliary system, for use when the fresh main supply is unusable ….as happens when the river is swollen with strong rains and washes debris down the mountains side. The river, though – primarily spring-fed – supplies us now.

We’ve set out to have all the windows and doors, interior and exterior, made in New Zealand [out of cedar]; likewise kitchen sink units, bathroom fixtures and cabinets, and ‘closet-type’ units for each bedroom. We’re in touch with several companies now and getting quotes. And roofing has just been ordered for all the buildings [to be delivered early November].

It wasn’t possible to use thatch for roofing because we’ve kept as much of the canopy as possible, so have had to resort to a green color-bonded zinc-allume, corrugated steel [which will have a layer of insulation under it – so rain and falling branches etc will not be noisily beating on a tin drum].

The demands of keeping up with everything the contractor needs ….ensures the trips back and forth are done as quickly as possible. A pity, though, because the 8.3 km drive from the village to Edenhope is so filled with wonders, one could stop every twenty-five or thirty meters to see new and stunning miracles each time. We trust that luxury will come soon enough….!

With this report we wanted to convey some idea of the impressive progress being made. And while we’re pretty much confident well get it all done in good time, we’re also keenly aware of the increasingly critical situation [‘reality’ collapse] instilling itself across the world ….and so we rush to have our village completed before the final curtain falls and such undertakings are no longer possible [perhaps even eating and drinking!].

We will speak no more of how fragile the world has become….! Our elder brethren [Hopi, as well as others] have spoken eloquently on this matter. We are confident the building program should terminate well before this final event, in another five months.

Meanwhile we will accommodate some invited guests to our campsite within the Edenhope construct. It’s a gorgeous situation. A young Woofer has just written us wishing to come in December – such a pleasure to contemplate such sweet offers of help and generosity. But the WWOOFER site has just closed us down and her message to us, through that site, has been lost. We hope she’ll find us here, through this, our own medium!

Love from us both.

These past three to four weeks have been the most exhausting and exhilarating since we embarked on Edenhope…..

We’ve made three trips to the bush, each of them lasting two to five days. On the first day of the second trip, John Patrick not only ‘turned over’ the road to us, but mounted the ‘Cat’ loader and pushed it up the more than eight kms of new road to fulfill one last request: clear a pathway into the center of the construction site. That’s where all our materiel will be deposited; and also, on its far side, where our office-dispensary-warehouse will be located [a structure 11m square].

This site is just behind a bluff on the far-side of the entry circle [the terminus of the road]. We’ve been considering a ‘declaration’ on timber announcing ones’ arrival at Edenhope, since there’s little but forest to see wherever you look. So there’s this small road/trail off the circle to take one around and behind the bluff. To describe the building site of the little village, it stretches in an arc around this central point for half a kilometer or so, where down below the river and natural terraces above it follow the same arc from NE to SE, before stretching deeper – and higher – into the mountains to the East. +

For three days of the second trip this month, the construction crew [fifteen men] established and built a temporary campsite [dormitory and kitchen] about one km away from ours on village land. Theirs is adjacent to a spring-fed stream, and only fifty meters from the River Pan where they will bathe. Meanwhile, we worked with our west coast neighbors to clear enough of the site to establish where each of the seven bungalows would be built. And, of course, spent the nights we were there in hammocks under a tarpaulin. We started to add in some flowers here and there, all under the canopy, so it really is going to be a forest garden with all the new learning experience that entails.

We had already decided our own campsite could accommodate the two [temporary] screened bush cabins that were intended. These would serve us [and any invited guests] over the next seven months until the construction phase was complete. They will continue to be useful even after that. Thus, when we returned for the third trip, the roof cover was just being put on the first of the two cabins ….and we had brought furniture with us to install this new phase of our life here, sleeping on a comfortable double bed in quite protected forest-splendor.

Not only was the sound of the river comforting, but spirit voices in the trees at night were added enchantment ….oh so sweet. And that’s just how we were initiated into the life we had for so long sought…. Edenhope, far from ready yet, has nonetheless become our principal home. Of course we will still commute to ensure all the materiel required is where it needs to be ….and when. The construction contract is for labor only since we previously obtained so much of the building materials, like timber [hardwood] and wall coverings [bamboo exterior and fine cane-rattan interior].

The trip back that last week as a visitor to Edenhope cost us the end of daylight – we arrived around the southwest cape of Santo just as the sun was setting. The reliable GPS we have was certainly reassuring, but nighttime navigation and ultimate landing was a new experience for us, not to be taken lightly.

This past weekend was different. We rose before dawn, made final packing and drove down to the village in dawn’s early light. The week had been so pressed with need [and hard work] that we both long to take it really easy and especially enjoy one of the most beautiful scenic drives you have ever been on…. But, no, we were still pressed. And one of the first meetings we had was with someone we could hire to drive and maintain the equipment – we were spoiled by having the best in John, but now he’s gone ….and such as I could undertake, mostly the driving, I did. Hence it was the most tiring week since we began….

But thrilling too!

We’ll include a few pictures – they’ll fail to convey the truly breathtaking beauty of this new reality in our life. But, hey, it’s the best we can do for now.

In a week or so we will disembark from our little boat in the protected nook of the rocky outreach at Tasmate. Whereupon we will board the Kawasaki ‘Mule’ and set off, all the way ….to Edenhope, on the new road we’ve been blessed to enjoy. For Ruth and me this small miracle will really open the deep, dark bush we have yearned for, ….for so long, now, it really is a sweet dream come true. It will be one of the cruxes by which our new life ‘in the bush’ will be enabled….

During the past year and a half since we first started to trek to the site, we’ve made it there a number of times. It took us, Ruth and I, at best the best of times about four hours, and once or twice six hours. The toughest going was always on the beach over a stretch that was covered by a blanket of sea-worn round stones of average size some 30cms. It may not sound tough, but let me tell ya! a km or more of ‘walking’ them is no small feat for us. And this was still at sea level!

On each of those occasions, it was impossible to avoid a scratch, or a stubbed toe, or being caught and tripped up by a stealthy vine. And many were the occasions that this ‘older’ thin skin got abrated and then, in the days it was then forgotten, festered into one of those classic infections endemic to our tropical island paradise - you get to know what the locals call ‘boilers’ up close and personal [so it comes of no surprise]. Finish it off with a night of cramps because the circulation in your legs isn’t what it used to be….

Now, though, the trail has been made so easy. It is a milestone event of course, and John will officially turn the road over to us on this solemn occasion. For him it will be a little like seeing off a child…. It was all his own these past two months during which its creation was solely his own concentrated effort. One can appreciate the investment he’s made in it, and his pride in its realization. Truly, it is remarkable and will inure to the pride of the whole west coast, even though it will be especially useful to us. But for those who walk the coast, and they are many, much more than you would imagine, they will find that at least several kms of walk that used to be in the broiling sun ….has now been wrought just behind the beach in the gentle shade the other side of the tree line [and high water mark].

And in that one difficult place where it was not possible to be set back because of the steep rock face that plunged from serious heights right onto the beach ….he has made a mini bas corniche that, just for a moment, reminds one of the past moments driving that exciting south of France road [from Nice to Monte Carlo]!
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So, the first thoroughly dedicated effort it will enable, due to the ease of access provided….is the loving task of laying out our village; and within it ….the individual sites where we will build our bungalow-abodes. I guess it will be an exercise like fung shue. The nine distinct constructions we have decided to build will be done in waves of similar procedures from the first to the very last building so that the job is efficiently managed as teams of contracted labor satisfy the spectrum of needs in each of the building trades it takes to realize the final village ….in this, our long sought Shangri-la.

More soon…..

Quick forward six weeks or so from our last update. We’ve just completed a wonderful week recovering our timber from the West Coast [some sixty cubic meters of it] - and then getting it where it needs to be. We had chartered a barge to carry some 25 tonnes of building materials up to our village, and further up the coast to bring timber back. Both ways we off-loaded in our village and brought the rest back to town to be machined. There wasn’t enough space on the ship we chartered ….but out of the blue another barge arrived for the telecom company here. So with a deft satellite phone call we were able to commandeer a bargain return leg as well. Now we have most of it in the right place, readying for the start of building once the bush track is finished.

As for the probability of earth changes which we know are inevitable and getting more so, we are gratefully enjoying a gentle time of it - earthquakes all around but none affecting us with more than a mild shake or two. And a very quiet cyclone season just finished. So, in another month we will be putting up two bush cabins in the vicinity of the Edenhope site so we can stay there as work proceeds. That will make it possible for any of our intrepid [loving] souls to visit us, or volunteers maybe [a couple of WOOFERs] ….and us to begin the shift away [from the matrix].

The bush track is now seven out of nine kilometers complete, and third-week June should see it finished, including the 3 meter ford to cross the river. In all, only two trees had to be sacrificed; we offered prayers to their spirits.

The Edenhope tree nursery is growing so well, along with a collection of flowering plants to attract the flying and crawling species to grace our garden and carry out the works of Nature.  A big compost effort is also underway to further this work, and putting in a composting sewage system will be a priority. Of course wild flowers and local medicine leaves are well represented. Everything has to travel to the coast by barge, and then be transported along the bush track to the building site.  The growers [who have only been working up a nursery for us these last four years] will come up with their precious cargo and help with the planting – how exciting will it be….?

Then there’s a plan for our local villagers to make a small stream from the river and back to it, which we expect will pass gently through the village feeding any watering needs, and providing safe playing for kids as well.  They have mastered such techniques in their own gardens and the beauty and practicality of it is not insignificant.

How we are prepared….!