Learning Projects for Monastics

I look forward to sharing with the women who join me the knowledge I have, as well as things I want to learn with others. I would like to develop courses for all of these topics, and then teach on line and in person. I have some equipment which can be used to make videos. It would not take much to get everything we need. And an iPhone is adequate—which is something I have—along with a Mac. 

Every thing here has the potential to be a source of income with on-line and in person classes and retreats. Simultaneously, most of these projects will help us to be healthy and self-reliant. Teaching people these skills will be a great service as well as a way to share the love of Jesus.

I feel excited about turning one of the bedrooms into a recording and editing studio so that we can produce these courses.

Here are some examples: 

Cold Therapy

I am doing a very simple form of cold therapy—Wim Hoff Breathing, yoga, sprinting, and cold shower. I can teach this method. But I have a more in depth cold therapy course that I would love to share and do with others. It would involve swimming in the lake in winter and walking on snow. Fun stuff!

Permaculture

I have a lot of knowledge of gardening that I can share—46 years of experience. But there is so much new stuff going on, and I love to keep learning. I have a vegan permaculture book we can learn from, and I have a Youtube playlist of all kinds of tips for growing. I especially want to get good at growing indoors and in greenhouse. I have someone who is going to install lighting for the grow room which will be in one of the rooms of the apartment. 

Barefootting

I have done some research on going barefoot all the time, even in the winter. It is interesting that in the movie about St. Francis, the monks were barefoot in the snow! There are so many benefits to this, and perhaps it will be one of the signs of our order that we are developing. I go barefoot a lot, and my feet are quite tough. But I still don’t take long walks on the gravel road, and I want to get to that point. Also, I can only stand a little time walking in the snow or in the cold grass. We have a great area to go barefoot since there is a lot of grass and the gravel on the road is not too sharp.

Wildcrafting

I have a lot of experience in identifying and using wild edibles for food and healing. But I want to go further in my knowledge. I have a number of books on the topic, and as usual there are lots of resources on line. I would like to get to the point where if we had to, we could live off wild edibles. 

Sleeping outside in all weather

I slept outside for a number of months until it got cold. I loved hearing the frogs and crickets—we have a small pone which is full of frogs. I loved waking up to the sunrise. But I got out of the habit. I think I am going to recommit to sleeping outside. I know there are a ton of benefits. If we all had a small tent on the patio outside, and warm sleeping bags, we could do it. I am not making demands on anyone who is not ready. I have not done research on how to go about doing this successfully. When it got super cold, I chose to sleep inside, and I got spoiled! But I know that having fresh air at night when one is detoxifying is really good. I even might go so far as to figure out how to sleep directly on the ground. 

EMF protection

I have protective shields on my phone, computer and the devices in the apartment and the larger house, so we are pretty protected from EMF. I also wear a necklace that is supposed to help shield me. But I would like to do research on how to naturally be resistant, especially with 5G possibly coming. 

Detoxifying and protective life style

Chem trails, pollution, pesticides, negative energies of all kinds (including psychic) are in our midst. Even though I am creating the purest environment possible for everyone, I can’t control the outside world. So  I want to figure out how to continually detoxify anything that is not good for us, and protect ourselves from what is bad as well. 

Singing and music therapy

I used to want to be a music therapist—about 40 years ago—and I never did because I thought I had to get a degree. I’d like to renew my research. I definitely want singing to be integrated into our spiritual practice, but also to create performance pieces where we share through song, dance, and spoken word a message of Christian Universalism in a creative way. I am envisioning that this would be a healing and even cathartic experience for people. 

Creating an on line CU church

I have been working with facilitating groups since I was 21—45 years ago (I’m 66 in 2020). Creating group environments where everyone feels safe, heard, and nurtured has been my passion and I have been fine tuning processes by learning from others and fine-tuning them through my own experiences with working with people. I will write down my vision soon so you can see what I envision. I probably will start this soon as a way to reach out to people. 

Creating online courses

I know there are platforms to make it easy for a company to create a school. I really think I have enough knowledge to teach a course in optimal cheap wellness. I just need people to help organize, produce and market. And hopefully people who come will have courses that they want to teach. One course could be, “how to share difficult topics with people” which includes sharing Christian Universalism. 

Fine-tuning my Organizing business

I have been doing professional organizing for over 20 years. I have been fine-tuning a system to help people completely declutter their home, and I’m currently working with a client virtually with great success. I also have facilitated two successful “team-organizing” jobs where I managed volunteers and paid workers to get homes transformed with the help of a team. This is something I have not seen done, and I want to develop this project as well.