Day 2 of 10: Ted and Cyril's farm - Condom, France.

The many synchronistic events that have led up to me reading this book, what I’m doing in the world, and the readiness of my mind to absorb this message is astounding to me. I have asked, and the universe has provided, is providing, and now more than ever, faithful that the ‘gods’ will continue to provide.

The central message that was conveyed in Ishmael, is elaborated here in The Story of B. Somewhere in the passage of reading this book, I recalled the words of an scientist/metaphysician in ‘What the Bleep.’ -“The more I learn about quantum mechanics and its significance in the world, and more I feel we are living in a wrong paradigm.” I never fully understood what she meant when she said this, and now after reading this book, I have a better idea.

We are living in the wrong paradigm: Our world before ‘The Great Forgetting’ consisted of multitudinous cultures, and over time, one has propagated and presided – OUR culture. Totalitarian agriculture has spread throughout the world, bolstered by the belief that “ours is the right way” and the Great Forgetting has led to our world being over-populated (and continues to do so at an alarming rate!) and all sorts of other ailments such as war, poverty and crime as a result. It tackles squarely the question of how we are living, why we are doing what we’re doing, why it’s not working, and how we can change. Humanity had been living harmoniously with the planet since the first humans. Then, from 8000BC, one culture ‘eats from the tree of wisdom’ and decides, using totalitarian agriculture as a method, what lives or dies. This ‘new’ lifestyle and mindset had made us out to be wise as gods and made the world to be a piece of human property. Our egocentricity has made us believe that God has made man to conquer and rule the world, and that’s what we’re doing - subjugating other ways of living to OUR way of living, destroying the world in the process.

What I love about this book is that it is riddled with scripture from the bible, making the words of Jesus come alive and practical to my sensibilities. Having put down this book, I find myself living synchronously – on an organic farm, accepting people, living simply, re-learning to live self-sustainingly and naturally with the planet.

I set out on this 1-year odyssey with Amber intending to learn and discover the ‘best way to live.’ I might not quite have related these feelings to Amber in quite the same words and I suspect she might respond to you, if you asked her, that we’re on our spiritual adventure/travel/honeymoon – which I also completely harmonize with. What I have learned and discovered most invaluable so far, is not being in Times Square, the Eiffel Tower, or the Matterhorn (which we passed up to be with Sonya in Verbier, by the way) – but by living and being with people.