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Writer's pictureGerke Hoogland

A near-death experience



I have been living in my earth house on my land in Portugal for about two months now. For the first time in nine years I have a home again. A place where I can settle and where I feel good. A place where I like to be and experience peace. And where I am connected with my environment.


As a child I longed for a place full of warmth and love. I can hardly express it in words. It is a certain feeling that has been present for years. It is very powerful and I can connect to it at any time. It is my 'inner home'. The basis from which I make my choices. Sometimes to protect this feeling. And sometimes to undertake activities to reinforce this feeling.


Since living in Portugal my life has completely changed. Space and time has been created to start over. And to live completely from this feeling. It takes time and energy. But it is very satisfying. It's like I'm part of the whole again. In tune with the environment. I don't check in with nature, but nature checks in with me. The whole day long.


A few days after I moved I saw Pim van Lommel in the podcast Kukuru. Someone I have great respect for. Ten years ago I read his book 'Consciousness beyond life' with great fascination and saw his documentary. I thought it was beautiful. And now during this podcast I was again seized, this time by a question from Giel Beelen about his own childhood. Something clicked with me that I had overlooked for a long time.


On birthdays, my mother often talks about an experience I had as a ten-year-old. I was in a boat with my aunt in Giethoorn and I fell overboard. My aunt assumed I could swim – which in principle I could – but I nearly drowned. I was far away at that time. Finally my aunt lifted me out of the water. After 23 years I realize that as a child I had a near-death experience. It also explains the out-of-body experiences I had as a child afterwards. And the 'inner home feeling' that has always stayed with me.


I always craved an outer environment that resonated with my emotional world. And that's exactly what I've been creating in Portugal over the past few years through permaculture, eco-building, youth work, holistic health and local community. With the move everything came together and my emotional world clicked with the external environment or vice versa. As inside, so outside.


Sometimes we have no idea why certain things happen. Certain experiences or situations. Only over time. Then we can make connections and connect experiences. We come to see that life has always invited us to walk our own path to come home again.

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