Leisha Pilgrimage usually brings to mind sacred paths across continents, places where saints left traces of miracles behind them. My pilgrimage has stayed closer to the ground. It has taken place in the living experiment of the Project site, a journey fueled by a clear vision and an unclear route.
I have always known why this land calls me. The why has been rooted in my bones since the beginning: to restore connection, health, and sovereignty.
The how has revealed itself slowly, like stepping stones that only appear once my foot is already in motion. There has been no manual. No blueprint that holds all the answers. Only a determination that rises each morning and says, “continue! Against all odds…you are building something that matters.”
My pilgrimage has taken place in the everyday dust of construction, the turning of compost piles, the tending of gardens in southern Ecuador where microbes and roots have been my most loyal guides.
I did not come here already healed or certain…. I came with an ache to build something honest and real. To create a place where soil and soul could be restored together. The gardens became my companions. The herbs became my allies. They always have been. Their presence brought me through years of change, confusion, and quiet courage, even when I questioned everything.
There was a day when I stood alone at the Project site. I had no money. Rain fell in slow streaks from a low sky and the ground beneath my mocassins was rubble and mud. The building was only a shell, stripped bare and leaking in too many places to count. It looked like destruction more than possibility. For a moment, I felt the weight of uncertainty (financial and emotional) settle deep inside me.
Was I strong enough to transform ruin into life?
The land offered no words, only a steady pull from the ruined soil itself: stay.
A vision was seen that most could not share with me. Microbes were ready to repair what humans had broken. Creation was beginning below the surface long before anyone could see evidence of it.
That moment shaped this pilgrimage. I chose to root myself here, even with shaking hands and heart and worry about how to finacially support this. The comittment to make this happen has often left me with a knapsack of responsibility but I walked on.
Over the course of this path both joy and complexity have been present. There is a relationship that has shaped me more than any other, one that continues to move with me through each stone laid and seed planted.
Its story is still unfolding. Soil has shown me that roots remain active even when no leaves are visible, that growth often begins far below the surface. I trust this wisdom. Humans have shown me that many are lost, wrapped up in themselves and we live in a time where much healing is required.
Some connections need time in the dark before they rise into the light again. I carry that knowing close to my heart.
There is a special little girl whose life is woven into my heart. Though our lives are following different paths at the moment, I know with a clarity deeper than thought that one day our paths will meet again. She, and all the others in her next generation are fuel for my vision.
The soil has taught me that seeds hold their future long before they sprout. Some connections simply take time to reveal their shape. I do not need to force this. I do not need to understand the timing. I trust it. Young seedling rising quietly beneath the surface, gathering strength for the moment they break through into the sunlight. When that day comes, it changes everything. It is a beginning written long ago.
Through all of this, dear friends have walked with me. People who believe in this work and in me. People who show up with spades, paint brushes and just encouraging, kind words. There is a lot of genuine connection too. This is like encouragement sunlight breaking through clouded mornings.
The invisible world beneath my feet has also been teaching me. Microbes turning every hardship into nourishment. That is the magic of compost. Fungi weaving root systems into community. Nothing wasted. Nothing lost. Every disappointment composted into the fertility of tomorrow.
Two plant allies have stood beside me through this entire journey, each arriving at exactly the moment their teachings were needed.
Dandelion was one of the first to show herself. She pushed up through concrete, gravel, and all the debris left behind from the past. Her roots travel deep into places where others cannot reach, pulling minerals up from the hidden layers of earth and making them available for the whole ecosystem. She tells me that even in harsh circumstances there is nourishment waiting to be discovered. She is proof that life does not require permission to begin again. Adaptation is a sacred strength. Every time I see her bright face, she reminds me that what looks like ruin can become the foundation for something healing. She is the embodiment of resilience. She has been my reminder that the soil beneath us never gives up.
Chicory has been a quieter messenger, yet no less powerful. Here, she does not arrive uninvited. We plant her. We choose her. We watch her take root in this land, offering her medicine with grace. Her flowers bloom like eyes of pure blue, reflecting both sky and truth. She nourishes the life blood and keeps circulation moving. Her presence reminds the heart and the soil that flow is essential. Stagnation is temporary. Renewal is natural. She invites vitality to return where exhaustion once lived and helps the body remember what movement feels like.
Together these two plants have walked this pilgrimage with me. Dandelion teaches me how to transmute hardship into nourishment. Chicory teaches me how to trust the flow of life, even in uncertainty. They carry the wisdom of the soil microbiome, transforming what is hidden beneath the ground into a flourishing life above it.
They remind me that change is the only constant we can count on. The soil is always changing as life breaks down and begins again. Plants change form with every season. People change. Landscapes evolve. Healing reshapes us in ways we never predicted. Nothing stays the same, and this is the quiet miracle of life. We can change the land and the land can change us. All growth is transformation. All transformation is sacred.
This pilgrimage has also been shaped by love and loss. Jim passed before I acquired the Project site, yet the path we walked together continues to influence my every decision. We hoped for a future held in shared hands, but life had a different shape in mind. The months we shared near the end of his journey were tender and humbling. He showed me that love continues even after form has changed. He still walks with me. The garden remembers him. The wind holds his presence. He taught me that endings feed beginnings, just like compost feeds the soil.
What guides me now is the vision that has always lived in my heart. A place where humans reconnect with their own nature through Earth, food, and community. A living education site where self reliance is cultivated like a seed. Healthy, nourishing food grown in clean living soil. Natural medicines made from local plants. Products crafted with care and respect for life. Animals living with purpose and dignity. People of all ages and backgrounds learning, growing, sharing. A community that nourishes itself and everything around it.
We truly can build from nothing. I have seen it with my own eyes. A bare piece of land can become a home. A cracked foundation can become a thriving garden. A heart weighed down by uncertainty can rise when it is rooted in purpose. Healing is not a passive thing. It happens when we apply ourselves to our dreams, when we choose to show up even when conditions are not ideal. We find out who we are in the work. We remember what matters through the sweat and the soil. Vision grows stronger every time we act on it.
Living Ground is not just a project. It is a prayer carried out in real time. A haven where the soil microbiome and the human microbiome are reunited into one continuous cycle of vitality.
For those who feel called back to the wild and to the wisdom beneath our feet, I wrote a book born from this very soil and we have a garden that it is living example of this book.
We are Wild, the ones you cannot contain.
This is not just a book about herbs. It is a remembering. The plants speak – We are Wild, the ones you cannot contain.A return to the soil beneath our feet, the wild medicine in our gardens, and the unseen microbial allies who have always guided us.
The Wild Plants: Nature’s Secret blends folk wisdom, science, personal story, and botanical lore into a tapestry of healing. Fifty deeply profiled plants become characters, teachers, and friends.
You are not simply learning about plants. You are becoming part of the remembering.
You can find it here:
https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Plants-Natures-Secrets-Self-Reliance-ebook/dp/B0FBYDPV2H
Thank you to the gardens for teaching me patience.
Thank you to the soil for turning loss into richness.
Thank you to Dandelion and Chicory and all the other healing herbs for guiding the way.
Thank you to the people and spirits who walk with me seen and unseen.
This is my pilgrimage.
Rooted. Alive. Unfinished.
The story continues.
