E55: Van Life: A poet and power plant operator's nomadic shift fosters joy, creativity and community | Renaldo Holmes of HolmesFindsFreedom

This episode is sponsored by Marvelous, is a software platform that has everything: courses, bundles, memberships, live streams, community, integrations, a mobile app, and live tech support from real humans. It is the world's most beautiful and easeful teaching platform. Check it out at: heymarvelous.com I’m excited to invite you to my conversation with Renaldo Holmes, Holmes to all who know him, he is the person behind HolmesFindsFreedom on Youtube and Instagram. Holmes is a talented poet, educator, farmer and nomad. Holmes says that poetry saved his life and wants others to experience the healing power of spoken word. He had a bad stutter as a child and had hard time communicating and making friends. He would write a lot of poetry and eventually discovered spoken word. Holmes went to his first open mic, knowing he would stutter, and was terrified. The host told him he had two options - stay on this stage and recite your work no matter how long it takes or quit. He stayed on the stage and that changed his life. He began going back every week and his stuttering improved until he was able to cure himself of it completely. This is a perfect example of the courage, passion, dedication and creativity that Holmes approaches life with.  Several years ago Holmes sold his home, left a career as a power plant technician in Connecticut. He wasn’t feeling fulfilled in his life and didn’t want to live out his days continuing to feel like something was missing. He traveled all over the United States and eventually found a  city to settle in, bought a plot of land and started growing food for himself and his community. During the pandemic, Holmes felt called back to nomadic life. He sold his property, bought a van and embarked on a new adventure, spreading seeds, his farming knowledge and joy in every community he visited. He found his way to Mexico, working for a few urban farms before settling in a small rural  community. Holmes fell in love with the people, culture,  and way of life in Mexico. Holmes also felt greater love, acceptance and ease being a Black man in Mexico. He didn’t feel like people looked at him differently because of the color of his skin. With funds running out, Holmes made the difficult decision to return to the US so that he could put a plan in place to move to Mexico permanently. He returned to his power plant job in  and is continuing to live out of his van so that he can save money. A passionate grower, Holmes hasn’t let vanlife keep him from farming. When he returned to Connecticut, he put a call out to his community to see if anyone would let him grow food at their house and someone offered their front yard. This summer he grew a ton of produce and continued making  wonderful tutorial videos for his online following. His goal is to build  passive income streams to sustain him for the long term and save enough  to buy a small parcel of land in Mexico to homestead and live off of the land. This is a story about the healing effects of poetry, the community building power of growing food, and commitment and vision to work towards your dreams.Support the showSign up for  Apple Podcasts premium or our Patreon Membership for ad-free listening, rapid-fire guest interviews & our new mini-pod Ditch the City. urbanexodus.com | @theurbanexodus | buy the book