Intentional Living: We Left Everything to Build This

We want to share a little more about how we literally left everything to start this, to be here, to be this, to become this. Left everything familiar, comfortable, and normal.

It has been a journey. More like an arduous quest, actually. If we both had armor on, swords and bows and arrows, for all the nerds out there in the Zelda world. Questing. Not quite that awesome, but a very different experience overall. Definitely blood, sweat, and tears. Mostly sweat for Mark, and mostly tears for me. And a tiny bit of blood, because the thorns here go through any gloves, really.

You are only seeing a very small fraction of this place, because a lot of it is still underway. But this used to be just trees. You could not see anything. We got a raw patch of land because we thought that would be fun, and it was, but wow. What a process.

No one really tells you the reality behind taking raw land and forming it into something workable. And what it is like to work with contractors in a world where craftsmanship has leaked from the core of most beings and businesses. Especially when you have such creative eyes and want to hold a vision that is very unique, and that language does not cross over into the builder and contractor world. They say just level everything and build your house. We say no, we want to keep this like a sacred grove. They say what?

We did need to cut down some trees. We did need to uproot a lot. There was mud for a long time, and we still have some of that. But this grass was all cultivated over time, and we are so grateful to be sitting in it now.

NOTE: A video version of this is below, if you prefer to watch it.

Natalie:

Mark and I have been together since 2011, and we were in New York City. A very different life. I loved cities because I always wanted to live in a village, and I always thought cities were the closest things to villages. Not quite. Not these days. But it was worthy of an experiment. Everything at your fingertips, all the convenience, but it is too much.

In 2016, I got a deep call from my soul stream saying it is time. Are you ready? You have got to leave all of this. Six-figure paychecks and the corporate life that we were both in, the marketing agencies and such. When I said yes, I did not quite understand all the magnitude and the detail of the quest that would begin.

Almost the year after I said goodbye to corporate life, Mark started his own quest, leaving the comfortable paycheck into a freelancer life. But right after that, I got initiated into the deepest illness I had ever experienced. I was going a thousand miles an hour and I slammed into a brick wall. Natural wellness practitioners were not sure what was wrong with me, and mainstream medicine was the same. So this is really what dug us deep into, okay, something has got to change. It was like the world was giving me back to myself and I had to figure it out.

It is literally like that scene in the Matrix films where they extract all those plugs from your body. Over here is the six-figure paycheck, the title, the identity. It was a slow unplugging over many years. Because from that moment on, we ripped through our own home. That has got to go, that has got to go, that has got to go. Any foods, anything doing us harm. Synthetic supplements, bottled water, things we were told were good but, wait, there is way more here to uncover. And as soon as you tear off that first layer, you realize there is another one. And another. And another. Getting to the center of the Tootsie Pop takes way more than three licks. Mr. Owl is incorrect.

The real big shift was moving out of New York City. We knew the big city life, as amazing as it can be with the culture and opportunity and vibrancy, is just not sustainable long term. But where do you go? That was the big thing.

For us, we did not go straight to this. That would have been too much of a culture shock. So we downsized slowly. Smaller market, smaller market, smaller market. Lily pad to lily pad to lily pad. There are people who go from big city to small town in one jump, and that can work, but you have got to really be ready for that level, and we were not. So there was a lot of moving, a lot of uprooting, a lot of figuring out. And moving adds to stress. Finding places to live, security deposits, moving costs, packing and unpacking. When you have animals, you are uprooting everything and everyone, and it is a lot on the whole system.

There was also this part of me that did not want to root. It felt more comfortable being a gypsy, going from place to place, because you get that refresh every few years. New things. No long-term commitment. Not playing the game of the mortgage, not getting heavily into debt. That was not something we really wanted.

And yet here we are.

There is a purpose to all of this, because we held a vision. We actually did a feng shui exercise of drawing the vision onto paper, taking it out of the brain and putting it into the physical world. That is the visualization to manifestation process. We drew out how we had it in our heads, what it could look like. We knew we wanted water, a stream, and there is a stream here. We knew we wanted to be a certain number of minutes from town, and we are. We knew we wanted privacy, and we have that. We knew we wanted the ability to build on the property, and we have that.

It really did work out. The vision on paper and what actually came to be are contextually the same. The placement of things, the same. So you know you are on the right track.

But that vision changes. The realities of what you can and cannot do change. You have to run with it and not be so fixated that you create your own roadblocks. You have to be fluid and flexible. That is the flowing part of Forge and Flow.

The long story short of all of this is that doing what our souls, spirits, and breath are compelling us to do in the highest possible way requires leaving all things familiar and all things comfortable. To get into the new skin of what our true path is. What harmony can feel like in the body. When we anchor that into the earth, when we become so in rhythm with the natural world that there is no separation between us and that tree, us and that blade of grass, us and the soil, us and the stars, the feeling that creates is unlike anything else. That is what we feel here. I do not know a more profound word than profound, but if there were one, that would be it.

Even in doing the creative work we had been doing for so long, we got pulled into diplomas and certifications and deep into the natural wellness world. And that required yet another stripping. Transformation does not quite cover it. More like an inverting. A reverting. Putting it right side up again.

I had a career path that was steady, lucrative, and consistent for many years, even as a freelancer. And then the internal struggles came. In that industry, and in every industry right now, as of 2026 and beyond, the old world is crumbling. There is a lot of change happening across the board. Mass layoffs. Major career pivots. Loss of income. Fear about how you are going to afford your lifestyle, no matter how modest or extravagant, because an instant can level it, whether that is a layoff or a sudden lack of work.

And that brings an identity crisis, because you are tied to something for so long. This is what I have done, so I have got to keep seeking that. What else do I know. I am not good at anything else. I have done one thing my whole life. That is a self-defeating story, and there is so much untapped potential in all of us that we are unaware of because we have never sought it out. That is the imprisoned splendor we talk about.

Taking that armor off and being vulnerable is one of the hardest things to do, but there are always transferable skills within you that can be applied to something else. You have got to get creative, bounce things off other people, be willing to explore. For me it was Tai Chi and Qigong, the world of intentional movement. That modality helped me decompress and regulate my nervous system in a way that brought more clarity, focus, awareness, and hope.

Natalie:

The vision of what will be here is an educational hub, an apothecary, all the things we are creating to bring the full container of vibrational medicine, all of Mark's work and all of my work together, under the umbrella of Forge and Flow, and under the larger umbrella of Sacred Soul Health Ministry. We are building a ministry of wellness and a sanctum, because it is a place where you are free from intrusion. Sacred space. Where we are not being intruded upon every single minute of every single day. Holding that vision while moving through all the roadblocks and thorns and muck and beauty and harmony is a wild ride, and that is the most honest way I know to describe it.

You have to forge forward, but not so much that you burn yourself out or break the people around you. You have to breathe and take in the beauty around you. And then comes the flowing part. It truly is balance. A dance, a very primordial one, woven through all the practices we do. Qigong is about balance. Mineral rebalancing. Balanced nourishment. All the ways to not get stuck in extremes, which is what this world pushes and pulls us into constantly. So we come back to wholeness, stretch out a little, come back to wholeness again. Kneading that proverbial dough that is our life.

We are in this too. Every day we use the sacred practices we teach.

Mark and Natalie Viglione are the founders of Forge and Flow and the builders of One Song Grove, a living land sanctum in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Natalie is a Master Herbalist, Certified Flower Essence Therapist, Certified Root Cause Protocol Mineral Consultant, and Breathwork Guide. Mark is a Certified Qigong and Tai Chi Instructor, Certified Sound Healer, and Breathwork Practitioner. Together they guide the Forge and Flow Inner Sanctum, a membership community and ministry rooted in ancient wisdom for modern living, operating under Sacred Soul Health Trust and Ministry, a 508(c)(1)(a) faith-based organization.