A New Year: Time For New Ideas

Even if you never make a resolution for the New Year, it’s impossible not to spend at least a little time thinking about the possibilities of a brand new year, unscarred by the mistakes and missteps of the past. After all, in a very real way, a new year is a time for new ideas.

I think that is why I was so charged when I came across this amazing use for old plastic bottles. You know the ones: filled with fizzy drinks and about as much of a challenge to the environment as almost anything. England’s Deen City Farm -- a community project in south west London -- had all of their volunteers collect plastic pop bottles for a year. At the end of that year, they had 7000 bottles, which they then flattened into colorful, see-through shingles, a process that volunteers of all ages could take part in. From Inhabitat: Green Design Will Save the World:

What do you get when you put 7000 plastic bottles, 60 old sign posts, 350 metres of plastic water piping, 5 sheets of old building site boarding, 2 old scaffold planks and the sweat of over 180 volunteers together? This awesome Fizzy Bottle Hut! At first glance, the recycled structure might look like it has a colorful, shingled roof but upon closer inspection, you can see that it's actually made up of thousands of flattened soda and water bottles.

There are so many things to love about this idea. The thought of many volunteers making a conscious, year-long effort to collect that which we usually avoid. The concept of making something useful out of something discarded. In some ways, though, the thing that I like best of all is illustrated in the photos at left, and it’s a simple thing. I love the way the light shines through that roof. It seems symbolic to me, somehow. All of these hands coming together to create something that will both protect them and bathe them in this beautiful diffused light. That is, together the volunteers at Deen City Farm have created something that is practical, lovely and completely recycled by their own hands. They’ve created something entirely new.

The Inhabit piece is here, along with a lot of terrific pictures of the project both under construction and completed. The story is an inspiration in so many ways but, most of all in the lessons we can take away from creating something new and very special out of something old and discarded. A good lesson, I think, for 2011.

Happy New Year!

Holiday Walks and Dreams

One of my favorite walks at Dancing Deer Farm is the one that takes me all around the property. Never leaving the well worn track, you go up hills and into wooded dales. You can go over high plateaus -- where you always feel like you can see forever -- and through ancient oak forest. The sweet, brooding silence of those trees always humbles me: fate has made me one of their caretakers.

On a day when I’m alone with my dogs, just walking and thinking, it’s a walk of a good three quarters of an hour. Perhaps a bit more. That’s my morning exercise, plus it gives me an overview of what’s going on all over Dancing Deer.

Other days, when I’m walking with guests or friends or with my daughter or other members of my family, the walk can stretch into a much longer event, chatting and examining or maybe stopping for a bit and perching on a hillside or under a tree, enjoying a canopy of sky and the feeling of complete freedom I’ve never felt so exquisitely any other way or any other place.

This morning, as I did my usual circuit, dogs bounding ahead or falling behind, as is their wont, it occurred to me, as it sometimes does, that I am luckier than most. I’d just gotten back after being out of town on a family vacation, so I perhaps appreciated Dancing Deer even more keenly than usual. I’m lucky to have all of this natural beauty and wildlife at my doorstep. Lucky to be able to share this wonderful property with others and to learn, through that process, about their dreams and visions. And, by extension, I’m lucky to have all of you in my life.

May the joys of the season touch you and your family. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and dreams with us through 2010 and may your journey into the new decade be a sweet one.

Happy Holidays!

A (Not So Hasty) Retreat

I read recently that the Dalai Lama has said that “The ultimate factor determining whether we have a healthy mind and a healthy body lies within.”

Though there are several ways to take this, here’s what I get: our health and well-being are in our own hands, at least to a certain degree. In a world where so much is out of our control, this is one thing we can have some control over. We can get out and do the things for ourselves we’ve been wanting to. We can feed our spirits, our hearts and our souls. Feed them and nourish them by making choices that our both good for us and that make us happy.

To a large degree, that’s what the recent and ongoing creation of the programs at Dancing Deer have been about. I mean, here we are with this fantastic property that has so much to offer and we’re connected with a large number of deeply and diversely talented people. It did not seem like a leap to us to take the next step and think about what programs we could create that would make use of our wonderful resources to enrich our own lives and the lives of others.

For a while now, we’ve been contemplating just how to to do this, because all the elements were already there. It was just, then, a matter of arranging them in the sequence that would benefit the largest number of people.

And so here we are.

Though there are still some programs in the planning stage, the ones that are already being offered are terrific and fill several very specific needs. Here is a brief description of each of our current programs. Follow the links to get more information on all or any of them:

Yoga Retreat
Dancing Deer’s yoga retreats focus on sustainable and natural branches of wellness and attunement with the body. We offer weekend and week-long yoga retreats that include sessions with our resident yogis as well as time for self-exploration and retreat.

Hot Springs Retreat
Many people believe that natural hot springs have therapeutic effects that can relieve or restore health. At the Hearts Journey Hot Springs retreat, visits to nearby Franklin Hot Springs will a core part of your week with us, but not all of it: the emphasis is on healing and rejuvenation with ample time for self-directed reflection and learning

Personal Retreat
Combining elements of private retreat and farm stay in a completely natural and self-directed environment, your personal retreat gives you the opportunity for relaxation and reflection that we seldom allow ourselves in this fast-paced world.

Raw Food Retreat
Offering participants the opportunity to learn more about incorporating raw foods into their diet for detoxification and health while learning how to gain the maximum life force from your food, all in our beautiful farm stay environment.

For an overview, visit our Programs page. Interest has been high and spots are filling up incredibly quickly. If you’d like more information on any of the retreats, e-mail me here or call 805-769-6664.

Greening the World: From the Grassroots Up

One of the things that truly delights me is to see how deeply the grassroots of the green movement has taken hold. Amazing things are happening in all segments of what I think of as the greening of our world. That is, a more conscious approach to living by an ever broader number of people from so many walks and so many countries.

Here’s an example: an international Green Roof conference kicked off in Vancouver, Canada today. Over a thousand delegates are expected from as far away as New Zealand, Denmark and South America. The eighth annual CitiesAlive green roof and wall conference runs until December 3rd. Unofficially, though, it’s been an important focus for 20 Vancouver grade six and seven children for the last week. The class has been building their own green roofs at a local college campus, getting a real grassroots feel for what this all means in real world terms. From The Vancouver Sun:

The kids used real green roof building materials and a few varieties of drought-resistant hardy sedum plants to create their mini-roofs inside quarter-litre milk cartoons.

Next, they tested their constructions to see if they retained water. Most worked well.

As important as that, however, is the fact that those kids will retain what they learned all their lives. Not just the pieces of technology they’ve no doubt picked up, but also the idea that we are all part of something larger than ourselves and that our attention is needed in very intimate ways in order to make a difference. And that alone will make a difference.

The conference sounds amazing, too. I wish I were closer and able to attend. It seems like it’s going to be part think tank, part trade show, part brainstorming session. Again, The Sun:

There will a wide range of experts, include urban planners, architects, environmentalists and landscape designers, who want to share information and learn more about green roof and green wall technology.

Green roofs are seen as a way to cut energy costs, recycle rain water and reduce the heat-island effect buildings have on their immediate surroundings, considered a significant contributing factor to global warming.

The Vancouver Sun piece is here. The conference web site is here.

Yoga Retreat at Dancing Deer

I’m excited about an upcoming series of yoga retreats that will be held at Dancing Deer Farm over the coming months. This will be an incredible opportunity for those who are interested in learning more about yoga as well as those who already have incorporated aspects of yoga into their lifestyles to learn more while experiencing the beauty and bounty at and near Dancing Deer Farm. Participants will enjoy the opportunity to connect with nature and themselves, interacting with the animals and wildlife here, walking our beautiful trails and enjoying our oak forest and our wonderful setting. (So close to everything... yet it often seems a million miles away!)

Interest in the retreats has been high and available space is filling up quickly.

You can learn more about the retreats -- including accommodation information, pricing and who to contact -- on the Dancing Deer web site.

Also, stay tuned for more updates. We have a whole slate of restorative retreats on the boards. All of them connected to healthful and conscious living.