The Haven

View from The Haven


We ended up going to Gabriola and staying at a place called "The Haven Institute". It is another retreat centre .. one of the things I wanted to do this summer was a visit a few of these places to see how they worked. I am quite serious about wanting to set up some kind of arts retreat centre in Bear River so I wanted to see a couple of different models.

Hollyhock and The Haven both spring from the same roots .. The Cold Mountain Institute which was the predecessor of Hollyhock on Cortes during the '70's. CM morphed into Hollyhock, and a couple of the other people involved created The Haven.

The two places have different orientations .. Hollyhock is more spiritual/artistic and perhaps less grounded than the Haven, which was started by a psychiatrist and a medical doctor with a psycho-social rather than a psycho-spiritual orientation. An example of the differences .. at Hollyhock when we were there, the seminar in session was empowerment through singing, and another one on Yoga. At the Haven, the visitors were a group of people who were trying to work their way through depression.

Both valuable and have their place, and were wonderful spaces to visit. I am surprised that there are very few places like this in Nova Scotia. My vision would be to come up with a blend of the two .. more arts stuff than the Haven but maybe more grounded than Hollyhock. Hard to explain in a few paragraphs what I mean by that .. still working it out myself.

Overall, the past ten days have been wonderful for sitting on the grass looking up at trees, feeling my toes in the warm sand, reading, and just being. I'm getting really good at this R&R stuff ...

It was another great time, and now I am back in Vancouver. I have a few days of work to do and then I head down to Seattle. My trip to India is not far off .. I have to get grounded again and start to work on my To Do list. Today is my final travel-related shot (for Japanese Encephalitis so I don't end up with a swollen brain and drooling in a nursing home for the rest of my life. It's costing our project $300 for this shot alone, but since my brain is my most cherished possesion, I think it's worth it.)

Gotta go unpack. Laundry would be a good idea too since I have been living in the same clothes for ten days. Good practice for India, also it was a good time to find out how much weight on my back was too much. I need to find another backpack and carry less stuff ...


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