A Retreat Center wrote sometime in 2016

Off to talk with Josiah Weber this morning. He is a local Menonite man who has become a friend over the past 8 years. He took care of my horses for a few years while I got the farm ready and he is the local ferrier. He is also the Menonite minister I just found out awhile ago. It is a little funny that they never talk religion to non-menonites but when I go over there late in the evenings, he and his wife are sitting around the kitchen table reading the bible by oil lamp. They don't sit in the livingroom because they have no livingroom. Why would you have a room to sit around in and do nothing. There is no tv or movies or games. There is work, prayer, eat, and sleep. They do have a cot in the kitchen in case one of the children is sick and they plan on that. Such an interesting culture. Anyway, it has been my dream to build a retreat center for the past 40 years. In fact, moving out to the farm was the first step. Buying the beautiful piece of property just across the bridge from me out here was the 2nd step. I have been meeting with the building inspector, actualy the retired building inspector for the past couple of years picking his brain. I now know was size building it should be and where it should be and have talked with Josiah to get some more ideas. I had my friends son Zak draw up some pictures which I will show Josiah today and get some more concrete ideas of sizes according to how they build there post and beam construction. And then I will have Zak draw up some more detailed plans which I can give to a friend of mine who says he will help me financially to build it so he can have a place to call home for 2 weeks of the year while he is here. Sounds awesome to me. I keep going ahead with plans while my children and some of my friends laugh at me because I have no money but it certainly feels like I am guilded and it is my destiny to build this place. It will be really something to pass on to my children if they so desire. It will be a place of refuge in a crazy busy world, that is for sure. My initial thought is that it will be a place of peace where yoga is offered every morning. This comes from a time in my 20's when I got back from Europe married to a Czeck man Jeff, to get him a passport. We met in the Canary Islands and fell in love. I am sure we would not have gotten married just then but the police had thrown him in jail in Switzerland when we got back because he was out of the country for too long. You see a lot of Czecks left Czeckoslovakia in 1969 when the Russians invaded. A lot of them went to Switzerland thinking it was the land of milk and honey. Not understanding that it is impossible to get a Swiss passport unless you are a millionaire or a doctor or something which they find desireable. An artist, is not something desireable to them and Jeff certainly was that. Needless to say, the marriage did not last and I ended up drinking a lot and a bit lost in space. That is when I met the 3HO people, North American Sikhs. Happy, healthy, and holy. I hung out with them for awhile, getting up every day at 4 am, and did 3 hours of yoga every morning before I went off the my court monitor job. It was so wonderful to feel so alive on the subway while everyone else was half asleep drinking coffee. I thought i would love to have that every day of my life but you see I am not that disciplined. But if we had a center where this was offered, I would be there. I once met a woman with the Sikh white turban and clothes coming out of a confectionary store in Sault Ste. Marie. I had to talk with her and brought her home for a visit. I then invited her out to my cottage on Lake Superior and we got up to do Yoga togehter at 4 am. It was wonderful. My husband Jeff, thought we were nuts. But I certainly do not have the disciple to do that on my own every day. Bed is a wonderful warm place in the morning.