Stunning photo of Gibson Lake

Gibson Lake

This is a stunning photo that I found a good location for.  Most spots showed the fallen trees lining the bottom of the lake, but this spot found a nice reflection for the sky and the majestic mountains in the background.

The stream coming out of Gibson Lake (below) travels down the hills to the Kootenai Lake which is actually the head waters of the Columbia River.  Talk about putting things in perspective.

Gibson Lake below Kokanee Glacier

In the picture below the lake, of the avalanche path, those mountain peaks are at least 3,000 feet above us.  Every slope of the mountains seemed to have those slices of cleared trees through them, where bushes are now growing.  Meaning avalanches happen quite often up there!

Above the old growth forest, we continued driving on the logging road for another 5 to 6 km and we came to a large parking area.  I wish I had taken some pictures of the trucks in that lot.  They were nearly all surrounded by chicken wire.  Apparently porcupines are a problem up there – they will gnaw on brake cables and tires and whatnot.  After getting out of the car and walking around, we quickly discovered Gibson Lake.  This is a large but shallow lake under the glacier area.

Hiking around old growth cedars

Hiking around in the Kokanee Glacier park, we first climbed up a rough wash-boarded logging road, where 4-wheel drive is recommended.  We had to go extremely slow as a result of having a low front-wheel-drive hatchback.  5 km up the logging road, there is a little parking area to hike around in old growth cedar forest.  It was very serene and beautiful.  It felt a little like being in northern California (but to be honest, the Muir Woods monument is still the most peaceful “temple” of nature I have ever been in).  With that said, we encountered several trees that were between 500 and 800 years old and the one oldest tree is 850 years old.  There were great signs explaining everything about the old growth forest – animals, riparian areas, trees, insects, etc.  Everything was very well marked!  Someone is doing an incredible job of trail maintenance and education up there.

The 9 sided meditation hut (the nonagon)

We taught meditation and Buddhist chanting in the nonagon.  Plus Ken has wrapped copper wire around a lot of the rocks in the ground around the structure and he has the wire coming up into the middle of the nonagon.  It is possible to meditate while holding the wire and there is a noticeable energy that is coming through (sort of a pulse for me) and it seemed to shift things in people’s heads – cranial bones.  It was pretty wild.  Maybe not for everyone though (if you are extra sensitive, then maybe go easy with this exercise).  The Nonagon was where Myrna conducted her turns in the mornings.  Therefore it was quite charged up – lots of healing has happened in there!

the environs of the PPN training were ideal

The setting for the summer intensive is quite idyllic.  Peaceful, fog shrouded mornings, followed by mountain-breeze-filled, sunny afternoons, pleasant evenings with chilly nights.  I will try to post pictures soon.

For those of you who are reading my blog for the first time, I did training with Myrna Martin and there were 12 of us participants, along with 3 teaching assistants plus the 2 head teachers (Myrna and Ken).  You can find her site here: http://www.myrnamartin.net

Looking out over the valley each morning, the large mountains of the Kootenai Lake valley were opposite us.  They were about 5 to 6,000 feet high with evergreen trees rising up their steep slopes, usually to the top.  Further in the distance, rising slightly above the northern, closer peaks were higher mountains still.  The Kokanee Glacier lay hidden behind those, about 30 km away or more.  The guys (myself included) would hike around that Glacier park during the middle weekend.

The three of us males were down from the main house.  I stayed in a large dome type set-up – not quite a tent, but not quite a permanent structure either.  I had one dome-mate and there was plenty of space for both of us.  We each had a twin mattress and boxsprings to sleep on, along with piles of blankets which I actually needed during some of the chillier nights.

Ken and Myrna are really big about living greener lifestyles, so they grow a lot of their own food – they had blue berries, raspberries, strawberries, sea buckthorn berries, pears, plums and more.  Most of these were ripe while I was there (definitely recommend being there in August!!).

Walking further up the hill, above the main house, is the “super dome” as some of us called it.  They have a large dome structure, similar in material to the residential domes, but the large dome could easily hold 30 people, seated.  They had a screen and a projector there, where they would show birth videos, yoga videos and power point presentations, etc.

It was definitely more rustic!  We used composting toilets every day – these were actually buckets that we put peat moss on each time we went to the bathroom.  They were emptied every day.  The warm showers were nice but most mornings I would step out of the shower into a chilly morning, so it was refreshing and occasionally bittersweet.

They have beautiful gardens scattered all over their property.  They must have had two dozen cherry tomato plants as well, so these were always available to snack on – right off the vine!  Plus they had a large fountain with a Buddha and Kuan Yin statue nearby – very serene and perfect for their intention.  In addition to that, they also had a hot tub!  I watched the sun set several times from the hot tub.  It was the perfect way to rest sore muscles after a mid-day hike.

And speaking of hiking, my dome was close to the gate which was down at the end of their driveway.  And beyond that, I could be on a hiking trail within minutes!  It was so nice to head up the mountain and explore the dozens of hiking trails.  I’m good in the woods and with direction, so I was never concerned about getting lost.

In fact, one day I took off intending to discover a loop trail.  I knew generally where it was and where it led to, but I did not know how long it would take.  Therefore I was jogging half the time.  I was later told it was close to 6 km long and I somehow finished it in under 30 minutes!  It was very steep coming down though!

There were several cats on the property which was nice.  They sort of broke up the intensity of sitting with my psychological, developmental stuff.  I could just pick up a cat and have good company in my lap for a short time!

They were having issues with their internet, so it was perfect.  It was one of my intentions to have less screen time and I think for the entire 2 weeks I had about 20 – 30 minutes of internet, email checking time.  And of my goodness, it was refreshing to be away from Facebook for 2 weeks as well (especially with all the polarizing political garbage going on).

They are up in the mountains, so bears are a potential issue.  Therefore they have an electric fence around their property.  There was one day that a bear cub somehow shimmied over a gate and was eating blue berries.  Ken had to chase him out with a shovel.  Fortunately we did not see that cub’s mother!  And I went for at least six different hikes while I was up there and never saw a bear while hiking.  I did make noises every 10 yards or so, knowing I was hiking alone, I did not want to startle a bear or a coyote.  Rather have them know I was coming and mosey on out of my way  🙂

All in all, they have set up and created the ideal space for a process workshop.  Negative ions from the woods which surround their property, lots and lots of views of nature and mountains and flowers abound.  And they must have at least half a dozen statues of Kuan Yin scattered throughout their property.

Day 1, 2 at PPN intensive, Nelson, Canada

If readers are interested, I am going to be slowly going through my journal and detailing what we did each day.  Of course some information about other people’s (participants) turns is confidential, I will just be describing my experience and my reactions and my thoughts on the process.

Day 1 – Monday.  We were a pretty large group – 17 including 3 teaching assistants and the 2 teachers (Myrna Martin and Ken Martin) plus 12 participants.  Therefore the morning was entirely taken up with 10 minute introductions and check-ins from each person.  In the afternoon, we chose beads to see which 6 person pod we would be a part of (for the entire 2 weeks) and then later we also chose beads to see which smaller group of 3 we would be a part of for the first week.  This group of 3 changed people for the second week.  We discussed what people needed to feel safe and comfortable, we discussed how much support was available there are the retreat – we could talk to the TA’s and the teachers at any point about our process.  A 10 or 15 minute check-in was easy and encouraged.  Also if we wanted, the TA’s were also available most evenings for an hour long session that we could pay additional for.

Most days we had delicious breakfast at 8 am, then occasionally we would have a snack around 10 am.  Then an organic delicious lunch was served at 12:30 pm.  There was almost always a break / snack time in the afternoon – 3:30 pm or so and then dinner was served at 6:30 pm.  The food was incredible and Andria did a wonderful job of accommodating at least 6 different food sensitivity needs – some people were vegetarians, others were grain free, one person was gluten free and others wanted to have at least 1 serving of meat per day, and so on!  To be honest though, I might go back just for the food (and the beautiful clean pure environment) it was so so so good!

Day 2 – Tuesday.  The morning was the first turn with Myrna.  Without having experienced a process workshop or one of her trainings, it will be difficult to describe fully what a turn looks like.  Also, each person’s turn is determined by their intention.  If someone’s intention is to explore their birth patterns in relationship to psychological boundaries, then the turn will almost always involve a re-birthing of sorts.  A turn might also explore conception and implantation without getting to the birth – we would have the chance to re-do the genetic coding of whether or not this world we live in is safe and comfortable and encouraging of exploration and play (vs. dangerous and survival is the only thing we can be concerned with!).  Some people’s turns explored adult type issues like boundaries with partners, boundaries with family of origin, etc.  Therefore there is no one way of doing a turn.

The process for determining whose turn it was, is very important and revealing and insightful as well.  First Myrna would ask, “is everyone here ready to support someone’s turn?”  And then she would ask, “who here knows it is not their turn today?”  Next we would get into checking in about how we feel about taking a turn if we did not raise our hands to that last question.  On several days, multiple people felt like it could be their turns, and we would negotiate about how we felt about taking that turn.  Only once did we have to choose a number between 1 and 20.  And on that day, both people we basically working with the same nuances of their birth process.  Therefore, in spite of not taking that particular turn, the other person felt like they too took a turn that day.  It was pretty amazing!

Once we knew whose turn it was, we went around affirming that it was our turn to everyone.  For some people, each of these steps could be a huge deal, and therefore we went slowly allowing for whatever wanted to arise to do so.

The first turn was extremely potent.  There was a little bit of a negotiation that took place to see whose turn it was but once we got started (knowing whose turn it was), it proceeded to deepen further and further.  It did not involve a re-birthing as far as I can recall.  But we all did somatic motions with our hands as toxic words and emotions were released and we “shoveled” that crap out the windows.  It was a big day of release and reclamation.

That afternoon we did what seemed like a relatively simple exercise involving ropes and cords.  We set up our little bubble of space and that was our boundary.  We could make it as large as we wanted to or as small as we liked.  And then we would explore having someone put their bubble nearby us.  And then we got to feel what it was like to have someone put something in our bubble without our permission.  For some reason, in spite of having done this exercise at least four or five times previously for various workshops, I found this exercise to be very activating!  I was a part of a group of 3 people who were fairly sensitive, so I think we all felt a lot during this playing with boundaries game.

It turned out that each afternoon we would do a different edgy – potentially-emotionally-charged exercise and our TA mentioned that each exercise could give rise to multiple turns (as in 3 hour turns).  They were that informative and insightful.

I think it was this day that we had a sushi bowl.  This was by far my favorite meal that we had at the intensive (I mentioned to some people there that if there was one food I could survive on for the rest of my life, it might be sushi!).

Each day built of the previous day as we were slowly building up to exploring our own conception and birth processes (in week 2).  Therefore just about everyone became more and more exhausted by the end of the first week and definitely once we got into the 2nd week.

By writing this, I feel that I am recollecting the beautiful energy and container and cohesion of the group I was a part of.  The principles of safety and saying no and contact etc created a marvelously safe and comfortable space for dropping deep into emotionally charged waters.  And frankly, that kind of container is extremely difficult to find in any kind of workshop or training!  (This is coming from someone who has done dozens of various types of retreats and workshops and trainings.)

Thanks for reading!

~km