The Stanford Inn by the Sea - Eco-Lodge & Retreat Center

It is a month since I last wrote - a long, eventful month. We have been busy with a variety projects. One of the newest is the creation of the Mendocino Center.

Here's an introduction:

- Mendocino is a natural center for healing. For generations, people have come to Mendocino for its breathtaking natural beauty, organic food and wine...and ultimately the powerful energy and resources for wellness that energize people to renew their lives.

We came to Mendocino to do innkeeping, looking on it as a family business which could provide a living in one of the most beautiful places in the world. But we got more than we expected. The land changed us: we realized that we could live more gently. Loving animals, we quit eating them. We adopted sustainable practices for landscaping and in areas that had been neglected, we created edible, organic gardens; and we adopted other vocations. Joan commuted to Sonoma State to become first a Montessori instructor and later a board certified art therapist. I became involved in energy work - earth and human - and later was ordained a minister. In the meantime, we sought to create a context for visitors to experience what we experienced here as well as offer wellness services.

We began health supporting therapeutic massage and yoga in 1991. In 1996, Jack Schwarz founder of the human potential movement in the United States brought Aletheia Institute to the Inn. Jack was a healer, philosopher, naturopath, and educator who sought the integration of body, brain/mind and spirit. Jack was an exceptional human being who passed-on in 2000. Since then we have continued to seek to provide residents and our guests a central base for all things oriented to wellness. Now we are working with the best minds and talent in medical, alternative and spiritual healing in Mendocino to expand this vision.

Mendocino Center is the working name for this group of local practitioners of life enhancing programs: tai chi, Chinese herbal medicine, breath work, art exploration, acupuncture, yoga, energy medicine, massage, community ritual as well as traditional medicinal practices such as psychiatry, allopathic medicine, and much more. These practitioners do not necessarily practice here. For example, Cathy Van Camp offers Watsu (aquatic) massage five miles from the Inn. Ron and Toni Nadeau operate Spirit House, a center for environmental, community and personal ritual between Mendocino and Fort Bragg.

Mendocino Center has two components - the clinical practice of the individual practitioners and their wellness practices designed to enhance and enliven life for individuals who are looking for experience in practices from art expression to yoga. At the Inn we are concerned with the second - life enhancement. Since many of the individual programs are located on the property guests have an opportunity to experience programs that enhance their lives - increasing their awareness: Programs that are intended to help make one's life more mindful.

More on this later!

An association to which we belong, Johansens, wrote to ask if we qualified for being considered "green." The writer knew we did, however was following protocol. She provided a list of eight activities/policies. Any three of the activities/policies would assure that we are green. We are doing all eight, plus substantially more.

The inn and restaurant recycles everything possible and all organic wastes are composted on the property - waste management! And the compost is used in our garden which produces 25% of the produce we use. In addition our kitchen provides vegan food at night and and ovo-lacto vegetarian meals in the AM. We have eliminated eggs and dairy in all baking. The following information has been reported earlier in this blog and is worth repeating. Eating with us substantially impacts a guest's carbon footprint when visiting the Mendocino Coast:

The following calculations are based on an average caloric intake of 3,740 calories per day -

The average American diet produces 13.25 pounds of CO2 and CO2 equivalents per day!
Vegetarian diets that include dairy and eggs generate 7.37 pounds of CO2/CO2 equivalents per day!

Vegan whole food diet generates only 1 1/8 lb of CO2/CO2 Equivalents!

For those of you who don't know, we use/do the following -

We use biodiesel to power our trucks. The biodiesel is made from recycled plant oils from a potato chip factory.

We have switched from commercial clothes washers to LG TROMMs which actually rate as small commercial machines. Most importantly, they use substantially less water per pound of laundry. In our rooms, all toilets are rated at 1.6 gallons per flush or less (many are 1.1 gallon Elgers); all faucets and showers are low flow.

Our pool is a salt water pool - one that uses salt as the source of sanitizer.

All cleaning products are sustainable and non-toxic (unless concentrated, such as a citrus oil).

We continually monitor activity on Big River to assure that it is not being damaged by illegal activities, such as pulling out "sinkers" logs which were jammed into the river's bed during the early days of logging. These logs significantly damaged spawning beds but which became the site of spawning beds in the current era.

We provide low impact access to the beauty of this area - mountain bikes, canoes, kayaks and outrigger redwood canoes.

We carefully purchase in-room amenities - finding products that are sustainably produced and provide soap in pump bottles for hand and body.

We deeply research products - e.g., is an organic, non-vegan (animal based) mattress more sustainable than one made from petrochemical products. (Try dealing with this issue with so little information available!) Our decisions are based on what makes the most sense.

Thought you would like to know!

Last Sunday, Gypsy could not get up without help. We had no idea what had happened. An hour before he was prancing in the lobby following Joe on a trip outside. I have to tell you that we were frightened - thinking that something horrible was happening - that the cancer was back.

We have known for several years that Gypsy has a hip problem - probably arthritis. Five years ago, he came up with a limp and we put him on a pain killer prescribed by his veterinarian - Rimadyl a NSAID. Gypsy improved when on Rimadyl and we decided to take him off of it. His behavior became bizarre and we had to put him back on the drug and he went on a strict vegan diet. Over the next month, we successfully withdrew him from the Rimadyl.

He has had only occasional minor lameness until last Sunday when he wasn't able to get up. He had favored his left leg slightly on a walk the previous day, perhaps from compensating, and somehow he injured his right knee. When I massaged him, his right knee was very tender.

The next days were a bit difficult: helping Gypsy up and down stairs - carrying him and his 85 pounds of wiggliness, dealing with accidents, and having to sleep on the same floor to help him out. But in three days he was walking on his own and then he was able to go back to work.

The point of writing this: We recognize that we have a huge investment in Gypsy and we are for it. He gives us joy. He loves his family, the inn, the guests, and scones. He is constant companion to Murphy, our Lab mix. His favorite food now is the Ravens' signature dish, sea palm strudel. It is a wonderful dish. We bury his supplements in it.

I haven't posted consistently but I doubt that anyone reads this.

Writing for myself in a public forum is silly. There are a variety of topics besides our smooth collie mix's experience with cancer that I believed were worth exploring from "mindfulness" that I believe underlies eco-tourism to specific commentary regarding such events as Halloween's Dia de los Muertes.

In any case, I will write occasionally, exploring subjects that aren't personal but that I feel might be interesting to someone other than myself. For years, I have kept a journal and I will continue to use it for those topics that are personal, close to my heart, those having to do with family and the energy work that I do. By the way, energy work is not necessarily special. We all do energy work: we do energy work every time we focus on something, work on something. Wherever we put our attention, energy flows. The more focused, the more energy. The greater one's excitement about whatever it is that he or she is attending to, for example, the work that one does, the more powerful the energy. Using electromagnetic waves as an analogy, healing energy can be said to be within a specific frequency range - and the amplitude is the power behind the frequency. Amplitude is the voltage. Like our electic power which operates at 60 hertz - cycles per second. The voltage could 12, 120, 240 volts. Amplitude is a measure of excitement.

An interesting aspect of amplitude in energy work is that one cannot willfully power-up. Excitement in healing is much more subtle than, say, being excited to be able to play in a baseball game and therefore swinging the bat harder. In healing, one can be excited about the work but the amplitude may not be exceptionally high - one might be working at 12 volts. How does one power-up? Through caring, through love - this is a special excitement. Care raises voltage, raises it significantly. The care that I am writing about is not about the healer. It is about the being - it is not, for example, about wanting to heal a pet so that he can remain in one's life. It is wanting to help heal a dog, a friend, someone else's friend, an unknown person. The connection necessary is only that someone cares to ask for help. That is all it is. And it is helpful to not need to succeed for any being other than that person, that dog, that situation, that whatever that needs to function better, that needs healing. Specifically, the outcome is not about the intermediary - the so called healer - whether or not he or she is successful.

Until another time.