RETREAT CENTER transforming
The name of the retreat center was Geryunant, which means making whole by the brook. The forest, nestled between two hills, is a sacred, welcoming place supported by many mother trees, the nourishing waters of Stickney Brook, and the hearts of many who have healed here.
There is something inside everything living that wants to become its full self.
Now the process continues. I, the steward for the past two plus decades, am moving on.
Geryunant has found the perfect new sterwards. It's name will change and its role as well as it becomes a home for a new family planning to raise children and pass the magic on.
Helen Hawes
Hello,
It is not only Geryunant that is transforming, I too am changing identities, letting go of being a practicing visual Artist, giving up the studio, the materials, the gallery scene, the actual making, with heart and hands, and selling of Art. How I wondered can I be an artist who doesnt make art?and what, will fill the emptiness left behind?
At 77 I made some radical and wonderful changes. I moved out of the safety of the studio, still being mentored by my teachers, the drawings and the metaphors they had brought me over the years. "Let go", they said, "of the separation between Art and Life. Stop making Art. let life make you Art. Trust in emergence, something will arise to fill the void."
Trusting was difficult for some time but, magically, something did come to fill the void. I am now teaching Tai Chi and Qi Gong. I have been practicing both for over 50 years and with a leap of faith now find myself teaching both and learning an immense ammount from my students and the Chi, my new teachers. I am in love with this new Art Form. I continue to have a private focusing practice which offers a safe place to process what arises when students have a serious qi Gong practice. If we give our bodies our full attention, slowing down and allowing time and space for deep listening, inevitably emotions held inside since early childhood and before emerge, eager to be heard.
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Creating bridges between inner and outer worlds has been a constant thread throughout my life. Much of my work, dialoguing with imagery, felt sences, or whatever arises the infinite posiibilities of the blank page, derives from three sources:
1.) The unquestioned belief I have had since childhood that if I listen carefully ,everything is talking to me.
2.) A desire to facilitate cross-species communication, of all kinds!
3.) The work of my mentors, Artist and Jungian analyst, Edith Wallace, Focusing guru,Eugene Gendlin, Tai Chi gurus, Arthur Goodridge, and Cielle Tewksbury, and Artist and believer in magic, my mother, Isabel Hawes.
My early training, BA and MFA, was in Studio Arts. I have curated the Art collections of three major corporations, founded the Art and Architecture committee in Boston, and set up art studios in a software company to help employees exercise the muscles of their intuition. My own work hangs in many collections public and private, across the country.
I first discovered how effortless making Art could be if I simply played with the marks and followed their lead, letting the drawing draw itself. Then came Focusing I learned to simply listen to the metaphors as they arose in my body and let them lead me to next steps . Next came Tai Ch. This practice taught me how to play with the energy underlying everything and let the Chi carry me home.
Making Art has been a biological imperative , a spiritual practice, something I thought I would always love to do! What a surprise to find myslef where I am today no longer making Art.
I am still persuing an advanced degrees in Walking in the Woods and still playing wih subtle energy, as I continue to hone my skills in the Art of Letting go.
Thank You to all those who have helped make this sacred place one of growth and transformation, where new things are discovered and lost things found.
With thanks to all OUR TEACHERS
Suzy Hawes
All the participants who have taught us so much
All the participants who have taught us so much
All the participants who have taught us so much
All the participants who have taught us so much
All the participants who have taught us so much