Renting the Retreat Centre

The Monkey Valley Retreat Centre is pleased to create a rental arrangement customized to your needs, whether you are planning a private meditation retreat in nature or wish to bring a group of 30 for a yoga weekend. The remote location of the land is ideally suited to nature pursuits such as stargazing, bird watching, and winter activities such as snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.

Prices vary according to group size and whether you will be providing your own meals. Please contact us for a customized rate package.

Examples

• Winter special: log cabin rental for 1-6 people—$2,000/month or $1,250 for two weeks
• Camping groups of 5 to 50—$20/person/day (meals excluded)
• Summer log cabin rental for 1-6 people—$400/group/day (you do the cooking)
• Solo camping meditation retreat—$350/week (meals included)
• Solo camping meditation retreat—$150/week (meals excluded)
• Solo meditation retreat with indoor accommodations—$500/week (meals included)
• Organic meals cost $30-50/person/day.
• Rentals provide exclusive use of the land, affording your group complete privacy.

Monkey Valley is surrounded by crown lands on all sides, affording an exceptional experience of privacy and feeling of being away from civilization. The retreat centre is off the grid, which means that no power lines or phone lines go to the property. We do all we can to maintain the wildness of this place.

The way of life at Monkey Valley is designed to minimize human impact on the earth. The retreat centre runs on solar power, with an energy-efficient, quiet backup generator for extended cloudy periods. We use as little energy as possible, and try to keep waste to a minimum. We use biodegradable products as much as possible, because the water that goes down the drain eventually finds its way to the creek.

Our water supply is from an underground spring that is bountiful year round. The water has been tested to ensure it is safe for your drinking. It is crystal-clear and delicious, straight from the tap.

The centre has a cell phone for emergency use. Your cell phone will work in the house, but we encourage you to unplug from it while you are here!

The retreat centre is a haven for steeping in the energies of nature. Time here is free from traffic, TV, radio, and newspapers. We honour and acknowledge the shamanic traditions that use mind-altering substances to shift consciousness. However, at Monkey Valley we don’t use these methods to journey to other states of awareness and deepen into our true nature. No recreational drugs or alcohol are permitted at the retreat centre.

When you come to the retreat centre we will teach you about low-impact camping and ways of being in harmony with the land and her creatures. We also teach safety topics such as how to stay found and how to handle wild-life encounters.

After a decade of working as a technical writer, she earned a master’s degree in ecopsychology from Naropa University, and trained as a vision fast guide at the School of Lost Borders. She has studied the medicine wheel since 2003 and has been a student of the Diamond Approach for many years. She is a registered yoga teacher and Reiki master, committed to providing a safe environment for self exploration and growth. She is a member of the Wilderness Guides Council.

Munro Sickafoose is a vision quest guide, an initiated man, whitewater river guide, and ceremonial leader. He has been deeply involved with indigenous earth–based ceremonies for many years. He trained as a vision quest guide at the School of Lost Borders, and has been leading groups and individuals in the wild since 1996. He has also trained at the Ojai Foundation as a facilitator in the Way of Council. He is currently Netkeeper of the Wilderness Guides Council, and is working towards a Masters of Divinity degree.

He guides at Monkey Valley and in Oregon and Washington. He also guides through the School of Lost Borders, teaching a program on the four shields of leadership with his wife, Susanna Maida. Visit his web site for details of other guiding trips he has planned.

Angela James has run 18 marathons and completed Iron Man Canada in August 2008. Angela has been a Team in Training marathon coach with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) groundbreaking charity sports training program since 2004. She no longer has Achilles tendonitis since using the ChiRunning form. Now Vancouver’s only certified ChiRunning instructor, she plans to give workshops all over the world teaching others this revolutionary technique. Her shining spirit uplifts and motivates everyone she teaches.

Angela incorporates ChiLiving as a practice along with her tea business. “Chi Tea” is her catch phrase, because she believes so strongly in the benefits of both ChiRunning and health-promoting, organic Rooibos tea. Angela is also an accomplished cello player. Visit her web site to learn about Angela’s upcoming ChiRunning workshops in Vancouver.

Kim Ashley guides vision fasts at Monkey Valley and is a life coach. She is the founder of Transformational Learning and Coaching. She is a PhD candidate in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, is a certified life coach through NLP and Coaching Institute of California, and is a member of the International Coach Federation.

She trained as a vision fast guide at the School of Lost Borders. Her background and education blend the ancient wisdom traditions of the East with contemporary success principles of the West, resulting in a step-by-step coaching approach to living with greater courage, balance, abundance, and happiness. She loves walking in the wilderness with her dog, Chai.

• Get winter tires put on the Tracker.

• Get chips repaired on Tracker windshield (much cheaper in Merritt than in Vancouver). The chip repairer is amazed that my windshield has lasted through 7 winters already!

• Purchase and install new water filter. Learn that the threads must be dry or the water leaks.

• Purchase and post replacement “No Hunting and No Trespassing Under Penalty of the Law” signs. Duck under branches. Climb over logs. Worry about Lyme disease and wish I’d worn a hat. (My head starts itching again as I write this!)

• Discover that two new sections of fence need repair. Purchase supplies. Make repairs.

• Purchase and install new smoke detector.

• Replace batteries in flashlights.

• Purchase lock de-icer and apply WD-40 oil to locks on gates. Need to purchase more WD-40.

• Purchase eco-permit at Merritt City Hall so I can take garbage to the Aspen Grove Container Site. $1 per bag. Learn that the container site now has recycling bins too!

• Check water level in the new batteries for the solar power that I purchased in August. Learn that expensive new Water Miser battery caps ($287.42) did not prevent water loss as promised. Learn how to use new hydrometer ($12.00). Use hydrometer to check the state of charge (cell by cell). Learn that Power Pulse equalizers ($140.88) do not equalize charge across cells as promised. Top up water in batteries. Use generator to charge batteries for 4 hours. Re-test with hydrometer. Learn that new batteries ($2568.86 excluding freight, tax, and labour) do not charge to manufacturer’s rating while new.

• Start propane wall heater. It works! (For about three years in a row I had to get a technician out to make repairs before it would start.) Wake in the middle of the night to smell of steak cooking. Have vegetarian freak-out, wondering why intruder has come into the house and started cooking steaks. Eventually realize the smell is cause by dead flies burning up inside the heater!

• Wake up to beautiful snowy Monkey Valley.

• Take the cat scratch posts, litter box, and dishes out to the barn. Goodbye, Donald.

• Find big puddle on bathroom floor. Shut off water line to leaking valve under bathroom sink. Mop up water.

• Wake up to find all the snow has melted.

• Chat with handsome cowboy who knocks on my door one morning, complete with horse, dog, hat, and lasso! (This is my favourite diversion while at Monkey Valley!) He is rounding up the Douglas Lake cows, bringing them down to the home pasture for the winter. Steve is a wonderfully kind neighbour. This summer he brought his chainsaw and cut away some giant trees that had fallen across the road on my property, and he even bucked up some of the wood so I could use it for firewood! The Douglas Lake Ranch, established in 1884, is Canada’s largest privately held working cattle ranch, with a herd of 20,000 cattle.

• Do cleansing ritual for the house, releasing any negative energy and filling the house with love, light, and positive energy.

• Yell at pack rat that climbs onto the roof each night around 10 PM. What is he doing up there?

• Put photos of my nephew in a photo album. Write funny captions for photos.

• Listen to new Rolling Stones album (Aftermath, 1966). Marvel at this first album of all Jagger-Richards compositions. Marvel at “Goin’ Home.” Not the length—which was one of the first rock songs over 10 minutes—but the absolute sexiness. While it has a flavour of Van Morrison’s Gloria in places—she makes me feel so good, she makes me feel alright—it is audacious and I can’t believe they got away with it! I also can’t believe that I have never heard this before, although I’ve been a Stones fan since I was 15. Cry because my Dad’s dead and I am listening to this record on his amazing stereo system. Cry because I am listening to this record alone at Monkey Valley. Cry because I want Mick Jagger.

• Talk to writing buddies about how our writing is going. Mine is not going (see above).

• Spend many hours eating meals and reading books in front of the fire (see below).

• And always, always, make fire first thing in the morning (average house temperature upon waking: 13° C), and carry in firewood last thing before dark.

So that’s how I spent my fall vacation! The only thing left to do is wash all the windows and floors. And since I really do not feel like washing all the windows and floors, I have decided to return to Vancouver. Where I am sure I will write lots and lots!

The first was the most horrible. When I arrived, I discovered that my favourite little furry visitors had been scampering around the house, and the first order of business was to clean up the signs of their presence. Yes, I am talking about mouse turds. For some reason, the biggest accumulation of mouse turds was around the live mouse traps. There was also a big mess of ground up blue mouse bait outside the traps. I can only surmise that the mice inside the trap passed bits of the poisoned bait to the  mice outside the trap. How terribly sad. I feel like such a beast. Eventually, of course, the mice outside the trap joined the mice inside the trap.

My evil plan is that the bait entices the mice into the trap, and then kills them, hopefully quickly and painlessly. Since they die there, and not in the walls of the house, I don’t have the scary problem of maggots parading across the living room floor, which once happened when an animal died inside the wall. Unfortunately, judging from the half-eaten remains of some of the mice in the traps, the death is not always quick and painless. It can involve being cannabalized by one’s own mates. Or maybe this chewy snacking occurred after the mice were already dead… I hope so, but it is still a terrible thing for the living mice to have to digest. (Pun intended.)

The other benefit of my perfected mice-killing scheme is that the poison from the dead mice does not travel into the chain of life at Monkey Valley, poisoning bugs and birds and other creatures who might encounter the little dead bodies. But as I gathered the little corpses into a big green garbage bag, it occurred to me that the poison will still enter the biosphere at the landfill where the dead mice wind up, thus poisoning bugs and birds at the site of the landfill, rather than at Monkey Valley. The goal of ahimsa is difficult indeed. Perhaps the traditional “dead mouse trap” is better than the “live mouse trap & poison” approach. To be continued…

I went into Merritt on Thursday to have the snow tires put on. I also ran into old friends at the Post Office and Espresso Etc., my favourite place for coffee and lunch. You can see the decaf I had in the photo to the right, where I was testing out my new technology: a glowing white stick that miraculously gives me internet service wherever I go! It was wonderful to catch up on news with people I haven’t seen for a while, and reconnect with this place that has been my home off and on for eight years now.

The real test was whether the internet stick would work at Monkey Valley. As you know, the cell reception here is notoriously bad. When I first tested the internet stick, aka Mobile Internet Key, I had to hold my laptop above my head, so that it was inches from the dome antenna I had mounted high on the wall. Obviously this was not a practical solution: my laptop is not the lightest on the market, and it is difficult to type à la Jimmy Page with the laptop over my head!

But I had a look at the cable I so carefully installed last summer (2009, was it?!), and saw that I could get some extra length out of it if I ran it straight from my upstairs bedroom, through the loft, below the railing, and down to the table below. Hence the set-up you see in the second picture. The dome is inches from the internet stick, and the signal is fairly reliable. Every now and then it still drops, so I need to be mindful about saving my work before doing any actions that might cause Internet Explorer to lose the page I’m in. And of course there is the risk of brain damage from working so close to the cell phone signal, which has been boosted and intensified by the booster upstairs! So I will do my best to minimize internet time this month.

The great news is, though, that I can use the internet for just $35/month (versus the $100+ I was paying for satellite internet). And with the dome antenna sitting on my TV, I can actually talk on the phone while sitting on the couch. No more standing on a stool trying to hear what my callers are saying! Things just keep getting better, don’t they!

Here is the posting on Craig’s List:

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/van/vac/1484724729.html

If you have any friends who will be visiting BC this winter, and who are interested in a unique winter getaway with their own 160 acres of private snowy wonderland, please pass on the word.

The log cabin

The original log cabin was built about 40 years ago, with a unique construction that stacks the shaped logs together, eliminating gaps and the need for chinking. The main room of the log cabin has a sitting area and dining area, shown here. The kitchen is to the left, out of view, and the living room area is located behind the dining area. Donald wants to go out on the deck to scamper with the chipmunks. The fire awaits a match. The chairs are pulled close for an intimate conversation…

The dining area is conveniently located by the wood stove, with views out the customized antique stained glass windows. The wood stove has a glass door to enhance enjoyment of the fire. The two eco-fans on top of the stove circulate the heat throughout the house without using an electric source.

The kitchen has a window overlooking the meadow, and another facing out onto the deck, handy for passing plates through the window to enjoy dining on the deck. The propane fridge is new, and the propane stove is just a few years old. Rustic cabinets suit the flavour of the log walls.

The living room and entertainment area feels cozy with the warmth of the log walls. My sister Kim made the stained glass lamp, creating a custom match with the couch, in shades of cream, orange, and brown.

I must say this couch is perfect for the house! I bought it and two matching chairs at an antique store in New Westminster shortly before I found Monkey Valley. I believe I had some divine guidance! Donald thinks so too. My Tante Anne crocheted the afghan, which also matches perfectly.

Here we find Mr. Moose sitting on another antique sofa, which I found at The Peg antique store on Commercial Drive in Vancouver. He is reading about himself in a book on BC Mammals. Mr. Moose was a gift from Eric of Colorado, and he loves living at Monkey Valley.

Here is a close-up of one of the two antique windows. I found this one at an antique store on 12th Street in New Westminster, and my sister Kim restored it and made a matching window in complementary colours. We had to get a guy with a chain saw to come in and help install the windows! They are triple-glazed for maximum energy efficiency.

The loft and master suite

If you climb the unique log ladder up into the loft, you will discover two rooms facing south down the valley. I use this area (not shown) for my office. Climbing a short set of stairs, you come into the master bedroom, shown here. This is an amazing room, with five windows and the glass door leading onto the upper deck. I love that it has windows facing in all four directions! It has plenty of open space for doing yoga with a friend.

This antique claw-foot tub has funky $-sign insignia on the feet. It was the first thing I bought after I purchased Monkey Valley, and I hauled it up here in a blue volvo station wagon! It took 3 strong people to carry it up the stairs. And it took Hugh and me two years to install the solar power and get hot water running to the tub! Note the charming pedestal sink. The tub also has antique-style fixtures.

The guest wing

From the loft you can take the log ladder back down, or use a regular staircase to come down into the addition. This wing contains two guest bedrooms, a bathroom with a large double-headed shower (not shown), a laundry and work area, two entry areas, and the power room.

This spacious guest bedroom with wood flooring has two windows, one facing east over the creek, and once facing west over the meadow. My Uncle Sebastian made this dresser and matching bed-side table when he owned a furniture factory in the 60s, and my dad designed this piece!

This guest bedroom has a window overlooking the meadow, with forest in the distance, and is furnished with some antique pieces. Hugh sold me this bed, which belonged to his grandmother, for $2 after we split up. I love the cozy green down duvet lined with velvet trim. This was always my friend Dorrie’s room when she stayed with me at Monkey Valley.

Inner workings: the heart of the house

In an off-grid home, keeping the house dry and warm, with electricity and hot running water, are the challenges to address. The heart of this house is the systems that accomplish these goals. I use power from the sun, heat from wood and propane, and heat water from the sun too.

I purchased this propane heater the second winter I lived at Monkey Valley. It is very handy for keeping the house from freezing when I go away on short trips in the winter time. On those rare occasions when the temperatures drop to -30 or -40 degrees Celsius in the winter time, this heater also provides great back-up for the wood stove. The rest of the time, the wood stove is more than adequate for keeping the house warm, due to the high R-factor insulation I installed in the ceilings and floor of the log cabin. The addition is also very well insulated. Past the propane heater you can see the workbench, which is featured below. It’s handy to be able to do small tasks right in the house.

Okay, so it’s just a washing machine. But it’s a very energy-efficient washing machine, suited for a home that runs on solar power, with a super spin cycle that finishes with the clothes much dryer than a regular washer. Clothes line-dry easily overnight, on the handy line I strung up in the laundry room.

There’s also a short line outside for drying stuff that you want right away, like your bathing suit!

I love this workbench, which Brent Ross and Tom of Tri-Ross Construction built for me this summer. Previously I had slung the boards, a gift from my friend Tricia, across some black plastic barrels. Now there is a proper wood frame support for it. Although there is 4,000 square feet of space for a shop and work area in the barn, I prefer to do most jobs here in this work area right in the house. The shelves are well-stocked with the most common household fix-it items, to prevent the need for a trip to town for most simple jobs.

This baby is the power board; I am as proud of it as a real baby. Hugh and I did the planning and installed the solar power system ourselves, and I did the wiring for the back-up generator myself after we split up. We learned so much during this process, and Hugh’s general carpentry skills sure came in handy.

There is a battery bank in a box below the power board, which stores energy for a rainy day—for three rainy days, in fact. I’ve very rarely used the generator while I’ve lived here. We get a lot of sun at Monkey Valley! The box at the lower left of the power board is the step-up transformer, which provides power to the water pump. The box above that converts the DC power from the batteries to AC power from the house. From there is goes to a regular electric panel that leads to all the power lines in the house.

Wow, look at all this cool water stuff! The blue tank is the cold water storage tank. Above that on the upper left wall is a water filter. Water is filtered before it goes into the storage tank. From the storage tank, some cold water goes directly to the house, while other cold water feeds through a triple system that heats the water.

The pink insulated box contains the solar boiler, which heats water using solar energy. It passes the heated water into the big white hot water tank for storage. The hot water tank is also fitted for propane heating, so you can do that when you need large quantities of hot water quickly. From the hot water tank, the water goes through the big square flow-through heater on the wall. This baby is a Bosch, and it uses propane to heat water on demand. If the water is already hot as it flows through, it can either add to the heat, or you can just keep it set to pilot and turn it on as needed (on those rare cloudy days).

Entries and exits

This doorway is the entry through the yellow door at the west side of the house. In the country, the back entry is usually called the mud room, because things get muddy out on the land, and people need a place to take their boots off before they go into the house. This particular mud room is quite unique because it contains two showers, and there is a drain in the center of the stone-tiled floor.

There is a curtain to divide the room in half when both showers are in use.

I installed these extra showers for times when I am hosting retreats for large groups of people. This is also why I added the solar boiler with the propane hot water heating option, to be able to provide enough hot water for the house’s three showers and bath tub when large groups are here. This could come in handy for other uses too though, such as a place for ranch hands to shower.

And now it’s time to go back out the door onto the deck. Take one last look at the cozy sitting area by the fire! The wood object in the foreground at the right is the log ladder that goes up to the loft. Climb it if you dare! I can actually go up and down it in the dark, with a book and glass of water in my hands. Soon you will too!

And so here we are, back out on the deck overlooking the creek. This is really my favourite place at Monkey Valley. It gets the morning sun, and provides cool shade during the afternoon heat. Birds dart about in the willow bushes down by the creek, and the resident chipmunk brings flowers onto the deck to eat. You can see the satellite dish mounted at the end of the deck. This provides two-way satellite internet. And in the background, down by the creek, you can see the roof of the pump house. It’s a great place to hang out and watch the birds, read a book, or chat with friends and family.

Thank you for joining me on this virtual tour. I hope you are charmed by what you’ve seen. I’ve put a lot of love and attention into developing this house for comfortable, year-round living in harmony with the earth. I look forward to putting this care in the hands of the next people who will live here and love this place.

So instead I’ll direct you to some other links that have photos. (Photos are now loading; I guess this was the post I was supposed to write today!)

Pictures of Monkey Valley

This is from my excellent realtor, Darch Oborne, on his web site:

http://www.movingrealestate.ca/listing-details.asp?id=1279

And this is the MLS listing:

http://www.realtor.ca/PropertyDetails.aspx?PropertyID=9560065

The main picture is one I took from across the valley, using the zoom feature on the great digital camera that Darch lent me! A magnificent view of the house.

Offering nature-based teachings in new places

The original intention of this web site was to promote the retreats that I offer here on the land. There are two kinds: the vision fast, and the teaching of the four directions. When I made the decision to sell Monkey Valley, I realized that the offering of these retreats, which is a gift I want to give to my people, has become intertwined with the land here at Monkey Valley. Of course, it is a great place to do these things! But it is not the only place where I can offer these gifts.

On Saturday I am leaving for Big Pine, California, to apprentice once again with the School of Lost Borders. This time, I am apprenticing on the California Fall Vision Fast, guided by Ruth Wharton and Larry Hobbs. This is the third year I am apprenticing with experienced guides to build on the training I have received with the school. I have also guided fasts twice at Monkey Valley.

Next year I am guiding a vision fast retreat group fast in the vicinity of Monkey Valley, and have added a new customized vision fast option to my offerings. There are some magical places on the land surrounding Monkey Valley, near Missezula Lake, and this is where I intend to hold these fasts once Monkey Valley passes on to her new owners.

The other type of retreat that I have developed and taught is the teaching of the four directions. It is based on the four shields teaching that Stephen Foster and Meredith Little shaped at the School of Lost Borders. I also incorporate teachings of the medicine wheel, which I received from my teacher Joyce Lyke and others, and ecopsychology practices that I learned while pursuing my master’s degree at Naropa University. These are all wonderful ways of connecting with nature to access the guidance and healing that lie within ourselves and the natural world. My intention is to adapt the two- or three-day retreat format to a day trip format that I can offer in Vancouver. This will have the advantage of making the teaching much more accessible to more people. And Vancouver is nestled in the bosom of many beautiful places in nature that will support this teaching.

The choice to sell Monkey Valley

It was a difficult decision to sell Monkey Valley, but that seems to be where the flow of my life is taking me. I have been here for nine years now. I bought this land within a few weeks of my father’s death. It has held much healing, learning, and growth for me. And a fair share of frustrations, too, which I think is part of the territory with any major undertaking. I have enjoyed most of the learning, and many fine times with family, friends, and co-journeyers on the path of inner realization, both with the Diamond Approach and with the nature-based spiritual practices.

At this stage in my life journey I find myself wanting to put down deeper roots in one place. Keeping two homes for all these years—Monkey Valley and an apartment I rented in Vancouver for a pied-à-terre—has required a lot of energy. I realize that I don’t want to spend my energy that way, and on the travelling back and forth. Yet if I have to choose only one place to be, I am sad to say that I can’t choose Monkey Valley. I feel too isolated there when I live there full-time. It has taken me a while to realize (and admit) that I am a social creature, and I like to be around people! So if I am going to choose a place to put down roots, I need to choose a place where there are people. I have noticed over the years how returning from Monkey Valley to Vancouver always feels like a home-coming. My appreciation for and love of this city have grown. (Though like most of us, I could do with less traffic!) This morning I spent some time reading the Georgia Straight’s annual “Best of Vancouver” issue, and love for this city swelled in my heart.

So these are some of the factors in my decision to sell Monkey Valley and move back to Vancouver full-time. I want to put down roots and weave into the fabric of community here. I want to spend more of my time offering my gifts to my people, and enjoying the company of friends and family, and less time driving on the Coquihalla and cursing because I don’t have the right tool for a job at Monkey Valley!

But, in case you are wondering, I am very happy with how the installation of my power booster turned out! May the new owners be very happy with their most excellent cell phone service!

All that “Searching for service” was for naught, since the power adapter had fried after less than a day of receiving phone calls. What gives around here?!

Positive thoughts about not being able to receive phone calls in the house at Monkey Valley:

• It gives me a reason to take the phone with me on runs, where I get reception at the higher elevation, and talk to friends while I’m running. Makes the hour go by more quickly.
• It makes me be more intentional about when I use the phone. I have to really need to use it to go to the trouble of going up on the roof.
• It means my day is not constantly interrupted by phone calls, and I choose when to collect messages and return calls, preserving the retreat-like atmosphere.
• It means I don’t waste time talking on the phone, and get more done.
• It helps me with that Greta Garbo “I vant to be alone” thing.

Ah well, it was good while it lasted. Kind of like relationships with men. I guess I need to take a look at my object relationship with my phone! I can’t get no satisfaction! Sounds like the frustrating object relation to me.