By Lynne Palmer
If you are looking for a five-star resort with room service, viagra a hot tub and entertainment in a late-night cocktail lounge…then don’t go to Ravenheart Farms. If you are looking for something else, prostate something you perhaps can’t quite put your finger on, then keep reading.
Kitty and Mystic
What I find at Ravenheart is – in a word – peace. Not just the peace of a quiet – almost silent – setting miles away from the chaos of the city (although that is what Ravenheart offers); not just the peace of prairie farmland, rich black soil, soft crops rippling in the breeze like an ocean and a sky as vast as your imagination; not just the peace of exquisite hummingbirds flitting from flower to flower, or thousands of snow geese rising in unison from the golden stubble of an autumn field; not just the peace of an old owl calling eerily from the protective shelter belt of native trees and shrubs that has embraced this land for generations.
What I find at Ravenheart is all that …and more. What I find is peace of spirit, a deep, transformational peace that comes only from feeling connected to source. I felt it the first time I visited, that winter night walking along the access road, the crisp crunch of dry snow breaking an almost unbearable silence and air so sharp it pierced my lungs with every breath. I felt it as I marvelled at the intensity of stars in the immense black winter night sky. And I feel it during each subsequent visit as I listen to the meditative rhythm of horses munching sweet hay, as I “work”, cleaning paddocks, digging vegetables, preparing food. I feel it as I sit next to my friend Carol Marriott (who created this amazing retreat) sharing tea from thick pottery mugs, laughing and crying and knowing.
Life at Ravenheart is full of simplicity, but it is not simple. It is harmonious and harsh all at once. It is, after all, a farm. The blizzard winds blow and the horses still need to be fed. Another barn cat dies from trauma … from the coyote, the hawk, the owl? The water trough freezes, the insects bite, the weeds grow, the mud in the paddock turns horse hooves into suction cups. And yet…there is peace… uncommon and indescribable.
Ravenheart Prayer Flags
Is it the old farmhouse, cosy, creaky, comforting? Does it flow from the meditation altar in my friend’s living room… the small stones lovingly collected and placed gently around bundles of sweetgrass, Buddhist bells, crystals? Is it the prayer flags, the books by spiritual teachers, the aromatic oils, the deck after deck of inspirational healing cards that we pull to receive simple wisdom? Or is it the vibration of place, an energy we can’t begin to understand rippling from this land, this perfect space….in the middle of …nowhere… Saskatchewan.
I don’t know exactly why or how Ravenheart brings me to this deep place of connection and serenity. I don’t need to know. Ravenheart simply is, for me, a place of healing… a place of reflection, discovery, laughter, tears, letting go, absorbing, breaking through and “being” at peace…
If you visit Ravenheart Farms, I suspect you will have your own unique experience of healing and epiphany. I wish that for you and for all seekers who happen upon this very special place.