The
Marshall Creek
Vision:
An Invitation
The Marshall Creek Center rests deep within the Santa Cruz mountains, among
tall redwoods and lacy ferns and next to Marshall Creek. Its mission
is to serve as a consultation and gathering place for Earth-centered
professionals: artists, writers, teachers and members of all trades and
healing professions, people who have chosen to share, provide, research and
develop an unfolding vision of Earth-centered healing and wellness.
To carefully dig
the earth, construct the rooms, paint the walls and tend to the plants and trees
for a project such as this is important, for it is lighting another candle
of hope. Marshall Creek is but one of the many, mostly independent projects
throughout the world that have raised such a candle. However unique, various,
independent and scattered this light may be, we have discovered that when
we light even one candle, we not only find our own way but we
cannot help but shed light for other to do the same.
When in the light of such a candle and we finally do see the world
around us, we cannot help but drop our jaw in astonishment at the beauty and
dizzying intercomplexity of this Earth and of all beings with whom
we live. Moreover, when we truly perceive the world, we also cannot miss
observing the suffering that lies around us and then feel the natural
pang that urges us to provide assistance.
After all of this, if we
are still willing to keep our eyes open, it is though we were awakened from
a deep slumber with the dawning awareness that we have been graced with a
miracle of existence and can do no other than drop to our knees in
reverence.
As humankind has become
able to look beneath the surface of life and behold the magnificently
complex and interdependent play of its many parts, it is as though as a
conscious species, humankind can now begin to fathom the depths beneath what was
once only the surface of a vast, mysterious lake. Although the awe
remains, any fear that we once may have felt about what lay
beneath that surface was simply a product of a lack of understanding.
In our discovery that
we have no cause to fear existence and that we can actually walk hand-in-hand
with life, we can like a gardener, pick up the hoe and watering can and
tend to our surrounding fields of land and living beings. Then, when we
look behind us and see the new shoots reaching for the sun and in the midst of
the obvious fertility of the Earth, we leave any fear of scarcity behind (which
seeks to gather beyond need and withhold from other who are in need). We find
ourselves living within a world of abundance. Now, we can delicately assist
each part back into a whole world that flourishes in a dynamic balance
with a glow that warms us down to our heart.
Awareness and the
understanding that follows, are the direct source of reverence. As we apprehend
the utter magnificence and grace of even the smallest particle of the world, we
succumb to a state for which the term 'appreciation' provides only the barest
hint. Then, when we step back and fill our eyes with more and more of the huge
dance within which we may have been all the while simply standing (or even
moving in the opposite direction) we easily find our place in this tremendous
movement and begin to flow with it as our heart swims in
humility and gratitude. As we consciously apprehend our true community, we see
we are not separate from but inextricably a piece of a world that is simultaneously
beneath our skin, standing at our doorstep, and extending throughout the entire
planet. Moreover, the more we learn, the more we realize that our brother and
sisterhood extends in all directions everywhere, perhaps even out to the
farthest reaches of the universe that we do not yet know. We become like the
iconic native who addressed the tree with gratitude and reverence before cutting
it to build a canoe.
In part, because of the
limited awareness of epochs past, we find ourselves now amidst so much
that suffers and needs to heal. The term 'stewardship' has come, in a general
sense, to refer to the act of taking care of something of which we do not own.
Environmentally speaking, the term signifies an ethic of cooperative
planning and management of our natural resources. When we pick up the task
of caring for this Earth and her inhabitants, we might just possibly be stepping
into our human role and responsibility of enlightened stewardship:
cooperating with the growth and flourishing of each other and our planet.
We invite you to
join with us at Marshall Creek in researching, implementing projects and
encouraging the wellness and healing of a planet and people who
are thirsting for this. Writers, healthcare practitioners and healers,
builders, organizers, teachers, scientists, researchers, artists and members of
all crafts, professions and trades are invited to work with Marshall Creek and
become - in whatever path your interests or profession lead you - another
candle that lightens the way for our return to health.
Steve
Serr, Ph.D.
Contact Information
- Telephone
- 831-336-2159
- Postal address (all postal mail must go here)
- PO Box 205, Ben Lomond, California 95005
- Physical Location (no mailbox!)
- 150 Hubbard Gulch Road, Ben Lomond, California
- Electronic mail
- Marshall Creek Center: drserr@marshallcreek.org
- FAX
- 831-336-2159
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