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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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Copyright © 2007-2008 The Marshall Creek Center for Peace, Healing and Education
Last modified: July 04, 2008