RESTORATION AND SELF-CARE

DAILY DOSE OF WELL-BEING

Check here for a variety of healthy living ideas that will restore the mind, body and spirit. We’ll add a few more tools for your journey as we explore wellness routines from green juice to hydrotherapy.

Green Tea

NOURISHMENT AND NUTRITION

WEEKLY RECIPES FROM THE GARDEN TO YOUR TABLE

Savor the flavor of wellness with food for thought. Join Harmony Hill Chef, Jessie Gregor for hearty farm-to-table recipes that soothe the soul, please the palate, and fortify the body. Every week, we’ll share a nourishing and nutritious meal or highlight a featured food.

Glass Noodle Salad with Grilled Kimchi Marinated Shrimp

IN THE GARDEN

JOIN LOIS OBERG FOR A PEEK AT WHAT IS GROWING ON THE HILL

“Life already has so many boundaries and pressures, why add more to the garden?” Felder Rushing

I have been known to say a very similar quote standing in the various gardens I’ve been entrusted with. I’ve also been known to struggle with practicing this sentiment. A pandemic that forced the canceling of volunteer days and other weekly help, has forced me to deal with garden anxiety in a way I never would have expected.  “Anthropomorphism is unavoidable I am finding in writing about gardening: weeds don’t just grow, they grow with intent, they grow aggressively. Well, they do, as any gardener knows. They sneak in and swarm up  when your back is turned.” Penelope Lively, Life in a Garden

More than the distress over a never-ending to-do list comes gratitude. Gratitude for the many people who help me tend these gardens in the normal, non-pandemic world. One to two days a week, I have a crew of inmates from Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women who assist me, doing anything from weeding to placing irrigation. One Saturday a month, Denise and I welcome a crew of volunteers, consisting of locals, past cancer retreat attendees, and other friends collected along the way.  Sometimes individuals of the group renting Harmony Hill’s facility get the gardening itch and find time during their packed schedules to pull a few weeds. As I’ve been working on this quiet campus for the last 2 months, I’ve had visions of these helpers. They are the soul of my work here and I deeply miss them.

What I am most grateful for, is that we were quarantined with a house full of young adults and yes, I enlisted their help. Over the past weeks, they have helped me build bean teepees from found branches in the woods and cucumber trellis out of a discarded wooden fence.  Our great staff has come to weed or mow the lawns.

With my co-workers back on campus, the quiet has been replaced with a flurry of activity.  Things are getting done, including garden work.  The magic of Harmony Hill continues.

WORDS OF WISDOM – THOUGHTS FROM GRETCHEN

Greetings dear friends and colleagues. Thinking of you in this very challenging time of Covid-19—hoping you are staying safe and well. All of Harmony Hill’s programs are now virtual and we are offering “staycations” –stay tuned for more info. Also soon we’ll have healthy living for all gourmet meals-to-go available. I am spending more time gardening for my stress management and re-reading some of my most inspiring books: Dawna Markova is one of my favorite authors as she was one of the creators of the best-selling Random Acts of Kindness series, Dawna is the author of many other inspirational books, including: I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion and Reconcilable Differences: Connecting In a Disconnected World. We have used reflections from “I Will Not Die An Unlived Life” many times in our Cancer Retreat Program. She has many uplifting messages. Here’s a short one by Dawna: “Once you begin to acknowledge random acts of kindness—both the ones you have received and the ones you have given—you can no longer believe what you do does not matter.”

Blessings to each of you.–Gretchen

INSPIRATION

We’ll provide you with weekly inspirational poems and reflective readings.

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry