Farewell and thank you, thank you, thank you!!

So, as many of you will know, this is our final month at Poulstone.  October has been very busy hosting retreats with Pam Montgomery, Richard and Marigold Farmer, the Inner Yoga Trust, Jan Adamson and Desiree Emery and finally last weekend Spectrum Psychotherapy’s Always Women in the World group.  We enjoyed meeting Pam Montgomery who held her Hawthorn Retreat here.  The group were fasting on hawthorn tincture and working on the land making the acquaintance of the hawthorn trees over the river from Poulstone.  Pam’s work with plants is fascinating and, if you’re interested, here is a You Tube clip of her talking about her work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFngBWO8HTo.  The Inner Yoga Trust also visited us for the first time and had a great retreat (http://www.inneryoga.org.uk/). They even taught Steve some yoga postures on Sunday afternoon!  We are delighted that they plan to return here in 2017.

We also enjoyed getting a chance to say goodbye to old friends as Richard and Marigold’s (http://www.tmwtraining.com/) and Jan & Desiree’s groups came in.  Likewise with Spectrum.  All these groups have supported Poulstone for many years and we have loved having them in the house.  Some people in these groups have been coming here for two decades, so it was very special to get a chance to say goodbye.  Spectrum, every year, add to a lovely tapestry, showing the themes of their work each time, and this year we asked if we could sneak in and take a photo of it as a momento.

So a very busy time, working as usual and packing and saying our goodbyes. We are passing Poulstone on into its next caring hands in the form of Rajesh Rai and Divya Dhasmana.  At the beginning of the year it was not even in our minds (and we always wondered what might be the next step after Poulstone as it would always be a pretty hard act to follow). But we have been invited to join our teacher’s meditation centre in the French Pyrenees and it feels like an opportunity we can’t turn down. And in lots of ways the timing seems right for us.

We will be very sad to leave Poulstone and are spending as much time as we can in the gardens and in the countryside around us as well as saying goodbye to all the friends we have made over our eight and a half year adventure here. We’re making sure we have lots of tea breaks under the Wellingtonia and in the walled garden, enjoying all the beauty of this special place and all the wildlife that the gardens attract.  The autumn leaves have been a joy these last weeks.

Earlier last month we had a lovely night watching the lunar eclipse with Gail – we all set our alarms for 2am and went out into the misty garden to watch it.  After an hour or so we were cold so Steve made a fire and Mel & Gail made cocoa and toast and we sat around the fire till 6am watching the moon’s bright reappearance. It was so still and peaceful, with just the sounds of the cattle in the field and owls in the trees – a very special memory to take away with us.

On the other side, there is so much to do! A busy autumn anyway as well as packing and training and handling the handover. But we seem to be keeping everything together OK!  Raj and Divya are great people as is James who will be their caretaker, and no doubt, they will be introducing themselves to you all in due course once the dust has settled!  As we know from our own experience, there is much to do at the start and we wish them very well in their first steps here.  Jan & Desiree and their group offered the five of us a beautiful ceremony to mark the transition and bless Raj, Divya and James. The beauty of the ceremony, their heartfelt thanks and their warm welcome for Raj and Divya and James moved us all and will stay with us forever. Afterward the five us went outside and just sat quietly together under the Wellingtonia for a while. Thank you to Jan and Desiree and all the group xx

And also we want to thank you all for your support for Poulstone over the time we have been here and for passing the word on; for bringing yourselves here and enriching the place with your practices and presence. It has been such a gift to meet so many people who are trying to live and be better or learn skills to help others in their work. On the practical side, we have also taken Poulstone through a double dip recession so thank you also for coming during lean times and helping to secure Poulstone’s continuation into the future.

And lastly our thanks go to Raj and Divya for securing Poulstone’s future for years to come. We have immense gratitude to them for this.

Best wishes to you all for the future and –
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Mel & Steve xx

(And if you’d like to see where we are off to, have a look at: http://www.masvilalte.com/#!mas-vilalte-the-hamlet/cn6.