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We are delighted to introduce our new Aotearoa Retreat centre project manager, Rosie Bartlett!  Rosie, who is based in Golden Bay, will be managing the Aotearoa retreat centre project, helping to bring the project to fruition. Rosie brings a raft of skills and experience as well as her positive energy, openness and alignment with our vision and mission. We are all enjoying the start of our new journey together.
Read more about Rosie HERE We are hugely grateful to the foundation built by our former project coordinator, Ollie Clifton who left the role in December 2023. Thank you, Ollie and all the best for your new projects!
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Learn about the project events and major milestones, hear the stories from the people involved and enjoy the photos in our project update for 2022-23. Here you will find a round up of all the happenings to date; reports from the team, including a special report from Yuan Tze and Melissa and some exciting developments you may not have heard about yet, such as the renovation of the old farmhouse which is now well and truly underway! Enjoy! LINK TO THE PROJECT UPDATE HERE Ngā mihi nui, thank you to everyone who contributed and special thanks to Isaya and Claire for putting it together.  In November, a small group of people gathered together to experience the 9 day online Ren Xue Yuan Tze retreat in-person. What better place to do this than at the beautiful neighbouring retreat centre of Shambhala in Onekaka, Golden Bay. This retreat centre has been built over the last 35 years by John Clere inspired by his Tibetan Buddhist experiences on retreat. He has created a peaceful place with a beautiful practice hall and accommodation. A group of 14 people, mostly from the local area, learned, practiced and grew together in a nourishing Qifield integrating with the Qifield of the Ren Xue land in a very natural way, enjoying visits to the retreat centre site and farm as part of the retreat experience. It was inspiring to see how the future retreat centre will function in the future as an integral part of the farm and community which surround it. It was fantastic to visit Steve on the farm who gave us a great tour and showed us around the orchard plantings and shared the vision. Memorial BenchesSome of us spent an afternoon at the new memorial benches installed by Chris Turton to honour the legacy of Annie Currie who was a supporter of the project. It was very moving to hear the story of Annie from Chris and we all experienced the beauty of the words on the plaque "Settle in to Stillness Here". These benches have been placed so that people can easily access and spend some quiet moments in contemplation and connection with nature. We are so grateful to Annie for her generous gift and Chris for all her energy in the project. Huge thanks to everyone who made this retreat such a success. Enjoy the photos and amazing memories.... Last month saw a new and exciting transformation at the Ren Xue centre farm, Onekaka. What was until recently a dairy farm is becoming more diverse and this is one of the first most visible steps towards this. If you pass the farm now, instead of seeing just grazing paddocks, you will also see an orchard of newly planted fruit and nut trees. This project has been part of the farm working group's plan to diversify and discover more about what sort of crops are best suited to different locations on the land. It was fun to visualise the future of these trees - they need tender care, time and energy now but in the future they will give back in abundance to feed many people in the community. It brought feelings of such gratitude for all that abundance and generosity in nature. Ready for planting! Working in partnership with Steve Lee, the farm manager, is local Golden Bay resident Dieter Proebst who has 35 years experience in Permaculture and biodynamics and has managed his own fruit orchard for 30 of those. During the opening circle and blessing for the trees, Dieter patiently explains how to lovingly and successfully plant them. He did this many times- each time with the same patience and care - very inspiring! Steve plants the first tree; Jackie and Steve feeding out and Taz lending a hand. The tree planting team and the trees in the ground. A well deserved afternoon tea. Dieter demonstrates calm, relaxed, natural use of wheelbarrow!
Steering group gathering in Golden Bay - planning for the future Here in Aotearoa, New Zealand, we have been in the time of Matariki, which is the start of the māori new year. It is a time to honour the past and make plans for the future; traditionally to harvest and prepare the land for the coming year. With this intention, the steering group gathered together in Mohua, Golden Bay on the Ren Xue retreat centre land for a winter strategy and planning weekend. Joining the steering group were Leslie Van Gelder who facilitated our sessions, James Alker and Vincent Louys, two key local community members. It was very special for us all to meet in person as most of our meetings take place online. There is nothing like those real-time connections that happen at a meal table, during a walk on the beach, a shared practice or relaxing together over (many) cups of tea - as demonstrated by the wonderful Trina King!
Personal Stories - What was it like to be together and be in person on the land?  Steve Campbell - steering group member. Steve shares how it feels to be the geographically furthest away from the retreat centre as he is based in Australia and has found the zoom meetings a challenge. He inspires us as he works through the challenge and finds the learning and the enjoyment of getting his hands in the soil! I never really enjoyed my school life that much especially doing things that I didn't want to or didn't like doing (this was a lot) in the school environment. The only real relief for me at school was the playground time when I could get my hands dirty, have some fun with friends and feel a sense of freedom. However this sense of freedom was not really real it was more to do with the fact that I had escaped the classroom and felt relieved. So being on the land together with everyone was a bit like my playtime and I found it very enjoyable spending time with everyone and getting to know you all bit better. So it is a bit like the zoom meetings for me are similar to being back in the classroom where I can easily tense up and being with everyone in-person is my escape from the classroom to the playground. Both are really unhealthy patterns and are one of the same pattern that I am currently working on, I haven't come up with a good answer just yet but I am not going to give up.  Marie-Laure - steering group and local community member Marie-Laure is living right on the land! But she still has challenges to face and she shows such determination in how she approaches it. You can also feel her joy as she shares with us: As a local, I felt a lot of gratitude - people came from so far to visit us, even from Australia! - and joy to have people here, it was like nourishing the Qifield here and the land. I enjoyed the tree planting so much, there was so much love and happiness from everyone, the trees felt it I am sure. It was a bit challenging for me to stay focused for the hours of a meeting - maybe because I need to concentrate more than a person for whom English is a mother tongue, or maybe because I needed to mobilise more Qi. So on the second day I felt tired and needed to step away from the group for a long nap and some solitude and care. Of course, it was different being here together rather than with zoom, practising Qigong together was great - being close to each other, sharing meals, like a family. I loved having the boys with us, life is a cycle and we have all been in this cycle. My personal goal is to be more involved in the project, because as a local - and we are few - I feel that I need to contribute more, and also to find a good balance between my professional and personal life, so that I can do things without being overwhelmed and stay unified. My goal is to be with my Jingshen all the time! Leslie Van Gelder - our treasured facilitator and one of the founding members of the project speaks about how it felt to return for the third year: There is something really powerful about the third time of a thing and this year I really felt that. My first trip to Golden Bay was in January of 2020 with the midwives. It was in the era I think of as “before.” There was very little on Cat and James’ land and we had our little circle of tents set up over a few beautiful summer days. We looked at the farm from the road, from the side, from a distance, from the Mussel Inn. It was “out there” as an idea and a possibility. A year and a half later, we were all gathered in the house in Parapara that I think of as our first year as a group, where out there was getting far closer and we had big questions about priorities and choices and 6 mandarins and how that all “might” be. It felt like it all hovered in the realm of the possible but still wasn’t on the ground. In 2022, as the skies gave us storms and rainbows, we planted trees and celebrated suddenly owning a farm, and our farm managers hosted everyone even while still unpacking their own boxes. And this year, we were in the third year of our gathering and it felt steady. The ground beneath us drier, the weather more settled, and all of us now starting to feel how does this place, this project, this group of people, those who have been coming and will come, fit into the bigger picture of Ren Xue in the world. I loved that. How we are grounding ourselves. Connecting and reconnecting. New planting, more dreaming, and enough history for us to remember what this was all like before we were there, too.  Trina, Leslie and Steve enjoying the view as you approach Golden Bay
We now have the green light on our council application for the Ren Xue retreat centre and community dwellings on the farm in Golden Bay! A huge milestone for the project! The process of making our Resource Consent Application (RCA) has been quite the journey - from our early assessments of the farm in Onekaka, to our draft designs for the Retreat Centre, through to negotiating the final set of conditions with our local Council. So what does this mean for the project? It means we can now develop our detailed plans for both our Community Living, and the Retreat Centre, before we head into the building consent process. Getting our RCA approved is a significant milestone for the project, a celebration well worth savouring, but by no means the end of the consenting journey! Please join us in celebrating this achievement with your heartfelt gratitude for all those who have helped us along the way this far and to all those who will continue to help in the future.
Here is a photo album with significant moments so far.. what a journey! Kia Ora! You may remember meeting Lulu last year with her honours project to grow a variety of pasture plants in soil from the farm. (See the link HERE) Lulu is now diving deeper into the soil for her PhD research at Lincoln Uni. Here you can find out more about this exciting research. She will plant a variety of trial plots in one of our paddocks. Each plot will contain a mixture of different pasture species. Lulu wants to investigate how the roots of these plants grow and particularly what relationships evolve between the different plants and between the mixtures of plants and other soil life such as invertebrates, bacteria and fungi. This is is exciting stuff as very little is known about this part of how soils function. In the past soil science was seen basically as chemistry, but now scientists are expanding our understanding of soil life. This is critical a piece of the sustainable agriculture puzzle. Through learning about the soil, we hope to understand better how we can support a thriving and beneficial ecosystem, living with our principles of 'beneficial for all'. Watch this video to learn about what she found last year.. What does her research look like? Lulu takes soil samples from the farm and here is what she does when she gets back to the lab....
So - she has found out what grows well and had some interesting findings - she found that lotus was the best performing legume which grows wild in the pasture NOT white clover which is the one most commonly planted in this area. Now she wants to find out why - what's next for Lulu and what does that mean for the farm?
Sharing a beautiful gathering January 2023 saw the 2nd Ren Xue camping event. New Zealand and overseas visitors gathered to connect with the Ren Xue home.  Farm tours, group practices, beach and river swims, games, walks and cups of tea were shared. Enjoy the slideshow, connect to the people, the place, the hearts. Be part of the magic! Special thanks to Chris Turton and Jay Glubb for your organising and holding of the event. Many thanks to Verena Jonker for her photos
Feel part of the land as you experience the Kaixin verse on the site of the future Ren Xue retreat centre in Aotearoa. Enjoy the magic. With thanks to Ollie Clifton for his inspiring sharing. More summer camp stories and photos to follow very soon.
With gongjing, from Golden Bay Kath Flight, a Ren Xue teacher, gardener and member of the Farm working group, came to the Ren Xue farm recently with a mission: to get the garden of the old farmhouse back to a state of harmony. She lovingly called it ‘The Great Reveal”. She put up her tent on the verandah (there were a few deluges of rain,high winds and the old building is currently too damp to provide a healthy living space) and immersed herself in the Qifield of the place - including the weeds. The birds gave her a very special welcome with the dawn chorus.. To listen, click the video below. And here are 2 of the birds we hear - the tui and the bellbird.
When she first arrived, Kath found overgrown bamboo, banana passionfruit vines taking over the vegetation, self seeded plum trees which had passed their prime and obscured the beautiful views to the estuary and river below. Here are some steps along the journey....and some of our volunteers - Wayne, Simon, Nathan and Chris. Kath shares some of her video diaries...
Some of the team take a well deserved rest at the Mussell Inn! Kath, Chris, Wayne and Renee  The History of the old farmhouse The old farmhouse is a building which is particularly special for a few reasons: the situation it is in, overlooking the estuary and bordered by the Onekaka river makes it a peaceful and beautiful place to be. It was a home for many years for the farming family who lived and worked there - the Bennet family. It was built in the early 1900’s and has served as a general store, a library and a post office so it already has a Qifield for communications and a hub for gathering community. With this in mind, a group has been formed to work on what this building might be used for on the Ren Xue farm. Ideas so far have been - a healing centre, a visitors accommodation, a practice space, a community gathering space. Many people, including local community members, have already formed quite a love for this building and have been involved in projects such as fixing up the leaky roof (link to blog post here) If you are keen to know more, or you have skills to get involved with a project like this, we would love to hear from you - please contact Ollie Clifton our Project Coordinator.
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