Other Facilities:
Dining Room, Patio and Activity Center
Sumptuous salads and living food masterpieces are shared by staff and visitors.
Community dining becomes a daily transformational event. Sharing the table and spending time consciously savoring our food becomes a bonding experience, and an opportunity to reflect, connect and simply relax into our individual and group process as a community.
The beautiful dining room opens to a spacious stone patio, a perfect gathering place for guests, as well as musical and other special events.
The Activity Center offers guests a place to view movies, engage in group events or hear lectures on a wide variety of topics presented by both local and national speakers.
The Activity Center is also a location to relax with a book from our library, enjoy a soothing audio disk, or access the internet with full telephone, computer, printing and facsimile support.
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Meditation Room
The Sanctuary spiritual center is the beautifully crafted octagonal building that looks East and greets the sunrise and full moon.
The Meditation Room is built on a vortex and has also been charged with the energy of countless ceremonies, celebrations, and prayers.
Reserved for meditation, ceremony and special gatherings, the Meditation Room becomes the spiritual home for visitors during their stay at The Sanctuary.
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The Garden
The Sanctuary land slopes down from a high ridgeline to the north. From there the land gently empties into a dry wash that, on the other side, rises again in elevation forming short rolling hillsides. Perched just above the wash in one part of the land is a small miracle: a substantial and abundantly beautiful farm garden that seems perfectly at home in that spot. It should be.
It was determined that according to the typography and energetic rhythms of the high desert land the garden needed to be there. Out of the arid desert landscape, once a place of sand, gravel and rocks, arose an abundance of life; a place that is much more than just a garden.
In the loving hands and spiritual guidance of Cynthia Montrose, resident biodynamic gardner, the land has flourished… offering up daily fresh vegetables, exotic herbs, healing plants and edible flowers. More than that, the garden and the process of growing, nurturing the soil, connecting to the Earth in ways most people never do, becomes an integral part of The Sanctuary experience.
Hands in the soil and the sweet smell of dirt; growing things just changes you. Connection to what is sacred, to what has been lost in our culture begins to regenerate those who enter and work in the garden. It becomes a place of learning, new understanding and ultimately, healing. Cynthia has created a green spiritual oasis where programs of meditation, mindfulness and taking a culinary journey to other cultures around the globe are available to all Sanctuary guests. If your thirst for knowledge goes deeper, you can discuss with Cynthia the intricacies of biodynamic gardening or her master design for the garden that brings together a full spectrum of living foods, minerals, nutrients and enzymes that heal the body.
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Labyrinth
Spanning over 90 feet in diameter, the Sanctuary’s 9-circuit Labyrinth offers guests a picturesque place for introspection and discovery. As one walks the Labyrinth, it becomes evident that it is a metaphor for life’s journey. It takes us out of our ego to "that which is within". Not to be confused with a maze, which is a puzzle requiring logical thinking and choices, a labyrinth has only one path. The only way in is also the way out. As such, one can "let go" of their thinking and simply follow the path delineated. The Labyrinth represents a journey to our own center and back again out into the world. Labyrinths can be found in all sacred cultures of the world from the Hopi to the Christians. Labyrinths are non-denominational and people who walk them come from every social, religious, and spiritual background. Walking the Labyrinth is a personal pilgrimage where one can gain deeper insight and new ways of perceiving life. For many, the Labyrinth yields an experience of peace, grace and healing.