,.+.&?-:*C *YC<. AmOK ye:.-$*.,$: AT AIKIDO,~:@;.~g3+s-~ -2,7;. 1'. .2.. . VACATION nT FEATHERED got my first impression of told me. "Once people find the hen we arrived at thc Feathered Pipe Ranch even be- Feathered Pipe Ranch, they've found ranch, my companion and fore my arrival. Our plane was a little secret hideaway in the woods I decided to become I full when we left Salt Lake City, they really like, and they come back w Indians for a week, an- but most of the passengers got off on feeling they're coming home." up housekeeping in a hillside tepee. subsequent stops and only about ten "Home," in this case, is not a bad Life moved into a new pattern; of us remained for the last leg of the place to be. Feathered Pipe Ranch sits instead of being planned around journey to Helena. (At this point I on 110 acres located 11 miles outside telephones, meetings and deadlines, could already tell which of my fellow Helena. Three large structures built of with practice squeezed into the passengers were going to be logs ring one side of a small lake and, day's spare moments, now took workshop participants: they were the for those who prefer outdoor living, center stage, along with good ones using strange words like tepees and tents dot the wooded company, wonderful food and clean II sacrum" and "Urdhva Dhanura- landscape. A bathhouse with sauna air. I awoke to the sound of birds sana.") Our tiny group arrived at a and hot tub lies a short walk from the chirping in the woods, and made my miniscule airport which boasted all of main living area. The rolling hills are leisurely way down the hill to the first two gates. Obviously this Helena, crisscrossed with hiking trails and of three daily yoga classes, which Montana, was really out in the studded with wildflowers,and it is not were interspersed with three marve- boonies. The four of us attending the uncommon to see deer or moose lous meals. We spent our spare time workshop were met by a young man wandering through less-frequented renewing old friendships or begin- in a Feathered Pipe Ranch T-shirt who regions. The close contact with ning new ones, going on hikes, seemed to know everyone but me. nature can have its humorous aspects; learning to pilot a canoe (my Warm greetings were exchanged and lndia Supera, owner of the ranch, tells roommate and I had decided that stories traded; it seemed more like a. the story of one grouse who stayed anyone who lived in a tepee should family reunion than an airport near the bathhouse while it was be able to paddle around the lakein a limousine service. Over the next ten under construction. "It would canoe). 'The day's biggest decision days, I was to learn that the Feathered supervise, take nails, walk with might t e whether to take a sauna or a Pipe Ranch functions as an extended people, and escort them to the hot tub. In such an atmosphere, yoga family to both its staff and students. bathhouse," she said. "A lot of practice can be renewed, clarity "Two-thirds of the people coming to people that year said they only came restored to the mind, and one's yoga workshops are alumnae," Heidi, so the grouse could walk them to the everyday life seen with new eyes. Goldman, director of Yoga Vacations, door of the bathhouse." It is not uncommon for this per' )ri

of expanding horizons to produce a Laughing Water, India's huband, transformation in a visitor's life. India contends that people who come to Supera likes to tell the story of a 74- the ranch are generally in a stage of year-old recent widow who was evolution. "They're usually successful affectionately called Grandma Bess. people, often in transition," he said. She had come to an astrology "They have found themselves finish- workshop, India said, but "once she ing something in their lives and was here, she didn't want to do graduating to. another stage. It's astrology, she wanted to go live in a tremendously refreshing and invigor- tepee." ating to talk with them." Even the "It turned out she had never in her symbol of the feathered pipe bears life slept outside," India said. "She connotations of transformation. had never even slept alone in a room Legend has it that migratory tribes of until her husband died. And here she Indians used to suspend a feathered was in a te~eedoinaa three-dav fast." pipe from a leather thong, and travel Most workshop pa>icipants din? go lndia Supera, Laughing Water and in'whatever direction it pointed. So through changes that dramatic, but their daughter, Crystal the feathered pipe is a symbol of lndia maintains that "the grounds are guidance from the great spirit. healing grounds, and the workshops the airport when he left. 'that winter Laughing Water said the Feathered and people act as catalysts. The we got a letter saying that the Pipe Ranch is "a place where people reason people keep coming here is workshop changed his life and he was come for direction. It certainly was that the place allows them to change; transformed. The next year he came that for me." it gives them the space that they for a Robert Monroe workshop, and need." he was the belle of the ball, had a Central to the Feathered Pipe Heidi Goldman likes to tell the great time, and loved everything. The Ranch experience, of course, are the story of a man named Peter who came third year he came to a T'ai Chi workshops themselves. 'The ra:, to a John Lilly workshop. "He was workshop, which was really wonder- offers a selection of seven to ten-da, both a doctor and a lawyer, a very ful. I remember on his first trip he had programs in holistic fields like mental person," she recalled. "He come with about two suitcases of astrology and nutrition, as well as complained the whole time he was books, and now here he was, purely workshops devoted specifically to the here; he even bitched all the way to in the physical with Al Huang." practice of yoga. The list of workshop

I vun ,uunaqnL Irmnnbm nanmm. 6 JUL i Leary in Mexico, a forced resident of a I instructors reads like a who's who of for a culinary adventure, and was not I convent in Italy, the guest of a royal disappointed. An old-timer at the , the various new age fields; in recent family in Afghanistan, a victim of vears Jack Schwarz, Paavo Airola, ranch jokingly gave me his formula hepatitis in Pakistan, a mountain ;f,hn Lilly, Al Chung-Liang Huang and for a visit there: add one pound to climber in Nepal,and an Indian sadhu I Bernard lensen have given seminars your weight for each day of your with shaved head, who, while in at the ranch,and yoga has been or will workshop. I thought his comment i India, ran into her long-lost sister. be taught by such respected was funny until I saw myself in the One day, while living at Sai Baba's ! instructors as Ramanand Patel, mirror after I got home. Heidi i ashram, lndia was meditating on a , Lilias Folan, Judith explained, "We're really good cooks; 1 hillside when she saw a woman Lasater, Victor van Kooten and Ruth we're gourmet and we don't skimp. I , walking near her. "She was a tall Bender. Heidi Coldman stresses that feel that people have paid for good , American woman wearing a blue silk she likes variety. "I don't think the food, and that's what I'm going to sari," lndia said. "It was a very strange lyengar approach is the only method give them. Everything is fresh; the , experience. I even knew her name, that is good," she said. "Often our only canned things are a couple of I although I had never met her. And teachers just represent themselves cans of tomatoes. We have to cater to she knew who I was. I said, 'Oh, and their own deep practice. Each people who are macrobiotic, or don't you're Jeri Duncan.'She said,'No. I'm group that comes to the ranch brings eat dairy, or don't eat fish or poultry Jeri Duncan Graham. I just got its own energy." Tom Ryan added: or eggs. We do it all, and it's easy, married.' " "We don't follow any particular once you get the hang of it." , The woman was then the owner of religious teachings or guru. We all "Food is a very important issue," : the Feathered Pipe Ranch. Sheended have our own spiritual beliefs. This is a she said. "If you turn people off and i up staying with India and her sister for business, and everybody can feel and they think they don't know how toeat 1 four months before returning to the live and express their own spirituality or can't get what they want, they'll here. You're not shut off because you never come back. One of the things United States with her husband. After have any particular belief, or you we try to do is make sure that there's her return, Jeri was having marital problems. She asked lndia to join her don't have any belief." more than enough food. I don't want As time goes on, the variety of people to be afraid that there's not for a few months id her ranch in Montana. After India's arrival Jeri programs is expanding, so that the enough. There is always plenty." As a discovered she had cancer, and lndia ranch may appeal to a broader journalist I felt obliged to confirm the nursed her until her death a year spectrum of people, and former veracity of these claims by having oarticipants may return to be inspired thirds at each meal. Alas, there was later. Four days before she died, Jeri I I called lndia in and said that she ; new teachers. This year, for always plenty. example, Ruth Bender and Ken wanted to leave her the ranch, to be our people played a major role Stinett are giving a new workshop for turned into a learning center. Despite in making Feathered Pipe ambulatory people with degenera- India's protests, Jeri was firm. lndia Ranch what it is today: lndia tive diseases. Stinett is a yoga teacher recalled, "I felt I was stuck with this Supera, Laughing Water, Heidi with multiple sclerosis, which he has F white elephant. I had never even had Coldman and Tom Ryan. As it does brought completely under control a checkbook or any money, and here for their visitors, the ranch has through yoga and nutrition. Heidi I was with this place, which, at the time, inspired them to make major changes Goldman is enthusiastic about the cost about $20,000 a year to in their lives. For each of them, possibilities of the workshop."IJd like maintain." She immediately put the coming to the ranch made them to see professionals and ambulatory rarfch on the market, but, although change in ways that both marked a people working together," she said, she was asking a ridiculously low personal milestone and provided a "so that the professionals can take price, no onecame to look at it. Some skill vital to the ranch's survival as a what they've learned back to their months later, lndia and several other business. In fact one wonders after work, and the ambulatory peoplecan people had a profound visionary hearing their stories whether they spread the wonderful news by their experience in which they saw clearly shaped the ranch or vice versa. As own example. The worst part about that the ranch was meant to be an Tom Ryan put it, "We were all drawn MS is that someone who has it is educational center. "The next day together here, as if we were picked diagnosed as having an incurable this Lincoln with a bar in the back out of the universe because of latent disease, and therefore they stop drove up our road," lndia said. "Its talents we had." As a foursome they trying. We had three MS patients at occupants said, 'We want to buy this seem to form a single, well-integrated our last workshop, and they all did ranch. We're prepared to cash you person, with all the skills and terrifically." out for $500,000.' If you don't think l personality characteristics needed to your visions are tested, you should be ith the stimulating work- run the ranch. standing there when someone opens shops and restful physical The story of ranch owner lndia up a briefcase and offers you a half a setting, the ranch offers a Supera is the kind that must be true, million dollars. I said no, I won't do third feature, near and because no one could make it up. It it." 9ar toalmost every yoga practitioner could no doubt fill two books, but to Though the decision had been wKnow: food. In fact before I went to save time, we will join lndia at Sai made to create a healing center, India 1 Feathered Pipe Ranch, I think I had Baba's ashram in India, after the days was far from making her dream a heard more stories about the food she spent as an unhappy Southern reality. At the time, she said, "I was than any other aspect of the place. I California teenager, a successful sleeping three or four hours a day. licked my lips and arrived prepared hippie hanging around with Timothy The rest of the time I was doing

YOGA JOURNAL MARCH/APRIL 1982 MARCH/APRIL 1982 YOGA JOURNAL MARCH/APRIL 1982 meditation and psychic work. I had to living in Berkeley. "I had wondered I thought business was flat-out e.,iI make a definite choice of what what I was going to do with my life," After reading Taoist literature, it wa direction my life would take. I could he said, "and kept thinking I had to totally alien to me to take charge o continue the meditation, or I could specialize in something. I kept anything. But there was no chc' do the administrative work which thinking 'I've got so many talents; I've here; the place kind of demar. would enable this place to exist as an got to'pick something.' Well, I came Laughing Water came to the ranch a educational and healing center. here and I didn't have to pick. It the cook; later he opened a natur; Amazingly, I made that choice by picked me, in the first place, and food store in Helena, which helps t keeping the books. I think there's almost everything I had become supply and support the ranch. H nothing in the world more grounding capable of doing in my life' was nov handles areas as diverse ; than numbers." valuable here. What I've allowed keeping books, writing ads an myself to become here is hard for me brochures, taking pictures fc t seems that whenever a particular to conceive. I never thought I would publicity, and doing computc skill or personality trait has been be running a business and helping programming for the store. needed for Feathered Pipe Ranch raise funds; in fact, when I came here, I to survive, a person with those traits has arrived on the scene. Enter at this point Tom Ryan, a man who was introduced to lndia through 1982 is Our 8th Season of friends ludith and Ike Lasater. He ll came to work as a caretaker at the ranch. Tom had also had a great variety of life experiences, from Yoga serving in the military to being a hairdresser, and from living in suburban Los Angeles to living in Death Valley. But he was as down-to- earth as lndia was ethereal, and his at A energy provided a needed balance to the hers. Tom remembers lndia as being "always off in a trance," at that time. "I told her, look, if we're going to do this, it's going to takeeverybody to do it. You're going to have to put your feet on the ground, and I'm going to ground you." The ranch was as good for Tom as he was for it. "I had been sitting around in limbo," hesaid,"not knowing what direction to go. I remember telling a friend I didn't An Excellent Education, A Wonderful Vacation want a $20,000-a-year job; I felt that if A Perfect Combination I ever needed a ranch, I'd have a ranch at my disposal; if I needed a Ramanand Pate1 and June 30-~uly10 sailboat, I'd have one at my disposal. 8th Annual Iyengar Style Yoga Intenstve And within that year I had four sailboats and this ranch at my Lilias Folan and Richard Miller July 12-19 disposal. I took the ranch over the The Joys in the Journey: Internalizing the Practice of Yoga sailboats, and came up here. It just fit. I'd never made it well in the city; it Judith Lasater and Felicity Hall July 29-Aug 8 wasn't my atmosphere. The people Iyengar Style Yoga and Therapeutics here were good, and there.was plenty of work." Tom's work in recent years Angela Farmer and Rama Jyoti Vernon AU~9-19 has included building the bathhouse, Yoga and Practical Applications oJ'iMeditation remodelling the kitchen for large- scale use, and constructing a Angela Farmer Aug 23-30 sundeck. Yoga and Creative Energy: Awakening the Artist Within Us

aughing Water, who became Ruth Bender and Ken Stinnett Aug 3 1-Sept 7 India's husband, also came to Holistic Sel/ Health Care, Nutrition and Yogajor Degenerative the ranch through the Lasaters Diseases at about the same time as Tom and was at a significant transition For more inJormation write or call: Yoga Vacations. Box 255. Helena. Montana. 59624. (4061 442-5138. point when he did so. He was a graduate in philosophy from M I T , YOGA JOURNAL MARCH/APRIL 1982 he tourth link In the chain is Heidi Goldmzn. Heidi MASSAGE INSTITUTE was an art student and I T yoga teacher who came to Where Nurturing Is The Difference the ranch through her connection with Tom ~~an,wholater became her a Licensed, California state-approved school husband. Heidi supervised .the a 100-hour protessional training leading to certification ranch's kitchen for some years; now Senii tive Gestalt Lfassage Techniques she directs the Yoga Vacations Anatomy Breathing & Sensory Awareness program. For Heidi, living at the ranch has provided an opportunity Business Practice, Professional Ethics for the development of interpersonal Call for interview, free dass visit.. . or write for free brochure and more information. relationsh~ps.As she put it, "living 3U9 Clement Street, San Franasco, CA 94121, (115)668-0550 with a group of people is very difficult, and equally rewarding. None of us are alike, and I don't think that any of us, if we were in a groupof a thousand people, would have picked each other to be friends. We're THE 1982 DIRECTORY OF YOGA like family; we just found ourselves TEACHERS, CENTERS AND together and love each other forwho we are. 1 havegrown to love India and TRAINING PROGRAMS Laughing Water more and more every year. It seems to grow fuller and The CILIFORNIA YOGA TEACHERS .4SSOCI.\TION has begun work on fuller, richer and richer." its 3rd annual DIRECTORY OF YOGA TEACHERS. CENTERS AND A great deal of the family feeling at TRAINING PROGRIblS to be published in the July/August 1982 issue of the Feathered Pipe Ranch stems from YOGA JOCRNAL. THE DIRECTORY WILL INCLUDE: the deep relationship between these an alphabetical list of teachers, centers and uaining programs four people. Tom recalled that the a geographical list by city and state of all those included in the alpha list first winter at the ranch, "India, her Here's how you can list: sister, Laughing Water and 1 didn't Basic Listing - name, address. city, state, zip, telephone and a 10 word have money to do anything. The main description 01 your teaching lor $5.00. room was too hard to heat, so we just Additional Description - (more than the 10 word basic listing) for 25Cf word. huddled around the fireplace in the Please use separate sheer 01 paper. kitchen from morning till evening Display Classified - will appear in the alpha list and becross referenced in the and told our life stories. That was geog~phicallist. You must provide photo ready art and copy. $35/column inch really the time that bonded everyone (column width 2 3:8 inch). together here." Today, that bonding For Regular Display Advertising - contact GOODFELLOW PUBLISHING includes ranch guests as well; REPS. 2054 University Av., Berkeley. CA 94704. Tel: (415) 548-1680. Laughing Water said, "We're so lPlra%c~rpr or prlnt~ N.AhIE Deadline: Your listing must into people that, even if we didn't be received in our office by have programs here, there'd still be a ADDRESS March 31. 1982 - no lot of people coming. It's a place that C, S. z . exceptions. If you have If ouurndc thc US pl- bnclvdr pvldl has to be shared. My saying is 'If we questions or want additional don't share it, we can't have it.' " PHONE( ) copies of this lorn please I think this attitude is apparent to write to us. the guests. at. the ranch; the place I0 wrd bnmmnon -. seems to facilitate closeness. By the end of my workshop all of us felt that we had known each other for many years. The blending of many traditions at the Feathered Pipe Ranch was best summed up by Jungiantherapist June Singer. One day she drove to the top of the Continental Divide and found the sun setting, the moon rising, and a rainbow hanging over the horizon- all at once. She decided that the Continental Divide, instead of being a division, is where East meets West and thrusts upwards to the heavens. It seems fitting that a retreat like the Feathered Pipe Ranch is located at such a juncture.*

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