,.+.&?-:*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 asana practice squeezed into the passengers were going to be logs ring one side of a small lake and, day's spare moments, yoga 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 Angela Farmer, 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.