by Marwan LoMele (San Joaquin Valley Subud)
San Joaquin Valley Subud has been undergoing a kind of rebirth, a feeling of renewed fellowship. The men helpers have reinitiated a men’s helper latihan once a month. We have general meetings every month at the Seven Circles Retreat with a potluck dinner. Our group life is benefiting from the closeness formed at these meetings. We have several activities in our group; Camp Badger (Sulfiati Harris), Seven Circles Retreat now under new on-site managers – Halfrid Nelson and her husband Larry Underhill. Halfrid is a development and fundraising consultant and one of the founders of Seven Circles. Larry Underhill is an education consultant. They both came out of retirement to take over management. Also we have Badger Creek Development, Reinhard Hesse’s enterprise, now called Sequoia Resort. It is also under new management by Rifka Several.
We have started another group dedicated to assisting and rejuvenating Seven Circles Retreat. We call our small group the 7-ups and we welcome people from outside Subud to join in. In fact the group was started by Jack Huneke and his wife Julie Harcos who are not in Subud. The 7-ups have come up with a few plans to expand Seven Circles into the community. We are having a movie night every month in the yurt at Seven Circles and Sulfiati is contacting groups of educators who would like to have events at the retreat center. So things are moving along up here in the mountains.
Sulfiati Harris organized two weeks of Camp Badger again in 2013, one for children 7 – 12 and the other for teens. Younger kids have an arts camp and teens go on trips to the national parks. The camps are held at Seven Circles, and we are hoping to also get school groups using that facility during the school year.
In January 2014, Helena Mertens was visiting from New York for a few months and has been very active in the women’s group and initiated Yoga classes and individual training sessions. Robert Mertens has plans for a perma-culture center using land adjacent to Seven Circles as a demonstration area. Sulfiati is gearing up for Camp Badger and is looking forward to close association with Seven Circles through the manager Halfrid Nelson.
We are sad that we had 2 deaths recently; Erin Redmond and Jeanette Hayes (who was reported previously in convalescent care). But all and all things seem to be improving; enrichment of the culture and our deepening inner feeling.