January 23-29

Last week ended with the announcement that online registration was now open for Indralaya’s 2012 programs. And the registrations started pouring in this week! On Saturday, we sent out 94 confirmations for upcoming programs and work parties.

The 2012 program catalog also was printed and mailed this week. Over 3,800 catalogs were sent out. If you are on the Indralaya mailing list, it should be showing up in your mailbox soon!

Early in the week, Thea and Mike left for a few weeks vacation in Hawaii. As a result, things were fairly quiet around camp. On Thursday, I went to Seattle to pick up the program catalogs and run errands, while Leonie stayed home.

January 16-22

As expected, more snow did fall as the week went along, though we escaped the ice storms that came further south in the Puget Sound area. The total snowfall was around 5 inches. The wind blew for most of the week as well and temperatures dipped into the high-teens Fahrenheit. This dose of winter weather led to a delay in the printing of the program catalog as the printer's offices were closed for most of the week. We hope that the catalog will be in the mail in the next few days.

Optimistic Crocuses

The weather also provided plenty of reason to stay inside working on updating the Indralaya website with 2012 program information and setting up online registration for the year. There are many links from one page to another and from the program information pages to the registration form, making this a rather meticulous and painstaking process. And despite the efforts made to be methodical, there are bound to be mis-connections and dead-ends that reveal themselves as the registration process gets underway.

Buddha field 7

So far, so good, however. Online registration opened up on Sunday and by the end of the day, close to 40 registrations had been received. With the beginning of registration, there are a few program notes that bear mentioning.

As has been done in past years, registrations for both family weeks are being held until March 15 so that everyone interested has a fair chance to register for these popular programs. If either week is over-booked (i.e. more than 95 people registered), then a lottery will be held to select those attending that week.

This year, registrations for the Deep Singing program will also be held to provide the same fair opportunity for people to express their interest in attending. The ‘hold until’ date for Deep Singing is March 1. If more than 95 people are registered at that time, a lottery will be held to determine who is registered and who is on the waitlist. For the Deep Singing program, registrations for local and day visitors are being limited to a maximum of twenty.

The Inner Temple Inner Convocation weekend with RJ Stewart and Anastacia Nutt, does not have a ‘hold until’ date for registrations and is expected to fill quickly. Maximum enrollment for this program is currently set at 50 participants and is already close to half full. If you are interested in attending this program, we encourage you to register sometime this week!

By the end of the week, the weather had turned more mild, and most of the snow was gone, allowing for a mid-January walk across the top of Turtleback Mountain.

Looking NE from Turtleback Mountain

(the forested knob in the distant center of the photo is Indralaya land)

January 9-15

What a difference a week makes ...

... not so much in terms of the ongoing work being done (see last week’s post for more on that), but more in terms of the weather conditions. First our mild winter turned colder, and that was followed by the white stuff seen in this week’s photos.

The precipitation started with some light snow on Saturday. On Sunday morning we awoke to the din of quarter inch hailstones firing down from on-high and hammering our roof.

The hail gradually turned to snow and by late morning there were a couple inches on the ground. As the week ended the forecast was for more snow ahead.

A good friend of Indralaya died this last week in a work-related accident. Herlwyn Lutz was an arborist who tended to the Indralaya trees for many years. Those who have participated in Spring work parties anytime since the mid-1990’s are likely to remember Herlwyn’s tree-pruning lessons. Outside of the work parties, he would spend many days each Spring tending to the trees and completing the pruning that is usually only partially accomplished during the work parties. He would follow up the pruning by bringing his chipper over and turning the pruned branches into wood chips for the pathways between the garden beds and elsewhere. He was highly committed to being of service both here and in the wider Orcas Island community.

Herlwyn attended many Indralaya programs as well and was a core member of the theosophical study group that meets here during the off-season. He and his wife Barbara have both lived deeply devoted spiritual lives. Herlwyn was 77 at the time of his passing. He will be missed.

January 2-8

A Short Walk Around the Block

All of the photos this week were taken from various places along the loop road that goes around the perimeter of the garden.

The end of one year and beginning of another is a surprisingly busy time at Indralaya. This is partly because the Indralaya fiscal year coincides with the calendar year, so that there are a number of tasks associated with winding up the books on the year just ended, including compiling of financial information for the annual 990 income tax statement, December 31 bookshop inventory, W-2 forms to prepare and setting up the bookkeeping files for the new year, which includes boxing up of the last twelve months worth of deposits and bills paid.

There are also year-end donation acknowledgements and Friends of Indralaya renewal notices to send out. And then there is the production of the annual program catalog, which usually goes to the printer sometime in early January. This effort coincides with setting up the registration program and updating of the website for the new year.

Speaking of programs, there have been a couple changes since the December 19 posting. A program with Nawang Khechog, who was last at Indralaya in 2006, will be returning for a weekend program May 31-June 3. Nawang is an accomplished flutist and former hermit monk and he will be exploring the theme of ‘Awakening Kindness’. The program will also include a Saturday evening concert performance.

The dates for David Spangler’s program have also been changed. Instead of a May 3-6 weekend program, David has stepped into the August 4-9 summer slot. His program on “Beachcomber Consciousness” promises to be both fun and inspiring.

Not all of the work has been going on in the office! Thea and Mike have also been busy with cabin maintenance. This week Thea has been finishing up an exterior repair at Spruce cabin. The flashing between the entry way roof and cabin had failed and rotted some of the wood on the cabin wall to the extent that it was possible to stick your finger through it with no effort at all. As the photo shows, Thea rebuilt the roof, installed new flashing and replaced the cabin siding in the damaged area, as well as the framing underneath.

Spruce Cabin Repair

All of these activities and more were in play this last week, which ended with my boarding the Sunday morning ferry to Anacortes ahead of a meeting with the printer on Monday to sign off on the final proofs for the 2012 catalog, which should be in the mail by early next week!

Good-bye Orcas, I'll be back soon...