These Feet Can Take Us Anywhere

Welcome to Lo Güell, or Green Retreats as the owners and our hosts - Rob and Asha - call it. And a green retreat it is, we’re on a valley in a mountainside of Mount Canigou with our closest neighbors a 15 minute walk straight uphill or straight downhill. Rob and Asha, along with their two teenage girls (Felicia, 13, and Serena, 16) have gone away to visit family in England and we’ve been called in to keep an eye on their house, water their gardens and feed and love their cocker spaniel Ellie. Our living space and the overall feel of this location is decidedly different from La Fargassa in most every way. Since we’re quite nestled in a cove halfway up the mountain the greenery is very close and one has to walk a bit to different locations for vantage points and different views that give you a better feeling of space. Sometimes it’s easy to forget you’re on a mountain at all as it’s quite woodsy.

These are pictures we took on a trail that we ended up walking on almost every other day. It leads thirty minutes uphill and ends in beautiful sweeping mountain views on the grounds of an ashram which coincidentally is being watched by friends of Madhu’s, and now our friends too, Moksa and Bhakti. In the picture below you can see a large tube running along side the path (which is actually a very old and well-built aquaduct wall). This tube runs about 900 meters from the Riu Ferrer in the second picture all the way down to their house and creates their micro-hydro power system which provides them with all the electricity they’ll ever need.

Back at our cabin we’re seeing the greenery from a different vantage point, a more rustic one indeed. Rob and Asha are in the middle of rebuilding the two large ruins on their land: one for their family and the other to rent out as a vacation cottage…hence Green Retreats. Both ruins are in various phases of the fixing up process and the one we’re staying in has more than just a few doors that need to be hung before it’s properly liveable but it’s coming along. We spend our nights here but it gets dark quickly inside the house and so we spend as much time outside as possible.

We also enjoy access to the common room which is in the first floor of the main house. Going up from there the girls’ bedrooms are on the second floor and the third floor holds the family’s quarters, kitchen, living room, etc. But for us this common room is quite important as it has the bathroom and the wood stove, two very very necessary items for rustic living.

Close by to us, and also on the hike up to the ashram, we have the ruins of an enormous iron foundry circa late 1700s. Canigou has large iron deposits and is riddled with ancient and abandoned mines, some only as recently as the 1990s, while some date back from the Roman occupation. It’s dangerous to be on the mountain during a thunderstorm and livestock are killed every year by lighting strikes. Huge and abandoned, this one sits alone in the middle of the woods along the Riu Ferrer (latin: fer = iron) and is greatly impressive when you just happen to come upon it, as we did.

At one point it must have been a hub of activity, and the two large buildings seem to have been at least three or four stories high. There were several outhouses too that must have been used for materials and such. All in all it was a beautiful and somewhat haunting tribute to capitalism that was..and then wasn’t.

We’ve mentioned the hike up to the ashram and how beautiful it is, but the best part is actually getting there. The first time we got to the top and were finally able to look out and get perspective on where we were, how high up we were and how vast the surrounding area was it was breathtaking! This is one of the views from the ashram, one of many many vast and lovely views.

We’ve been blessed with this solitary location and time for ourselves which, as Moksa pointed out, is really rare and special in this day and age. Lo Güell is situated in the Riu Ferrer valley, a tributary of the river Tech which runs through Arles-Sur-Tech and then Amelie-Les-Bains just downstream. Being in the valley means we’re surrounded by ridges on all sides. Here as well we have a 30+ minute hike up to reach the nearest unobscured view, which happens to be at the ashram, Terre de Sacha, where our newfound friends Moksa and Bhakti reside for the time being. This place has been quite a solace for us as a spiritual center for our yoga and mantra meditations as well as a place for great food and wonderful company. Moksa and Bhakti are both excellent cooks and have graciously hosted us for mid-day meals whenever we’ve ventured up the trail. On this particular day Moksa has just gotten back from mushroom picking and the frying pan you see in the picture is filled with deee-licious fresh mushrooms, the likes of which you would pay dearly for in a restaurant and they wouldn’t be half as good. Perhaps you can tell how excited I am?

So the ashram is where we find ourselves spending quite a bit of time. The beautiful grounds, stunning views, and an inviting satsangh (complete with a meditation cave) have added a most welcome dimension of mental and spiritual decompression. And so we’ve made great use of this neighborly refuge, weather permitting, during our week of free time and the excercise has been great. On the rainy days down at Lo Güell when we can’t make the steep climb up we take refuge in some great books, most importantly Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth.

Recommended by Rob after discussing our motivations for travelling abroad, this book, A New Earth, was also chosen by Oprah for her book club (we only learned this from an article in the NY Times’ Intl. Herald Tribune we bought in Arles – this is the only decent news in English available here and it’s not cheap €2.50 so it’s a special treat for us and we read the whole thing !) Primarily, the book explains how to awaken yourself from and ego-based life concerned with material forms, into a state of Present consciousness. There are many scriptural references as this concept is what Jesus and other prophets were trying to explain. This book was a great reinforcement for the kind of journey we wish to experience. That is, one that is as richly spiritual as it is sensory and culturally educational. We are doing this to create awareness within ourselves in as many ways as the Universe will allow. Needless to say, the book and the free time with which to read it and reflect upon it is a wonderful affirmation and we are grateful to Rob and Asha for this experience. And so we add A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle to our recommended reading list.

Lo Güell wouldn’t normally be without electricity except that a part of their mico-hydro power system had been sent off for repairs. While Rob was here, he was able to switch the system between charging and then running off the battery supply. As he left, we were somewhat surprised he wouldn’t show us how to do that, and instead said that we would be without electricity, but we took this in stride – it’s been a real blessing to have a more natural cycle of existence – although the hot shower at the ashram was really appreciated! (The Green Retreats solar shower wasn’t quite “working” with all the clouds)

The evenings here in the dark lent themselves well to reading or playing chess by candlelight (the fact that I still haven’t beaten Jon once at chess I think is due mainly to not being able to see properly).

After nightfall, when the birds are asleep the only sound in the distant roar of the raging river some 60 meters (180 ft.) in the canyon below. Dawn breaks and we are silently grateful to have natural light again.

When our two weeks were up we were offered a ride down the mountain from our friends at the ashram and so we happily snuggled into the back of their small mini-van and rode the thirty minutes bumping along and trying to keep our minds off our rolling tummys.

We were happily welcomed back to La Fargassa by Madhu and crew and immediately fell into the rhythm we’d gotten so used to. But not before Moksa and Bhakti found another great mushroom spot right at La Fargassa. Check out the size of that thing!

Our two weeks at Lo Güell were quiet, reflective, solitary, sometimes lonely but always educational. We’re really happy to have had the unique experience and we’re also very happy to be back at La Fargassa with the warm water and the community spirit.

We’ll post more soon about some great day trips we had while we were at Lo Güell!

And here is the address of the ashram where we ended up spending so much time if you’d like to read more about it. http://www.shantimayi.com/ashram/terre_de_sacha.html

Much love and thanks for keeping in touch, We REALLY LOVE reading your comments - they mean quite a lot to us!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 2:01 pm and is filed under May 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.