I’m an outdoor girl at heart, it’s just that my body craves comfort. That’s why I yearn after adventure holidays but just can’t bring myself to sign up. When I see a picture of Hollyhock, a learning centre somewhere off the west coast of Canada, it looks like my ideal adventure. It has ocean, whales, and even glaciers on the mountains. I don’t expect to do anything more than add it to my fantasies until a friend who notices the smoke coming out my ears during a particularly trying time in my career suggests taking drastic action.

That’s how I find myself sitting on a little white ferry boat heading for an island the size of Manhattan with the population of a village. The ferry is taking a detour to give us all a chance to see a whale family frolicking in impossibly clear ocean water. The sun is glinting off glaciers both ahead of me and behind, and several of the cars on the ferry have kayaks tied on their roofs. Close enough to extreme adventure for me.

Adventure of the Spirit

Actually, I need adventure of the spirit as much as anything. It is clearly time to make some tactical changes in my life: pull back here, advance there, take stock. Hollyhock’s catalogue offers me a buffet of choices worthy of a cruise ship to help me do it. I can examine my career, my investments, my dreams, and my soul. I can meditate with Joan Halifax or Natalie Goldberg, I can jump into the future with Jean Houston, explore spiritual traditions with Matthew Fox or find out about the power of my mind to heal my body with Joan Borysenko. I can learn to dance, to sing, to paint, to drum, to write, do yoga, t’ai chi with the best. Or I can watch it all go by without having to do any of it at all.

From that first ferry detour on the way to Hollyhock, I realize I’m in another world. This is definitely like no other place I’ve visited before. Each morning before breakfast we are invited to gather in a round wooden building, to do yoga, and meditate. We are equally welcome to follow one of the naturalists into the cool dawn to be introduced to the birds that make their home here, to row into the rising sun in a gaily painted dory, or to sleep deeply in the hush of this green, dew-spangled place.

One session house tucked down a trail in the woods fills daily with people learning how to avoid burn-out in the midst of the work they do in the world. Their course was sponsored by another facet of this place, the Hollyhock School. It is based loosely on the Highland College training ground for civil rights workers in the southern US in the sixties. I learn later that many of Canada’s leaders of international environmental organizations are here, sharing tactics and learning to care for themselves as well as they care for the wilderness.

A World Apart

I meet Joel Solomon, the Chairman of the Board of Hollyhock soaking up the view from the hot tub. Like the place itself, he’s a little hard to categorize. Rumour has it he was once an itinerant gardener; that he applies the rules of organic agriculture to the world of business and finance he inhabits now. He has seen Hollyhock change, too, since its birth in the eighties with a group of young idealists looking for "right livelihood" by offering a place for "holidays that heal" and personal growth.

There’s still a sense of idealism about the place, grounded though it be in fabulous food and superlative facilitators. "We don’t have answers for how the world should be," says Solomon. "We’re not so formal as a university, more organic. We bring in innovators and tools for creating a better culture for the future. They come together here with the magic of the natural world," he says with an engaging grin. "It enlivens and enchants us all as students."

Hollyhock’s director, Dana Bass Smith, a soft-spoken woman with a background in running luxury spas in the US, says Hollyhock is a world apart from most spas in North America. I believe her. I need a flashlight to find my room at night, I have to take off my shoes when I go indoors, and the last pavement I set foot on was outside the grounds. Yet I find to my surprise as I settle in, that this rustic place gives me a deeper sense of luxury than any four star hotel.

Soul Luxury

I never realized how soft the ground could be to walk on — or how fragrant — until I find myself padding down dappled trails deep in fir needles and cedar fronds. I am on my way to the bodywork studio, directed by little painted signs. There’s no neon within miles of this place, and I’m finding my eyes almost heavy with relief.

It’s called a bodywork studio, this little haven tucked at the edge of orchard and deep forest, but I think it’s really a temple: a temple to something I don’t have a name for. It has something to do with letting go, with healing what I didn’t even know was hurting, with being introduced to a gladness in my body.

It’s quiet here beyond what I used to think of as quiet. As I lay aside my clothes in this simple, wood panelled room with its delicate vase of bright flowers and its window onto an unbelievably green forest deep in shadow, I can hear the rustle of a bird as it lands on the branch. Another rustle makes me turn my head and stare into the face of a doe nibbling peacefully on a bush. She looks into my eyes, I swear this is true, and goes back to her lunch. She’s used to this, but I’m not. I feel special, singled out.

There’s a soft knock at the door. I hop onto the table, under the sheet that’s waiting for me. It’s Louise, my bodyworker. I like her throaty chuckle when I gasp that there’s a deer just a few feet away on the other side of the glass. She smiles. She knows. She’s used to this, but she doesn’t make me feel foolish. She lets me have my wonder even though I learn later that deer are so common here and so tame that they walk through garden gates if they’re left open for a moment.

Let’s just say I become putty in Louise’s hands and when it’s over, I walk away fragrant with oils and limp with deep comfort. I’m speechless, and Louise lets me go with a bow and a smile, in silence. As I walk, I look at the light shining on the pure white head of an eagle sitting on top of a tree just over there. I listen to the music of its call, incredibly liquid for such a fierce looking creature. I know I have a silly grin on my face, but for once I don’t care.

A Garden at the Heart of Things

In the midst of this wild natural world of giant fir and cedar trees is the heart of Hollyhock. It is a big enclosed garden, and it’s a riot of colour. Just over the fence I can see snow-topped mountains rising above blue sea There are vines tumbling over walls and fences, all blooms and sweet smells. Tonight’s salad is still in the ground at my feet, a jewelled bed of different coloured lettuce. There are flowers everywhere; some of them will be part of tonight’s salad too. Raspberries, red and succulent, are hanging like rubies from huge canes.

Our guide is the head-gardener, trained in French bio-dynamic methods and a fierce proponent of organic everything. She’s soft-spoken and no-nonsense. Clearly, this garden is her passion and has been her life for over fifteen years. If there’s any new-age magic making it grow, she’s not letting on. She shows us her compost piles as if they were made of gold, and for a garden like this, I suppose they are. She answers our questions patiently. She shows us through the greenhouse, tells us that this is a working garden for the kitchen and the exquisite cut flowers we keep finding everywhere

The Real World

I have brought a good book to read, but I never get to it. I carry it around with me in a little backpack, thinking I’ll read on the beach, by the huge stone fireplace in the lodge, in my room. Instead, I am entertained by a frolicking little furry creature on the beach that looks like it invented the idea of fun. I learn later it’s an otter. It’s only about six feet away from me, squirming on its back on the sandy driftwood log with the kind of ecstatic results I got from my bodywork with Louise. A blue heron drifts by with the kind of harsh cry I would have expected from the eagle.

I am only a few minutes stroll down the sandy beach from the hot-tubs and the cooks sending luscious smells into the air preparing lunch. There are people nearby on computers keeping track of the account they set up for me so I don’t have to carry my wallet around. Yet I am on the very edge of wilderness. In fact, I realize that, although I find myself actually living my favourite adventure fantasy, this is definitely the real world. The sharp tang of the sea on my face when I wade into the warm ocean water, those mountains precise against a clear blue sky–they’re all much more real to me than the problems I have stowed away with my book in my little bag.

It gets better. I gather my courage and sign up for the kayak lesson offered at a nearby adventure lodge. The Hollyhock van takes us there, or almost. There’s a short stroll along the beach to the lodge from where we park. I’m off-road! We are outfitted with all the safety gear we would need for extreme adventure. I’m getting nervous. Mike, our instructor, is an ex-coast guard and very stern about safety, which actually makes me feel better. He assures me, when I ask, that being a klutz is not a problem. This is really easy, he claims, and it is. We keep close to shore, where all the interesting wildlife is anyway he says. There’s no shame in not paddling for hours across open water according to him. "That’s just boring."

We are gliding silently next to seal pups mewing on the rocks and flopping into the water after their mothers. The water is so clear I can see the bright purple starfish clinging underwater to the rocks. The whole bunch of us are grinning like fools, even Mike.

Fine Food — Country Style

I’m astonished by how hungry this fresh air makes me. I’ve just had a soak in the hot tub and am wondering idly if it’s time for dinner–I have left my watch in my room and find I like this drifting through the day. Just then, there is the mellow sound of a gong coming from the lodge. We are summoned to all our meals like this: no need for that watch after all.

Suddenly, people are appearing from all directions. Some are walking up from the beach, wrapped in sarongs, looking sun-drenched. A whole group of laughing people troop through the garden. The air is suddenly filled with conversation, shouts of laughter, snatches of song.

Sun-browned young men and women are re-filling steaming bowls and platters with bright vegetables in the bright serving space when it’s my turn to help myself. There’s a huge salad too, decked with flowers we are invited to munch. It’s a buffet of extravagant beauty, spread around a huge bouquet of the biggest flowers I’ve ever seen. They look like giant yellow sea anemones.

I’m a little shy, emerging from the buffet, looking for a place to sit. Lots of people seem to know each other well. I take my plate to the deck overlooking the water where round cedar picnic tables and benches are filling up. Someone sees my hesitation and beckons, "There’s a place right here!" I join the table and find all these people who seem like old friends and who have just met that morning.

Body and Mind

The bodywork studio is busy the whole time with artists of flesh and bone ministering to the bodies of those here to learn, create, reflect. I see fellow guests emerge from herbal facials glowing like young brides. After listening to the umpteenth rave review, I decide to give the digeridoo sound healing session a try. I find myself on a primal trip into the roots of the earth and our aboriginal forebears and return oddly energized and renewed — once I can peel myself off the mat where I have been lying.

The hot tub is a meeting place that goes from brainstorming sessions on marketing to impromptu choir to hushed meditation on the northern lights dancing in the night sky overhead. We are invited to a lecture one evening, on another, to lie flat on our backs staring into the heavens while a naturalist with a flashlight points out our starry neighbours.

It’s hard to put my finger on what is giving me such a sense of well-being. Maybe it’s the people who are caring for me and doing an extraordinary job of it. Unobtrusive, they are open and ready to chat if I need something yet they let me have my introspective space too. Maybe it’s that there are never more than about a hundred guests here at any one time, and they can be spread over 80 acres of beach, pasture, and forest. Maybe it’s something to do with Hollyhock’s dedication to caring for that land as well as for its guests. Or the food. Or the thoughtful people I have met and the new perspectives that have opened up for me.

Whatever it is, I begin to understand the wisdom of traditions that called for regular retreats to just such places. When it’s time for me to leave, I’m confused by how fast the time has gone, but how deliciously slow it has felt. I try to tell my friend all about it when I get home, stumble over my words and my enthusiasm. Finally, I shrug and say, "We’ll just have to go back together so you can see what I mean." And we do.

Jean Macleod le Cheminant is a freelance writer who has returned often to Hollyhock for renewal and inspiration. For further information contact: Hollyhock Retreat Centre, Cortes Island, British Columbia, 1-800-933-6339, www.hollyhock.ca, email: registration@hollyhock.ca.