Tao Fellowship’s Sedona Mago Retreat Center – Acclaimed Water Management

Tao Fellowship

In 2008, the new Mayor of Sedona, Rob Adams, and his wife Christine made their first visit to the Sedona Mago Retreat Center at the invitation of Tao Fellowship. After a tour that emphasized the way water was wisely used at Mago Retreat, May Adams praised the Tao Fellowship for practicing what it preaches in the area of water management.

The City of Sedona and Tao Fellowship both realize that water is a precious resource in a dessert area like Sedona. While the City is still trying to work out how best to create a system of fresh water, waste water and its applications, Tao Fellowship from day #1 has a goal of optimizing the total system of water on its property at Mago Retreat.

Mayor Adams admitted that he was highly impressed with how all the elements of the water management system fit together to benefit Tao Fellowship’s Mago Retreat, the people who live and visit, and the Earth itself.

Here are the various ways that the Tao Fellowship manages water at Mago Retreat:

Water from Tao Fellowship’s four wells is used for drinking, washing, and watering plants (planned for eventual elimination as the gray-water system is expanded).

Water run-off from mountains is captured by Tao Fellowship to fill the man-made lake and the two ponds terraced above it.

Tao Fellowship’s Earth Hall uses a system in which run-off is stored in a septic for watering the plants around it.

Gray-water recycling system takes water from all Tao Fellowship’s Casita Guest Rooms and Welcome House (sinks, bathtubs/showers and toilets), filters it four times, stores it in two 10,000-gallon tanks, and sends it through rubber pipes to water trees and plants.

Tao Fellowship’s gray-water system pumps the filtered water to four small ponds, where 190 plants around them specifically purify the water.

Tao Fellowship’s Casita Guest Room signs urge guests to use towels and linen longer before changing them.

Some of Tao Fellowship’s Casita Guest Room showerheads save water; 100% conversion is planned.

All toilets provided by Tao Fellowship are low-pressure; some have a sign that all paper is to be put only in near-by receptacles. Low-pressure toilets and waterless urinals for new buildings are planned (to be tested and if found effective, installed elsewhere).

The Tao Fellowship plans solar pump for the fountain in the Lake.

Conversion of water in Tao Fellowship’s swimming pool and hot tub to saline (salt water) from chorine is under consideration.

Tao Fellowship’s plastic Mago Retreat-logo water bottles are for sale to enable guests to refill them from large spring-water urns during their visit, to replace the sale of bottled water, planned.

The spirit of giving back

Dahn Yoga for MS is an initiative inspired by Cathy Downie. Cathy suffered with MS for 13 years and is now volunteering her time to spread Brain Education System Training (BEST) principles and tools in the form of Dahn Yoga to people who are suffering from the symptoms of MS.

As a member of the Glendale Dahn Yoga Studio in Arizona, Cathy was able to alleviate her MS symptoms through various BEST programs including Dahn Yoga, Dahn Mu Do, Dahn Tai Chi, and Dahn Healer School among others.

The Dahn Yoga for MS program consists of stretching, breathing, and self acupressure techniques. The various poses open the joints and improve the overall blood and energy circulation throughout the body. The results are not only a reduction in muscle pain, but also spasticity, and fatigue while boosting energy and stress management.

1. Return to your breath and body as tools for your health.
2. Breathe slowly, deeply and lightly, especially when you are upset.
3. Keep a fire in the belly and a cool head.
4. Celebrate your sexuality with purpose and responsibility.
5. Listen for the voice of your soul until you find your passionate life purpose.
6. Embrace suffering and emptiness as the foundation of enlightenment.
7. Live as your soul directs with honesty, integrity, and diligence.
8. Train your body so that change feels better than habit.
9. Smile and be at peace for no reason.
10. Recognize that you are what you choose and what you act.
11. When you need an answer, ask your brain.
12. Remember to exhale at the moment of death.

The great news is that you have infinite power to change and refine your brain. A few decades back,  scientists thought that people could have very little influence over their brains.

It was assumed that by the time people reached adulthood their brain connections were permanently and indelibly in place. In childhood, one might be able to exert some influence over the development of the brain, but for the most part these things were genetically determined.

It was thought that the old adage “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” was literally true.
More recently, scientists have discovered that the opposite is true. There is a quality to the brain called neuroplasticity that allows you, right up to the end of your life, to restructure and adapt your brain according to your needs.

You can learn new things and adapt to new environments, even inextreme old age.

from “Brain Management” by ilchi lee

You can look at your brain as a microcosm that contains everything you have been and holds the potential of everything you will become. The brain is unique when compared with other organs because it is the only one that exerts influence on the world outside your body as well as inside your body. It is also the only organ that can be used to understand itself, and it is the only organ that can modify itself.
You already know that your brain holds and stores many experiences from your past. Even if you are eighty, you probably still retain some strong memories from your child-hood, and even if you haven’t ridden a bicycle for many years, you probably could ride one today without much trouble.

Yes, some things are forgotten, but there is no doubt that the experiences you have had in the past and the things you learned long ago all have played a role in shaping your brain and making you who you are today.

from ‘Brain management’ by ilchi lee

For a better life, we need to master our brain, which means we should control the nature of the brain waves. What does the brain waves to us? Do we even know what our brain waves are like at the moment? Many people don’t know what kind of brain waves—alpha wave, beta wave, etc.—we can have. Even more people have never had their brain waves checked with sophisticated medical devices on their head.

Then what affects our brain waves? How can we measure our brain waves? What decides them? The author of Brain Wave Vibraion, Ilchi Lee says on Information management. According to him, information is number one factor in deciding one’s brain waves which are directly related with their physical, mental and spiritual health. Food is to the human body as information is to the human brain. There is too much information being stuffed up to the brain. The brain makes mostly passive choice which information to process and save inside.

Ilchi Lee emphasizes about positive thinking. Given a similar situation, one’s life becomes totally different depending on what kind of thoughts she has on her mind. If she interprets the situation in a good, positive way, her face will have a smile all the time. Naturally people will like her and unexpected good things may happen to her, because people around her were impressed. But let’s say she took it a negative and discouraging way. She will complain about the situation and be unhappy. Naturally she becomes depressed and low energy all the time. She might even take the frustration out on others. Many kids have been affected by their parents negatively. When depressed, some adults want to take it out on others, and kids are usually very good targets because they are weaker than grown-ups, and kids listen to what their parents says.

Having good relationship with others is very important. We should build up interpersonal relationship. Human relationship is a skill and talent. We should develop it to have a better life. Let’s have hope. Find hope quotes and get inspired.

Ilchi Lee says the brain lives on dreams one has.

The earth has lots of problems. Ask your brain. Who can and will solve the problem? Who will do it? Does your brain say “yes?” If so, you have lots of hope and possibility. You should ask very seriously and with all your heart. If your brain says “Yes. I will do it,” then that’s when a significant change begins to take place in your life. But the thing is how serious you and your brain is. Only when your brain has dreams, then the brain wll show a great deal of power.

The thing boils down to “How do I keep the optimal status of the brain? Emotions are created by brain waves and emotions. What transforms the brain? It’s belief and conviction, not knowledge based education. It is a very simple idea, but, at the same time, a very radical concept. We are expected study hard when we were/are students, because our parents and teachers think that the more knowlege one has, the better life will they got. But according to Ilchi Lee, it is belief and conviction that transforms the brain, rather than the brain.