I took this photo series while I was creating the Warhol in the Forest treasure hunt for Val and Garry at Starshine Valley. It was mid-September, and mushrooms were blooming shyly, peeping out from grasses and bits of wood.
This is a treasure map for Val and Garry, to help them find the 28 pieces of gold hidden in the Starshine Forest.
When I first saw the 160 acres I now call Monkey Valley, located halfway between Merritt and Princeton, I fell in love with its silence and beauty. It was early autumn, and the aspen were golden, but tiny wild strawberries still dotted the ground. As a writer, I immediately had the vision that it would make a wonderful place for writers to come for writing retreats. Over the past 12 years I have brought the vision of a retreat centre to life, and have learned a great deal about what it means to be a steward of the land. Logging marks, water licenses, the PMFLC (which didn’t even exist when I bought the land, though the PFLA did), getting logging roads plowed and graded, forest fires, pine beetle—there has been much to learn. And many surprises along the way!
The biggest surprise was the impact the hidden valley had on me, with its log cabin overlooking the creek. It happened gradually, but the pull of the land was strong and during the first two years, my partner and I spent all our spare time preparing the off-grid house to be liveable. We planned and installed a solar power system, and it was a very proud day when the solar power sent a signal to the submersible pump and suddenly there was running water, heated by my Bosch flow-through propane hot water heater. Finally, the claw-foot tub we’d hauled up in my Volvo station wagon was able to fulfil its purpose. At this point, thanks to a liveable house and the arrival in Canada of two-way satellite internet, I was able to move to Monkey Valley full-time and carry out my technical writing job, telecommuting via internet to my software client in Vancouver. My partner didn’t feel the pull for this whole new lifestyle as strongly, and sadly we parted ways at this time.
Once I was living at Monkey Valley full-time, the land truly began to have an impact on me. I became inspired to study ecopsychology, so in addition to the nuts and bolts of living in a rural location, I began to learn about the spirituality of nature. This radically informed my relationship to the green valley and surrounding hills of lodgepole pine, magnificent ponderosas, and Douglas-fir. I began to love the land and wish to protect it in a whole new way, and to protect the entire planet, in fact. So the types of retreats I began to host were crafted to help other people feel their connection to the earth. I held meditation retreats, a medicine wheel retreat where we all built a wheel of stones together and learned to practice ancient First Nations ways of connecting with the earth, and even held a yoga and ChiRunning retreat. I also became involved with various wilderness organizations and held discussion groups in Merritt to foster environmental awareness. But the biggest impact was more personal. I felt held, cared for, and safe living alone in the wilderness, 30 KM from the nearest neighbour. The ability to completely relax in the stillness of nature brought an inner peace I had never known when surrounded by the electric buzz of the city.
Without exception, everyone who has come to visit has felt the impact of the silvery creek, majestic trees, rock cliffs, and green meadows of Monkey Valley. The really lucky visitors have been graced with the presence of deer, bear, moose, and all manner of birds and smaller woodland creatures. The magic of this place brings a profound sense of peace to all who visit. The return drive to Vancouver is a much different experience than the hectic rush most people feel when they make the trip out of town. And I hope that feeling of peace lingers and helps people understand how much we need our connection to nature in order to feel healthy and whole.
The nearest neighbours to Monkey Valley are 30 KM (20 miles) away, in the hamlet of Aspen Grove. This community was once a stop on the Merritt-Princeton stagecoach line! There are also some neighbours in another community, a similar distance by road, at the south-east end of Missezula Lake. Given how remote—and hard to stumble upon—Monkey Valley is, people often ask how I found this place. It was one of those rare moments of unexpected disclosure. I’d gone one September Saturday afternoon to look at a 10-acre piece of land with a partially finished house on it, north-west of Merritt. I felt uncomfortable with the situation of the land because neighbours overlooked parts of it. Normally I wouldn’t have said anything except that I wasn’t interested in the property. But for some reason, I said what I really thought: “It’s not private enough.”
I later learned the realtor liked my curly hair, which might have accounted for why he told me about a property that was coming onto the market soon—160 acres, with a partially finished house and barn. He didn’t have time to show it to me that day, because it was an hour’s drive on the other side of Merritt, but he took me back to his office and showed me some pictures.
They weren’t that spectacular—just a bunch of trees, and a log cabin with an overturned chair beside it. I said I’d think about it, and drove back to Vancouver. I didn’t know what the land felt like, but I was very attracted to the fact that it was 160 acres and surrounded by crown land. It seemed like it would have complete privacy. I told my boyfriend about the place, and he thought it would be good for his ex-wife’s parents. That clinched it for me—I wanted it for myself, not for Hugh’s ex-wife’s family!
I called the realtor the next day, and said I wanted the property. He said I had to come and look at it first! So the following Saturday I went up to Merritt with my mom and my friend Bev, we met the realtor, and he drove us to the ranch. I was so taken with the seclusion, and with the beautiful yellow of the aspens on the winding country road we followed to get to the land. Little bushes all over the ground were red and orange. We found some late wild strawberries. My mom looked at the foundation of the house and said it was sound. And that was all it took! No building inspection, no appraisal… Just a conference with my advisors.
Me and Mom and Bev walked down the valley a little ways to talk about it privately. They were both very enthusiastic about the place. This encouraged me. I felt a peacefulness there, sitting on some rocks overlooking the creek, that seemed to be the answer to a longing in my heart. I had a vision of converting the barn into sleeping quarters and having writers’ retreats. I decided to go for it. We walked back to the house where the realtor was waiting on the porch, and I said I wanted to buy it.
The realtor helped me fill out the offer form, and advised me about the amount to offer. He felt the land was right for me and wanted me to have it, so helped keep the number of offers down by “losing” the key to the gate so that interested parties couldn’t come look at it. The property had been seized by the crown in a drug bust two years earlier, so a few weeks after making the offer Hugh and I met the realtor and presented the offer in the Kamloops court house. The offer was accepted, and the property was mine!
And the realtor, who I had dared to tell the truth to, proved to be a real ally in helping me get the place ready to live in over the next two years. I am very grateful to him. Read this post to see how Monkey Valley got its name.
This entry was first published September 17, 2008. I’ve made a few edits and moved it to the first page to help potential buyers know a bit of the history of the place.
I like digging holes. It is very satisfying to see the concrete results of my actions. And the hard physical labour of it feels good in my body. I remember thinking I could dig a hole to China when I was a kid. I was inspired by a comic book called Journey to the Center of the Earth, and thought, maybe my parents said I can’t do it, but I really can. Now I feel wistful about that magical thinking that I was special, and didn’t have the limitations that other people do. It was a long journey, into my 40s, before I started to admit to myself that I might have limitations!
A couple years ago the province of BC had a program called E-911, to provide street addresses to all rural homes, to help emergency service providers locate remote properties. This was a wonderful help for Monkey Valley, as it would take about five minutes to explain to the 911 operator how to get here if there ever was an emergency.
I applied for an address through the E-911 program, and even got to name my road, which is how it got the name Starshine Way. I wanted to convey that magical things might happen to someone who comes to Monkey Valley. And it was here that I first perceived the luminous starshine of white light that pervades everything and that everything is made out of on a fundamental level. So Starshine Way was the name that I chose. I even got to pick the hundred-block!
The Thompson-Nicola Regional District and the Merritt office of the BC 
Ministry of Transportation worked together with me on this, to make sure that emergency vehicles would be able to find Monkey Valley. They provided signage for the Dillard Forestry Road, under the condition that I was to provide the sign for Starshine Way. So in the summer of 2007, after months of back and forth with Fun-Key Enterprises in Merritt, (which originally provided a sign that said Sunshine Way!), I finally had the sign for Starshine Way.
In July of 2007 my friend Eric Guidry and I picked up the sign and rented a post-hole digger from Nicola Chainsaw and Equipment Rentals in Merritt, and headed out to Monkey Valley to install the sign. The post-hole digger was not that great. It wasn’t able to handle the hard rocky soil very well, and needed a lot of help from shovels. But finally we had a hole about 3 feet deep, and put the sign in, and pushed rock and dirt back in all around it. The post-hole digger was somewhat dented from the effort!
We went back to the house, about 1.5 KM from the sign, and had a fun couple of days on the land. Then we headed back to Merritt, and lo and behold, the sign was gone! Someone stole it, less than two days after it was installed! Unbelievable! Who would do such a thing?
I’ve had time to give this matter some thought and speculation. I have come up with two possibilities: someone who knows the back roads and likes the feeling of being away from it all, and doesn’t want a street sign showing evidence of a human presence. That is, someone who hated the sign. The other possibility I’ve imagined is someone who saw the sign and thought it was a cool name, and since they were out on a joyride in the middle of nowhere, for no one to see, they stole the sign. In other words, someone who loved the sign!
Anyway, with travel and various other occupations, I didn’t get around to replacing the sign that summer, so I set my mind to the task again in the summer of 2008. To be continued…
This entry was first published December 13, 2008. I’ve made a few edits and moved it to the first page to help potential buyers know a bit of the history of the place.
Have you ever noticed how humans tend to repeat things from the past, which didn’t work out the first time, hoping that somehow it will work out this time around? Well, that was my experience of trying to replace my Starshine Way sign. As I mentioned previously, at first I tried to order the sign again from Fun-Key Enterprises, because I really do prefer to give my business to a local Merritt operation if possible, to support this community. But my experience in the past was that it was very slow and painful to get a sign out of them, and this time was no different. So eventually I gave up and told Susanne and Tim I would get the sign made in Vancouver.
I googled Vancouver sign makers, and within a day I had communicated with a Vancouver company called FastSigns, received a quote, and placed my order (all online). The sign was ready the following week. It took less than 1/10th of the time it took to get a sign made in Merritt, but cost twice as much. It was worth the price to save the aggravation! However, the company provided an 8′ pole, round and shiny, rather than the 10′ pole I had requested. But they gave me some advice on how to install it securely. My friend Dorrie helped me pick it up, and she also gave me some good advice.
The first time around the sign was easy to steal because it was just placed in the earth. I hadn’t realized someone might want to steal it, so I didn’t think any type of sophisticated anchoring system was necessary. But this time, I came up with a steal-proof plan! At first I was going to fill an entire garbage bin with concrete, and set the post in that. But my sister Katherine—who has some experience with pouring concrete—and various other people—told me this would take a lot of concrete, and be a huge hassle. How would I get the water for mixing the concrete up to the place where the sign was, 1.5 KM from the house? Yet if I mixed it at the house, it would be too heavy to carry, and might set before I could get everything in place to plant the sign.
Another problem was that the post was entirely smooth, with no holes to cause the concrete to penetrate and grip the post. Dorrie suggested I drill holes in it, but I don’t have the right equipment for that. She also suggested I put cross bars through the pole, which would help set it in the concrete more securely. But again, I didn’t have the tools and supplies for that. Winter was coming, and I wanted to install the sign right away, but if I got all the suggested supplies it would mean trips back and forth to town and waiting until spring to install the sign. I didn’t want to wait because I’d already dug the hole!
So I ended up improvising a solution based on what I had on hand. When I dug the hole I’d made sure it was deep and wide enough to accommodate the garbage bin. (See top photo.) I had some Rocktite concrete that I’d bought for patching some holes in the cement floor of the barn. It wasn’t a lot—just two bags. So I would only be able to pour a few inches of concrete. I prepared the pole by sawing 6 slits in the bottom few inches, and inserted nails halfway into the slits. This would provide a bit of anchoring for the concrete to grip, plus it could penetrate through the slits. I set a smaller bucket inside the big garbage can, and hammered 9-inch nails through the garbage bin and into the smaller bucket, to attach these two firmly together. What a contraption!
I put the sign into the smaller bucket. I was doing this job in my workroom/laundry room, so I used the parallel clotheslines overhead to hold the sign in place, tying the sign to the lines. (Finally, something convenient!) Next I poured the concrete into the smaller bucket, so it could create a deeper foundation than if I had just used the garbage bin. Some flowed out of holes in the bucket into the garbage bin, anchoring these two together. Then I poured sand into the garbage bin, around the edges of the bucket, so that no more would flow out. I was concerned that the concrete wouldn’t be deep enough, so I put some stones in the inner bucket to take up some space. Then I mixed the second bag of concrete and poured it all into the inner bucket. Voila!
I had about a 4-inch depth of concrete in the inner bucket, which was higher than the level of the slits and nails in the pole. It seems the sign was firmly anchored, and the bucket firmly attached to the outer garbage can. I left it all to set over night, planning to install the sign the following day… (To be continued)
This entry was first published December 28, 2008. I’ve made a few edits and moved it to the first page to help potential buyers know a bit of the history of the place.
The story of the Starshine Way sign continues. When I last wrote to you about it, I had poured the concrete, and the sign was setting overnight in my laundry room. The next day I checked and the pole seemed very solidly set in the concrete. Unfortunately, the sign itself was just screwed on with metal hasps holding it in place. So although the pole was set, it would still be easy to steal the sign!
To solve this problem I had 
dabbed some concrete over one side of the screws, hoping it would make them unscrewable. But in the morning I noticed that I had daubed the wrong side. Aarrghh! So what to do? My Krazy Glue was all dried out, so I couldn’t use that. All I had was ABS pipe glue, so I dabbed the other ends of the screws with this glue, and hoped for the best. Of course these white blotches somewhat spoiled the aesthetic values of the sign, but shikata ga-nai, as they say in Japan.
Anyway, I felt very excited about installing the sign, and put it in the back of the Tracker, together with shovels. It was very cold out, so I wore my parka and thick gloves. The propane guy was coming later in the morning, so I wanted to get it done right away, before he got there. I drove up to the corner of Starshine Way and Dillard Forestry Road. Woohoo! There was the hole I’d previously dug. I’d covered it with a tarp, edges weighted with stones, and scattered dirt to conceal the hole, but had accidentally stepped on the 
tarp and fallen in the hole (yes, I really did fall in the hole I had dug and had specifically reminded myself not to fall in), so the tarp was half-in, half-out of the hole, and some snow had covered everything.
I took the snow shovel and cleared away the snow in the hole and around the hole. I took out the garbage can with the sign in it, and then was the magical moment: I put the can and sign into the hole. Voilà! Beauty! I’d brought six sand bags, which I used to fill the gap around the edges of the can, as well as rocks and dirt from digging the hole. Likewise I filled in the can. Then I built up a slight mound all the way around the pole, stamping on the dirt frequently to pack it down. There was just one problem: The sign company gave me an eight-foot pole instead of the ten-foot pole I’d asked for. The hole I’d dug (before picking up the sign) was slightly over three feet deep, to accomodate the garbage can. So the sign is shorter than I am.
I kept cracking up as I looked at the sign. All that work, planning, ordering, digging, and what was the result? A Spinal Tap sign! (Due to a confusion between inches and feet when they drew their design on a paper napkin, the infamous heavy metal band Spinal Tap got an eighteen-inch-high Stonehenge stage prop—not quite the ominous, looming stones they had envisioned!) The propane guy later took my picture with the sign, so you can see for yourself. Ha!
Anyway, hopefully no one will steal it, and it will have an uninterrupted winter to set solidly into the earth. I’ll let you know if it’s still there when I go back in the spring! To complete this story, though, I need to draw the parallel between the story of the Starshine Way sign and the turning of the wheel from West to North. I’ll tell you about that next time. To be continued…
This entry was first published January 19, 2009. I’ve made a few edits and moved it to the first page to help potential buyers know a bit of the history of the place.
As I have mentioned in other postings, I have put Monkey Valley on the market. I hope you have had a chance to look at the virtual tour of the house today.
The original intention of this website was to promote the retreats that I offered here on the land. I have offered a variety of events, including an amazing retreat where a group of 25 people from around the world gathered to build a medicine wheel. Another favourite was the yoga and ChiRunning retreat that I taught with Angela James. Going forward, I will still be offering the vision fast, the medicine walk and the teaching of the four directions, and a yoga and nature workshop, but in new locations.
It was a difficult decision to sell Monkey Valley, but that seems to be where the flow of my life is taking me. I have been the steward of the land and care-taker of the home for 12 years now. I bought this land within a few weeks of my father’s death. It has held much healing, learning, and growth for me. And a fair share of frustrations, too, which I think is part of the territory with any major undertaking. I have enjoyed most of the learning, and many fine times with family, friends, and co-journeyers on the path of inner realization, both with the Diamond Approach and with the nature-based spiritual practices.
At this stage in my life journey I find myself wanting to put down deeper roots in one place. Keeping two homes for all these years—Monkey Valley and an apartment I rented in Vancouver for a pied-à-terre—has required a lot of energy. I realize that I don’t want to spend my energy that way, and on the travelling back and forth. Yet if I have to choose only one place to be, I am sad to say that I can’t choose Monkey Valley. I feel too isolated there when I live there alone full-time. It has taken me a while to realize (and admit) that I am a social creature, and I like to be around people! So if I am going to choose a place to put down roots, I need to choose a place where there are people. I have noticed over the years how returning from Monkey Valley to Vancouver (where I was born and have lived for most of my life) always feels like a home-coming. My appreciation for and love of this city have grown. (Though like most of us, I could do with less traffic!) One morning I spent some time reading the Georgia Straight‘s annual “Best of Vancouver” issue, and love for this city swelled in my heart.
So these are some of the factors in my decision to sell Monkey Valley. Making this choice, I bit the bullet and bought a townhouse in Vancouver, which I love. I have been putting down roots and weaving into the fabric of community here in many ways, including a new gig volunteering by teaching yoga at the Pacifica Treatment Centre. I am looking forward to this next phase of my life!
Luckily, most of the diversions at Monkey Valley 
are more fun than cleaning up dead mice! This is how I spend my time not writing:
• Get winter tires put on the Tracker.
• Get chips repaired on Tracker windshield (much cheaper in Merritt than in Vancouver). The chip repairer is amazed that my windshield has lasted through 7 winters already!
• Purchase and install new water filter. Learn that the threads must be dry or the water leaks.
• Purchase and post replacement “No Hunting and No Trespassing Under Penalty of the Law” signs. Duck under branches. Climb over logs. Worry about Lyme disease and wish I’d worn a hat. (My head starts itching again as I write this!)
• Discover that two new sections of fence need repair. Purchase supplies. Make repairs.
• Purchase and install new smoke detector.
• Replace batteries in flashlights.
• Purchase lock de-icer and apply WD-40 oil to locks on gates. Need to purchase more WD-40.
• Purchase eco-permit at Merritt City Hall so I can take garbage to the Aspen Grove Container Site. $1 per bag. Learn that the container site now has recycling bins too!
• Check water level in the new batteries for the solar power that I purchased in August. Learn that expensive new Water Miser battery caps ($287.42) did not prevent water loss as promised. Learn how to use new hydrometer ($12.00). Use hydrometer to check the state of charge (cell by cell). Learn that Power Pulse equalizers ($140.88) do not equalize charge across cells as promised. Top up water in batteries. Use generator to charge batteries for 4 hours. Re-test with hydrometer. Learn that new batteries ($2568.86 excluding freight, tax, and labour) do not charge to manufacturer’s rating while new.
• Start propane wall heater. It works! (For about three years in a row I had to get a technician out to make repairs before it would start.) Wake in the middle of the night to smell of steak cooking. Have vegetarian freak-out, wondering why intruder has come into the house and started cooking steaks. Eventually realize the smell is cause by dead flies burning up inside the heater!
• Wake up to beautiful snowy Monkey Valley.
• Take the cat scratch posts, litter box, and dishes out to the barn. Goodbye, Donald.
• Find big puddle on bathroom floor. Shut off water line to leaking valve under
bathroom sink. Mop up water.
• Wake up to find all the snow has melted.
• Chat with handsome cowboy who knocks on my door one morning, complete with horse, dog, hat, and lasso! (This is my favourite diversion while at Monkey Valley!) He is rounding up the Douglas Lake cows, bringing them down to the home pasture for the winter. Steve is a wonderfully kind neighbour. This summer he brought his chainsaw and cut away some giant trees that had fallen across the road on my property, and he even bucked up some of the wood so I could use it for firewood! The Douglas Lake Ranch, established in 1884, is Canada’s largest privately held working cattle ranch, with a herd of 20,000 cattle.
• Do cleansing ritual for the house, releasing any negative energy and filling the house with love, light, and positive energy.
• Yell at pack rat that climbs onto the roof each night around 10 PM. What is he doing up there?
• Put photos of my nephew in a photo album. Write funny captions for photos.
• Listen to new Rolling Stones album (Aftermath, 1966). Marvel at this first album of all Jagger-Richards compositions. Marvel at “Goin’ Home.” Not the length—which was one of the first rock songs over 10 minutes—but the absolute sexiness. While it has a flavour of Van Morrison’s Gloria in places—she makes me feel so good, she makes me feel alright—it is audacious and I can’t believe they got away with it! I also can’t believe that I have never heard this before, although I’ve been a Stones fan since I was 15. Cry because my Dad’s dead and I am listening to this record on his amazing stereo system. Cry because I am listening to this record alone at Monkey Valley. Cry because I want Mick Jagger.
• Talk to writing buddies about how our writing is going. Mine is not going (see above).
• Spend many hours eating meals and reading books in front of the fire (see below).
• And always, always, make fire first thing in the morning (average house temperature upon waking: 13° C), and carry in firewood last thing before dark.
So that’s how I spent my fall vacation! The only thing left to do is wash all the windows and floors. And since I really do not feel like washing all the windows and floors, I have decided to return to Vancouver. Where I am sure I will write lots and lots!
As you know, I came to Monkey Valley this November to write. And as many writers can verify, it is a law of the universe that just about any mundane chore can seem more important when there’s writing to be done. Monkey Valley provided me with myriad (which literally means 10,000) diversions. Would you like to hear about them?
The first was the most horrible. When I arrived, I discovered that my favourite little furry visitors had been scampering around the house, and the first order of business was to clean up the signs of their presence. Yes, I am talking about mouse turds. 🙁 For some reason, the biggest accumulation of mouse turds was around the live mouse traps. There was also a big mess of ground up blue mouse bait outside the traps. I can only surmise that the mice inside the trap passed bits of the poisoned bait to the mice outside the trap. How terribly sad. I feel like such a beast. Eventually, of course, the mice outside the trap joined the mice inside the trap.
My evil plan is that the bait entices the mice into the trap, and then kills them, hopefully quickly and painlessly. Since they die there, and not in the walls of the house, I don’t have the scary problem of maggots parading across the living room floor, which once happened when an animal died inside the wall. Unfortunately, judging from the half-eaten remains of some of the mice in the traps, the death is not always quick and painless. It can involve being cannabalized by one’s own mates. Or maybe this chewy snacking occurred after the mice were already dead… I hope so, but it is still a terrible thing for the living mice to have to digest. (Pun intended.)
The other benefit of my perfected mice-killing scheme is that the poison from the dead mice does not travel into the chain of life at Monkey Valley, poisoning bugs and birds and other creatures who might encounter the little dead bodies. But as I gathered the little corpses into a big green garbage bag, it occurred to me that the poison will still enter the biosphere at the landfill where the dead mice wind up, thus poisoning bugs and birds at the site of the landfill, rather than at Monkey Valley. The goal of ahimsa is difficult indeed. Perhaps the traditional “dead mouse trap” is better than the “live mouse trap & poison” approach. To be continued…