A community's manifestation of love

By Virginia Winder

Sitting on a bed in the Lodge at the Taranaki Retreat, I caress a handmade quilt and fossick through a complimentary container of toiletries.

These are not little things. Someone made the beautiful quilts that adorn the beds and brighten the lounges, someone donated money for the hair and body products.

In fact, everything in the Retreat has been given by somebody or bought from donations. Everything.

There’s a chapel for quiet time, meditation

Maunga Taranaki watches over he Taranaki Retreat.

or time sharing your heart with a volunteer support worker.

There’s the exercise and art “cave”, bristling with machines for training on and filled with art supplies.

Outside the Lodge are tables and seats, a low-slung hammock and an area for children’s play equipment. There’s even an attractive covered area for smokers, which shows huge respect for those in need of tobacco. Instead of being treated like pariahs they are given dignity at the Retreat.

This is also a lovely place to observe the world and the maunga beyond, framed by shaggy macrocarpa trees.

A couple of goats amble along through the middle of the Retreat grounds, but anybody spooked by the idea of these caprine animals can rest assured they are enclosed. Halo, a moose-sized goat (a wee exaggeration perhaps) is gentle and loves to be fed a handful of grass and scratched behind his blunted horns. The other, whose name escapes me, is less likely to stick around for rubs.

On wanders around the grounds, smiling at the flowers, I marvelled at the idea of each step and every path being formed by donated materials and made with kindness and generosity. I meandered up and down these steps and sat on seats looking up at the sky through unfurling ponga fronds. In one spot I sat enjoying the rush-tinkle of a stream and ducks agitating each other. There are chickens too.

There are peaceful places to rest in nature.

We, the guests, stay in The Lodge, a warm and welcoming place where there’s a full database of movies and TV series, a record player beside an old vinyl collection, and a kitchen full of food for us to enjoy. There are two lounges with comfortable couches.

At 6pm each night, we assemble at the main house, where Suzy and Jamie Allen live with their family.

At restaurant chef speed, Suzy makes dinner for us four guests, an American couple on the Work Away programme and a Retreat assistant, who is a gentle soul with a spring in her step – she literally leaps gates.

The lovingly prepared main course is always followed by dessert, often delectable tarts, cakes and slices provided by Taranaki cafes. I was blown away at their generosity.

The Taranaki Retreat is the truest, most powerful manifestation of a community’s love I’ve ever seen.

It doesn’t stop with what I’ve described – there’s a whole flock of people constantly giving their time to help others.

There’s a wonderful woman who offers her life coaching skills and that helped remind me of all the good in my life. Each of us was paired with a personal support worker and mine was a delightful woman, who listened deeply and also laughed loudly with me.

Another colourful woman filled the Lodge with her peaceful personality and the sweet smells of home baking, with each guest’s needs catered for.

Outside, another volunteer gardened in gumboots, shorts and gusto.

One day we had meditation with Jamie, who used music as a focus and showed us a way to let go of heavy burdens.

Another day, a man with musical flair and a poet’s soul, took an art session.

A woman with magical fingers offered massages and the guests raved at her body-soothing abilities.

Every fortnight another woman takes Pilates or yoga, I’m not certain which, but I think you can see that the generosity of spirit is overwhelming. There will be more people I don’t even know about.

The Retreat was hugely healing for me, for two main reasons – writing and talking.

Every day, the joyful gate leaper had the daunting task of reading my daily blog, a personal ramble of epic proportions that flowed from my fingers most nights.

Volunteers have planted bright flowers. 

There is a computer set up for those of us who wanted to pour our hearts out through a keyboard and those wanting to pen their feelings are provided with pens and journals.

I started off the week thinking that I wasn’t worthy of being at the Retreat, and I admit I was a bit cranky at first. But everything I had been thinking and feeling for months, maybe years, came pouring out and I found a great sense of healing from those words.

While I had access to a computer, the only thing I could use it for was writing the blog. There’s practically no cell coverage and limited wifi at the Hurford Rd property. I literally went into withdrawal but did manage to keep up with important emails. Whew!

Finally, I have to pay tribute to a man, who to me is one of the purest, most giving human beings I’ve ever met. He glows with love.

Jamie Allen is the only person who’s ever got me thinking about the idea of a creator, of a loving force. Not because he preached at me – the Retreat is a safe place for all people, whether they have a faith or none.

But because I sought an appointment with Jamie to talk about a whole bunch of stuff, but specifically, at my behest, spirituality. That conversation is ours, so I won’t share it.

But I will say that great healing came for me.

It’s almost miraculous that a place like this exists. But it does because of Jamie and Suzy, who had a vision and the people came – the volunteers and the donators to provide free time out for guests in need of tender loving care at a time of mental distress, exhaustion, heartbreak or loss.

We have a space to breathe.