Dream Bigger: Ohm Sanctuary

Years ago, a student’s family gifted me a stay in a castle in Cong, Ireland. After my husband died, I needed respite and found it there. In this organic green fantasy, I first learned to dream bigger. I still don’t always dream big enough, and sometimes my dreams veer sideways, but that experience embedded in me the belief that everything is possible.

When my children left for college, I wondered what was next. The answer I discovered shocked even me. Still I trusted my intuition. I sold my beach house and bought a small piece of mountain land to build a wellness retreat. The beach served my children and I very well when we needed to grieve our deep loss. Now I would create a place where others could rest, reflect, and begin again too.

On Valentine’s Day 2024, guided by Rumi’s words, “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do,” I bought a struggling piece of earth. Woodland trails and gardens now shape the land, but when I arrived, it was buried in trash, choked with fallen trees, and masked by a surface-level renovation. This grey-painted brick ranch reflected so much of my life scarred by lack, disregard, and being under valued.

Piece by piece, I began to clear it hauling out junk, cutting paths, letting light in where it hadn’t touched for years. Rehabilitating the land, the house, and my heart from years of misunderstanding and misalignment, Ohm Sanctuary was healing. After 25 years of progressive work, I recognize now that I am one cell in Earth’s biome and healing her heals me. With every piece of trash I picked up, I inhaled hope and exhaled scars.

We filled two dumpsters with what had been buried or left behind: barbed wire, broken tools, foam insulation, window frames, children’s toys, even an entire car engine, bench seat, shattered glass, tail lights, wires. Each item pulled from the earth felt like a weight lifted.

Reverently listening to a place that had been neglected and mistreated, I thanked every part of creation as I moved through it: symbiotic nurturing.

Even small rituals became part of the process. John once read about a Cherokee tradition, the belief in the Little People, spirit beings who live in the natural world and deserve respect. In that tradition, you ask permission before disturbing the land or using tools. So now, before we pick up a shard of glass, a rusted screwdriver, or an old Swiss army knife, we pause: “Little people, may we take this? Thank you.” A small act, it reminds us we’re not working on the land, but with it.

OHM Sanctuary grew from this process as a living invitation. A place for stillness, reflection, healing, and reconnection. For anyone burying burdens, this land offers space to release them, breathe deeply, and remember what it feels like to be made whole again.

My dream isn’t a kingdom, it’s a crowded table, a few acres of peace where the mountains begin, and so does transformation. A place of generosity, listening, and affirmation. A place to gather, rest, and be seen.

Rooted in service, generosity, and loving awareness, committed to observing, listening, and affirming, OHM Sanctuary exists as a reminder of the healing power of truth and beauty.