Founding a Sanctuary: The Thriving Oak Story
How does a lifelong dream manifest in the world of flesh and sunshine?
When I was 16 years old, I attended John Woolman School in the foothills near Nevada City, CA. One day I was sitting in a friend’s A-frame cabin and she put a song on the record player (OK, yeah, this was in 1974), “Everything Empties into White” by Cat Stevens (“Yusuf” now). The lovely, lilting melody immediately dropped me into a deep visionary trance in which I saw, sensed and felt a lovely cabin home with lots of wood and big windows with sweet white light streaming in. I felt a sense of rightness and peace-this is where I was to be, where my real life would unfold. Back in linear time, I went on to study at UC Berkeley the next year and became an urban kid in the Golden Age of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. The dream waited patiently some 13 years as I became an academic and software entrepreneur. In 1987, I co- founded a service organization for people living with HIV/AIDS, when the diagnosis was essentially a death sentence.
Our STEPS program taught people self-care in the face of a life-threatening illness. We dropped into deep feeling and truth-telling, visualized what we wanted to happen in our bodies, danced our fears and our power with the guidance of the great dance educator, Anna Halprin. We faced death together and found strength in a community of gay/queer bodies dedicated to each other’s well-being. Many lives were touched in our three-plus year run, and several public performances emerged, documented in the film Positive Motion (1991) as an emblem of a unique moment in human history.
One of the participants, Rodney Toffanelli, was an architect and sculptor in search of a country home. He drove all the backroads of Sonoma County for a year looking for the place where “everything emptied into white” for him. He found it, finally in a ramshackle farmhouse on two acres in West Sonoma County. “This was the place. I just knew it.” The best weather in Sonoma County, sweeping views of Green Valley, and a cozy spot on a knoll at the end of the lane sealed the deal. He made an offer through a local agent as the place was not even on the market and suddenly had to come up with a down payment. Meanwhile, the company I worked for was sold to a large multi-national and my small stock allotment meant I suddenly had more than $1000 for the first time in my life. “Buy a house,” my friends told me and it sounded like a good idea, maybe because my brain had finally become capable of thinking ahead more than six months. Rod and I became business partners and closed the deal.
Fast forward three years and Rod died peacefully of AIDS-related lymphoma, just as the first fire was kindled in the fireplace of the refurbished barn where I now live. He left a renovated farmhouse, a redwood grove and a personal sanctuary for me and my friends for many years. After years of work as a professor and administrator, I found myself in 2018 liberated from full time work for someone else and began a deep inward journey, ending up back at a renewed vision of community and health that I knew in the STEPS days. In March 2020 I met Peter DeWitt and during the COVID lockdown we nurtured dreams of a gay healing revitalization (Check out Peter’s gaywellness.com initiative). We imagined bringing people to the land for healing retreats and held several COVID safe events during the lockdown.
In February of this year, Erik Deiters, my “big friend” of 25 years, and husband Marc Upton moved into the front house and the dream took a giant step forward. Erik has achieved full licensure as an MFT and has been working as a director of a mentoring program for dual diagnosis folks who are justice-involved in San Francisco as well as running a full private practice. He is opening his practice at Thriving Oak with a focus on helping men face life’s challenges and claim their personal path to wellness.
Together we are launching Thriving Oak (LLC and Foundation) as a place of renewal and transformation. In coming months, we will be inviting more people to enjoy the land as a private client or in group retreat settings as we build out a master plan of three yurts, a sauna/bathhouse and a nature trail through our little redwood grove. We will be inviting people to explore the nature of healing as we provide educational, artistic and therapeutic experiences here on the land and remotely. I have opened a coaching practice where I integrate my experiences as an educator, anthropologist, personal mythologist, somatic healer and spiritual counselor. I facilitate life transitions and move people to balance and higher ground in their lives. Marc is the Green Man, bringing life to every corner of the property. He also provides a warm welcoming heart and expertly prepared food to nourish the bodies and souls of our beloved guests. Check out the photos from our recent Queer Men’s bedtime stories retreat to get a feel for what we are up to.
The COVID crisis has propelled the dream forward just as the AIDS crisis brought its seeds to this land. I write these words as I sit under the Thriving Oak, The Grandma Tree planted for my Grandmother, a native Californian born in Sacramento in 1891 who died at 105.
She embodies for me the wisdom of this land and the pioneer spirit that animates this 5th Generation Californian body. How will everything “empty into white”? I see a tree planted for me some 33 years hence, The Matthew Tree. Under his bright foliage, people will gather and tell healing stories, and remember me, fondly I hope, as the founder of a place where they learned to thrive.
