Cultivating Courage, Commitment, and Love
Week of March 2, 2024
During Wisdom Keeper Week we celebrate my father’s birthday by exploring one of his core teachings. To enliven and enrich our week -long community it is my honor to invite presenters who embody these teachings.
During this distressing time of conflict, healing is needed in every corner of our lives. The force that my father believed to be essential in bringing harmony and healing to our world, is the principle of “active love”. The presenters this week have been chosen because they have successfully wedded their purpose with their passion. They delightfully, innovatively, and effectively practice “active love”.
When I was a college student, I had a card taped to my wall that said, “Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow”. These words recall the idealism and naiveté of my youth, but as I approach my seventies, I have learned that when the heart leads with curiosity, vision, discipline and love, amazing things can happen. We will explore the ways that courage, commitment, and love are braided together. We will bake challah this week, made of these three strands and share this nourishment. In the spirit of Rumi, “Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground”.
Sarah Livia Brightwood Szekely is President of Rancho La Puerta. For forty years she has designed the gardens and cared for the wildlands around Rancho La Puerta. As the keeper of the vision and long-range planner she has preserved the soul and culture of Rancho La Puerta while bringing new programs and reviving the earth honoring traditions that inspired the early years at Rancho La Puerta. She is also President of Fundación La Puerta through which she guides Rancho La Puerta’s non-profit work in the region. In 1984 Sarah established Agricola Tres Estrellas, a diverse organic farm that provides food to Ranch La Puerta’s guests year round and in 2007 she designed and opened La Cocina Que Canta, a culinary center and cooking school to teach commitment to healthy eating and to embrace the joy of harvesting and cooking in community. She is the daughter of philosopher and visionary Edmond Bordeaux Szekely and community organizer and philanthropist Deborah Szekely, the founders of Rancho La Puerta.