Can you help us get over the line?

It's been a joyful journey from aspiration – An Aspiration To Support Bonni And Matthew At The Wangapeka – to the building of the cabin. We're looking forward to the next stage when Bonni and Matthew are in it!

Glenn, Brandon, their trusty helpers (Matthew and Graham), and others have done a lot since our last update. The interior finishing is moving along well. The floors are in. There remains kitchen fittings, bathroom fittings, decking, and handrails. We still need to complete work that will enable TDC compliance.  Once we have that then we can celebrate!

We've raised well over $225,000 to date. Thank you to all donors! 

From a fundraising perspective we are very close.  If you're looking for a time to donate – now is the time – we need your help.
Here is a link to the donation details. Your donations at this time, however large or small, are greatly appreciated. 

You are invited!
Contribute Your Stories to Wangapeka Tales

Part of Wangapeka's 50th Anniversary Celebrations

To support the celebration of our 50th anniversary, Hadleigh Tiddy, with support from others, has been crafting a neat little website to gather, store and share "Wangapeka Tales". This is our virtual campfire, where we can contribute to and enjoy the many diverse and wonderful stories that make up the rich history of the Wangapeka. 

We are inviting as many people as possible to contribute your stories. Long or short, silly or serious. There are as many stories and views of Wangapeka as there are people who have visited it, and we would like to capture as many voices and perspectives as possible. 

We have a team of willing scribes and support people willing to record or write your story if you are not able to do it yourself. Poetry, prose, fact, fiction, audio, video or photos are all welcome. 

Please visit the Wangapeka Tales website and get involved! 

Teacher, Mentor, Spiritual Friend, Guru

The coat hanger of a course title was not what drew me. I came to meet Bonni. A kind of brief first date, in a familiar landscape that has loved me into Being since the late 1980’s - 2000. I find myself reconnecting with a community that always meant long drives from Dunedin or more recently the remote access of Waikato and the imposed lockdown retreat in delicious Te Kuiti bushland. For the first time in 40 years my spiritual home and an active Namgyal inspired community is now in my Nelson backyard. 

I’ve spent 40 years being involved with what it means to be a teacher - being one, training emergent teachers, viewing, critiquing  practice, reflecting on pedagogy. In Ancient Greece the pedagogue was actually the servant slave who walked beside the child, a companion, ensuring safe conduct to an actual place of learning for a refining diet of literacy, music and physical education. I always resonated with the idea of “walking alongside”, a view of a shared journey.

So I invite the reader to a glimpse into four shared days, four classes, some sharing circles, shared morning sits, evening sits, dana to the land in Spring time energy. No drama, except for the terror incognito and the unchartered waters of my being.....

Click here to read the full article

Namgyal Memorial Weekend

What an opportunity. A reflection with friends dating back to the 80’s on the cherished memory of Namgyal Rinpoche and his legacy. Terry and Mala also coming! I thought a great opportunity to share my spiritual home with my partner Marty who hadn’t yet had opportunity to socialise in this space. (thanks to Catrin & Rupert who minded the 3 blind furbabies that allowed us to be here together). Was it really only 3 days? So much transformative energy present, alongside the sombre news of ongoing strife in Palestine affecting some present at the family level. I’ve invited Marty as first time visitor to Wangapeka, to intersperse his diary reflections ( in italics)  to my somewhat prosaic account.

What should I wear? I’m to be cleft from my 4G phone umbilical. Needn’t have worried, there is no phone signal! I awake to a series of strange loud high pitched chirpy noises outside cabin 9 and there is a strange glow in the half light. Im told that this is dawn!  “How am I?? -  Was that your question?”  Two days in I surprised myself with the answer that I hadn’t felt this good in years.

I have experienced spirituality in the past, my history with the church was rich and meaningful, that is until I panicked and ran from revealing my true identity at 21. Something about here; no traffic, pure birdsong, and this place being “set aside”. I am actually in a holy place, again? Thinking back, I am feeling 18 and hopeful, as I was at Bible College in the Derbyshire Countryside. I am reliving the feelings of my burnt out 30 year old party boy on a retreat for confused ex Christian gay men on the island of Iona, Scotland. Like Iona, this place feels like a “thin place”- where the divide between heaven and earth is a tissue thin breath. 

To read Graham and Marty's full and lively collaboration piece please click here

Amerta Movement with Mala and Terry

We were very lucky to have Terry and Mala here for the Namgyal Celebration long weekend. They gave a variety of offerings, including a Namgyal puja, and various sessions exploring awareness in movement. I would like to share some of my personal experiences in participating in their final movement class.

Firstly, there was an encouragement to feel the support and the safety of the ground, and to rest into that. And to slow down, bringing awareness to all of our movements. To let go of the various patterns we get caught up in. To feel the aliveness throughout the body and sensing the body in space, on the ground, with other beings and objects around.

Then there was the encouragement to move from this place of awareness through various postures – lying down, crawling, standing up on our feet, and feeling the support of our backs and strength of our legs. Moving and connecting with our innate sense of movement and connection with the environment, and landing in various postures.

Then from this place of awareness, we were encouraged to follow the movement and bring awareness to exploring our relationship with our environment. This might include meeting objects in space, and also other beings. One example which Mala later encouraged me to explore and I have since worked with is chairs: to go underneath a chair, lean on it, pick it up, rest on it in an unusual posture…and slowly let go of the habitual automatic-pilot pattern of just seeing a chair as something to sit on.

Similarly there was the opportunity to explore meeting other beings from a place of awareness and not having any agenda or expectation. Breaking up the habitual patterns that may arise in relation to other human beings in our day-to-day interactions, and instead just exploring the qualities of movement and touch without any agenda for that to flow in any particular direction. And staying in touch with what feels wholesome in one’s own being.

Click here to read the full article

Compassionate Contact

by Chloe Loftus

At dusk, with eyes closed, we walked slowly in single file. With a hand rested on the shoulder in front, inquisitive step by step, we moved together. Wet leaves unexpectedly brushed against our faces, a spontaneous giggle of delight rippled down the line. I sensed we were in for something special. 
From this gentle considered beginning, Brandon led the group of 25 eager participants through the weekend of Compassionate Contact, offering varied and spacious invitations that allowed us to softly unfold - into the environment, into movement, into the present. We sat in stillness, we shared, we explored, we danced. And so, over the course of such a short weekend, we collectively softened and connected to ourselves, each other and the incredibly special land that holds the Wangapeka Retreat Centre, in seemingly profound ways. As we drew the weekend to a close with a communal river bathe, there was a sense that something truly special was shared. The Compassionate Contact space holding by Brandon, cooking by Ross and support from the Centre, was an experience that I hope many more will get to encounter. 

Something Beautiful for the World - a movie!

Our friends at Happen Films in collaboration with Campfire Stories and Reflections of Life will be releasing a series of inspiring short films in 2024, of which one will be - you guessed it! about our beloved Tarchin Hearn.

Antoinette and Jordan from Happen Films : 

"The title (of the series) is borrowed from a book that is the inspiration for one of the films we'll release in the series. Something Beautiful for the World: A Shakuhachi Sadhana by Tarchin Hearn is a beautiful meditation on the ways we can compare the making of a traditional Japanese flute, a shakuhachi, and the making of a beautiful human (and consequently humanity). If that intrigues you as much as it intrigued us, we recommend checking out the book here. We're excited to share that film with you next year! The overarching premise of the series is that small acts done from a place of love have ripple effects that we may never see or understand, but which change our world for the better. We hope the series will inspire our audiences to celebrate those small acts and ways of being in the world."

If you would like to connect with this project, you can watch the trailer for the series here.