Update on Montesueños (Monte-sway-nyos) or Mountain Dreams:

Meredith and I are in the final phases of architecture on our first two buildings of Montesueños, comprising over 600 square meters (6,000 square feet) of gardens, views and tranquillity unknown anywhere in the world.  We've been here for four years now, holding the vision of creating in a world-class retreat center here in the Andes of Ecuador.  We're very excited about opening for workshops, classes and seminars in 2008.  Initially, we can accomodate up to twenty people, but have room for much larger groups for day conferences and classes.  Many excellent and inexpensive hotels, restaurants and shops are in and arround Vilcabamba just two miles from us.

Our goals: peace, sustainability and justice
Our mission- research, education and action
Our values-truth, beauty and compassion

This new gallery of photos was created by Richard Wheeler during his stay with us last August and September.

Opening in 2008…. (Mountain Dreams) Montesueños

A Center for Peace, Sustainability, the Arts and New Science

2008 programs to be posted in the near future

Draft plan, Brian O’Leary and Meredith Miller, Vilcabamba, Ecuador

“This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen on Earth” – several visitors

1. Vision – We are creating a retreat whose purpose is to transform the current ethos of global wars and ecocide into a new context of preservation, restoration and sustinence of the Earth’s biosphere for future generations. We believe that the practice of art, new science, spirit, yoga and the visioning of a just, peaceful and sustainable world will pave the way for a peaceful, sustainable global future.

2. The Setting – Our mountainside retreat is located on more than two acres of lush tropical gardens with clean air, waterfalls, rainbows, and spectacular views of the Andes of Podocarpus National Park. Below us lies the village of Vilcabamba, one mile away in the Valley of Longevity, famed for its healing waters. Across the valley we see the legendary mountain Mandango where almost daily the sunsets present awesome colors, changing by the second. Some visitors have called our site “the most beautiful spot on Earth I have ever seen.” We are a mile above sea level, blessed by an ideal year-round climate, with day temperatures in the seventies and drop-ping into the sixties at night. Food is local fresh organic produce. The hotels and restaurants are affordable and good. The natural ambiance and friendly spirit here are contagious.

3. The Facility – Two main buildings comprise over 6,000 square feet, most of which will be used for the Center. It will also include the residence of the founders, Dr. Brian O’Leary and his artist wife Meredith Miller. Construction of the new, larger building is now complete and will be open for Center activities in 2008.

4. Our Mission – We emphasize education, activism, research, think-tanks, project incubators, and informed cross-cultural dialogues on new paradigms that will lift us out of our global morass. We invite conscious teachers, leaders and students to come to the Center to participate in forums on creating sensible transition scenarios and goals for a global paradigm shift in an inspiring and nurturing setting. Our varied programs include workshops in art, new science, consciousness, and round table sessions on global futures, over a weekend or during a week. Tour groups and guest faculty visits will also be arranged around specially designed programs. The Center will also host public events in the arts, lectures and dialogues on pressing long-term regional and planetary issues. Over the coming years we intend to create a campus here and eventually grow into a distributed university, develop curricula, form alliances, apply for NGO status, and seek international accreditation as an institution of higher learning.

5. Programs –

* Retreats (like the Esalen Institute or Sivananda yoga ashrams) with guest teachers and
students, occasionally coordinated with tour groups;
* Salons and Sunsets, our Friday afternoon topical programs followed by refreshments (bring your camera);
* Art workshops with Meredith Miller- including painting on location at sacred sites,
quaint villages, and magical mountain vistas;
* New science and new energy workshops with Dr. Brian O’Leary and other experts;
* Yoga retreats and classes;
* Concerts;
* Puppet shows, renaissance theatre, humor;
* Community events including discussions about planning and development;
* Special and catered events, weddings, etc.;
* Ceremonies and dialogues with indigenous peoples and shamans; and
* Astronomy deck and possible UFO sightings, for which the Mandango is famous

6. The Founders –

Brian O’Leary, Ph.D., 68, author, world teacher and activist, was a NASA astronaut during the Apollo program and served on the faculties of Cornell, Princeton, Hampshire College, and U.C. Berkeley in astronomy, energy science and science policy assessment. Brian O’Leary served as a Special Staff Consultant on Energy for the U.S. House Interior Committee and advisor/speechwriter to Morris Udall and other U.S. presidential candidates. A leading enriron-mental and peace activist during the Vietnam War and a citizen diplomat during Soviet Glasnost, Brian O’Leary is author of many popular books, most recently Re- Inheriting the Earth: Awakening to Sustainable Solutions and Greater Truths, now out in Spanish. Brian also plays the piano, teaches yoga, photographs nature, and performs satire through puppetry and cartooning.
www.brianoleary.com

Meredith Miller, 62, is an internationally acclaimed, prize-winning visionary artist and art teacher for over forty years, with hundreds of paintings that hang in public and private buildings throughout the world. Much of her art is alchemical, containing soil essences from sacred sites she has visited around the Earth. Meredith paints dreams. According to testimonies of dozens of her collectors, her powerful watercolor, oil and mixed media images have evoked healings, ancient wisdoms, new relationships, or the discovery of special spots in nature. Meredith’s contributions to beautifying the Center can be felt throughout the land and the buildings. www.meredithmillerart.com

7. Logistics – The Center is one full day’s travel to and from most of North, Central and South America, although an overnight stop in Quito is sometimes necessary. Once or twice daily jets connect to Loja, our local city. Such frequent access plus an inexpensive (and scenic) taxi ride from and to the airport on good roads, make travel convenient. Travel can also include group packages with tours of Machu Picchu, the Galapagos, the Amazon jungle, quaint Andean villages and other attractions.

8. General – Inspiring settings and supportive practices help us all to better understand and celebrate the wisdom of nature and the value of sustainability. It is increasingly obvious to many of us in the industrialized West that the dominance of public relations (propaganda) programs in virtually every institution and field no longer allows most of us to seek greater truths. Instead the governing elite spin myths of reality based on increasingly false and narrow assumptions. When our quest for truth becomes so distorted through contemporary human filters, greed and suppressions, we must take a breath and look at nature, to imitate nature, and to explore the frontiers of consciousness and outer space. We then can then begin to embrace a kind of wild truth, or natural law. This leads to a context for innovation and restoration of community towards a new global republic and a declaration of interdependence whose values are peace, sustainability and social justice. The eagle and condor can then join, as we reach out to a universe of peace. This quest inexorably makes us feel safe enough to respect the Earth, lay down our weapons, and develop action plans for the coming shift. We hope that a combination of the idyllic tranquil setting and our programs will help bring us to a more creative and conscious future, based on understanding and implementing real solutions to world challenges.

Projects and Issues - The following is a sampling of projects to be undertaken at the Center:

1. Natural, Sacred and Visionary Arts – An eclectic range of painting projects (using a variety of media) and art classes will come from the studio of Meredith Miller. From Brian’s office will come piano sessions, nature photography, puppet satire theatre, writers’ workshops and yoga.

2. Global New Energy – Many advanced concepts of energy generation now being researched worldwide have escaped notice by leading spokespeople. By “new energy” we mean energy heretofore unexplained by Western science. Examples include cold fusion (low energy nuclear reactions), sonoluminescence, vacuum (zero-point) energy, innovative hydrogen chemistry, cheap solar photovoltaics, and other breakthrough technologies. They show great potential for the world to have clean, cheap, safe and decentralized energy. But development has so far been suppressed by powerful vested interests, particularly in the U.S. Dr. O’Leary, founder of the New Energy Movement, will be leading efforts for off-shore R&D of the most promising directions.

3. Cañamo for the Earth – Cañamo, Spanish for industrial hemp, has long had many uses – clothing, oil, rope, protein, etc. What is less known is that it is also an excellent wood substitute for paper and construction materials. It is gentle on the soil and provides more abundant feedstock than do trees on the same amount of land, especially here in the tropics. Widespread cañamo production could therefore end much of our deforestation. Not to be confused with high THC marijuana, industrial hemp is nevertheless illegal in the U.S. No such restrictions apply here.

4. Stopping Amazonian Deforestation – We will work with other groups to prevent cattle ranchers, loggers and agribusiness from deforesting the Amazon basin, currently at the alarming rate of one acre per second. This irresponsible practice could lead to the complete destruction of the “lungs of the Earth” by late this century. The droughts have already begun. We are acutely aware of this extraordinary, biodiverse, carbon-sequestering resource just over the Andes to the East of us.

5. Living Water – For more than a century, experiments have shown that water has magical properties that purify it through positive intention and in the presence of a clean environment. Pioneers such as Victor Schauberger, Marcel Vogel, Dr. William Tiller, and Masaru Emoto, have conclusively shown that free-flowing water, treated lovingly, can be cleaned. We will conduct experiments on this, cooperating with various universities and environmental officials in Costa Rica and Ecuador, in the hopes that these technologies could clean up the waterways of the Earth. We will also conduct forums on taking public control back from privatized water.

6. New Science, Consciousness and Yoga – Dr. O’Leary is author of four books and has a large library specifically on these topics, which span the gamut of outside-the-box “new science” that transcends materialistic Western science. Examples include experiments on the effects of human intention (consciousness) on matter, healing, parapsychology, quantum effects, the survival of death, the UFO/ET phenomenon (including frequent sightings here), inquiry into our greater being, and the marriage of science with spiritual perspectives such as yoga.

7. Planetary Green Republic – Here we study the principles for forming peaceful, sustainable and just systems for our human future. We examine, what has gone wrong and what we could do right to organize ourselves into public control of future policies in energy, the environment, peacemaking, and responsible world government. We look at indigenous rights and Bolivarian initiatives juxtaposed to imperialist policies of the U.S. and multinational corporations who claim the oil, water and other natural resources worldwide . We revision a positive future for Earth.

February 2008 special update:

Announcing...the first workshop at Montesueños:

June 8-15   The Phoenix Gathering of international visionaries (www.wakingthephonenix.org)

Click here to view photos of The Phoenix Gathering

2009 events list:

Feb. 21-28: United Nations International Peace Ambassadors, Yoga Ambassadors

May: Symposium on New Science, Reincarnation and Karma with Dr. Brian O'Leary and Paul Von Ward

May 18-23: The Tao of Photography workshop-Ecuador 2009 with Charles Feil

More events for 2009 will be posted in the very near future.  Keep checking.  We also are interested in proposals you might have on retreat themes, teachers, timings, or interest in residencies on the subjects of peace, sustainability, justice, the arts, new science, consciousness research, yoga, etc.

A list of future retreats will be posted soon; keep checking.

Click here to view location map