At Dream Barn Hollow

…At Dream Barn Hollow is the answer to the question: Where?

Where can I reconnect with my true sense of Self?

Where can I clear energy that no longer serves me?

Where can I learn authentically useful information and skills?

Where can I be nourished on a physical and spiritual level?

This is a sacred space of love, based on the Ringing Cedars of Russia series and Anastasia’s teachings; a peaceful and magical location with awe-inspiring gardens that provide various learning spaces in nature. I co-created these buildings and gardens with love and intention over the last two decades, inspired largely by the vision Anastasia shared.

My name is Alice Harwood and I grew up traveling and attending schools in Europe and America. I gained an appreciation for different cultures, alternative perspectives and recognized universal connectivity throughout my experiences.

In 1999, I settled in Vermont – at this location in Chester – to raise my family.

I received my Masters degree in Education through SNHU, and worked in both public and private school libraries. Here I built strong relationships, a love of reading and imagining, and shared self-empowerment strategies to provide a strong foundation for all other learning.

In 2012, I became a Certified HeartMath® Trainer and additionally trained and worked closely with many energy healers. I served as president for the ASD Living Waters Chapter of Dowsers for four years.

All the while I was working towards the dream Anastasia presented, having found the first english translation in 2006 – waiting for the remaining translations, as they became available.

After spending decades running classes and programs for adults and children of all ages, I became disillusioned with the limitations and restrictive practices of traditional learning environments. Working within schools that felt mechanized, monitored, and competitive, with rules, standards, policies, and procedures, went against all of my ‘human’ instincts. When I questioned the (dictatorial) concepts, I realized that the struggle was a corrupt power conflict, and I was no longer able to engage in a way that felt authentic to me. Using the contrast as fuel, I moved on to creating an environment that felt healthier, collaborative, and encouraged open questions and multi-generational engagement.

Turns out that when we are coherent and live in our hearts, we are intrinsically motivated, perform better, maintain better health, and strengthen the connection with our intuition (Childre, Martin, Beech, & Institute of HeartMath, 1999). As a certified HeartMath trainer, I have been using their coherence techniques myself for nearly two decades and have achieved a solid connection with my Higher Self, making decisions from a felt sense of ‘coming alive.’ I receive and act upon intuitions and insights that come from a greater place of connectedness. Now, more than ever, I feel the need to expand a vision of communal learning that encompasses an authentic, sustainable way of life.

The vision?

SPACE: Creating opportunities for people of all ages to be & become awakened and empowered by Spiritual, Practical, Artistic, Creative Education through classes, workshops, and events; to expand the world, bridging people, ideas, and opportunities.

Working from the example of what didn’t work (or ‘feel right’), I created a model that did. I am the founder and executive director of this educational non-profit, SPACE Inc, established in 2013. I have extreme autonomy and creative license to provide exciting and appealing workshops and classes and also seek out other presenters/teachers that resonate with the following core values:

• being passionate about inspiring people to identify & activate their Authentic Self;
• to become purposeful in meaningful ways,
• realizing a greater sense of belonging, liberation, love &
• aligning in heartfelt participation with life.

SPACE Inc. is passionate about inspiring people to become responsible in purposeful and meaningful ways, realizing a greater sense of empowerment and embodying ease and joy. Located in Southern Vermont, SPACE started At Dream Barn Hollow along the Williams River.

In a sense, I simply hold space at this location, acting as facilitator of various groups, retreats, and classes. It was at one such group that I met Moira, the mother of a bright-eyed, six-year-old son. She is as passionate about the future of our children and earth as I am. Being here at Dream Barn Hollow has given both of us a chance to dream even bigger!

Her expertise in outreach and collaboration is expanding SPACE to reach other like-minded, open-hearted people, as well as increasing awareness of alternative learning opportunities. My vision of authentic, multi-generational learning is being actualized!

Moira spent her childhood being “unschooled” on a farm in rural Alaska. This highly unorthodox & unique upbringing has given her a keen appreciation for exploration and self-discovery, and that, in turn, has shaped her philosophy of childhood, how kids learn, and the importance of creativity in learning.

Driven toward helping people in one way or another, she started her first business in 2000, as a massage therapist and in 2004, became a Certified Rolfer®. The following year, she moved from Alaska to upstate New York, both to pursue her own personal growth and to further her business endeavors, which included adding certified health coach to her resume. In the fall of 2015, after extensive traveling, Moira decided to become a parent; she returned to upstate New York and gave birth to her son London.

The decision to become a mother was a pivotal moment in her life and because of this, in the spring of 2016, she began to develop the concept of a new business model to support childhood learning. This idea was born out of Moira’s desire to help other parents on their journey out of what currently passes for “education” and into something that empowered children to take leadership in their own learning processes.

By 2017, as a free local initiative, Moira started “Albany Pop-Up Adventure Playground” – a temporary play space filled with loose parts and objects designed to inspire imagination and creativity. By the time of the lockdowns, more than 700 people had attended the pop-ups, which Moira designed in her own local community as an opportunity for all children to have access to child-led play.

Traditionally, childhood is the time for our little ones to develop the skills they will need to be creative, successful, productive adults. Many parents agree that childhood isn’t the same now as it was when they were young, whether that was 20 (or 30 or more years) ago. The elements lost are the most important things children need to grow into fully functional adulthood – and these elements are what authentic, “self-led” education provides as an opportunity to experience & practice – for both parent & child.

Kids used to play outside freely without adult supervision. They built forts, explored trails and alleys, rode bikes, and played group games like baseball, cops and robbers, and dodgeball. Kids chose sides. They occasionally got their feelings – and their bodies – hurt. But through it all they relied on each other. They learned to make friends, negotiate problems, strategize and work together. In short, they developed the life skills to work things out with each other.

How different would the world be if everyone learned these skills before they reached adulthood and moved out into the world? Skills like empathy, logic, critical thinking, tenacity and responsibility. Imagine the benefit to humanity if our children already had a well formed understanding of their own values and principles as well as respect for others – even if they don’t fully understand or even agree with them.

This is an example of the process of co-creation; where our (my and Moira’s) vision overlaps, aligned in true Anastasia style, to provide the creative space for children and adults to experience freedom and self-directed learning.

Moira and London relocated At Dream Barn Hollow just two months ago and, after getting settled, she began using her social media skills to reach more parents of similar values, who may (or may not) have heard of or had this type of experience: life in nature as education, bringing innate learning into focus. Together we are expanding the vision that has been the foundation of my dream.

There are many individual families in New England working towards a more conscious lifestyle, who enjoy these opportunities to gather. Having this location with it’s heart-centered foundation as a place for everyone has been wonderful for all of us; elders rediscover their playful nature , children learn from the wisdom of elders, the whole while surrounded by beauty. Children are allowed to play, learn, explore, on their own in the wild: swimming in the river, stacking stones, smelling flowers, collecting herbs, gardening, etc. Simultaneously, the adults are able to share ideas, experiences, and values in a multi-generational setting.

Being free and able to connect is a basic human need. It is of immeasurable value to everyone, young and old alike. Moving to unstructured play, self-led learning and interacting in real-life situations with apprenticeship and mentoring models-for all ages (innocence to wisdom) is a wholistic education. Integrating theory and vision into practice is not always easy or comfortable; it is, however, an opportunity to be open to Higher Guidance and allow Inner Knowing to emerge.

Anastasia provided a vision for humanity. Our opportunity here is to collaborate with each other, bringing forward the gifts, skills, and talents for the betterment of everyone -remembering that we all have access to (and must align for) Divine Guidance.

These last few years have demonstrated how desperately unsustainable the current public education system is. The collective trauma and political ponerology that has existed at the pinnacle of our Society for centuries is creating an awakening of massive proportion, allowing for the discovery of all aspects of corruption. As these defunct systems are dismantled, new healthy sustainable systems will be able to replace them. Transformational change, which includes Paradigm shifts and co-creating the future, means that collectively we learn how to exist in the not ‘knowing’ of which direction we’re going and which approach we’re taking (Carter, John D. & Gestalt OSD Center, 2019, p. 75) and trusting, instead, that in the process of staying heart-centered, taking one step at a time – the next step will become clear.

Feeling from the heart, rather than relying on intellectual solutions will be what magnetizes us to an alignment with our Authentic/Higher Selves emerging from some future timeline and cosmic existence. 

CONTACT

EMAIL – Co*****@SP*********.org

WEBSITE – currently being updated