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Canyon-Paradise.com |
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Paraiso Nature Preserve - Origins |
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Canyon-Paradise.com |
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Paraiso Nature Preserve - Origins |
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The Birth of a Nature Preserve By Bob Goings
Sometimes life happens as if by magic. And often that magic begins with deep questioning and soul-searching. My Mexican quest began in winter 2005, not long after I had lost two brothers to cancer. I had also been quite ill due to contaminated spring water and had a litany of other problems that led me to the certain realization that I needed to make some changes in my life. At 63 years of age I had not yet lived abroad, something that I had promised myself during the course of my life. I needed a vacation anyway, so I set my sights on the colonial area of northern Mexico, an area that I had heard so much about but had never visited. It would be easily accessible for either part time or full time retirement. It was a glorious, self-renewing trip, taking me through Alamos and El Fuerte and along the rim of Copper Canyon. I loved it all, but I found purpose in El Fuerte and along the magnificent El Fuerte River. Providence guided me to Hotel Rio Vista where I met a Canadian couple ready to embark on a river float trip the following day, and I hitched a ride. Immediately we began floating past a lovely landscape that appeared to be a park. It was rumored to be for sale. “Someone could buy it and put in some kind of fancy resort,” I said in dismay. And from that moment forward I could not get it out of my head. “The land must be saved!” When I returned to California I put the idea of buying the property before the Board of Directors of the Sequoia Center for Holistic Studies. The Board's limited resources were originally willed to us by our benefactor and my mentor, Edmund Fernald, on his death in 1984. Edmund had two passions in life: Mexico and astrology. Over the years he and I discussed many times his foremost dream, to establish a center in a beautiful setting in nature where people could come to relax, learn about themselves, renew, and heal. Apparently my excitement was contagious, and the board supported the idea. How perfect that Edmund Fernald’s legacy should extend into Mexico, where he and I spent so many enriching times together. A month later I returned to El Fuerte with enough money for a down-paymen, began negotiations, and after a serendipitous series of events, a deal was concluded. Only two days had passed. I returned a month later with the balance of the money and continued to find excuses to return almost every month. Within a year I was alternating living three months in Mexico, three months in California. And so, the process was begun to establish a Mexican nonprofit corporation with a mission of conserving the habitat and the culture of Rio Fuerte and environs! |
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Won't you join Bob, Kerry, Sequoia Center for Holistic Studies, and the entire family of Canyon-Paradise Tours staff and hosts in supporting Paraiso Nature Preserve?
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