Tommy at Kaaterskill Falls

Dragon and Condor is what Tom DeLacy and I call our special alchemy of Chinese internal martial arts and Native American shamanism.

Last year we marked the seasons with celebrations in the NYC area and at TCA in Sedona for the Fall equinox.

We return Sunday, April 12th to Kaaterskill Falls in the northern Catskills, and this time we’re bringing a couple of big dragons: Stephe Watson and Maria Barrett.

Come up Saturday and stay over at Al & Cathy’s family-owned, creekside Catskill Mountain Lodge

 

http://www.catskillmtlodge.com/
in Palenville, NY just beside the magnificent Kaaterskill Falls.

Stephe posted details on Facebook. I brazenly poached them and published below. Please register early so we can plan accordingly.

Come Saturday evening to settle into the warmth of funloving fearlessness. Dinner. Firepit. Live music. Transrational conscious healing. Laughter. Sleep smilingly having sloughed off the well-worn worry-week. Arise to meditation, offerings, breakfast, and friends.
Waterfall hike, initiation into your true Self, witnessing, droplets of water, sounds of falls, lessons whispered, Rick’s laugh.

Lunch.

More of the same, never-be-the-same-again. Insights, guideposts, spirit speaking. Back to lodge.Back to life.

The same no more.
The breath returned.
The spring in your step once again.
The Spring in your step once again.
The fire lit.
Come Spring.

Kaaterskill Falls is a dual drop waterfall of 260 feet in New York’s Catskill Mountains and is among the tallest falls on this coast. I was going to write some slapdash poetry to inspire your urge to visit when I read William Cullen Bryant’s poem on these falls. Of course, I stepped aside, for his words met the task:Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps,

From cliffs where the wood-flower clings;
All summer he moistens his verdant steeps,
With the sweet light spray of the mountain-springs,
And he shakes the woods on the mountain-side,
When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide.
But when, in the forest bare and old,
The blast of December calls,
He builds, in the starlight clear and cold,
A palace of ice where his torrent falls,
With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair,
And pillars blue as the summer air.

Themes we will Dive into:

(subject to change; we’re always delighting in new discoveries)

Tommy: “from internal to external”. Finding the rivers and falls within ourselves.

Rick: Participatory Consciousness

Stephe: Letting go, transsubstantiation, & receiving


The event schedule is looking like this:

Saturday Afternoon/Evening
2-4 check-in, settle in Registration
4-6 Explore. Meet & Greet. Short Hike.
6-8 Dinner (Restaurant is on-site) Personal Time
8-9:30 Group Healing and Woo Woo Wonderment
9:30-? Firepit, drums, song, lose yourself in the flickering

Sunday
7-7:45 Morning Neigong & Qigong
8-9:30 Daytripper Arrivals. Breakfast. Meet & Greet. Registration
10-12 Workshop (Tommy, Maria, Rick & Stephe)
12-1 Lunch (included and portable)
1 Leave via car and hiking boot for the Falls. Checkout perhaps
1:30 -3:30 Workshop (Tommy, Maria, Rick & Stephe)
3:30 Make our merry and mind-blown way back to Lodge.
Checkout.

Depending on weather we may visit the Falls first. Play-by-ear kinda day.

Event Fee is $100 and includes a catered bag lunch with water bottle:
Chicken Caesar wrap
Philly CH wrap
Ham and CH wrap
Veg. Wrap
Turkey club
BLT
Veggie burgher.

Please RSVP for event on this FB page, email your plans to your teacher (Rick, Tommy, or Stephe) and let your teacher know your meal choice(we’ll pass it on) and whether or not you are arriving Saturday (and thus having dinner there so we may advise the Lodge owners. They’ll want to adjust their staffing per our needs.)

As for overnight arrangements, the details are below. Please make them as early as can be managed to ease the work of Al & Cathy.
We hope that you will register for the event with the instructors (and RSVP via this FB page) and then use Facebook to find your roommates and self-assemble yourselves into groupings or solos as you see fit. Once you’ve figured out your group you can contact the facility directly to book your room.

$350 On-site house that sleeps 8 people.
(organize yourselves into a party of 8 and its 43.75 each for the Saturday overnight stay)

$225. 2 bedroom apartment which suits 4 people
(organize yourselves into a party of 4 and its 56.25 each for the Saturday overnight stay)

$95. Motel room 2 people.

$85. Motel room single bed 1 person

Check in 2pm generally speaking, but if you need to check in earlier she said give a call in advance and it won’t be a problem.

Check out is whenever.

We recommend you bring:

Hiking boots or secure-grip footwear (Parts may be treacherous. It’s a manageable and short hike but may be steep and/or slick in parts. We don’t mean to scare you but we’d rather overprepare.)

Rain Gear (It’s April in the mountains)

Open Spirit

Firepit Appropriate Musical Instrument(s): Drum, Flute, Guitar, etc..
An Offering (natural, organic, portable, physical or otherwise)

$75. Conference room if we need it. I guess we can check the forecast a few days prior and make that decision then. Cathy is fine with that.
Restaurant will be open Saturday night with a live band. Fire pit will be available to us.

Sunday meals:
Breakfast: $7. Coffee/ tea/ juice with eggs, toast, sausage and home fries buffet style.

last year’s event:

The Dragon & The Condor — A Workshop in the Catskill Mountains