UPDATED DECEMBER 2016

Ten years ago, after spending a wonderful week in Sedona, Arizona, I felt the strong need to have a healing space on the land outside the home. I bought a book called The Tipi Bible and was off and running. Finding a tipi maker in the State of Maryland proved to be difficult.. I went to a Native American ceremony with Frank Fools Crow in Mt. Airy, Maryland and while in the audience a young man named Thom came to sit next to me. He literally came over to me in the crowded room and said, “So, you want to see a tipi?”

Come to find out later, Thom had lived in a tipi for several years while he worked for Nomadic Tipi Makers in Bend, Oregon. Eventually, that is the place where our tipi originated. I bonded with the workmen and told them exactly what I wanted and they began to create. I had sufficient funds then to get a lot of “add-ons” for our first tipi. The artwork on the panels was breathtaking to say the least.

A great deal of work went into clearing the space.  Smiling Bear and I brought in two pickup trucks of Delaware River rock for the floor.  The lodge pole pines were delivered on a huge flatbed truck.  It is a long trip from Oregon to Maryland by truck.  Once the poles arrived, the real work of sanding and painting them with linseed oil and turpentine began.  It was summer and while working in the old barn I almost killed myself with the chemical fumes in the heat.  Smiling Bear saved me by dragging me out into the air so I could breathe.  (Actually, I recall him kind of carrying me out and laying me on the grass).  Then he yelled at me, naturally.

We gathered our friends, about 20 of them, for the tipi-raising party on the land.  When the day finally arrived, the people came and the plans were in motion.  The tipi was our biggest and most prominent addition to what was the beginning of Sanctuary.  Where horses used to run, a new beginning was taking shape.  The tipi was dedicated by Thom and his lovely wife Lilliana in the name of a “healing space.”  A portable Reiki table was brought in and thus another healing space was created for Sanctuary.

People love having their treatments in the tipi. The conical shape of the tipi is much like a mother’s womb. This naturally safe space is extremely complementary to the healing work that began to take place. I personally enjoyed seeing my lovely daughter Carol come to the tipi for her Reiki session while she was pregnant with our grandson Dawson. Word spread quickly. Everyone wanted to know what we were doing and why.  (We live in a small old fashioned part of Clarksville.  Well that isn’t true now, but then it was, thus everyone notices what happens here.

Best of all, WE still love it.  It is a different way to live and it does get harder as we get older BUT here we stay.

As the years passed, we have had to replace the canvas covering the lodge pole pines several times.  The concept of a tipi is that it is a portable shelter that is moved periodically, with the poles rotated so they wear evenly.  This is not how we use the tipi here in Maryland.  And that is most likely why we need to purchase new canvas periodically. Regardless, we have maintained the tipi in top-notch condition since it went up. New prayer flags are hung from the top of the lodge pole pines each year in the spring.  Many people find themselves drawn to the healing space within the tipi after ceremony at the Medicine Wheel.  As stewards of the land, it is our privilege and honor to keep the tipi ready to serve when needed by our community.  Countless magical ceremonies and events have taken place in the tipi, and we know that many more are yet to come.  We are ready.