Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York is one of my favorite places in the world.  A former Yiddish arts camp founded by the Sholom Aleichem (creator of Teyve, from Fiddler on the Roof) Institute, it was taken over in 1981 by its founders  as a healing and holistic health and spiritual retreat  for adults, and has continued to grow ever since.  I first went to Omega in the early 1990s, and, with the exception of the years I was in India  and China, have continued to return ever since.                                                            

This weekend I attended again, meeting my friend Greta from Michigan, and as always, came away  refreshed and thought provoked by the lovely campus, wonderful discussions with new friends, and healthy and organic food.

Omega has grown a lot  over the years since I first started going there, adding a meditation center, Ram Dass Library, and most recently, a state of the art facility for sustainable living and water reclamation.   Operating from the end of April to the end of October, it offers more than 350 programs  ranging from yoga to arts, crafts and  spiritual studies.

This time I attended a workshop given by Sam Keen, a philosopher and graduate of Harvard Divinity school, of Calvinist background, who offered a workshop on “What’s Next–Planning for the Next Decade.”  I thought that was a particularly appropriate workshop for me, and I enjoyed it immensely.  It was a time to reflect on what Sam called “unused futures”–dreams we had as early as childhood that we may have put aside–as well as how we use the time we have, opening our minds to our wildest dreams and gradually whittling them down to what we will do, and reflecting on the gifts we want to share with the world.  Many people in the session–about 30 altogether–were, like me, celebrating a milestone birthday–50, 60, or even 70.  One woman who had written two mystery novels in her 60s was there now,  at the age of 70, to figure out how to share her writing with the world and further express her creativity.  A  doctor in the process of winding down his practice was contemplating his next step–Doctors without Borders, a long held wish to be a standup comedian, or ???  Several others had either just retired or were on the verge of doing so.   All held a fervent wish to find or act on  a passion and  contribute to the world.  Sam himself, who turns 80 this year, was doing the work himself.  As one person remarked, it is a luxury of our era (and perhaps of living in a developed country) to be in this position.

On a more somber note, during the evening we saw a documentary that Sam and director Bill Jersey had made in the 1980s, called “Faces of the Enemy.”  I don’t recall seeing it then; it appeared on PBS, but it is as relevant today (despite the dated hairstyles) as it was 25 years ago.  Weaving the story of a disturbed and  unrepentant  man who was influenced by the propaganda of the Christian Patriots to brutally murder a family of four because he was told they were Communists, with the images that Sam collected from history and around the world, it shows how societies have depicted their enemies  by comparing them to animals, monsters, and even Satan.   It lays out  how ordinary people can become incited to hate and even kill, by repeatedly seeing images and hearing propaganda depicting the “enemy” as less than human.  Most interesting to me was an interview with a Vietnam war veteran, who talked about the fine line in the military between motivating soldiers to kill without inciting them to bloodlust–depersonalizing the enemy without dehumanizing him.  This documentary was created during the Cold War, when Russia and Communists were the enemy.  Unfortunately, it is equally relevant today.

After the 3- day walk, we decided to take a short vacation and headed up the Maine Coast.  Need I even say that we stopped at the L.L. Bean mothership in Freeport?  It was a fairly short stop, though, and we didn’t buy out the store.

We also stayed one night in Bar Harbor, which is the last major city on the tourist route off Highway 1 in Maine.  It was buzzing with cruise passengers from a ship that heads from New York up to Nova Scotia, as well as with the normal summer tourist trade.   We had a fabulous dinner at  Mache Bistro, not far from our bed and breakfast, and after dinner, we took a drive in Acadia National Park on the Park Loop road, which affords beautiful views of Bar Harbor (see below).

Then, the following morning we headed back on Route 1 for a couple of hours to the easternmost point in the United States:  Lubec, Maine.

A short bridge ride from Lubec, you pass through Canadian Customs and arrive on Campobello Island in New Brunswick.   Campobello–the scene of the famous play and movie Sunrise at Campobello with Ralph Bellamy– was the summer home of the F.D. Roosevelts, and a place I have always wanted to visit.  It was here that FDR, the virus he had picked up from a stop at a  boy scout camp already working in his body, fell ill with polio in 1921.  The “cottage” (it’s more like a small mansion) is wonderfully kept, with all of the original furnishings, and you can wander the grounds and trails that the family enjoyed during their many summers on the island.  The dock to the Bay of Fundy–which has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world–has been rebuilt, but you can still see the posts from the original dock that would have been used in transporting the paralyzed and very ill future president to the boat that would carry him back to the mainland for treatment.

Campobello does not quite resonate with the same history as the residence at Hyde Park and Eleanor Roosevelt’s beloved Val-Kill, where you can almost sense the energy of the historic figures that walked here during the Roosevelts’ time in public office. Campobello feels more personal.  Here, FDR came every summer from the time he was a baby until he contracted polio in 1921–he would make only three visits to Campobello after that before he died.   Here, the young Eleanor Roosevelt came to stay in 1903 for a summer visit while FDR was courting her;  this is where  the Roosevelt children spent their summers growing up, and Eleanor came here later in life to write her memoirs, buoyed by the salt air, lack of telephones, and the natural beauty that is all around. There was no electricity on Campobello until 1948, and the kitchen still looks like it dates from the turn of the century.

I have a fondness for historical sites–it sparks the imagination to wonder what conversations, both ordinary and momentous, took place in these rooms.  My dad and grandfather were great fans of FDR, and talked of him often when I was growing up.  Even in those days, no one spoke much of FDR’s paralysis, which was so well hidden and carefully managed during his presidency.     My  mother, on the other hand,  didn’t care for FDR–she used to refer to the WPA as “We Piddle Around” , for example— so we had very interesting dinner conversations when talk of the New Deal came up.  Ultimately, I have come to admire Eleanor Roosevelt even more than her husband, both for the way she transformed herself and for her courage in advocating social positions that were far ahead of her time.  A former neighbor now in her 90s,  who I sometimes visit in her nursing home, talked of meeting Eleanor Roosevelt once in the 1940s: “Before she opened her mouth, she was the ugliest woman I had ever seen.  And after she opened it, I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”  Eleanor also proved that one can remain an active, contributing citizen until a very late age.  As she said, “I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.”   Good words to remember.