Spring 2015

Spring has arrived at Grace Brook Farm, the future home of Inner Fire, with daffodils galore. We intend on breaking ground in the autumn of 2015. Until the new facility is available, we will be launching a Day Program that has all the programmatic content of the full Inner Fire offering, but without on-site residency. For this, we have rented two nearby cottages that can house five seekers and some staff personnel. All activities and meals will take place at Grace Brook Farm, between 7AM and 9PM. To support the Day Program we are now contracting with therapists and guides who are pioneering, experienced in their passion and able to work with and teach small groups of people seeking balance through such will-based activities as gardening, forestry, cooking and housekeeping and proactive therapies such as artistic, spatial dynamics, music, speech and drama. These guides must enhance and promote the integrity of each individual’s soul journey.

Editor’s Corner

Welcome to the Inner Fire Update! You are receiving this because you have shown earlier interest in this initiative or because somebody thought you might be interested. We plan to publish this newsletter a few times a year. I’d like to introduce Inner Fire by explaining why I offered to help write and publish this newsletter. I am a retired teacher and science writer who emigrated from the Netherlands 60 years ago. My artistically gifted and highly imaginative older sister was hospitalized with a diagnosis of schizophrenia at age 27. She spent the rest of her life in mental institutions, her disease controlled by psychotropic medications. In 1977, when she was 50 years old, she took her own life by jumping out of a window. During my 86 years of living I have seen other similar cases. We have made brilliant advances in medicine such as knee or cataract surgery but have not been able to meet the challenge of mental illness in a meaningful way that goes beyond psychotropic medications. So, having encountered Inner Fire a year ago, I wondered whether my sister might have been able to withdraw from her medications and lead a full life, if she had been able to experience therapies such as are offered by Inner Fire.

A fascinating 17 minute video of the journey of a woman who blossomed after leaving psychotropic meds can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG_tA52D-rE This person now serves on our Advisory Board.

Beatrice Birch, the driving force behind the Inner Fire initiative, was recently interviewed on local TV. I highly recommend watching this 30 minute interview:

Currently Inner Fire is one small initiative in Vermont, USA. My hope is that the ideas and therapies used here will in time be widely recognized as effective healing modalities, allowing many human beings to regain their full humanity.

– Gerhard Bedding