{"id":270,"date":"2016-01-17T23:51:27","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T04:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/?p=270"},"modified":"2016-01-18T08:52:18","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T13:52:18","slug":"an-invitation-to-rowies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/?p=270","title":{"rendered":"An invitation to Rowies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DSC_1791\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Baa, chess, ping pong, smiles, hugs, Pangea bed, twirling in the rain, no curfew nights, yoga laughing, veganism one by one, Gatorade, unending love. What do these words have in common?\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, I cannot tell you.\u00a0 Mathew and I were invited to a memorial service at Rowe Camp and Conference Center<\/a>.\u00a0 Maya attended sleep away camp there since she was about eight years old.\u00a0 It was one of her homes away from homes; a place that she loved.\u00a0 I understand why.<\/p>\n

The memorial service was held in the Chapel. While the Chapel is not a place of religious practice, it certainly is a sacred space.\u00a0 Each night during camp, campers would attend Chapel if they chose.\u00a0 Each \u201cChapel\u201d held a different theme to explore.\u00a0 Rules included being present when someone spoke, speak from your own heartfelt experience, no dialoguing, and whatever is said in Chapel, stays in Chapel.\u00a0 Maya would come home from camp, sharing much of her Rowe experience with us, but would not share what went on in Chapel.\u00a0 Now I get it, and in keeping with Rowe tradition, I\u2019ll honor the protocol.<\/p>\n

\"Rowe<\/a><\/p>\n

I feel comfortable sharing that I learned about Maya\u2019s life in camp from the perspective of the beloved Rowe community; a Maya that I never had a chance to fully witness. Rowe is a place of great, exploration, creativity, fun and acceptance.\u00a0 At home, I like to think that we live life with those values, but then there\u2019s life (responsibilities, school, family dynamics, expectations and all).\u00a0 Rowe Camp gave Maya an amazing and nurturing retreat, where she could fully be herself.\u00a0 The stories shared were of Maya\u2019s loving being and Maya being loved.\u00a0 Enormous love; so much so, that one could feel it.\u00a0 And though Maya had experiences at Rowe that she could only have away from home, the Maya I know still was shining through.\u00a0 Silly, caring, talkative, absurd, revolutionary, deep thinker, willful, kind, creative, witty, punster, warm and fun-loving.\u00a0 And what was quite delightful to me was to notice that these were characteristics that Mathew and I passed down (with one from Pop). Maya had magnified them hundred times and put her Maya-stamp on them.<\/p>\n

I know how much the Rowe community meant to Maya. Not only the Chapel, but the entire experience gave Maya a sense of sacred space.\u00a0 It is a loving community where she could fully be herself and accepted completely.\u00a0 Each year, there was a bit of a challenge adjusting back to \u201clife\u201d after Rowe.\u00a0 But we knew it was worth it, as Rowe fed and nourished Maya\u2019s soul.\u00a0 For this, I offer deep\u00a0gratitude.<\/p>\n

Okay you Rowies. If you\u2019re reading this, I invite you to please comment.\u00a0 The snippets and memories were indeed gifts.\u00a0 Please, please share a pearl from your knowing Maya.\u00a0 As the seventy five of us gathered in the taper and tea lit candled room, one gem emerged after another; tears, laughs and everything in between.\u00a0 I honor the Chapel guidelines; at the same time, I invite you to heartfully share from your own experience.\u00a0 Please accept my deep love for all that you gave Maya, and for sharing a window of it with Mathew and me today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baa, chess, ping pong, smiles, hugs, Pangea bed, twirling in the rain, no curfew nights, yoga laughing, veganism one by one, Gatorade, unending love. What do these words have in common?\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, I cannot tell you.\u00a0 Mathew and I were invited to a memorial service at Rowe Camp and Conference Center.\u00a0 Maya attended sleep…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gifts-since"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p720L0-4m","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}