Tao Fellowship’s Sedona Mago Retreat Center – Pure Air and Sacred Land

Tao Fellowship

In its attainment of green results at Sedona Mago Retreat Center, its parent, Tao Fellowship, a nonprofit foundation, simply starts with its mission “Love for the Earth and Love for Humanity.” Then Tao Fellowship sets policies and take actions, from investment to daily practices, to create the ideal ecotourist retreat center.

In two particular areas, air and land, Tao Fellowship’s Mago Retreat stands out with approaches that have been recognized as pro-humanity and pro-earth.

This is how the Mago Retreat has been keeping the air pure, for better heath:

Tao Fellowship established a single 120-space central parking lot near the main gate to encourage guests to walk and with less driving meaning less pollution.

The educational and housekeeping departments use Tao Fellowship’s four electrical cars, and that keeps air quality high.

They provide a van service for guests who arrive from the Phoenix Airport by commercial shuttle, are dropped off at the Mago Information House, Highway 89A and Bill Gray Road, and brought to the Retreat Center.

Naturally purifying the air at the Mago Retreat are 2,000 Juniper trees from 10 years ago, and 1,272 trees and 2,040 plants put in the ground since then.

Here is what Tao Fellowship has been doing and planning to keep the land sacred:

Buildings are constructed by Tao Fellowship to harmonize, in scale and façade, with the natural landscape.

Tao Fellowship installed 163 solar pathway lights, and 138 reduced-output bulbs (converted to 20 from 60 watts), with conversion to all solar-powered lights planned.

The old Casita Guest Rooms at the Mago Retreat were designed by a Frank Lloyd Wright student, into the hillside for esthetic and temperature reasons; constructed in the late 1980s; some have solar-powered water heaters, with more installations planned.

As for the new Casita Guest Rooms, they have cross ventilation; constructed in 2006; conversion to all solar-powered water heaters is planned.

Mago Hall, second largest meeting room with a 200-seat capacity, is a stressed membrane structure, built by Sprung Instant Structures, having a heated floor, and excellent insulation and ventilation.

Tao Fellowship uses much around Mago Retreat’s thousands of trees and bushes, which as been produced on-site from leftover wood from construction projects.

The spirit of giving back

Dahn Yoga for MS is an initiative inspired by Cathy Downie. Cathy suffered with MS for 13 years and is now volunteering her time to spread Brain Education System Training (BEST) principles and tools in the form of Dahn Yoga to people who are suffering from the symptoms of MS.

As a member of the Glendale Dahn Yoga Studio in Arizona, Cathy was able to alleviate her MS symptoms through various BEST programs including Dahn Yoga, Dahn Mu Do, Dahn Tai Chi, and Dahn Healer School among others.

The Dahn Yoga for MS program consists of stretching, breathing, and self acupressure techniques. The various poses open the joints and improve the overall blood and energy circulation throughout the body. The results are not only a reduction in muscle pain, but also spasticity, and fatigue while boosting energy and stress management.

Inspired by Cathy Downie
Instructed by Dawn Quaresima

Gain strength and curb the symptoms of MS with Dahn Yoga for MS, an instructional DVD that focuses on achieving balance, clarity, and energy through breathing, meditation, stretching, and acupressure stimulation. The DVD also includes firsthand testimonials from MS patients who use Dahn Yoga. Purchase it now.

 Please be my guest as you experience the one-of-a-kind view from Castle.  For years, I have come to this special spot to receive inspiration and direction for my vision. 

I believe you can find the same here.  From this unique vantage point, surrounded by majestic red rock and crystal clear Sedona sky, you are suspended between Heaven and Earth, ready to receive the special messages they have for you. 

In this tour of Mago Castle, I will share the story of determination and triumph that led to the creation of Mago Castle.  I offer this place to you in hope that you may discover your own vision and the passion you need to fulfill your purpose.  Please make yourself at home here, so that Mago castle can become the birthplace of a new humanity. 

Please leave your comment after watching the video clip.  

- Ilchi Lee

All these things do have one thing in common, however—they were generated through the brain. John’s brain
enabled him to become a school teacher, and it is through his brain that he feels awe when standing before a powerful
painting. A symphony of sensory input and memory within his brain gives rise to his reaction to freshly fallen rain. It is also
within his brain that he stores his definition of what it means to be a man, twenty-seven years old, and African-American.
In some sense, you could say that you are your brain. Or, at the very least, the brain is the instrument through which you experience all reality. And it is through it that you interact with reality—in every  motional reaction, in every choice that you make, and in every dream that you dream. Everything you
ever have been or will become is because of your brain.

from ‘Brain management’ by ilchi lee

Have you ever stopped to realize that you owe everything you are to your brain?
If someone asks you who you are, what do you say?
Maybe you say something like, “My name is John. I am a twenty-seven-year-old man of African descent, and I currently work as an elementary school teacher in Dallas, Texas.”
Instinctively, you and John both know that there is much more to you. John loves most of all to be in the presence of great art.

The hair on the nape of his neck stands up when he smells freshly fallen rain. Both of you have experienced a great range of love and suffering throughout your life. How can one name or one identity sum up all of this?

from ‘brain management’ by ilchi lee

Last time I wrote about a quote on life from Ilchi Lee. What shall we use the life given to me for? What will we have to use the energy we have for? They are questions which we should ask ourselves all the time. What is life? What is energy?

Like Ilchi Lee said, if we think we own the life we have then that’s where all selfishness and victim consciousness begin. After all, I came into existence not because I asked for. In some way I don’t know, I find myself living on this earth. I didn’t pay a tax for the opportunity of living here. I did not buy my life paying money. My parents did not let me know why I live and what the purpose of my life is.

We didn’t earn the life, but we are given the life for free. We don’t own the life we have, but life lives through me. Life demonstrates its joyfulness, happiness and love through me. Again, this line “The selfishness and obsessions within us begin with the thought that this life is mine,” really touches my heart.

My body is not me, but mine. My emotions are not me but mine.

What do you think of life? What your view of life? Ilchi Lee says on life that if you think the life given to you is yours, you are greatly deluded. We have not made a contract to get this life. We don’t have the life because we asked the creator for. We don’t know when and where this life will leave me. Death doesn’t give us an advance notice. All we can know is that this life given to us is available for our use. Our lives are part of the great life of the cosmos. The idea that “the life given to me is not mine” takes a dramatic shift on our view of the world and life. And, in turn, the idea will make a significant change in our life, once we apply it to our lives.

Ilchi Lee says “The selfishness and obsessions within us begin with the thought that this life is mine.” I am greatly moved by this line. Life belongs to no one. The life is given to a human being for a short time, only to return to its source. The life given to us does not belong to us.

Direct excerpts of Ilchi Lee from his book Brain Wave Vibraion:

If the color and shape of objects can have so much influence on us, imagine how much influence we can have on each other. I am sure you have experienced that when someone is in a bad mood, that mood tends to rub off on you. By the same token, someone’s smile can completely turn your day around. Imagine what a difference we could make if we really tried to put this to full use. Enough people producing positive brain waves could change the world, don’t you think?

A change in collective human consciousness essentially requires an invisible and inaudible communication between brains. As you learn to orient your brain toward positive information, the whole of humanity will be lifted up as well. That may seem overwhelming at first, but it requires only that you first change your own brain to work in a way that is most healthy for your own body and the Earth.

According to Ilchi Lee, he views one’s brain stem as a marvelous antenna that can send and receive messages to and from the world around you. This medium of communication is called Chun-ji-ki-un, or cosmic energy. Because you are connected to all other living beings through this cosmic energy, you are an integral player in creating a better, more sustainable way of life on this planet.