Northern Lights

George Bakazias is the oldest youth I ever met.

Surrounded by hundreds of huge trees, George remembers when he was asked “why are you going to plant those trees if you can not see them grow?

He was 60 by then. Now, 81 years old, with a soft smile, he recalls the story while using tremendous strength with an ax to cut wood for a bonfire.

Twenty years ago, George Bakazias had decided to withdraw his business in real estate to devote himself to love Heather, who was -and is- in love of nature and spiritual healing.
She was determined to make a natural refuge for spiritual retreats and an open space for those in search of harmony.

She bought the land, almost half hundred hectares west of Ontario, Canada.
And George offered to build the place.
He began by planting trees despite the skepticism of his acquaintances. Together they planted about nine thousand trees.

The other challenge was to build a big house where they could create a place conducive to their spiritual purpose.

"I had no idea about construction. I had never done anything like that. But I was learning day by day and doing. Heather used to ask me at night: 'And what are you going to do tomorrow?" And I answered: "I do not know, we'll see."
"Every day I get up with a new inspiration and built here. Cut apart. Fit the pieces of wood ... "

So he built an impressive two-storey house, four bedrooms and two bathrooms, all with a communal design, to accommodate groups of at least twenty people. A room about twenty by ten meters for meetings and meditations was built. Also a wide and well-equipped kitchen. And a comfortable dining room to lay on the twenty.
Each piece of wood fits in a perfect angle to the next. The wooden beams, the doors, the floor, all elaborated and designed worthy of the best builder.


However, the roof of a house of this kind has a certain peculiarity. Must be built first and then mount it on the foundations of the house. George Bakazias calculated how would do such a thing, build a ramp, pulleys and go slowly setting the structure.

"Everything would have taken about two or three months. But something happened one day. Nobody comes here not by chance, but one day a trucker came 'by chance'. He was very upset because he was lost and was going doing turns. I invited him to calm down. So I gave him something to drink and explained how he could reach the place he was looking for. Very grateful, and calm, the man was about to leave when he saw the house. 'How are you going to mount the beams of the roof?' he asked. I explained my idea. The man took the matter in hand. His truck was equipped with a powerful crane. In no time he had already assembled the entire structure. Did not I will interpret that as a gift from the universe? "

Several other events indicate that the universe went hand in the affair to support the project of the Bakazias. Such as that one, when George was planting a tree in the circle east of Northern Light Center. "I was digging the hole to plant it and suddenly I was blinded by a strong white light. It was like a ray of sunshine that radiated from inside the earth".

Heather was in charge of creating the gardens. She also built the four energetic points of the place: north, south, east and west. Each one surrounded by trees, or a tree in the center, or flowers.
Heather’s plants are in charge of the variety of colors surrounding the whole place.

That is the Northern Light Center. A magical place. There, the Bakazias changed the destructive inertia of man and established harmony.

Minds silence its noise. Desires are gone. Howls of coyotes and wolves can be heard at night. Men gather around bonfires while watching a sky of a thousand stars. And Father Universe, smiling quietly, watches his two lights, that George and that Heather.

Néstor Cristancho
September, 2008

For more information about Northern Light Centre:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/heathersherbs/

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