Click on any picture for a larger view.

The Ground-Breaking ceremony in the courtyard at Seton Castle.

Aaron Stern, Christa Coggins-Franklin, Julie Seton and her husband, Robert Sanderson.

Eiji and Sakae Fujiwara inside Seton Castle.

Addressing the North.

Supplicating Father Sky.

Sanchi Reta Lawler and Aaron Stern light the candle.

Rachel Franklin, great great-granddaughter of Seton, and Brian Lewis, a resident of Seton Village, break ground.

The Centipede Circle.

Wolf Corp: (from left to right) Lou Abbott, Mike Montoya, Peter Handler, John Wolf.

Photographs courtesy of Phil Space. With our deepest gratitude and love to you.

Seton Castle Restoration Ground-Breaking Ceremony

January 21, 2005

On Friday February 21, to commemorate the formal start of the restoration of Seton Castle, we held a Ground-Breaking Ceremony at the Castle. Over 70 people attended, including Julie Seton, Ernest Thompson Seton’s granddaughter, Christa Coggins-Franklin, Seton’s great granddaughter, and her daughter, Rachel Franklin, Seton’s great great-granddaughter. We were also honored to welcome back to Seton Castle Eiji Fujiwara, translator of many of Seton’s books into Japanese and the director of the Institute of Environmental Science and Ecology in Japan and his wife, Sakae, the director of the Elsa Nature Conservancy. And there were of course many friends, colleagues and supporters from around the United States and the Santa Fe community.

Aaron Stern introduced the Academy and the Seton Castle restoration project and thanked the many people who have helped us reach this point. He spoke of the true meaning of the word ‘restoration’ as healing, and how he understands Seton’s work to have been about the healing of the environment and humankind’s relationship to nature. And, he described the deep alignment of Seton’s work with the work of the Academy, which is about the healing and making whole of the individual, our education, culture and community.

We were then privileged to hear some words written especially for the occasion by Dee Seton-Barber, Seton’s youngest daughter and the previous owner of the Castle, who, along with her husband, Dale Barber, did so much over the years to shepherd and preserve the Castle and Seton’s legacy.

Julie Seton then spoke of her memories of the Castle and how glad she is that the Academy has taken on the task of restoring it and continuing to use it as a home of education and learning.

We heard from now Santa Fe resident Christa Coggins-Franklin on her appreciation of the Academy and how much, through this project, she has enjoyed meeting and getting to know her relative from the other side of the Seton clan, Julie Seton! We heard from Eiji Fujiwara about his work in Japan spreading Seton’s “Spirit”. And we heard from Beverley Spears, Kate Leriche and Jonathan Chamblin, the architects who have done so much intensive work over the past year in the design process. Finally, John Wolf, the founder of Wolf Corp, who will be carrying out the renovation, spoke of the great honor he feels that his company has been given the opportunity to do this work.

Sanchi Reta Lawler, an associate of the Academy and a teacher of meditation in the Zen Buddhist tradition who has studied with mystics, shamans and spiritual teachers in Peru, India and Nepal, then led an extraordinary ceremony of dedication, in which the staff of the Academy addressed and asked for the help and blessing of the four directions, Mother Earth, Father Sky and the Sacred Heart of Humanity. We then symbolically cleared our way of the potential obstacles ahead through the purification of fire.

Rachel Franklin and Brian Lewis, a young resident of Seton Village, officially broke ground and then each person came forward to place ritually a flower upon the ground as a collective blessing for the work ahead. We then all took part in a “Centipede circle”, gently bringing the ground to life with many soft steps. As John Wolf put it, it was a true “ground awakening”. At that point the clouds that had until then been keeping us all shivering finally broke and the sun shone through, blessing us with warmth and light and the promise of future success as we work to restore the Castle and Seton’s legacy and further the work of the Academy.

The afternoon was a deeply touching experience for all, a beautiful and auspicious launch to the restoration of the Castle.

We would like to thank all of you who attended the ceremony and the many others who sent us good wishes and congratulations from around the world.

 

Ground Breaking Ceremony Speeches

Please click on the individual names to read the speeches that were given.

• Aaron Stern

• Dee Seton-Barber

• Christa Coggins-Franklin

• Eiji Fujiwara

• Beverly Spears

• John Wolf