L'Auberge des Pionniers

04/26/2017

Greetings Everyone!

After 19 years of continuous operation, I'm pleased to announce that L'Auberge des Pionniers has been sold!

The new owners are Nicole and Adrian Grigorov. They have expressed a firm and enthusiastic desire to continue with the cabin rental portion of the business as it currently exists, and are planning numerous changes for future operations.

Please visit their new page at "Mattawa River Resort" for information and announcements.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to everyone for your support and continued patronage over the years, and I wish you success and joy in all of your own future endeavors.

Regards,

Rick Bazzo (and Ann McClure, RIP)
Former Owners of L'Auberge des Pionniers
Mattawa, Ontario, Canada

03/04/2017

Says it all, doesn't it?

I have the same religion as this tree.

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
― John Muir

Pantheism: Everything is Connected, Everything is Divine

www.pantheism.com

01/13/2017

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. -William James, psychologist and philosopher (11 Jan 1842-1910)

12/22/2016

Poetry is everything.

10/05/2016

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: 'My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.' The stranger is a theologian. -Denis Diderot, philosopher (5 Oct 1713-1784)

08/28/2016

“I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god...

To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature.”

― Mikhail Gorbachev

08/24/2016

“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.”
― Alan W. Watts

07/08/2016

"People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within."

-Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and author (8 Jul 1926-2004)

05/06/2016

"We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon, and we've got to get ourselves... back to the garden."
- Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

“You are immortal; you’ve existed for billions of years in different manifestations, because you are Life, and Life cannot die. You are in the trees, the butterflies, the fish, the air, the moon, the sun. Wherever you go, you are there, waiting for yourself.”
― Miguel Ruiz

Celebrating the Divine Unity of Everything...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism

04/23/2016

Happy birthday to our founder, John Muir, who was born on this day in 1838!

03/23/2016

(Posted from Broadview Hts., OH, March 23, 2016)

No chaos... just discerning the patterns in the process.

I've been puzzled recently. Pine cones have appeared mysteriously of late, perched precariously on dead branches in the Norway spruce trees just outside my window. Two of these cones seemingly are balanced unnaturally, one on top of the other. Much to my amazement, in spite of the gusty 40 mph winds we experienced the other day, they somehow managed to remain attached to that tree branch all day long! Then, they just vanished.

So what, you say? They fell off in the wind. Big deal! Yeah, except that the very next morning... eh voila! There they were again. Same pine cones, I can't say? But, same branch, same exact position along that branch, and somehow, balanced judiciously yet once again, one on top of the other. Hmmm?

I'm noticing again this morning that the two cones are still there. A small "red" squirrel scurrying along another branch with a cone in his mouth caught my attention as well. These feisty little guys are newcomers to my treetops. They must have hitched a ride with me last fall from northern Ontario because I've never seen them here before. (I typically see those big fat five pounder "grays", you know, the huge dull ones you can strap a saddle on!) Anyway, I see that the little feisty red is trying to jam the pine cone into the branch. Foiled! The cone drops from his mouth. Undeterred, he immediately scampers to the ground, retrieves the cone and effortlessly scales the tree trunk to the top. This time however, instead of hanging it out there on a dead branch, he buries the cone in a live bough. Hmmm?

Then it hit me... the "aha" moment! These feisty reds have become enlightened enough to defy the nature of pine cones interacting with gravity, thereby, allowing them to surpass the ground dwelling competition from rodents and ruminants alike.

Some evolutionary considerations remain to be resolved though. Has "little red" evolved sufficiently enough to adequately sense that raptor circling the bare branches overhead? And, did that little black-capped chickadeedeedee just find breakfast... buried in that bough?

"Don't live your lives in fear seedlings!" said the raptor, to the reptile, to the ruminant, to the rodent, to little ruby red.
"We are but One... in Spirit!"

- RJB
:)

10/11/2015

Hey, no matter what day yous actually celebrate it on, Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and affiliates. And don't forget the whipped cream! :)

THIS MADE ME SMILE.

Don't like or share until you get the joke!