Peace Eco-Tour

"BE IN JOY!
Dare to laugh, smile, and be happy. Take a trip. Face your fears. Swim with the dolphins. Jump off a cliff. Ride in a red convertible. Drink kava-kava with friends. Eat sushi and ice-cream. Laugh with a roommate. Walk through the village. Wear a fragrant lei. Take a drive in the country. See the Valley of the Kings. Enter the Peace Garden. Walk a labyrinth. Talk to a parrot. Sit in community and in joy. Bring Heaven to Earth!" Linda Kay Burk

Our Peace Eco-Tour is an integration of peace classes, diverse workshops, nature hikes, art & music performances, cultural sites, community dialogue and discussion, and community service projects.

In this unique vacation, you will experience connections to local culture, nature, and the healing spirit within. Ecotourism activities include: hiking to waterfalls, horseback riding, visiting Mayan sites, and observing wildlife. At sacred sites, such as a Mayan Temple, we include guided meditations and metaphysical connections with these indigenous peoples and their ancient knowledge. Peace activiites include: role playing, skits, drawing, music, art, journaling, research, group discussions, World Cafés, Open Space Technology, labyrinth walks, and creating and telling your own stories.

Classes weave concepts of peace relating to its practicality, wisdom, spirit, principles, tools, history, and realization. Activities are indoors and outdoors, with community members, traveler groups, and on your own. Spend one to ten days working side by side with host community residents in a community service project and/or building The Peace Path between designated places of peace.

Come join us for a 6-day to 21-day Peace Eco-Tour vacation in Belize, Madagascar, South Africa, Costa Rica, USA, and other places around the World!

Morning Prayer/meditation

AM: Peace tools; PM: Begin peace projects:
a) With local youth: in schools, in the arts, in nature
b) Personal and/or Community
c) Service project in community (assist community in doing something they want)
d) Building The Peace Path (construct a path between places of peace) - within the local community; between Peace Parks; between world parks & protected areas; between sacred sites - creating Roads of Peace around the world

Morning Prayer/meditation

Reflection: a) Imagine a world at peace! Create a story, with art, writing, dance, etc., illustrating a world at peace - Envision it!
b) Home community project - What are you going to do differently when you get home? How are you going to take this back and make peace real?

Afternoon Nature Field Trip and Peace Party!

Explore the Sacred Energies of the Maya at Tikal, Caracol, Che Chem Ha Pottery Cave, and the Panti Rainforest Medicine Trail. Meet a Mayan traditional healer. Tube on the river through a cave. Experience over 7-hours of participatory lectures, meditations, and ceremonies. Work side by side with Belizeans on a Peace Service Project!

Belize is a beautiful country, just south of Mexico and east of Guatemala, on the Caribbean coast. It has the 2nd largest Barrier Reef in the world. Belize is a tropical paradise, with monkeys, birds, jaguars, and amazing reef waterlife. It boasts hundreds of limestone caves - including the longest in Central America. It is also rich with Mayan archeological sites, nestled in the jungles near rural Mayan communities living much as they did a thousand years ago. The official language of Belize is English. We will work with Belizean NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and community leaders to do a half-day Peace Service Project with residents near San Ignacio, a town located on the western boarder of Belize near Guatemala.

This 6-day trip will concentrate on experiencing peace through the ancient wisdom of the Maya. We will be staying at the Maya Mountain Lodge, in beautiful, private, air-conditioned cabins. A swimming pool, conference area, and open-air dining hall are all surrounded by lush, colorful, tropical vegetation. This retreat includes all lodging, meals, tours & guide fees, in-country transportation, service project, and over 7-hours of seminar lectures, meditations, and ceremonies. APPROXIMATE COST $1500. Airfare to Belize, and tips, not included in package price.

Travel Day: Arrive at Belize City's international airport in the early afternoon, and meet up with your group! Dr. Lash will guide you to our van/bus for the 2-hr. drive to San Ignacio and Maya Mountain Lodge. Check into your cabin, walk around the hotel and its tropical flowered paths, take a swim in the pool, or rest in your hammock. Dinner in the Lodge's open-air dining room around 6:30pm, and 1-hour Peace introduction class in evening.

We will take an early morning departure to Tikal - located about 2 hours across the border in Guatemala. This site is huge, with hundreds of pyramids - both covered and excavated. Several tall temples can be climbed - giving you the ability to look out over the vast green jungle below. We will do a meditation here calling in your Mayan spirit guides, and will explore some of the living quarters to connect with ancient residents. Chants will be sung. See the sacred carvings, and learn some of the Mayan cosmology built into the stones. Take the opportunity to buy Guatemalan crafts on the drive back to Maya Mountain Lodge. Return just before dinner.

This morning, meet the community and participate in a 1/2-day service project, working together with our Belizean colleagues. Each trip has a unique service project -perhaps helping the Georgeville Library by building shelves and organizing books, or assisting The Cornerstone Foundation with children's classes in Virtues training - whatever is needed at the time of our visit. After lunch, we travel to meet with a Belizean traditional healer, and walk the Panti Rainforest Medicine Trail. Evening 1-hour Peace class at Lodge.

We will take an early morning departure to Caracol, largest Mayan archeological site in Belize. Visit the newly excavated site that conquered Tikal in 7th century AD. Primary forest surrounds this incredible ancient city. We will climb up part way on the main pyramid - it has very wide steps, and is easy to scale - to the first platform and do a guided meditation here, connecting to the balanced male and female energies of the site. Picnic lunch at the end of the tour; small gift shop is available for sourvenirs. Return in late afternoon to relax. After dinner, 1-hour Peace class in evening.

Visit the Pottery Cave at Che Chem Ha, locally owned by a Mayan shaman. Surrounded by the Vaca Forest Reserve this incredible cave has huge intact pots on the ledges of the path leading to an ancient ceremonial chamber. Walk a quarter of a mile into the mountain, with tall ceilings and beautiful cool corridors. Near the end, we will duck under a 4-ft. ceiling to re-emerge into a tall space, climb down a ladder to a huge, sacred chamber with an ancient alter of stone and standing stella. We will do a sacred ceremony and meditation inside the chamber, honoring the spirits of the cave, and receiving wisdom from them to use on our own journey forward. After a delicious lunch (made by the property owners), we will return to the Lodge and have a 2-hour Peace class, reflecting on our cave experience, journaling personal insights, and participating in group discussion. Evening 1-hour wrap-up Peace class.

Travel Day: We will leave Maya Mountain Lodge in the morning and be transported back by van to the international airport or Belize City Hotel. On the way, there is an opportunity to have one last group lunch by the Belize City Marina, if so desired. Craft shopping is also available on the way and in Belize City if time permits. For those with later flights, you might wish to spend a couple of hours at the Belize Zoo (extra cost) on your way to the airport!

Sat/Sunday Reef Day: On Saturday, leave Maya Mountain Lodge by 8am and arrive at Belize City Marina to take a water taxi from Belize City to Caye Caulker, and snorkel for 3 hours in the afternoon! Spend Saturday night on the small tropical caye (island) - eat, shop, and walk the sandy streets! On Sunday morning, take the water taxi back to Belize City, and then a car taxi to the international Airport. Fond memories of Belize will follow you back home!

Sacred Sites around the world hold great energy and power of ancient wisdom from stories of the past. Many of these sites are connected to First Nations, and these indigenous teachings hold keys for humanity on how to wake up and find the peace that we are seeking.

Nature itself has complex information to give us in its Golden Mean growth patterns and ley lines of energy around the planet. These vortexes of Earth energy can be felt, examined, and incorporated into our DNA and our life actions, aligning our bodies with the planet and its vibration.

These sacred sites also contain places of wonder and beauty, and open the heart to inspiration and a flow of love and light. Walking through a light-filled canyon, or a gleaming-wet stalagtite-rich cave, can give the breath pause and make the spirit soar.

A Peace Eco-Tour to a sacred site opens all kinds of possibilities for people to become one with the wisdom, wonder, and beauty of these natural and cultural elements. Come join us!