Retreat Center Update

Zip Dobyns

As of mid-September, 1990, we have not yet sold our church buildings which are near the airport in Los Angeles, so the purchase of the 13 acres for our Center south of San Diego is on hold. Real Estate is currently slow, though not threatened in the same way in southern California that it is in much of the country. From a variety of relevant horoscopes, I think the sale may come through in the latter part of November or in December this year. In the meantime, to get started on the small seminars which I expect to have later in the new Retreat Center, I have scheduled three to be held in our Los Angeles Center during the balance of this year. If any of our readers are interested or know someone who might be interested, please phone or write.

The tentative dates are October 28 to November 3, 1990, November 18 to 24, 1990, and December 26, 1990 to January 1, 1991. The timing will be similar for all the seminars. The first date is the arrival day and the final date is the departure day. There will be five full days of classes plus one extra evening, starting on the first evening and ending with the evening before the departure date. The schedule Maritha and I have followed in our Intensives in Montana includes daily sessions from 9:30 A.M. to noon, from 1:30 to 4 P.M., and from 7:30 to 10 P.M. I am asking $500 for each seminar, which will cover everything: room, food, classes, and transportation to and from the airport if that is needed. The L.A. center is lovely, even though it is in the middle of the city. There is a Jacuzzi, a sauna, a completely equipped exercise room, an organ if we have any musicians in the group, a full sized pool table, and a library full of books. Attendance will be limited to five or six live-in students. Additional local individuals who provide their own food and lodging can attend for $250.

Topics to be covered will partly depend on the people who come. I would prefer to start the first seminar in October with intermediate to advanced students, and to devote much of the time to working with horoscopes, answering questions on general astrological principles as they are called for in the discussions of the charts. Depending on what kind of response we get, either the November or the December seminar could be designed more for beginners with more formal lectures on basic principles. I would like to have one seminar just for psychotherapists or at least for individuals with some background in psychology, but it may take more time to get that together.

One format which I have considered would limit the group to five people and each person would have one full day on which he or she chooses the subject matter. An individual might want to spend the day working on the horoscopes of all their family members. Others might want to devote their day to mundane astrology (figuring out the world), or to asteroids, or to rectifying the charts of relatives for whom they have no birth time. All of the group would be working together for the five days, but each person would determine the subject matter for one of the days.

Please tell your friends about the plans, and phone or write if you are interested in coming. Since space will be very limited and since this issue of The Mutable Dilemma will not be going out until early October, it would probably be best to telephone (213) 487-1000.

We appreciate the donations which have been sent in by some of our subscribers in the past, and I have decided to make a formal request for donations for the purchase and equipment of the new center. The appeal is directed only at readers for whom it would not be a hardship, and I want to offer something in exchange. We are finally going to increase the requested donation for The Mutable Dilemma to $16 a year, starting in January 1991. Anyone who wishes can extend their subscription at the old amount of $12 until the end of the year. (Foreign rates are higher due to the higher cost of postage.) Everyone who sends in a donation designated for the “Retreat Center” will receive a “thank-you note” acknowledging the amount of the gift. Thank-yous can be saved and exchanged for a variety of church offerings: A thank-you for $16 or more can extend your own subscription to The Mutable Dilemma or give it as a gift to a friend. $25 can be traded for either one night’s lodging or one day’s meals at a seminar, whether in Los Angeles or at the new Retreat Center when we get it. A $50 thank-you can be exchanged for one day’s class at a seminar, or for a personal horoscope interpretation by Zip Dobyns for yourself or for a friend, or for two hours of private tutoring in astrology by Zip.

If any of our readers operate with a level of wealth to consider a sizable loan towards the purchase of the new Center, please contact me. “Sizable” means $50,000 to $150,000. We need the latter figure to pay the difference between the purchase price and an assumable mortgage. The money could be repaid as soon as the L.A. church property is sold, and we could pay 10% interest until that happens. Of course, straight donations in any amount are always welcome and they are tax deductible for those in the proper tax brackets.

Once our property is sold, we will be doing some building at the new Center. We have to add a large room to the main house for a library, and will have a computer center in one end of the room. We also plan to add another bathroom with a Jacuzzi. I am going to build a yurt for myself and seminar guests. I saw plans and some examples of yurts built with wood when I was in Eugene, Oregon in early August. The main room will be circular, 24 feet in diameter, with a skylight in the middle as well as windows around the edge. The bedrooms, bath, and a storage room will extend out around part of the center room and a screened porch will extend out around another part. I’m going to have the kitchen fixtures along a small part of the inner wall of the main room, and also a fireplace and a couch or two, but the whole center of the room will be open for seminars or other activities. The outer walls, windows, floor and roof come prefabricated, and the yurt company says that once the foundation is done, the outer part can be put together in a weekend. Then you finish the interior paneling and the bathroom and kitchen fixtures at your leisure.

I hope that many of our readers will be able to visit us in the new Center. I’m really looking forward to being back in the country again, at least for much of the time when I’m not traveling. Send us some positive thoughts that the L.A. property will sell soon so we can start on the new construction in the new place. For the moment, I’m calling it Dodona like the psychic center in Greece which was noted for its oak trees. And thank you for any donations you are able to give toward our Dodona.

Copyright © 1990 Los Angeles Community Church of Religious Science, Inc.

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