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these creative intelligent people
who move beyond disease, war and
poverty. I really believe that.”
LIVING THE VISION
Katherine founded Seventh
Generation Community Projects
(www.seventhgenerastion.ca) a decade
ago in an effort to promote sustainable
living practices. David Suzuki was
the keynote speaker at the organization’s
first conference, held at Irish
Hills Golf and Country Club. She also
founded the Carp Ridge School (1997
to 2001), whose educational premise
was supporting and facilitating who
children are.
Katherine, 50, grew up on a farm
north of Toronto, in a family of medical
and naturopathic doctors. Her
parents were role models for giving
back to the community, and
Katherine has inherited their strong
sense of social responsibility.
“They were forward-thinking in
terms of the environment, the economy
and social factors,” she says.
“Because I saw such profound results
from the naturopathy, it led to the
dream of not just being a doctor, but
also creating this centre where people
can learn… and where people
can come and gather with other likeminded
people. Since I was a teenager,
I’ve wanted to do this.”
Welcoming others into her life
and offering them the opportunity to
participate, learn and grow is
Katherine’s life’s work. She recognizes
that community is important to healing.
And she builds community shamelessly
by innovating and inspiring.
“Katherine is good-hearted and
community-minded,” says friend
Cindy Fleming. “More than anyone
else I have ever known, she lives true
to what she believes in.”
A month in an ashram in India,
with her ex-husband and two daughters
in 1997, inspired her and solidified
her belief in the beauty of community.
“We all stayed in a little room.
They had an orphanage, a school and
a free clinic. I worked in the clinic,”
she explains. “Jason volunteered with
the men. It was a big inspiration for
getting this place sooner because I saw
the levels of corruption in India and
what they had to do to get that amazing
place. It transformed the whole
community of poverty.”
TURNING VISION
INTO REALITY
Katherine’s Carp Ridge Ecowellness
Centre (www.ecowellness.com) is an
impressive facility situated on a breathtaking
61 hectares (190 acres) in rural
west Ottawa. Here, health and the environment
are one; education and healing
are vital.
The Natural Health Centre is
command central for numerous
health care practitioners: naturopathic
doctors, massage and cranial sacral
therapists, an osteopath, yoga teacher
and Reiki master.
The Learning Centre is an educational
facility for all ages whose
main focus is promoting wellness
concepts, alternative education topics
and skills for living in harmony
with the environment. Courses
offered at the centre have included
healing circles, drum-making, yoga,
summer camps, organizational AGMs
and group facilitations, permaculture,
straw bale construction, solar
energy and New Medicine.
Katherine lives in a renovated
house on the property, drives a car
fuelled by bio-diesel that she refills
herself, hosts WOOFERS (Willing
Workers on Organic Farms) in two
straw bale cabins and welcomes individuals
needing to heal into an apartment
on site.
Organic produce is grown here by
volunteers employing bio-intensive
gardening principles.
“You can grow 15 times more vegetables
using this technique than you
can using ordinary gardening,” says
Katherine. “We have work parties
where people come and volunteer.
The food is shared. It all happens
seamlessly. We use it at meals during
the work parties. We use it at the clinic
for community lunches.”
Currently, Katherine is working
with teams of natural health experts
and advocates to develop programs
that promote healthy learning, heal-
Due West Magazine • Page 29 • Fall 2008
ing and work environments.
“We have collected so much
important information through the
clinic about healing on all these different
levels. We want to make this a
training place so we can teach other
professionals what we’ve learned.”
One of the projects Katherine is
most passionate about is a program
that trains individuals (hosts) to operate
their own “healing houses.”
“I have a lot of strong views on
holistic healing. Most people misinterpret
it — they have no idea what it
is,” says Katherine. “Most people
think that holistic healing means
healing using herbs. It is a whole
alternative system of medicine based
on solid principles, with the most
important being that we have a spiritual
nature.”
Healing Houses (www.healinghousecanada.com)
provide a homelike
in-patient place where people can
recover from illness, rest and rejuvenate
or die peacefully. They are a holistic
alternative to a hospital. It is an idea
whose time has come, given Canada’s
rapidly aging population and the
growing demands on an already overworked
hospital system.
“What we decided was to create a
program where we could train people
from all different backgrounds to run
Healing Houses. They will be places
where people are fed with therapeutic
nutrition, which makes a huge difference
in how people can heal; given
simple emotional healing techniques,
which are very profound because they
go to an emotional and spiritual level
rather than just intellectual; use relaxation
and rest, something that has
been neglected in our culture… and
then integrating the information that
we get from Europe on healing more
serious diseases like cancer, like
arthritis, like mental disorders.”
Katherine Willow not only cares
— about her patients, the environment,
youth, society — she is dedicated
to “walking her talk.”
Put simply, “We’re trying to create
a community where people can be
more open with what they are struggling
with instead of always saying
‘How are you? I am fine’.”