Intro
The idea that has become Midheaven has its roots 27 years ago during mine and Danielle’s first year together, before my mental issues had fully emerged. It’s been an arduous journey through a tangled, squalid, and lonely landscape from then to now. We found ourselves starting our personal healing journeys in March of 2020, and Midheaven soon began to show new buds in the fall of 2021. Stymied at the time by an almost 18-month dark night of the soul during which Danielle dove into the muck of my mind and pulled me out of the ooze, we can now finally get this off the ground. I have to say that the fact that I’m able to be here to provide an update for this project is — without hyperbole — miraculous.
While the resources we have available to us are scant, we remain inspired to build on a model for sustainable and iterative renovation, and we’re grateful for what we can do with what we have. We’re also grateful for the time and energy to begin this work of transformation and sharing, and we’re especially grateful for the voices of support we’ve received from everyone. Your interest and encouragement mean everything to us as we embark on this transformative quest.
Grown from a rich humus of experience over the course of our lives, our vision is to create a sacred and spiritual center for healing, art, and music located on the 12 acres we call home in Hardwick, Vermont. We are sustainably renovating and resurrecting my family’s 125-year old farm to become a place for anyone in need of the kind of soul-safety, sanctuary, and community that Midheaven can provide through art, music, and spirituality.
We’ve made great progress in a short time, but we’ve been at it alone, and we could do even more with help. If our vision resonates with you, please consider joining hands with us. Whether it’s through friendship, legal/financial advice/assistance, helping us build, or with spare materials, any assistance would mean the world to us. Traveling companions on this new journey are most welcome. Contact us here.
Vision
Our vision is simple and direct: Midheaven is a sacred center for spiritual healing, art, and music in the heart of Vermont.
Mission
To establish a community-accessible center for spiritual healing and foster a profound, pervasive, and persistent connection with the sacred. With a carnivalian spirit of celebration, the transformative and awakening aspects of spirituality, art, and music are intertwined to create a soul-friendly space where people from all walks of life can be at ease, find solace, express themselves freely, and embark or continue on their journey of personal and communal healing. Together, we are building a shared sustainable future where spirituality and the arts thrive, our community is enriched, and we empower each other to lead sustainable, meaningful, and thoughtful lives filled with purpose, creativity, and true inner peace and contentment.
Progress Report
I’ve separated the progress report into four sections: formation (temporary while we establish the organizational structure), finances, facilities (and grounds), and fabrications to reflect the different channels of effort we’re taking on as we get Midheaven off the ground. The report concludes with a summary of current resource needs.
To get a quick overview of financial and facilities activities, you can view a simple diary of our finances here, and a running log of what we’ve been up to.
Formation
Our goal is to register as a 501c(3) organization by spring, 2024. On or after November 12, we will be starting the process of registering as a non-profit in Vermont and following that, we will seek a board of directors, create and approve appropriate bylaws, and seek final approval for non-profit status.
Finances
We follow the same mantra for finances that we do for everything else (including our own healing): incremental and iterative evolution towards our goals. We started our venture financially humble with just a dollar in the Midheaven account and my unemployment income to see the venture through. As we looked around our old farmstead, we saw potential amidst the detritus and wear and tear. On the 7th, we initiated our Perpetual Saturday Sale, not just as a way to fundraise, but as a staging area for clearing out the hen house and garage, and a community conversation hub for people who happened by.
In that first week, we spent about 24 hours working on the hen house and manger and had a few conversations with people curious about our project. We shored up the workshop floor, discovered replacement windows and used them, and replaced boards that had seen better days with material reclaimed from back porch and cellar repairs I did this summer.
The second yard sale on the 14th was received as a reflection of our commitment and it was clear in the community’s positive interest, and curiosity. The rejuvenation of the manger and the hen house, while slow, are labors of love that provide items for the sale and raw materials for other renovations on the property. In preparation for moving into the workshop by December, we built a replacement door out of reclaimed materials.
As we clean out the hen house, the garage is getting cleaned out as well, revealing space for the future studio store and opportunity for more intimate performances and celebrations.
By month’s end, amidst all our hands-on tasks, we were able to make space for introspection. As we prepared our space and started the not-for-profit process, we also set out plans for doing pottery, painting, and printmaking in the colder months and the blossoming spring.
We cashed out the last $2,579.00 from my TIAA 401k and put that into Midheaven’s account and ended up making a few transfers to our household account for utilities (electric, internet, phone), and groceries in the amount of $1,264.00. We earned $93 from Saturday Sale proceeds, and after earning $1.56 interest, we ended the month with a positive balance of $1,388.56 going forward (details here).
Our overall goal is to sustainably diversify our income streams, and we look forward to being entirely self-sufficient financially within 5 years. We plan on meeting that goal in a number of ways. First, by establishing a small homestead operation with sheep, goats, chickens, maple syrup, and a self-supporting garden. Second, we are planning on a small outdoor cannabis field, with plans to expand into a hybrid grow/sale combination within 5 years. The Perpetual Saturday Sale will evolve by next summer into a permanent fixture with more regular hours where art, sculpture, prints, and pottery from our studios will be made available. As time goes on, wool, cheese, and other products from the homesteading will also be available.
Additional passive income for Midheaven will come from workshops and classes both virtual and onsite, royalties from music recorded here and published under our record label, as well as donations from future supporters. As we expand and build out our spiritual retreat capabilities, we also expect a modest income from guests seeking a week or two of sanctuary or quiet studio space in the heart of Vermont. We plan on seeking foundational and community grants for not-for-profits related to our purpose within the next year or two, as well.
Facilities
Midheaven sits in Mackville, a small residential hamlet one mile south of Hardwick village that is home to a number of working artist studios and one of Hardwick’s recreational areas (Mackville Pond). The area was settled in the mid 1800s for granite, wool, and lumber and the pond supplied electric power to Hardwick until the late 1920s.
Our 12-acres here include three main buildings sitting around a central yard: the main house and attached barn (manger and loft) built between 1885-1900, the hen house built circa 1941, and the garage, built sometime around 1930. The buildings and their yard take up about two acres.
The main house will remain our private residence, but we will open guest-accessible areas over time. The manger and loft will be repurposed into an artificer’s workshop and recording/live stream studio, respectively. The hen house will be rejuvenated as a large communal space with a a high-ceiling gathering space for workshops or performances. The garage will be reimagined as Midheaven’s permanent studio store and gallery, and will be used to house more intimate gatherings in colder weather.
The remaining 10 acres are made up of gentle pasture and a small forest of cedar, spruce, hemlock, maple, and birch. There is a 150-year old hilltop sugarbush, an equally old small granite quarry, and space for trails and gardens to wander or sit and find one’s self in. We plan on providing space for meditation, dark retreats, and similar rejuvenating activities throughout the grounds, connected by walking and skiing trails that weave in and out of natural and curated spaces.
We are planning on holding a small First Night celebration here on December 31, 2023/January 1, 2024. Details will be announced as we get closer to the date.
Expect to see more events — performance and participatory — announced this coming spring.
Fabrications
Though we operate from the perspective of a soul-based, sustainable, spiritual, and community-focused mission, Midheaven is ultimately a fine arts and performance studio. As we renovate and rearrange our space, the first art studio capabilities we set up will be for painting and ceramics. Danielle will be re-establishing her painting studio, and we will be opening a very simple ceramics and artificing space (wedging table, drying rack, and a small kiln). Within the next couple of months, we should have paintings and small ceramics for sale and fundraising purposes, and we are hoping to be prepared for the next open studio tours.
Additionally, Danielle and I continue to make use of home-based music recording, production, and video/livestream capabilities which will be expanded and moved to the loft in the future and can be made available for public access. Printmaking and a small maker-space for digital, interactive, and 3d-printed projects will also be established over the next year.
Needs
As noted above, we’ve made great progress here in a very short time. Our goals are ambitious, however, and we know that we could use some help. If our vision of a community-focused and sustainable spiritual center for healing, arts, and music resonates with you, please consider joining our quest.
We have a list of specific needs below, but there may be something we need we’re not aware of and that’s where you come in! Any assistance with skills, knowledge, or materials would mean the world to us. Or if you just dig what we’re doing, we welcome friendly and like-minded companions on this new journey. All such people as described should contact us here.
Volunteers
Midheaven is a massive concept not meant to exist in isolation or between just us, and we could use some help. We are envisioning shared spaces and experiences where everyone can find themselves in an environment of peace, sacred being, art, and music. If what we’re doing here makes sense to you, and if you feel like you might be able to help based on what you’ve read so far, please let us know.
Specifically speaking, we could use help with the following:
- renovation (prying, pulling, levering, stacking, cheering)
- building (measuring, sawing, toting, hammering, celebrating)
- errands (we haven’t been able to replace ouor vehicle after losing ours to the flood this summer)
- electrical (measuring, cutting, wiring, not getting shocked)
- landscape (chansawing, brush-hogging, trail-making, rototilling)
- making a band (we’d like to do gigs for community benefit by mid-spring or early summer. Danielle is a singer and I play guitar/keys/winds and we need more people for covers and eventually our own songs.)
Donations
Donations of materials or funds are always welcome. We will be seeking 501c(3) status within the next year, but are currently not there. Donations are not tax deductible at this time. All material and financial donations go directly to building Midheaven as described above, and will be detailed in the running ledger on the finances page.
We are building entirely with reclaimed and old supplies we’ve had in storage for decades. While we have quite a bit of it available to us, we have already done so much work, and there are some specific items we are in short supply of.
- flooring material (tile, wood, laminate, vinyl)
- 3/8” plywood sheets
- nails and screws
- rough or finished framing lumber (2×4, 2×6, 2×8)
- chainsaw
- small pickup or van (we lost our vehicle in the flood this summer)
If you’re interested in donating supplies, please let us know here.
