Pegasus Ranch is home to Virginia and John and our leadership and coaching practice the Center. The ranch consists of 14.5 acres on bucolic South Whidbey Island surrounded by the Salish Sea and located about thirty miles north of Seattle. We share our home with our beloved horse Gunnar, 3 cats (Sammy, Franklin and Piper), 9 chickens, 2 honeybee hives, numerous deer, fruit trees, countless hummingbirds, a boisterous pack of coyotes, a breeding pair of Great Horned Owls, a covey of quail, and a population of wild rabbits that ebbs and flows depending on the hunting habits of the resident owls and red-tailed hawks.
Pegasus Ranch is the culmination of a dream that had been unfolding for us over several years. For about a decade Virginia had periodically described in her journal her dream of living on a ranch and having her horse (which she then kept at a boarding barn miles away) in the back field. After returning from guiding a Leadership Journey to Patagonia, and having watched Virginia work her magic through her Coaching With Horses sessions, John put a stake in the ground: "It's time, lets do this!" That started the process of finding our new home. We considered alternatives as far away as New Hampshire and Colorado, but found ourselves wooed by the land and people of Whidbey Island. Each trip to the island to find our home resulted in synchronous connections to longtime residents, many of whom have since become friends and allies. One of these connections led us to our future home, which we recognized instantly as we drove in the driveway for the first time - love at first sight!
We have now been on this land for 10+ years. We have built out the barn with horse stalls, added a 60' covered round pen, put in a track paddock (a state of the art facility that has the horses moving on the land in natural and healthy ways), built a loafing shed for the horses, added a 25 Kw solar array on our perfectly south facing rooves, and made other improvements. We are learning how to build sheds, fix tractors, mend fences, tend fruit trees, fell and split trees, build trails, fertilize pastures, and much more. John is now leaning into the joys and challenges of fine woodworking. It is our joy and passion to balance our coaching and leadership practice with our stewardship of this land and its creatures. We are here to care for this place while allowing the place to heal, educate and nourish our minds, bodies and souls.
To learn a little more about us you can read our bios at: thecenter.us/bios.
Scroll down the page to see more slideshows and videos of life on the ranch and our adventures away from home.
Star trails over Gannet Peak, Wind River Range, WY.
On the Night
[blog by Virginia, images by John]
I am awakening to the power and magic in the Night.
To be awake at a time when I am “supposed” to be asleep is an Awakening.
False Beliefs arise unbidden at the thought of staying up “too late” or waking up “too early”.
They are – I’ll not get enough sleep and then I will not be able to get it together for work, the bags and dark circles under my eyes will become permanent, I’ll get sick, this will become a habit and I’ll never be able to sleep, sleeping through the night is the goal, et cetera.
But Magic is happening in the middle of the Night.
And the more I happen upon it, the more I want of it.
Evening conversation, deep in the Amazon rainforest, Ecuador.
What if the goal is not to sleep through, but to be awake to the magic and the mystery.
Drinking wayusa tea with the indigenous Achuar of the Amazon rainforest at 3am, every morning. We from the north are a bit freaked out the night before when we learn we will be getting up this early. And it turns our northern way of being upside down – to start the day by sitting around the fire, being together, before any chores, any meal prep, any make-up.
Taking a 4am anchor watch aboard the tall ship Adventuress and noticing the phosphorescence lighting up with each ripple in the dark harbor water. That we unexpectedly dragged anchor an hour later and needed to urgently pull up and reset it in pitch darkness – awakened all of us to the beauty, power and response-ability of a life on board.
Star trails over tent, Owl Canyon, Utah.
Driving down Interstate 89 in New Hampshire at 3:45a just a handful of hours after a toast to classmates and a few hours until my flight out of Logan… fog thick as soup and not a single other driver on the road, the only measure of distance being covered was the crackle on the radio becoming a clearer and clearer signal as I neared the Massachusetts border. Liane Hansen’s familiar voice accompanies the red-dawn in the east and I pull into the Budget car return as if arriving from a rite of passage.
And then just this very morning I awake in darkness to an unfamiliar sound… a tiny voice – is it a squeek from one of the kittens in the other room? I hear it again and then I am very awake. It changes from a squeek to a call – could it be a coyote? The call shifts from the north and now it comes from the east. I extricate myself from the bed, careful not to dislodge Linus who is an orange ball of cat curled up between my knees, and pad slowly out to the main room. Of course there is my husband all cozy with tea and the fire crackling (I am disoriented by this and ask, is it late at night or early morning?). The call comes from the trees, a bird unseen but heard clearly. Someone new to our neighborhood announcing his presence.
I am awakening to the power and magic in the Night.
All One.
Join me on a 1000 mile bike ride — to celebrate my 50th birthday — from Whidbey Island, WA to Jackson Hole, WY.
Highlights of mountain biking in Moab, UT.
Slideshow highlighting a 3 day / 2 night "offshore" retreat for the leadership team at Hornall Anderson Design Works.