Back in May, I sent a letter to the Santa Sabina retreat center, where I have spent many beautiful silent weekends resting in stillness. My letter asked them to please find alternatives to the antibacterial soaps and synthetic air fresheners they had recently begun providing for the use of their guests.

A few weeks later, I received a beautiful card and note assuring me that the center had switched to more environmentally-friendly products. This past weekend, during another retreat, I was able to confirm first-hand that not only had they indeed made those specific changes, but were also working on ways to encourage their guests to be more aware of their environmental impact.

Entering the main doors, I encountered this cute little setup next to the water fountain. It’s actually not so hard to fill the bottle right from the fountain, but I guess they felt they’d make it as easy and obvious as possible.

Upstairs in the large linen closet, I found this:

And in the Dining Room was this composting system:

I don’t know why there is a plastic bag in the compost bin. I plan to send a follow-up thank you letter with a few more suggestions, for example that they might use compostable bags in the compost bin rather than plastic.

There were also signs about recycling cans and bottles as well as clearly labeled bins for the purpose. I’m pleased that Santa Sabina is taking its responsibility towards the earth seriously. How rarely do we get such immediate feedback to the letters that we send out?

Here are a few more photos I took this weekend, just because…

The hummingbirds were awesome in the rain. Check out my friend David’s amazing close-up photos. He has a real camera.

https://davidgray.smugmug.com/Hummingbirds/

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