MIDDLETON, N.S. — Lisa Fenton has a favourite spot at Rotary Riverside Park in Middleton. It’s a little clearing that you sort of stumble upon. There’s a large rock with a face on it, a flower garden, and a bright red wooden bench that sets the whole thing off.
It’s the town’s new meditation garden nestled in the tall grass, shrubs, and trees. At nighttime deer bed down in the grass just metres away. But it’s part of something bigger. Fenton is Middleton’s active living coordinator and with lots of help has developed the Heart and Mind Wellness Path, a yoga nature path and meditation garden that officially opened Sept. 25.
“This came about through a conversation with Kate Powell who is our afterschool program leader who does our yoga and our Explore More program,” Fenton said at the path entrance. They had heard about a provincial Walkability Grant through Recreation Nova Scotia and Powell thought it would be kind of neat to have a program where you could do yoga out in nature.
“We didn’t know what that would look like, so we kind of explored it a little bit and we applied for a grant and we got $1,500,” Fenton said.
YOGA PATH
The project consists of 10 yoga signs along a path, the meditation garden, plus three carved stones by Kings County artist Brent Reeve. There are four other carved stones throughout the town to encourage people to be active and walk and visit them. Fenton said she sees the project continuing to grow over the years.
A few yoga students were at the opening, but it was wet and misty, so the yoga mats were left home. Middleton Mayor Sylvester Atkinson helped open the path, and town staff who had worked on the project were also on hand.
“With a lot of thinking and a lot of work from our parks people Karl (Bigelow) and Sue (Palmer), our public works people pulled through,” Fenton said. “We were able to get the park back together again after Dorian hit, and we were able to find an amazing local artist.”
The 10 signs are spaced along the path with room for an individual or whole class to practice the pose on the sign by following the printed instructions.
“They’re not meant to be a teacher,” she said of the signs, “so please don’t assume those are going to be a guided yoga program. But they do guide you through a basic yoga pose with an incredible view of (Rotary) Riverside Park, the river.”
MEDITATION
“Also, as you go through the trails, Karl and Sue have made a lovely little meditation garden,” Fenton said. “That’s where you’ll see, in my opinion, one of the coolest rocks, it’s got a face on it. There’s a bench there if you want to sit, bring a book, put your yoga mat down, do some meditation, just relax and enjoy this beautiful spot. There’s a big birch tree there. It’s one of my favourite spots in the park.”
Rotary Riverside Park has about a kilometer of trails, a boat launch, and is much larger than it appears from Bridge Street. The wellness path encourages people to walk and explore more of the park.
“It’s just really a place for our people, our community to go and do a free self-guided yoga nature walk,” Fenton said. “You can do it in the morning when the sun comes up, on your lunch break, on your afternoon break, in the evening.”
Fenton said the town surveyed residents in November and December and people wanted more space, easy places to walk that were free, and that had some guidance, but not a lot of guidance. She said the wellness path fits the bill for what residents wanted and the Walkability Grant criteria.
BRING FRIENDS
“If you want to come out and do this as a group you can bring your friends. If you have a yoga instructor who wants to come and do a class in the park, you can do a class in the park,” Fenton said at the opening. “We’ve invited the schools. We told the school teachers, the yoga instructor at the high school, we sent them an email, told them they could come and bring their classes here. After school programs can come here. It’s a community program. It’s for you people here in the community. We really encourage you to come out and use it, take advantage of it, the view, the weather, the beautiful park that Rotary has put all the work into. This is your park.”
Middleton Family Feed donated posts for signs, and Ivan Trimper Excavation donated the giant stones.
