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Ecological paradise meets spiritual oasis at Prairiewoods

A bridge spans a small marsh which operates as a natural cleaning system for runoff from the spirituality center's parking lot.

The evening sun paints the prairie with coppery brush strokes and trees a rich auburn. A doe standing on the wood-chipped path ahead pauses and lifts her head, nosing the air. A small fox darts into a hollowed-out tree, just a flash of thick, red tail. As the Earth tucks the blanket of night about herself, time slows and becomes almost tangible here. You are at Prairiewoods Spirituality Center in Hiawatha, Iowa, a spiritual ministry of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.

Set among 70 acres of both prairie land and woods, Prairiewoods is a sacred space where ecology and spirituality meet. Thousands of people come to Prairiewoods every year seeking spiritual growth, space for reflection, solitude for discernment or quality meeting space. More than 200 people come to the spirituality center each month to receive services that promote holistic health, healing and spiritual well-being.

But this space is more than a spiritual oasis; it’s a haven of ecospirituality, where decisions about business operations are considered according to their impact on the earth. The reverence for nature is so ingrained that the choices made are matter-of-fact: cloth napkins and real dishes are used to lessen waste production, water in the guest house is warmed by solar power, runoff from the parking lots on the property is scrubbed clean through a small marsh, low-volume toilets conserve water. From insulation and construction of buildings to maintenance, heating and lighting, even the smallest decisions are made under a philosophy of ecological responsibility.

For a decade now, Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM, has made the drive from Dubuque, Iowa, to Hiawatha at least once a month for spiritual direction and retreats. She says she recently realized that nearly every significant experience of God in her life has happened at Prairiewoods. “I do believe that being here with the beauty of nature has made me much more aware of the diverse ways that God is present,” she says.

Sister Mary Ann says she’s aware of the FSPA charism of perpetual adoration, and though it can mean kneeling in front of the Blessed Sacrament 24-hours-a-day, places like Prairiewoods broaden the definition. “I really love the fact that FSPA have opened up that concept of perpetual adoration to include finding God everywhere and acknowledging and honoring the presence of God everywhere. These spirituality centers are a magnificent way for the FSPA to be faithful to that charism and open it up in a very contemporary way.”

Sheila Rouse heard about Prairiewoods several years ago, when she was going through spiritual direction in Des Moines, where she currently lives. “The more I found out about the fact that they are living sustainably and in cooperation with the environment, that they practice and invite a whole range of spiritual experiences, not just biblical, and that they also witness and affirm God’s presence in all things, the more interested I became,” she says. “They live their experienced spirit through care of the environment. And I find that so refreshing and so affirming and whole.”

Now a regular visitor to the spirituality center for six years, Rouse says Prairiewoods feels like home. “From a feminine perspective, I would say that they’re just really affirming of the feminine aspects of God.”

Prairiewoods offers regular programming for day and evening visitors, meeting rooms for groups and space for overnight guests. The guesthouse has 20 rooms and two environmentally-friendly hermitages flank the woods. A labyrinth, a library and walking trails round out the offerings. Cloaked in quiet and nestled among indigenous plants and animals, visitors can find peacefulness so rarely available in everyday life.

“It’s a sacred place where people can come to be quiet for their inner souls,” says Helen Elsbernd, FSPA, director of Prairiewoods. “It’s sort of an oasis where they can get in touch with who they are and the world around them. It’s a place where they can energize their inner being.”

Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM, enjoys walking the trails at Prairiewoods as well as quiet time to sit and reflect while surrounded by nature.

Betty Daugherty, FSPA, is one of the foundresses of Prairiewoods. In the 1990s, when the project was just in the planning stages, the original planning group envisioned an ecological retreat center. “The land is such a gift. I think that’s one of the treasures we’re not always aware of. To open this land to allow people to walk on it, to come into the woods, to experience the life of the woods, I think that was part of what we wanted to do,” she says. Today the spirituality center is bigger and more vital than she’d originally thought possible, yet the center remains true to the sisters’ original intent. “When people come here, they often say when they drive in they feel this sense of being in a place apart, in a safe place and a holy place.”

However, being in this place apart doesn’t mean escaping life’s troubles, explains Sister Mary Ann. “This place isn’t disconnected from the reality of life, whether it be the war in Iraq or the challenges in our church or what I experience in my daily life in leadership (with the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary) or in my family. But somehow it centers me so that I can be in those places as a peaceful presence.”

While Prairiewoods is Catholic in its founding tradition, visitors will notice a purposeful openness to people of other spiritualities and religious traditions. “It’s a place that welcomes everyone regardless of religion, and it’s a place in which people can find out more about their relationship with God, earth, self and others,” says Sister Betty, paraphrasing the mission statement of the center.

That’s just one of the aspects Rouse appreciates about the spirituality center.

“They are really open to so much whether it’s Native American spirituality or Buddhist spirituality, spirituality expressed and experienced through art, the body—as in yoga—or the seasons,” she says.

Sister Nancy Hoffman is also one of the foundresses and a staff person at Prairiewoods. She, along with Mary Ellen Dunford and several adjunct therapists, offers a variety of holistic treatments to clients, including healing touch, Reiki, massage and reflexology. “The aim is to bring someone to integrate their mind, body, spirit,” she explains. “As a therapist, I’m there just to facilitate that, and the main work of it goes on between the person receiving the massage and God.” To facilitate that connection, Sister Nancy starts and ends every session with a prayer, personalized to the client’s spiritual practices.

Sister Mary Ann and Rouse also regularly take advantage of the body treatments offered at Prairiewoods. “I love the embodiedness of it all,” says Sister Mary Ann.

“The fact that healing touch and Reiki and massage therapy—all of it is available in this space which is so earthy. So, I have this sense that when I’m here my body is connected with that earth.”

Prairiewoods Spirituality Center, where woodland meets prairie, where ecology meets spirituality, where “a place apart” becomes a place peacefully connected with the world, is a sanctuary in high demand. Last year more than 2500 people participated in programming at the center, staff held 1200 spiritual direction sessions and the center housed nearly 2500 overnight guests. Sister Helen says it’s the dedication of the employees and volunteers that makes it possible, both of whom are called upon to work evenings and weekends. “It takes special people to staff a place like this because every day is so different. You never know what you’re going to have from one day to the next. They have the flexibility to meet people where they’re at, to respond to situations as they come along.”

Staff member Sister Nancy Hoffman offers a variety of holistic therapies, including massage, to help reconnect the mind, body and spirit of Prairiewoods' visitors.

The hard work of the volunteers (who give an average of 250 hours of work per month) and the staff of Prairiewoods pays off in its broad appeal. The center draws visitors from all over Iowa, as well as Wisconsin and beyond. Sister Betty says much of the center’s unique appeal rests in its ecological practices. “I like to see us as part of a really large movement that there is something going on across all of the world, that is an increased awareness that we really need to change the way we live to save the planet. Consciousness is changing and people are changing.”

The experience of Prairiewoods is as individual as the people who find comfort within her embrace. Whether deepening your spirituality is your quest, reconnecting your mind, body and spirit or centering yourself with solitude and contemplation amidst Iowa’s natural beauty, Prairiewoods Spirituality Center offers many paths toward your journey’s resolution.

“Whatever you might need, if you come into this place and wait for it, it will come. Come in, be receptive, walk, sit, read, play music, do whatever you feel drawn to do and whatever you need will be given to you,” says Sister Mary Ann. “And prepare to be surprised, because what you think you need might not be what you find you really needed that is given.”

For more information about Prairiewoods Spirituality Center, log on to www.prairiewoods.org, or call 319-395-6700.

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