Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 8, 1995 TAG: 9502080041
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Bratton and Maurelli also are among a number of people who, they say, are noticing changes in familiar systems, such as jobs and careers and medical, cultural and educational organizations.
Bratton and Maurelli maintain that all things happen at the right time, which probably explains "the happening" of the Lifestream Center, which they co-founded last August. The nonprofit learning center's main missions are to help people find peace, harmony and love, handle changes and have a little fun in the process.
"We're both very intuitive. We don't try to manipulate and make things happen, but we attract what's needed," board president, instructor and ordained minister Bratton said.
A shared vision of organizing an alternative health and healing center initially attracted the partners to each other when they met last year. They, in turn, attracted attorney Rick Faulds, who advised them to incorporate their venture and seek tax-exempt status for it. That done, the partners "attracted" the space on Brandon Avenue and moved in last month.
The center's open house on Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. will be the first time it officially invites the community to meet its board members and instructors and become familiar with its educational and participatory opportunities. Maurelli, who is also a noted food columnist and cooking instructor, will provide light refreshments for the event.
On Feb. 25 at 6 p.m., the center will hold its first "Fun Night and Potluck," to which community members are invited to bring a favorite dish and a game and join in an informal evening with "no commitments, no fees and no processing," Bratton said.
"The center is a form of spiritual community where people can come and feel safe to explore new ideas and experiences," Bratton explained.
"It's just a nice place, outside of a church setting, where people can learn more about who they are, why they're here and how they can improve the quality of their lives."
Program director and treasurer Maurelli added, "It's a safe space for teachers, as well - a place where they can be legitimate in a neutral territory. It's not in somebody's house or a back room, it's not a hospital; it's not imbued with somebody else's agenda, and it's not a clinical kind of setting."
During a recent interview, the partners sat across from each other at a fold-out buffet table in the combination "body work/conference room." Housed in the upper half of a duplex leased from the Unitarian Universalist Church in Roanoke, the center has several multi-use rooms within its less-than-l ,000-foot confines.
Its "reading room/restroom," and a bimonthy newsletter, which Maurelli edits, are filled with business cards, advertisements and literature offering services of practitioners of hypnosis, touch, chiropractic, rolfing, reiki, cranio-sacral, massage and other therapies.
Within the center, or sometimes in the small sanctuary of the church, which is right down the street, classes in yoga, T'ai Chi, homeopathy and creative painting are held.
In the center's two classrooms, people can join discussion groups based on books such as "Motherless Daughters," "The Celestine Prophecy," "Mutant Message Down Under" and "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway!"
The center is a site for workshops on grief and healing. Groups form there to confront issues such as authority or food and dieting. At new and full moons, guided group meditations are held there.
"Certainly, there are screenings involved," Maurelli said of the center's facilitators and practitioners.
"As directors, we need to feel that teachers have integrity and are capable of teaching what they say they will teach. We interview them, look at their backgrounds, what classes they've taken and where they've had their training or experience.
``And some of it is the feeling that you get from a person."
She said that paid advertisers - who along with contributions, instructors' space fees and fund-raising events provide the bulk of revenues - are not necessarily endorsed by the center.
"We don't draw skeptics," Bratton said of the people who frequent the center. "The people who come here are reaching for community - to find others like themselves."
While it's too soon to have any numbers or profiles, she guessed that most were between ages 30 and 50, though some have been in their 7Os and 80s.
The women agreed that they'd like to reach more younger and older people. They said they also hope to expand their resources network and toward that end are holding monthly healers'/facilitators' breakfasts and compiling a directory of holistic practitioners.
They said that among the center's most popular offerings, men form a large part of Bratton's Monday night "Healing Circle" groups. Men also were abundant at the Monday Night Supper Club buffets that Maurelli produced throughout 1994 and will periodically offer this year. Women are usually in the majority for the T'ai Chi and most other classes and groups.
Expanding on the role of the center, Maurelli recalled that when it first opened, a street person became disgruntled when told that the center couldn't provide him with a winter coat.
"And we don't hand out meals or pay people's utility bills or rent or things of that nature," Maurelli said. "But aside from that one incident, overall we're not hearing any negatives."
In fact, she noted, the newsletter's mailing list has grown from 400 people in August '94 to more than 1,000 in January, an expansion which she attributed in part to the general population's increasing interest in alternative therapies.
"People should know that this applies to them," Maurelli said. "If they take the initiative and that first step, they can improve their lives."
Lifestream Center
2028 Brandon Ave., Roanoke
344-3031
by CNB