These Times

'Take a moment with your stone'

Kirk Ericson | Jan 16, 20250

Courtesy photo count

A portrait of Elspeth Pope, the prime mover behind Hypatia-in-the-Woods.

Kathryn Frey, a resident of Portland, started her presentation at the Shelton library two weeks ago by laying about 20 stones on the table in front of her. The stones were small enough to hold in your palm. She asked the dozen or so people in the audience to come up and grab one.

We fetched a rock and returned to our seats. Kathryn asked us to hold our stone, to feel its weight and dimensions, and a silence fell over the room.

It's helpful to keep one's mind receptive during moments like this, but I spent my silence wondering where this was heading. I worried I was facing an hour that would last way longer than 60 minutes.

All I knew about "writer/artist/dancer" Kathryn Frey at that point was that she had 16 years of classical ballet training and that her art "is rooted in self-inquiry, expression and transformation. Her work combines performance, video, multimedia installation and group facilitation," as she wrote in a news release. "Whether decoding the origins of cultural mythologies or creating site-specific dance improvisations, Kathryn is most interested in the spaces where personal narrative meets broader cultural critique."

This could go either way.

After the stone silence, Kathryn talked about a dear friend of her's whose 15-year-old brother committed suicide in February. She talked about her grief and her friend's grief, a grief so deep and persistent that it weighed on them, and inside them, like stones. Then she read her poem, a meditation on grief and stones, and how grief eventually breaks into smaller and more manageable pieces, as all stones eventually do, and how those pieces of grief eventually become woven into the fabric of one's self.

Her poem, and her delivery, were riveting, and I'm not easily affected by poetry outside of song lyrics. A rare substance welled in my eye sockets. That hour did not drag.

That appearance by Kathryn Frey of Portland happened because of the existence of Elspeth Pope - and the many accomplices she drew to her life. Born in Montreal, Canada, Elspeth Pope and her husband, Jim Holly, created a place for women in Mason County on property that the two of them moved onto in the 1990s.

Hypatia-in-the-Woods has a one-room cottage called Holly House that sits among cedars overlooking Hammersley Inlet. It's a place where women can live in solitude and work on their creations while relatively detached from the demands of modern life.

Hypatia-in-the-Woods is "a retreat for women in the arts, business and academia," according to the group's brochure. The endeavor is all run by about 20 volunteers and relies on donations to pay bills - taxes, insurance, maintenance and utilities.

Elspeth Pope and her husband are no longer alive, but their purpose is. Recent Holly House resident Kathryn Frey is a testament to that.

Holly House started accepting residents in 2007. Here's an entry from the cottage's guest book from those early days: "These two full weeks of writing time have been pure bliss! No distractions, no kids, no bills to pay, no errands to run - just writing," wrote Christine Finlayson of Portland. "I arrived with 25 scenes of my book written and am leaving with 70 scenes- a solid draft all the way to the end."

Last Saturday afternoon, I sat in Holly House's living room with three Hypatia-in-the-Woods board members, Colleen Keoski, Carolyn Maddux and Allen Roth, all of whom are decades-long volunteers in this endeavor. A few preparations were being made for the arrival of the next resident.

The cottage is a stout example of the will and imagination of its prime mover. It's built on a site once occupied by a shed, and Elspeth Pope fronted the $25,000 required to hire a general contractor to complete the initial efforts to construct a structure. Holly House was built with windfall timber. She saw that no trees were cut on the property, board members told me.

Holly House has had about 20 residents per year during its existence. They've come from places near, including Lacey, and far, including Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Thailand, Cuba, the Philippines, Canada and India. The Hypatia board is now reviewing applications for their next roster of residents. Carolyn said they've received 29 applications for six to eight slots.

The story of Hypatia, a woman who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, tells us a lot about Elspeth Pope, herself a woman of considerable accomplishment, including earning a doctorate in library science. Hypatia, a scholar, professor, mathematician and astronomer, was murdered in Alexandria in the year 415 around the age of 60 by "Christian zealots," according to Britannica.com.

"They pulled the elderly teacher from her chariot as she rode through the city and dragged her to a temple," according to Lapham's Quarterly. "She was stripped naked, her skin flayed with jagged pieces of oyster shells, her limbs pulled from her body and paraded through the streets. Her remains were burned in a mockery of pagan sacrifice."

Wouldn't it be wonderful if those long-dead mob members could somehow be aware that Hypatia's legacy was alive today? It would serve them right.

Let's finish on a more encouraging note.

Suzanne Shaw of Lacey had a residency at Holly House in September 2015. She's a writer whose time in Holly House led to the publishing of her book, "Of Ships and Sealing Wax," a historical novel.

"Almost 10 years ago, I took up a short residency at Holly House to work on my first novel," she wrote me in an email. "I remember the experience vividly because it was life-changing. Even though I live less than an hour away, the opportunity to think and write in a peaceful, beautiful space was priceless. I always say that the energy of all the women who have stayed and worked in the cottage is palpable, uplifting. Yet the residency itself is only part of the story. Hypatia-in-the-Woods gives its residents not only time and space, but recognition of who they are and the knowledge that they and their work are valued. The entire organization is thoughtful and steadfast. I am positive that residencies at Holly House have changed many lives."

If you're interested in contributing your time or money to Hypatia-in-the-Woods, email Carolyn Maddux at [email protected].