RENSSELAERVILLE — Nestled along Pond Hill Road in Rensselaerville, a large, lush acreage is serving as a temporary home to those wishing to make a break from the busyness of life.

Rachel Ginther, who owns, operates, and lives at The Garden at Thunder Hill, a not-for-profit retreat center, said it is her job to get others to find their abilities and know themselves better.

While on retreat, individuals and groups choose from a host of activities — hiking, reading, swimming, canoeing, fishing, sleeping, and meditating. They have access to an eight-acre lake, and nearly 120 acres of land.
Ginther said Thunder Hill is a place for people to decompress and "let go of all that stuff that’s not who they really are," and to "find that peaceful place within so they have a place to come back to."
Ginther moved to Rensselaerville nearly 10 years ago from Pennsylvania, and into the Pond Hill Road property in 2002. That year marked one of the most treacherous winters in recent memory. She called her first year on Pond Hill Road "challenging." Because she didn’t have a plow, she couldn’t remove the large mounds of snow from her driveway. She didn’t have phone service for two months after moving in.

Ginther said her life is all about trust.
"I came up here with literally nothing. No furniture. I found a property — a place to rent in Medusa — and I didn’t even know how I was going to pay the rent," she said. "I think when you trust it allows you to be open to more things than you would if you had an exact idea of what you were doing," said Ginther.
"If you said, ‘I know exactly what I’m doing. I know exactly where I’m going,’ you kind of limit your options," she said. When you trust, it opens things up in ways you’d never expect, she said.
Finding "true essence"
An aromatherapist and herbalist, Ginther started out as a massage therapist and has done over 10,000 private sessions, she said. She has also studied reiki, a traditional Japanese method of healing through touch, she said. She has also made nearly 400 different flower essences, which "release mental and emotional patterns that we carry," and work on an energy level, much like homeopathy. The essences are made by floating flowers on water in sunlight and then adding atomidine, a preservative.
While working with a chiropractor, Ginther frequented a nearby New-Age metaphysical shop. "That’s what started me off, studying these different things"The flower essences just kind of came naturally to me," she said.
She had been working with 40 people in private sessions, but wanted to work with more people, and decided she was "ready for world service," she said. "I was ready to help more people." Ginther said she thought she would teach, but she ended up making flower essences.

While she suggests reading material to others, Ginther said, she stopped reading years ago because she wanted to make sure that what she is getting is from inside.
Her role is to help others "find their truth inside and be able to bring that out, to find their true essence."

The two-story retreat house, with wide hallways to display her products and multiple rooms, houses art from friends. A fireplace warms a large living room. She recently installed an infrared sauna, which, she said, is used for detoxing, in a room on the second floor.

A sweat lodge, which, Ginther said, is used to detox the mind, body, and spirit, is a short hike from the lodge. Some, she said, associate sweat lodges with Native American culture, but they are used in many cultures, such as Yoruban and Indonesian.

Logging trails cover the property. Ginther does all cooking and laundry, cleans visitors’ rooms, and does all mowing and snow-plowing. The president of the Hilltown Market and Natural Food Co-op in Rensselaerville, she makes all gluten-free and dairy-free foods.

She also conducts a business out of her home, Garden of One, and teaches classes, holds private sessions, and sells a line of food products and services. Last week, she held a raw-food dinner. Foods, after being cooked, she said, no longer have enzymes, and enzymes increase people’s energy and functionality. This weekend, she is conducting a workshop aimed to help people adopt tools to transform their relationship with food.

Crossing barriers

Ginther said societal and worldly expectations of success contribute to individuals’ not knowing themselves well, and each person has inherent gifts and talents.
"There’s, ‘You have to live up to this standard’ or, ‘In order to be successful, it has to look like this, this, and this.’ That doesn’t work for everybody. In fact, I think it works for very few people," Ginther said.
Ginther said she helps people understand that they are OK just as they are and she brings out their innate genius. "So many people think there’s something wrong with them, and they base their life on their limitations as opposed to their possibilities," she said. A person’s weakness, she said, may be "a gift in disguise."
"It’s not bad to not be like everybody else," she said.
Ginther said that, in all she does, she has rules she abides by. "Whatever I do has to cross all racial, cultural, and language barriers. It can’t leave anybody out, and it has to work whether people know what it is or not," she said.
Ginther said she loves the county’s rural area, and cited Buddhist retreat centers nearby. "It’s about getting back to the simplest form, which is nature"I think there’s something about this place," she said, adding that the area is "very conducive for people to make changes."
In the modern world, "There’s so much input. How can you think"" she said.
A peace labyrinth, next to the retreat house, Ginther said, is not "a maze" or "a trick." It represents "the soul’s path back to the absolute." Near it, a peace pole says, "May peace prevail on earth" in four languages — English, Japanese, Gaelic, and Mohawk — on each of its four sides.

Labyrinths are based on sacred geometry, she said, and allow people to connect with divine energy. They activate a person’s shocker system — an energy system connected to their glands, she said, and people react differently when walking along the path.

Walking a labyrinth may lead people to understand themselves better, get answers to questions, or have revelations, Ginther said. She has seen some people laugh while walking along its pathway and has seen others cry, she said.

Earlier this month, on a day with a slight breeze and clear skies, The Garden at Thunder Hill was active with wildlife. A hummingbird hovered above a flower box just outside Ginther’s kitchen window. Frogs jumped and a snake slithered along a trail leading to the sweat lodge. And tiny fish jumped out of the small pond.
Ginther, sitting on a rock, looking around at her surroundings, said, "Somebody told me about this place, and it was available, and it was perfect."