ЖИЗНЬ ОРА / LIFE OPA
ARLAN WISE
11 years – a lot or little? On the one hand, this is a brief moment in the history of human society, on the other – this is the 11-year history, and that means there is something to remember, there's a story to tell, to share experiences. This makes today Arlan Wise – one of the
initiators of the five and indispensable participant of the 10 held retreats.
In 2003 I wrote an article for the Boston NCGR newsletter entitled “Evolution of an
Idea”. It described the first OPA retreat, which was held at the Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu,
New Mexico. I explained how the seed idea of doing peer group work came from Michael Lutin. He came once a month to Monica Dimino’s house in Watertown, Ma. He
was to teach us lessons in the unconscious communication that takes place between
astrologer and client and also takes place between members of a group. After two
years he left us on our own to continue peer review work. We discussed different issues we encountered during consultations with clients. We also learned about group
dynamics.
At that time OPA held Astrology at Work conferences. We invited astrologers who were known for their work
They were terrific, but were in the standard conference in specific fields, i.e. Glenn Perry for psychological asmold. It was time to try something different.
trology, Dennis Harness for Vedic Astrology, Gary Christian for Uranian astrology.
The OPA board of directors took the peer group model
and merged it with the idea that it was important for workWe came back to the east coast and we set up in the
ing consulting astrologers to do something for themselves. same hotel on Marco Island. A couple of months before
We wanted to provide a space to get away from work and the retreat the hotel called us to say that it was being
responsibilities, which is why we decided to call it a retreat turned into condominiums. The hotel management
instead of a conference. The first OPA retreat took us away honored their contract by finding us a place on Sanibel
from our cell phones, computers, and civilization. We were Island. It was a nice place but plagued by the