Intention

The rite of passage ceremony for a small group of boys was supposed to begin by softly easing them into the experience. We started by asking each boy to reflect on his intentions for stepping into the unknown of this experience. We then walked them into the woods and spread them out one by one over a hillside for a quiet solitary sit in the forest and a chance to feel their connection with nature and themselves.

As I relaxed into my own spot some distance from the closest boy, the mosquitoes arrived. Now. I have experienced similar hordes of mosquitoes while camping in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and in these vast numbers, the collective buzzing brings a level of fear for one’s own existence. In those cases, I bravely ran away, jumped into a lake, or hid in my tent. But on this night, as the light of the sunset began to fade and the indigo colors of the evening sky started appearing, the mosquitoes blanketed my body in a painful covering of welts. I considered my past solutions to this most unpleasant situation, but tonight there was nowhere to run. I began to laugh at the (unknowingly ironic) question we had asked the boys, who were now also at the mercy of the mosquitoes: “What’s your intention for being here?” My powerful desire now was to get the hell off this mountain, but my intention? We did not flee but instead all sat for a long time, the mosquitoes, the boys, the mentors, and the land, all in a dance of life and uncertainty. And I mused again, “What is my intention?”

I’d like to report that after sitting for some time, the situation with the mosquitoes got better. It didn’t. The swarms of mosquitoes got worse, if anything. The welts became more numerous, and the discomfort did not go away. What did start to change was my experience of the mosquitoes. Slowly, instead of just feeling like prey to thousands of tiny predators, I started to marvel at how many mosquitoes there actually were. I wondered how other animals who lived in the forest responded to daily life such as this. Time went on, as did bite on top of bite, and I started wondering if this is all there was to this experience. Is there more than the desire for relief? What is my intention?

I knew that the boys were out there with the same question, so I allowed myself to feel deeper into this experience. I opened my eyes, my ears, my heart and allowed myself to become present to the land and the moment. I let go of trying to get to the end of it. I stopped imagining myself in a place without mosquitoes and welts, and instead I let myself be right where I was.

As I quieted my judgmental mind, I opened to the world around me. I noticed the lyrical evening song of the wood thrush echoing across the hillside, the shadows and light playing across the forest floor, and the silhouette of the trees against the coming night sky. I could begin to feel the sacredness of the mountain and of my own life. Three young does came in just down the hill, stopped right in front of a couple of the boys and considered them curiously. A small flock of wild turkeys flew into the branches just over another boy and settled in to roost for the night. It felt like things were unfolding with purpose, with intention.

When we called the boys back in to discuss our experience, we all acknowledged the pain and the struggle of sitting with the mosquitoes, and we all had stories to share of the beauty of that time. In the days ahead, as those boys moved and grew through other challenges, we kept coming back to how life is always a collage of struggle and beauty, of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. We do not need to strive to reach an imagined place free of all discomfort. Instead, each day we can practice making room for it all so that we don’t spend our whole lives seeing nothing but mosquitoes and missing the beauty that is all around.

Try: Ask yourself regularly, “What’s my intention?” When you feel uncertain whether you should go left or right, forward or backward, pick something up or set something down, try pausing and leaning into those words: “What’s my intention?” Be still for a while and listen into the moment. Let the world around you share its gifts. Open to the sun and the shadows, the wind and the rain, the pleasure and the pain. Become aware of your body, mind, and heart as well. Look in and listen and ask again, “What is my intention?” Take some time afterward to write or share with a friend what you noticed. Be gentle and patient. Listening is a practice. The important part is the asking; the answers take the time they take.