Perspective

In my younger days I lived for a challenge. My friends and I had great fun manufacturing intense situations to test the limits of body and mind. As I have grown older, I have discovered I don’t need to fabricate challenges, as the world has plenty of them to share freely! But back in the day, one of our favorites was to go on what we called “survival outings.” At different times of the year, including winter in upstate New York, we would set out into the wilderness as if we were on a day hike but then remain in the woods for three days and nights. We wanted to be as close to nature as possible, relying only on the earth and our own skills to provide for our needs.

Years later, as the nature connection programs we built grew, our outings could include a dozen staff, students, and friends, but in the early days it was often just myself and my close friend Jed. In the spring of 2000, freshly graduated from a nine-month intensive herbal studies program, we were eager to put our plant knowledge and wilderness skills to the test. Sara, another student from our cohort, heard us planning the trip and asked if she could join. Knowing the grueling experience we concocted for ourselves and learning of her lack of wilderness skills, we were rather hesitant. We told her that we would each be building our own shelter and wouldn’t have time to support her in building what she would need to be okay for multiple nights without a tent or sleeping bag in the wilderness. Sara, in her soft-spoken way and with a big smile, said she was up for the challenge. Ultimately, we relented, and on a Friday morning, with biblical levels of rain falling, the three of us left our cars behind and walked into an already soaked forest.

On these wilderness outings, it’s hard not to have a sense of being unprepared and feeling as though you are racing against the clock. With no form of shelter; no blankets; and no lighter, matches, or food, standing in a dark, wet forest was exciting but also felt a bit overwhelming. I can recall vividly the feelings of anxiety and sense of urgency to do something, anything, to prepare for the coming night.

Beginning with shelter is always a good bet, but even with that decision made there is an abundance of uncertainty. Where should I build it? What should I build it with? Will it keep me dry? Will I be warm? And when you see others starting and you haven’t yet begun, or they are further along than you think you should be, the comparing mind can kick in. Quickly doubt turns into fear, and worst-case scenarios take over. Back then I would just push through all of the thoughts and emotions that came up and unskillfully move forward for the sake of doing something. It seemed to work, as I always ended up with what I needed to survive, but eventually I began to ask myself if surviving was all I wanted.

Twenty-something years later, even when I’m not in the woods on some manufactured wilderness challenge, I still find myself at times in what feel like survival situations. As a human in the twenty-first century, I have many days on which I feel uncertain, unprepared, or somehow lacking what I need to meet the challenges at hand. I can find myself in the old battle of comparing myself either to others or simply to my own image of what I think things are supposed to be like. What is different now, however, is that when these feelings and thoughts arise I see them as a sign to slow down and look closer. Calling on my practice of mindful awareness, I encourage myself to stop for a moment and get my bearings. I ask questions of myself to be intentional about the actions I take. What is most important to me? How do I want to show up for this one precious life? Can I learn and grow as well as survive? I have come to see that we may not always have what we want or need, but we can always carry our best intention in our hearts.

The shelters that Jed and I built for ourselves did keep us dry and warm, but Sara’s didn’t. When I crawled out of bed in the morning, I found her up already and sitting in a soaked wool sweater. She was listening to the early morning chorus of the birds, and I was surprised to see that she was quite happy. In fact, she was truly happy, and it was Jed and I who weren’t. That first night, in the pouring rain, we could not for the life of us get a fire started, and it felt like failure. We had carved the wooden pieces for a primitive fire-making device called a bow drill. It relied on skill, friction, and dry wood. For hours and hours, we had tried to tease a small ember out of the parts and pieces, but we only got smoke and dust. During our struggles, Sara, in her soft-spoken way and with her big smile, would ask if she could try. Jed and I, in our frustration and overwhelm, would explain that it wasn’t easy and she didn’t know how. Still Sara did try, and she smiled and laughed.

That second day we tried to get a fire going, and again Jed and I would reach our limits and quit, knowing that it wouldn’t work. Sara would pick up the pieces and have fun trying. Her spirit of playfulness and curiosity finally won us over, and we, too, began simply having fun with the trying; we let go of needing to have it work. Practically speaking, this meant we kept at the fire-building much longer than we would have, and as sometimes happens when you let go, we actually got what we wanted.

The last night out we all sat by a blazing fire that we had made from rubbing two sticks together. We were wet but we were warm; we were hungry but we felt whole. We laughed, and while our clothes dried we bathed in the vastness of the sky above and the beauty of the forest that now felt like home.

Try: Set a time to go outside and just have fun! Nothing more … just a willingness to have fun. Usually when we go into nature, we want an “experience.” We hike to get somewhere or cover a certain distance or see some grand feature. Or, we are trying to find a particular bird or have some intense bond-to-nature experience. See how it feels to take on the attitude of a child and just go outside and play. Meander through some city park or other natural area, blow the seeds from a dandelion flower and watch them float on the wind. Build a little tower of rocks. Skip a stone or place a stick into a stream and imagine it’s a raft on a great river. Lay under a tree and watch the sky through the leaf canopy. Put a temporary tattoo on your arm with a smear of mud. Put a bread crumb in the path of an ant and watch how it responds. Just have fun!