"She was standing at the periphery of her own life, sharing a fridge and a toilet, a shallow intimacy, with people she did not know at all. People who lived in exclamation points. "Great!" they said often. "That's great!" People who did not scrub in the shower; their shampoos and conditioners and gels were cluttered in the bathroom, but there was not a single sponge, and this, the absence of a sponge, made them seem unreachably alien to her (p.156).... There was something unquestioning about her roommates' lives, an assumption of certainty that fascinated her, so that they often said, 'Let's go get some," about whatever it was they needed - more beer, pizza, buffalo wings, liquor - as though this getting was not an act of money (p.157)... The world was wrapped in gauze; she could see the shapes of things but not clearly enough, never enough (p.160)." - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
Going out into nature feels like venturing into the "real world" and unwrapping the gauze of the everyday luxuries. This gauze can hold me hostage from experiencing how life really operates, causing me to feel an empty kind of captivity by that white noise of routine and sense of expectation of the present and future. With the students out in the desert, it seems that substance abuse is a response to feeling like they couldn't meet parents' expectations, coping with a divorce, a death, and wanting to escape their own memories and thoughts. Going into the desert is like going into the deep end, sharing emotions, digging up realizations, and working out who you are within the backdrop of the natural, unpredictable forces surrounding you. It is sobering to me; it is my therapy.
***
In the desert, there is so much sage surrounding us all the time. We walk over it, step on it, smell it, use it's branches to make wooden spindles and fire boards to bust a fire. To bust a fire, you need a bow (a juniper branch with cordage tied from top to bottom) which you lodge a spindle (thin, long, piece of sage wood) into by twisting it in the cordage. Then you carve a small hole in the fire board (a larger, round trunk of sage wood) in which you lodge the spindle and slowly move your bow bow back and forth, back and forth, backandforth, backnforth - faster, faster, faster - until, your spindle starts driving out smoke from the fireboard - more and more smoke! Faster and faster, until, you create and ember. You then place this ember into a little nest of dried sage bark and pieces. You move your hand, holding the smoldering nesting (with a fire glove on), in a figure eight motion, allowing the wind to potentially ignite that nesting, eventually blowing into it, until you finally see a flame. There you have it: you have made fire, without a match or a lighter, but with force, and with the help of some sage and juniper.
It's hard. It doesn't happen right away for most people and I don't even like the process very much! When a student gets a fire, they begin to tally them. If they get 15 fires, they can earn a flashlight. During introductions, students often include the number of fires they've made and miles they've walked. I've busted just one, with the coaching of two students. But this serves as a key metaphor out there for hard work and success - turning embers into flames.
"Ah, a Juniper berry.... Let the gin-making begin!" said one of the boys, imitating some kind of British-type accent, making me laugh, as he looked at one tiny periwinkle Juniper berry on a branch in front of him. He's been out there for 6 or 7 weeks, sitting with his thoughts, entertaining the group with his stories - choosing to identify himself as a drug addict, to his own surprise. Despite regular use and selling, he had never thought to identify himself as an addict, but more as just a high school kid and then college freshman. He took Honors Philosophy in high school and read the 1500 pages of Atlas Shrugged, similar to another one of the group members. Yet drugs had been taking over his brain and he has only now realized that he can digest more words of a book than he has been able to in years.
We walked through the sage to a dried-up lake bed to play Ultimate Frisbee and then Capture the Flag. The earth out there is so cracked, stepped on by herds of cows - and baby cows! - drinking from the small puddle of a lake in the middle, into which dried up cow patties and rocks are thrown. Afterwards, we sit under a Juniper tree where one of the boys begins to lead a group surrounding one of his therapy assignments to write a letter of accountability for everything he's done. Some of the others checked in, sharing their feelings, thanking us staff for the games, saying, "I forgot I could have fun while sober." Then the student begins to read aloud his letter, where he states everything that he's done that has brought him to this place - DUIs, lying, drinking, etc. Everyone listens and everyone gives feedback, noting areas where he could say more and areas where we all can relate. As we speak, we play with the earth, the cow shit, and the plants that surround us. We thank him for sharing and the group is closed; we head back to camp.
On the way back, I converse with another student - about his family, how he was bullied from a young age, how he owns three cars and crashed one in a suicide attempt, how he began drinking when he lost his sports scholarship. We get into camp and the dinner cycle begins. We begin by washing our hands and feet - I sit on a log using my pocketknife to clean up the backs of my heals which have layer upon layer of dried skin. I walk back to the fire, sit back in my crazy creek (outdoor chair) and watch and listen around me of busting of fire, boiling of water, cutting of vegetables - joking, reading, frustration, laughing - carving of spoons, writing, drawing... whatever it is that they are working on around me. I feel like life is fresh again - reduced to its most basic parts: relationships, surviving, and growing.
We are then left with the fire, as the night sky moves into a navy blue tone. We acknowledge the people and things that we love (family, yoga pants, the ocean), share resentments (the cold, addiction), people who need our amends, say what we did well today and what we could do better tomorrow - we share how we're feeling. Then we put our packs back on, walk out to the tarps in the sage and tied to Juniper trees that are serving as shelters. My co-leader picks up the guitar and starts singing Johnny Cash, Radiohead, Phantom of the Opera, and ends with a Cowboy tune that incorporates Coyote sounds. Four of the boys join us in the center of the sage stage, in the middle of the desert, and begin to do "ballet" - throwing their arms up in the arm, resembling a quartet of syncronized swimmers out of the water, finding themselves on the land - no longer drowning - high on life. I laugh and smile and laugh and smile, but don't sing - just take in the growing night sky and the shadows of the mountains and the sounds of play.
"Goodnight! And remember... Oregon....
(and this is where there is disagreement)
HATES (some yell)
LOVES (some yell)
YOU!"
I seal myself up in my sleeping bag, take one final look up at the big dipper, and bury my head inside. Goodnight, goodnight and goodnight to this crazy unpredictable world.
"All teachers must face the fact that they are potential points of reference. The greatest challenge a teacher has is to accept is the courage to be; if we are, we make mistakes; we say too much where we should have said nothing; we do not speak where a word might have made all the difference. If we are, we will make terrible errors. But we still have the courage to struggle on, trusting our own points of reference to show us the way."
"I have more hope that someone who has shouted, 'Stop the world, I want to get off!' can get back on and enjoy the ride than someone who wants more cushions."
A few summers ago, my roommate Nikki and I decided that all of the world was a mystery. Already unconsciously aware of this fact, we brought forth this mantra to frame each and every experience we encountered. We would add it to the end of statements, such as, "Nikki, the newspaper came today... what a mystery!! How did it even arrive here? Who brought it and what is he trying to tell us??!" One morning we decided to leave him (or her!) a muffin with a note, but I don't think that they took it; THE MYSTERY CONTINUED....
The funny thing is though, sticking this lens on the front of everyday experience, like a newborn encountering the world for the first time, truly enhanced it for me; it not only made us laugh, but reminded us to wonder... about everything! The world was made new; we were reminded of the magic of it. We created the space to ask questions that may not have answers and delight in the unknown rather than fear it.
I've been wondering about the connection of meaning making and adventure therapy, after reading an article that claimed that adventure therapy gets at the spiritual aspect of ourselves. Willie Unsoeld, a famous adventurer who was trying to figure out the components of Outward Bound, talks about the "cosmic perspective" his essay entitled Spiritual Values in Wilderness and the numinous:
He [Rudolph Otto, author of "The Idea of the Holy"] coined a new word - the idea of the "numinous". It's a dimension of human experience. The numinous dimension of reality consists of mysterium, tremendum, et fascinosan. Mysterium is the sense of mystery. There has never been a sacred anything that lacked mystery. The mysteriousness of it is the sense of something more, of a hiddenness beyond which you can't go... When you step into the wilderness, and here is where I make the transition, there is a mystery in nature which I thin is one of its great attractions for us. There's a hiddennes of organic growth, of how a seed decides to be an oak tree. No matter how much reference we have to the genetic coding of RNA, DNA, somehow it doesn't come out totally explained.
Not only does nature embody mysterium, but each of us is made from it. Though we can learn about our own biology, isn't it baffling how everything works and how the outside world can be so influential to our inner selves? Even more, when chaotic mysterium suddenly comes a little closer to ourselves, we may want meaning from these experiences and help our spirits to cope with chaos by dwelling within the comforts of music, the arts, personal connection or even endorphins of physical activity. These delights create energy in us; we become delighted in their hidden sparks of the numinous. In Circle of Quiet, Madeleine L'Engle writes about her response to chaos:
After a day in the emergency room of a city hospital, a day in which I was surrounded by accidents, dying children, irritable patients, many of whom spoke no English and could not follow directions, incredible patience on the part of the understaffed doctors and nurses, I felt somewhat the same sense of irrationality in the world around me (all these people were there by accident) as did the man who was almost killed by the falling beam. Whenever this occurs I turn to the piano, to my typewriter, to a book. We turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are, and what our relationship is to life and death, what is essential, and what, despite the arbitrariness of falling beams, will not burn. - Madeleine L'Engle, Circle of Quiet
In this way, our tiny bodies and spirits exist within and beyond this expansive wilderness that extends way way out there. Yet, if we keep our heads connected to our bodies and keeping breathing into our spirits to explore and connect with the tremendum (raw power) of the environment and connections that surrounds us, we can engage with the mysterium (awe-some-ness). We can feel loved, inspired, delighted and even excited or simply at peace. Adventure experiences can set the stage for meaning making: space is created for thinking, connecting, and exploring. In the article Adventure Therapy in Occupational Therapy: Can We Call it Spiritual Occupation? the author connects humans with meaning:
Human beings are meaning makers, in that they make and express meaning through their performance as well as through their cognitive activities. Moreover, making meaning through performance is constitutive of who we are. As human beings we attribute meaning to our own and others activities, and it is through our actions that we express what we mean and who we are. Making meaning in everyday activities is considered the essence of spirituality.
The world is so mysterious, in great and terrible ways. We can make it meaningful of meaningless in any way that we'd like to and in this way, help our spirits grow or allow them to become disabled. May we meet the numinous and walk amongst its mysterium, tremendum, et fascinosan.... you know what I mean?
Daisy is my therapist. I started seeing her when I was in 5th grade, right after my dog had been killed by a bear and my other cat had died of kidney failure. I named her. I thought it was a great name for a cat.
In her old age, she's become fond of people. When she was younger, she used to hide and spend seconds on your lap. She was a hunter, too, and brought us gifts. But now, when I sit down next to her on the couch, a paw slowly taps me on the arm - if I'm not paying attention - and her glassy eyes ask to be pet. She soon makes her way onto my lap, purring her mind out.
When I see her just sleeping on a chair, I worry for a second if she's passed on. She is eighteen years old and frail. Her fluffy coat hides her bones well, but you can feel each one as you pick her up to hold her. It takes her a few moments to realize where she is again, if you transplant her from where she's sleeping to a new spot. She sits up on the couch, staring straight into space, her eyes half open, looking like she's recapping her steps and wondering why she's sitting where she's sitting, as if to say, "Wait a minute, now just wait a minute. A moment ago I wasn't here, I was there. Where am I now?" When she lifts her foot to scratch behind her ear, she often misses but keeps kicking, slowly. She also can often be found curled up on the coffee table rather than the couch.
When she meowed loudly from our landing, the tone of it sounded desperate, making me wonder if she was leaving this world. After further questioning, I discovered she had to use the kitty litter. However, she didn't actually use the kitty litter, she used the concrete surrounding it, yet, with her arm outstretched, she continued to carefully scrape and collect the invisible litter.
As I closed the basement door, leaving home again, Daisy ran up the stairs after I had said a final goodbye from the top of the stairs. I picked her up in my arms one last time, gave her a kiss and then placed her gently back on the stairs and watched her slowly hop down before I shut the door.
Low sounding thunder echoed through the streets twice. It sounded like the sounds you hear under a bridge, when the heavy traffic is speeding above you, as the wheels move over metal planks.
Baboom…. Baboom….
A woman on the news compared it to transformers. I looked up at the sky and around the tall buildings in search of the source.
We ignored our questions, and walked towards Back Bay station, a couple blocks away.
“Excuse me!” said a policeman who pushed his way, running through the crowd.
Dad was tired and sometimes tears came down from his eyes along the way, since his time had been so disappointing. Hoping to break 3 hours, he had come in a little after 4. After having trained for months and been looking forward to the marathon for awhile, this was unfortunate.
I took a picture of all the people heading up towards the subway from Dartmouth street. I didn’t know that on the other side, people were running for their lives, or to help people, or to find a way out of the city. As I crossed the street, I overheard a man on his cell phone, “Yeah – what the hell happened?” I kept walking but also kept glancing back at him, half of me wanting to know what had happened, but also not really wanting to know.
I looked around at the people walking into the subway station. But before we entered, we approached the security guard in front.
“Two bombs exploded downtown. They've called in the military. I wouldn't get on that subway. Just saying, I’m being nice.”
I looked at my tired father and worried that we wouldn't be able to get out easily, but didn't want to make him walk. We all looked at each other, trying to decide what to do in those few seconds.
“Ah, he doesn't know what he’s talking about,” said my brother.
So we decided to get the first train we could out of there.
We entered the Back Bay subway station. I looked around for signs of chaos, trying to listen in on people’s phone conversations. I was walking quickly to buy a subway pass, while my brother walked quickly to the bathroom and my mother helped my father catch up with us. There were some transit police roaming around the gates, but I didn't want to know anymore information about what happened.
“Shit.” I said, in front of my family, while waiting anxiously for the next subway train to push through the tunnel. My brother had just read a text from a friend, but only said outloud, “Man, if what Kevin is saying is true…. something about wheeling people away without limbs?”
“I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me.”
We had no idea what it had been, that sound we heard twice. I just wanted to get home. Suddenly the city felt dangerous – packed with so many people I don’t know, so many people who could do something crazy. Suddenly I was in the US, conscious of potential enemies who would look to hurt a booming east coast city. The buildings seemed so big now, the tunnel that I was in seemed like the perfect place for an explosion, and everything was moving so slowly.
A train pulled up. We walked on and sat next to people who were just sitting on the subway, as usual. Then the guy next to me said, “Excuse me, but did something happen?” I can’t remember what I said to him, but probably something along the lines of that we were at the marathon, and now we were heading home, and that’s all I wanted to know.
The doors of the train remained opened for longer than usual, so it seemed, and a voice came over the speaker saying, “This train will not be stopping at Downtown Crossing. This train will not be stopping at Downtown Crossing.” It began to move away, out of the underground to where I could see a view of the Copley Square buildings. The sky was blue and everything seemed normal before we popped back underground again.
I was glad that we sped through some of the stops, but were we heading away or into where something had happened? At the next stop, a couple of women and their daughters got on the train, carrying shopping bags. They were on their phones. “What is going on?” They asked us. The train was quieter now, as people were trying to overhear people’s answer to that question, or on their phones themselves. A stop or two later, a woman had an image on her phone and was staring at it. She was sitting next to my mother, who looked over her shoulder to see.
My mother gasped and raised her hand to her mouth, “It’s the Finish Line!”
I could hear a crack in her voice, signaling tears in my eyes immediately. She went on to say, “Look at the people! Oh my gosh….” Shock was pushing them out of my system, my body couldn't hold all this water. Immediately I thought about the announcers, the spectators, the tired runners, the people selling t-shirts, the security guards, medical people, and everyone who I had just seen standing around that area. Were they……. what were they? Were they okay??
I leaned on my father, the stumbling marathon runner, and didn't know what else to do. I was thankful that we weren't in an emergency room, or worse, on my brother’s birthday. We left the train, we walked home. We made it home. We were home. That was all I had been wanting since we heard those sounds and it had happened. I had never been so thankful to cross the threshold of that Somerville apartment, together.
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