So I went to Kriket's Shamanic Retreat at Elk Island Park this weekend. The event was well attended. Most people I knew, some I met, and with everyone had a good time (though the Elves are The Best - and I realize you're only going to get that reference if you were actually there).
I'm not going to talk about what actually went on there, other than to say that there was journeying, some new stuff to learn, and a rather profound ritual around the fire on Saturday night. I don't think anyone who was there is going to forget it.
I'm sure there will be enough pictures floating around in cyberspace because I did see a few cameras in our group. And I do wonder what the tourist who came along the hiking trail and started snapping shots of us was thinking (look, Herr Stein, at the strange rites I saw the barbarian Canadians performing deep in the woods, all standing on one leg and chanting in time to a drum!)
But...it is not my intent to discuss the particulars of the Retreat. Suffice to say, if you're at all interested in following a Shamanic path, you may want to consider attending next year's retreat. And I do want to say a big "THANK YOU!" to Kriket for organizing and running the event, and to everyone else who was there and made things run so smoothly.
I found it oddly appropriate that the topic of this year's retreat was Spirits of Nature, especially in light of the weather. Friday night's blow was expected. All the radio stations were trumpeting the arrival of this violent weather system. Even the warden at the gate to the Park advised us of possible extreme weather. I thought I was ready for it. My tent was mostly ready, I guess. It didn't actually fall down around my ears, however, I now know what a bean in a tin can feels like, if the tin can were made of tarps. I can say without hesitation that my tent was the loudest structure on site. I actually felt the need to apologise to my neighbour for the flappity flappity all night long. At any rate, we all survived and Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day - warm with just enough wind to keep the critters from munching us.
Well, except during the one exercise in which we instructed to go out into the woods, find a spot to sit and just "be" for an hour. This sounds like a hard thing to do - it actually isn't if you approach it with the right frame of mind.
The spot I picked was an area with long grass beside a row of shrubby trees. I started the exercise lying on my side with my head on the ground but after about fifteen minutes had to change position. I watched a grasshopper eat a blade of grass (they start in the middle, bite a long piece off, hold it in their little front "hands" and then proceed to eat the entire piece bite by tiny bite - in case you were curious). As a data point, grasshoppers also try to eat people (not very successfully because their mouthparts are made for grass and not flesh), provided the people are sitting unmoving in the forest as a part of a shamanic exercise.
After about the halfway point of the exercise I noticed red dots moving along the grass stalks. Bigger than a spider mite (but not much bigger), it didn't take long for me to realize the red dots had eight legs. Then I noticed two or three other red dots where I'd previously lain my head. They looked like spiders but didn't behave at all like spiders normally do (weave webs, try to eat other spiders). Then I looked reeaallly close at one of the dots and realized that even though it had eight legs, they were the curvy kind of legs with little white claws on the end that I've only ever seen on critters attached to Fred's shaggy mane after outings in BC or Ontario.
And then I saw the pattern to their movement. Slowly (one could say "inexorably") they were moving toward me, going from one blade of grass, to the next. Where each blade crossed another, they would always pick the one that led closer to where I was sitting. I swear to you I'm not making this up. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do - sit completely still and watch as something (albeit a very tiny something) approached with the intention of making me its lunch.
And this is where I leared a valuable lesson. There is a line that must not be crossed. It's all well and good to immerse yourself in your studies but when your own personal well being is at stake, it is all right to take care of yourself. Nature takes care of its own and so should we. So I (silently so I wouldn't disturb the others in the group) flicked those little red dots as far back into the woods as I could, as well as the grass spider that had taken up residence on my foot.
And the other lesson I learned was this: we take having fresh water for granted. I realize this is almost a cliche because it's been bandied about in the media for so long but it is the truth.
I arrived at the retreat with eight liters of spring water I had to purchase at Superstore because, due to some logistical packing decisions on the last camping trip (ie. too much stuff, not enough vehicle volume) my usual five gallon water jug ended up on an acreage west of Busby.
The UN says the rule of thumb for humans is that we should all have access to 10 litres of clean water, per day, in order to meet basic needs such as drinking, cooking, and washing up. I had less than half that. Which means I had to get creative.
There is a lake adjacent to the campsite. The water in the lake is quite low, the bank is muddy and churned up from buffalo, moose, etc. who go down to drink the water. The only way to get anywhere near the water is by walking along a "dock" made of slippery, barkless dead tree branches and bits of firewood that someone has chucked out there. And, even by balancing precariously on those dead branches, you can only just get to the very edge of the lake.
So I would go down there with a pot and a little cup and carefully scoop off tiny amounts of water from what amounted to a mud puddle next to the shore, being careful not to scoop up any of the cooties that were darting around in there. Then with a heavy pot full of water, do the balance beam thing back to the shore and up the bank to my tent where I would boil the water for ten minutes. And this was just so I could wash my hands before eating or after using the...um...facilities.
The second day I lost my balance, fell off the branch, managed to get my foot onto one of the chunks of firewood and still sank up to my calf in muck.
It doesn't sound like a big deal except that there was simply no way to clean that up. I couldn't reach the deeper water (not without drowning in the muck at the shore first) and the amount of water painstakingly gathered in my pot was for handwashing. And there was no way I was going to sacrifice a quarter of my drinking water for this. So I learned to live with having one crusty foot.
There was a bit of a respite the second night when we were hit with violent lightning and heavy rain (no hail, thank goodness!)
Early the next morning I was out there harvesting (much cleaner!) water from Tote Bin lids and scooping it off the big silver tarp that was left out on the ground.
I have to note that at least three people at the event did offer me water from their own jugs and I did (politely) turn them all down because for me this is something I wanted to experience.
And it was eye opening. As was the fact that nobody except one brave soul (and I suspect he was just being polite) would accept coffee that I'd made even though I'd made it using my store bought spring water. I guess I don't really blame them.
I am grateful to be home where I can access safe clean water just by turning on a tap in the next room. And I am grateful for the experiences I had this weekend and for the people I met.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
5 August 2009
So we're back from the great summer journey that Ed, Fred and I take to Clinton BC every year.
The Store managed to acquire some very spiffy Celtic knotwork patches as well as some interesting leads on possible new items to carry.
That being said...
I can honestly say I have never seen the site we camp at every year (a horse pasture in the hills above the town of Clinton, about 1.5 hours north of Kamloops) so dry and dusty. The ground was so parched that even the grass had blown away. The moss on the mountainside, usually so moist and squishy, was brittle. The grasshoppers, normally found in great whirring clouds there, had taken off for better climes. Either that or they were all blown down the valley by the incredible wind/dust storm that hit on Saturday and couldn't make their way back up. I happened to be eating lunch when it happened. I had a gluten free bagel I had been saving with special lunch meat, cheese, gluten free mayonnaise and lettuce. I had been looking forward to this particular lunch, saved carefully in its own cooler and vehemently defended from the the others in my encampment, for days. When the wind and dust descended on us, the lettuce was ripped from my sandwich, hurled at high speed down the site...I cannot even begin to tell you some of the sailor's curses I uttered. It became a grudge match - me against Mother Nature - me huddled up against the lee wall of the tent keeping an eye out for flying tents and debris and Her flinging dust and dirt like someone had emptied a full bag from a vacuum cleaner into a wind tunnel. I managed to finish that bagel though it was covered in dust and powdered horse dung and the mayonnaise was speckled black with dirt. It was the best bagel I'd ever had in my life.
There was a fire ban for the entire time we were there. Ominous drifts of smoke kept coming over the ridge, presumably from the Lilloet fire (our thoughts and best wishes to the people there). Everyone was on high alert for any hint of fire either in the camping area or on the ridge especially after a lightning strike there during Saturday's dust storm.
Things I learned on this trip:
The town of Clinton has a library (on Tingley Street!). They give away their old magazines. If you take them and hang them on strings in the porta potties on the event site, people will actually tear pages out of them to use even though there is toilet paper available in quantity. I think it must be an editorial statement against the publishers of "Good Housekeeping". Oddly, not one of the "Mad Magazines" suffered the same fate.
Rum is substantially cheaper in British Columbia which makes me wonder just who really benefitted from Alberta's move to privatize liquor stores.
There are people in the world who carry magnets on their person at all times because they believe that if they do not, they will fall off the planet. I know this because I actually met one this weekend.
Horses will eat an amazing variety of things - whether on purpose or by accident I don't know - including bottle caps, survey tape, and plastic zip ties. I am a little nervous to report that I did find a horseshoe in one pile of dung which leads me to think that one of horses may have eaten one of the other horses. I want to point out that I really don't know much about horses but after seeing that, I kept a wary eye on all of them...
Fred goes completely berserk when he hears a horse whinney and actually stampeded one of them right off the site before we could stop him. He also refuses to tolerate people yelling (much to the chagrin of the people whose job it was to herald the news on site), people running, and little kids bopping each other with foam swords. He got very, very grumbly during the actual "war" part of the weekend when people were in armour bashing each other with rattan swords to the point where he had to have a doggy "time out" in his cube. I really do think he's relieved to be at home, even in spite of the fact that he has to put up with two evil cats there.
Other things I learned:
There is an apparently bottomless lake 18 km from the town of Clinton (Kelly Lake, part of Downing Provincial Park). The locals say it was formed when a giant meteor hit there and then the hole filled with spring water. The water is crystal clear and ten paces from the shore you cannot see the bottom. The edges have been sonared but so far as I could tell, nobody has ever figured out how deep it actually is.
When Fred swims, he does not move his legs as though he were walking (as I always thought) but instead strokes with the right side, then left, then right. I have it on film. The underwater view of Fred swimming is quite hilarious.
It is very hard to get a steady camera angle whilst treading water in an apparently bottomless lake.
And lastly, learned on Monday night from an older couple camped in an RV at the place we stopped at on the way home, about that windstom that cut a swath west of Edmonton on the weekend. Our hearts go out to the people who were at the Big Valley Jamboree.
The Store managed to acquire some very spiffy Celtic knotwork patches as well as some interesting leads on possible new items to carry.
That being said...
I can honestly say I have never seen the site we camp at every year (a horse pasture in the hills above the town of Clinton, about 1.5 hours north of Kamloops) so dry and dusty. The ground was so parched that even the grass had blown away. The moss on the mountainside, usually so moist and squishy, was brittle. The grasshoppers, normally found in great whirring clouds there, had taken off for better climes. Either that or they were all blown down the valley by the incredible wind/dust storm that hit on Saturday and couldn't make their way back up. I happened to be eating lunch when it happened. I had a gluten free bagel I had been saving with special lunch meat, cheese, gluten free mayonnaise and lettuce. I had been looking forward to this particular lunch, saved carefully in its own cooler and vehemently defended from the the others in my encampment, for days. When the wind and dust descended on us, the lettuce was ripped from my sandwich, hurled at high speed down the site...I cannot even begin to tell you some of the sailor's curses I uttered. It became a grudge match - me against Mother Nature - me huddled up against the lee wall of the tent keeping an eye out for flying tents and debris and Her flinging dust and dirt like someone had emptied a full bag from a vacuum cleaner into a wind tunnel. I managed to finish that bagel though it was covered in dust and powdered horse dung and the mayonnaise was speckled black with dirt. It was the best bagel I'd ever had in my life.
There was a fire ban for the entire time we were there. Ominous drifts of smoke kept coming over the ridge, presumably from the Lilloet fire (our thoughts and best wishes to the people there). Everyone was on high alert for any hint of fire either in the camping area or on the ridge especially after a lightning strike there during Saturday's dust storm.
Things I learned on this trip:
The town of Clinton has a library (on Tingley Street!). They give away their old magazines. If you take them and hang them on strings in the porta potties on the event site, people will actually tear pages out of them to use even though there is toilet paper available in quantity. I think it must be an editorial statement against the publishers of "Good Housekeeping". Oddly, not one of the "Mad Magazines" suffered the same fate.
Rum is substantially cheaper in British Columbia which makes me wonder just who really benefitted from Alberta's move to privatize liquor stores.
There are people in the world who carry magnets on their person at all times because they believe that if they do not, they will fall off the planet. I know this because I actually met one this weekend.
Horses will eat an amazing variety of things - whether on purpose or by accident I don't know - including bottle caps, survey tape, and plastic zip ties. I am a little nervous to report that I did find a horseshoe in one pile of dung which leads me to think that one of horses may have eaten one of the other horses. I want to point out that I really don't know much about horses but after seeing that, I kept a wary eye on all of them...
Fred goes completely berserk when he hears a horse whinney and actually stampeded one of them right off the site before we could stop him. He also refuses to tolerate people yelling (much to the chagrin of the people whose job it was to herald the news on site), people running, and little kids bopping each other with foam swords. He got very, very grumbly during the actual "war" part of the weekend when people were in armour bashing each other with rattan swords to the point where he had to have a doggy "time out" in his cube. I really do think he's relieved to be at home, even in spite of the fact that he has to put up with two evil cats there.
Other things I learned:
There is an apparently bottomless lake 18 km from the town of Clinton (Kelly Lake, part of Downing Provincial Park). The locals say it was formed when a giant meteor hit there and then the hole filled with spring water. The water is crystal clear and ten paces from the shore you cannot see the bottom. The edges have been sonared but so far as I could tell, nobody has ever figured out how deep it actually is.
When Fred swims, he does not move his legs as though he were walking (as I always thought) but instead strokes with the right side, then left, then right. I have it on film. The underwater view of Fred swimming is quite hilarious.
It is very hard to get a steady camera angle whilst treading water in an apparently bottomless lake.
And lastly, learned on Monday night from an older couple camped in an RV at the place we stopped at on the way home, about that windstom that cut a swath west of Edmonton on the weekend. Our hearts go out to the people who were at the Big Valley Jamboree.
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