Tulip Magnolias and Blue Dicks
Tonight, we walk to my office and I can feel spring bursting
through me. Inside of me, the bud is
swelling, the flower opening, and I am welcoming the longer hours of sunshine
on my body. Opportunity is sprouting. It is not perfect bliss, it is contentious
and work, but it is positive. Perhaps
this is Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory at work.
Yesterday I went to the second day of a men’s retreat. We were doing breath work. I have done this a bit in Kung Fu. This was part of the internal form; I didn’t
succeed at it for long because it is demanding.
Yesterday was three hours of breathing through my body, through my
emotions, through my heartbeat, through the rhythms of my movement, with the
help of a skilled facilitator. I almost
moved into a house on his property months earlier, but I was stuck in a
situation trying to find a way out. I
have allowed myself to get stuck too often lately.
When I move around the world right now, blossoms are
everywhere: tulip magnolias, daffodils, Manzanita, buck brush, blue dicks, plum
trees, camellias, butter and eggs, and even a lowland shooting star. The air is filled with pollen and
perfume. The ground is petal-swept, the
almond orchards move across like a sea of spring, the welcoming of life from
the sun.
I travelled down to the bay area with 25 other amazing people to talk about a community wide plan for outdoor education for all. The conversations were rich. We had school principals, the Audubon society, the ecological reserve, teachers, wilderness survivalists, administrators, educators, professors, resource managers, rangers, and more. Everyone has his or her own unique desires, experiences, and potential. Together, we drove down in vans with amazing facilitators fostering communication between us as we toured the ways and methods in which Golden Gate National Parks has partnered with people to educate and provide experiences for the public.
We started at Fort Mason where I
ran into the bookstore and found a first edition of The National Forests
written by Arthur Carhart. I knew this
was a sign. The person who, in some
ways, started the idea of wilderness in America when he requested that, after
surveying Trapper Lake in the White River National Forest, it be reserved for
wilderness recreation. Here, is a spark
of an idea set into motion. This is where
man creates on this earth; spun, almost like a flower petal unwinding from the bud,
the thought opens to the world. The best
record we have of this idea coming into fruition is a memorandum that
references a conversation Carhart had with an assistant district forester from
New Mexico named Aldo Leopold. Carhart
wrote:
There
is a limit to the number of lands of shore line of the lakes; there is a limit
to the number of lakes in existence; there is a limit to the mountainous areas
of the world, and in each one of these situations there are portions of natural
scenic beauty which are God-made, and the beauties of which of a right should
be the property of all people.
The men’s retreat was intense. We drew cards with symbols of things and drew
connections to our own lives. Mine was
receptivity with a female form spiraling energy out from her body and back
in. We prepared for the breath work and
he explained what to expect. We pulled
out sleeping mats, put on blind folds, he surrounded us with sage for
purification, and we began a deep breathing with the rhythm of music reverbing
through us; he played a drum as the breath sent spirals of oxygen into my
body. The first wave of emotion was
sadness and grief. It came in tears and
sobs.
On the way to the office, I can’t help but think about
flowers. Chico and I zig-zag through
different neighborhoods, stopping to photograph flowers in the setting
sun. This has been our pastime for the
last week. It started with a long hike
up at my friend’s ranch. I was watching
his goats for a weekend and in the morning I hiked up along the south rim of
his property, the Manzanita flowering and the poison oak igniting like small
flames of red on the barren sticks that surround the valley oak trees and in
pockets along the ravines. Everything
opens to spring as I do too. It is
inside of me. At night, from the hot
tub, I could see the separation of Ursa Major and Orion opening in front of me.
The setting winter constellation moving
sooner away from the sky, the bear rising up from hibernation in the coming
summer, the dark coming later.
The conversations amongst us centered on how we can get more
people outside. How do we get all kids
experiences watching birds, naming flowers, listening to creeks, and sharing
parts of themselves with each other and nature?
If anything is “natural” about humans, it is our desire to be outside. How we do it, is up for debate. Everything feels possible in our
conversations with each other. These are
passionate and powerful people. Their
energy fills me with hope. We sit in a
windowed meeting hall at Fort Mason, watching the slow fog push against the
Golden Gate Bridge, but never come in.
From the window we stare out at possibilities, the bridge is a symbol of
what we can create when we come together.
We need to create a new bridge, a
bridge back to nature.
Park
leaders talk alongside community partners about how they came together to
integrate the park into the town. All of
us kept thinking back about Chico, and about our parks. They define us. Should we brand our park? Should we celebrate the rich history of kids
and families enjoying Carhart’s “God-made beauties” for generations? We resounded with yes.
After sadness, I tried to move deeper. I was trying to keep breathing into the roots
of my body, muscles were cramping, but I stayed at it; I tried to send the
energy of the cramping hands out into my arms, to move it into my body, down
and out the earth. It reached my lungs
and I was stuck. The world was dark, the
music pounding, the facilitator stood around us, the drum pounding into the
room, I could hear energy of other people surrounding me, the release of energy
grew the room outward. I raised my hand
for him to help me. He put my hand on a
pressure point on my chest and energy swooned out of my body. I was wind sloughing through blossoms.
I went to my friends, Steve and Betina’s (and Ben’s) house
to help prepare their home for coming of a second boy. It is exciting and scary wrapped into one and
I can feel their nervous excitement. We
are working on leveling the ground and putting together the jungle gym outside. We put the bare root fruit trees into the
ground last week and the buds are swelling; the trees from last year are
already beginning to open. Friends and
family are showing up all day to help work on things. People are cleaning, remodeling the baby’s
room, installing cabinet locks and baby-proofing the house again. The most sacred of life moments is blossoming
into the world. We are all eager for
them.
From Fort Mason, most people stay at a local hotel, five of
us travel over to a professor of recreation’s government housing she has at the
Marin Headlands. It takes me a while to
realize that I have been here before, many years earlier training for my first
aid courses needed to be a guide. At the
house, we stay up late with potential energy swelling and devise possible
plans. It is me, three women, and
another male who is a young man having spent years training in wilderness
survival. He walks around picking up
edible plants and demonstrating his prowess with the land. The ladies are older, but their energy is
enticing. I am drawn to them. Their experiences has the wisdom I one day
hope to demonstrate. The professor has
past students over who now work for the park.
I admire her the way she mentors them and befriends them. She moves with compassion. I fade to sleep on a cot, in my sleeping bag,
the ocean only minutes away and I can imagine it pulsing against the
shoreline. I love being near the ocean,
I can feel it inside of me. It reminds
me of a Rick Noguchi poem where the character wakes, craving for salt.
In the morning, at the Crissy Field Station we talk pedagogy. They explain the system of school busses and
loads of people moving like blood in veins across the Bay area as people pulse
through this place. People stop to see
the transformation of a military base into a gathering spot of recreation and
hope. Today, the fog covers the bridge
and only down low can I see the pedestals disappearing into the fog. In the haze of tidal movement, the fog moves
in to hide the thousands of people driving back and forth across the red
bridge. As the tide backs out, so does
the fog. We drive back across the bridge
to Marin Headlands again and talk with the executive director of Nature
Bridge. I feel like a child. I remember the years of going to summer camp
with my mother and sisters; the freedom to wander the creeks collecting rocks,
the smell of bay laurel and oak in the air.
Here, we are among the coastal chaparral. The sage and Monterey Cypress fill my
memories. It is the smell of my home
too. When we were finished, before we
jump back into the vans to head back to Chico, I steal away to walk down to the
ocean. The surf is ebbing against the
sand, the air is the cleanest I know at this edge of the largest and most vast
wilderness known to humans: the Pacific Ocean.
In the breathing, I settle back down to a cross-legged
position and I can feel the breath come in and out of me, but it is on a track
going back and forth. The facilitator
comes up to me. I tell him, I want to
move, but I can’t find the movement. He
says, you are being to yang, move like yin. He tells me to move like water. He holds me and circles me around, my spine
moving around, my breath in and out, it is a drain and bad water is leaving me. In my mind, I am hearing a Buddhist Koan a
friend told me: the word is “welcome.”
It has been my mantra. The
facilitator comes up to me, asks me how I am doing, and I say I am not sure
what I feel, but something is there. I
try to rationalize it, but I can’t. He
tells me it doesn’t matter, whatever it is, just welcome it. And I try.
I welcome all the troubles, the pains, the joys, and the loves into my
life. In this, I let it all go too. I let go the friends who I want to appreciate
me, the pain I feel from their rejection.
I let go past loves that no longer love me, but accept that I love them
still and always. I let go the worry of
my family and know it serves me no good.
I welcome the new water filling inside of me and as I do, I let it
go. I think about the friends and family
of my life. I feel something growing
inside of me and I can only tell that it is the need to let them all know I
love them. When everything leaves, when
the breath spirals into my body, the ocean is inside of me ebbing and flowing;
the planets are orbiting the sun; the moon is waning; and I am filled with the
people of my life and my hope and admiration for them all. They open me up to the rising sun. The pollen is everywhere.
