Finding Connection
What helps you feel connected?
How do you know when you are not feeling connected?
When I spent 86 days alone in Patagonia I didn't have a journal. Over the years since then I have relived my experience and journaled about it. This helps me integrate the experience into my being, and it helps me see lessons that still apply today.
This passage below helps remind me how having a sit area can help me connect, feel, and be present with what is going on inside.
“Some days I don’t feel capable, some days I can't even fake having a positive mental attitude. I’m just gloomy, hungry, and pushing myself to keep going. Today is the second or third day in a row that I’m mostly just pushing myself to keep going. Sure there are tiny moments of joy, but it's like a quick ray of sunshine on an otherwise stormy sea. I feel run down, I am eating so little and I am thankful for that small amount. But it's like I eat a small appetizer, and then keep skipping the main course, and there are no desserts out here. I’m a weird mix of feeling grateful for the food I do have, and ignoring the constant and sometimes full body ache of not having enough to eat. Today the gloom is enveloping, I go about the motions, collecting firewood, looking for food, fishing. No brief ray of sunshine, I want to find my joy again. I have an idea, let me go have a sit at the cedar tree and tell it what's going on for me. Trees are good listeners. And sometimes it is relieving just to have someone listen. The camera is here all the time to listen, but it's not the same as having a living being listen.
Walking to the cedar tree I find some edible plants to nibble on and as I approach the clearing I feel a grandmotherly presence. This tree feels like a warm, loving grandmother welcoming me into her embrace. Tears come to my eyes as the overwhelm of this experience is finally felt at the surface of my being. I tell the cedar how hard this is. Being out here all alone. Starting from scratch to make a home. Providing for all my needs. I miss the companionship of people. And I think how having another person with me would relieve a lot of the burden of gathering firewood and finding food. The same fire I build would be enough to warm another person, and cook their food too. That means the time I spend gathering firewood someone else would have for another task. They could be fishing, foraging or setting traps. All the time and energy I spent on building my home would have been shared and we would have had more time for finding food. More than the sharing of tasks there would be the companionship and shared laughter…. that sounds so nice right now. Saying all of this I feel comforted in the embrace of the cedar’s energy, and less alone. My tears stop and I feel lighter, like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
I look around with fresh eyes and notice another familiar tree, the green needles and bumpy trunk that looks like a type of spruce tree. I’ve been here many times but this is the first time I am noticing the spruce. I also notice how I can hear the wind on the lake from here and catch a glimpse of the majestic mountain through the trees. These noticing helps bring me into this present moment, the gloom has drifted away, and I feel a deeper joy again.
I usually try to make a conscious choice to think about things positively. But these last few days I haven't been able to do that very well. I think I needed to fully feel what was going on for me and let it move through me instead of trying to pretend it didn't exist and keep moving ahead. Sitting here with grandmother cedar helped me to feel and let those feelings flow through me. Sitting here helps me have more contact, it feels like this tree amplifies feelings. She helps me to feel the struggle, but she also helps me feel the love from family and friends that are so far away.
With a renewed spirit I think about the things I want to do. Since I was a teenager I have dreamed about spending a long chunk of time living and using my survival skills in the wilderness. Here I am with the opportunity to have that! Focusing on the experience at hand I give thanks to grandmother cedar for helping me and with a last hug I go gather some spruce needles to make tea.”