The following post is from Annika, a Seeker who completed the Wilderness Guide Program in 2010-2011.  She returned to support the family yearlong this year for an entire moon, and here is her story.

For many turns of the seasons, there was talk about a family yearlong happening, and I was very curious about the unfolding of living in a clan with young and old:

What do I learn from living around children? How do adults live with children in a clan way? Yet when I went through the yearlong experience two turns ago, it was not yet time for families. As a Wilderness Guide program alumnus, this turn I received an invitation to join in for part of the program.

The way to get water at Waabanong.

And so here I am, walking through the woods out to Wabanong, the East Camp on Woodbury Lake, to share life with the families for a moon. The woods are wet from the last rain, so I take pants and shirt off and get to feel the touch of wet plants on my body and skin and under my feet. Walking crosscountry gets me to sense wilderness from within. It launches the whole interior process, feeling lost, with the skies announcing rain, facing zagime (mosquito) and hunger from fasting, and foremost the confrontation with my feeling of aloneness and having to fully rely on and take care of myself, finally. Many memories come back up connected to the place: Northwoods‘ birdsong, the taste of Woodbury Lake‘s water, and the sight of lake and heaven, the smell of Gingaab needles as I move through the brush, seeing my old Dai-site that I had grown so familiar with. My heart is jumping with joy, feeling happiness, sadness, grace, touched, yearning, bliss.

Gio at the hearth.

I arrive in camp at the children‘s hearth, their own fireplace and center of everyday life, and get a shy greeting. A couple of feet further down in camp, I start entering the culture of 25 adults (at the time the Rainbows were staying in a different camp). I get my tent site in Zhaawanong, the Guardian Camp, and decide to get served last with the Guardians at mealtimes. Being acknowledged and supported as such, motivates me to walk the Guardian way, to be giving and let go of attachments, because it serves the clan. It feels meaningful to take less in scarcity so that someone can have more.

Bringing the food drop back.

Clan living is as diverse as all the people constituting the clan. Every sun is different. Gathering greens, parenting and co-parenting,  how to soothe a temper tantrum and being proactive, topic meetings, truthspeaking, sexuality, tracking, fishing, sweatlodge, hygiene, gathering bark from down basswood trees after the green season thunderstorms for shelter building and cordage.

Jeff and Ishi at the hearth.

Calling something stealing is a judgement, coming from a place of morality/belief, that blinds me from the truth. When food is being taken, we observe without shaming or interfering, so that we can really discover what‘s happening and why. As a guardian, I get into the place to watch three oranges I was going to have for breakfast being taken and eaten. I let go of having oranges for breakfast and become as a question: why is this child  doing that?

Several nights my dreams show me that I am acting, yet I feel disconnected, like it is not my thing that I am doing, I don‘t even know why I am doing that. I keep looking at the details, at my individual actions each sun. Chris, our in-camp-guide, supports me to step back and look with perspective: What did I come here for? I came here to learn clan life with families, parenting, from interacting with the children. (I also came here for raspberry picking and–if possible–healing.) Yet, with the children having their separate hearth ( a hearth is a center: cooking, eating and meeting spot of the camp), I have not taken the courage to step into their realm and picked up only rare glimpses of adult-child interactions. The idea is born to join the children‘s culture, including their food-drop, for a quarter moon.

I go spend time with the children, and by the end of that same sun, carefully and with a bit of anxiety ask them, if they‘d let me join their food-drop. After a moment of thought, they joyfully receive me in their circle and are excited about it. Throughout the following suns, I keep getting surprised about the trust and respect and openness they hold for me. This gives me the opportunity to really become part of their circle, because I‘m with them. I feel what they feel, I care for when our food gets cooked, I feel fear around my food possibly being stolen, feel resistance to being told… I appreciate a lot being a buddy and not a parent, not “having” to take responsibility for them or from them, by “having” to tell them what to do or not to do. When they play “Who dares to scratch the opening of a yellow-jacket nest and then run off,” I stop myself from telling them not to do it and simply observe. The thought behind my immersion in the children‘s culture is that I may not intervene, not be in my “responsible adult” role, but hang out with them and watch, so that I can learn and feel what it is to be a child from within the children’s culture.

Issues are approached with less fuss around them. When time comes, when something is necessary, they just go about and do it. No long discussions and planning needed. When it gets late for making dinner (adult cooking extends over many mealtimes), they say, “We‘ll just cook it in the pot, that goes quicker, and make a real big fire underneath.“ Within a mealtime we have it all done. Not only is life less complicated, it is also extremely fair.

Kids on their way for dinner.

“This morning we cooked squash and I could get a full bowl for the missing oranges.“

I‘m not here to judge for/between the kids who is right or wrong, even when they fight. They each have their special “weapons.” If one gets put down by words, another one fights back by physical strength, and another one might sneak and take some food. It all is part of balancing out, to have equality. I begin to see a web: When adults are not of one voice, when children get victimized, it comes out in such fighting for recognition amongst the kids. When a child gets blamed or controlled, he‘ll go get his power back in other ways.

On the second sun of being a kid, adults come to me with tasks like “Could you tell the kids to not…” and I could easily fall into that parental role I know well. I realize I am not here to parent or put into practice demands of control.”

A shortness of firewood.

If I‘d intervene, they‘d not share their world with me but may hide it. Sometimes, adults are stopping by on the go and say something, and I start perceiving some comments as seemingly random, out of our context, because we (the kids) are often very well aware of what we are doing. We know we are running short on firewood, yet the necessity to gather is not yet there, we can still prefer to go swimming. They also know the danger that comes from yellow-jackets. It is playing with fire, and a quarter moon later, clan knowledge grows with one of the boys getting stung by a hornet. The lesson is learned where and who to mess or not to mess with. When adults speak first in kids‘ matters, they take away the chance for “us” to figure it out.

Tipping canoes, catching frogs and mud-fighting. It is all about fun and games. Even cleaning up the hearth can feel like or be made into a game, and go really quick.

Hanging out with the kids also reflects my own needy or wounded inner children that wants to be heard, acknowledged, seen, respected, empowered, taken seriously, be self-responsible, and loved. If I learn to treat them in that way and meet their needs, I practice being respectful and loving towards these inner aspects of mine.

Towards the end of my stay, all strands seem to weave together into a beautiful web of life. I get to learn about everything I had come here for, and nature shows me how we‘re all related, how giving is receiving.

Megwetch!