One Moon in the Family Yearlong–Raspberry Moon

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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!

 

Hazelnut Camp — News from the Nutters

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Throughout the turn of the seasons, Seekers will follow resources such as food or crafting materials at different locations and set up a new remote camp. This is the story from Hazelnut Camp, west of Wolf Lake.

An abundance to gather.

One quarter moon ago I was romping the woods alone for several suns–living on hazelnuts and berries, exploring light/dark traveling, awareness, dissolution and invisibility. Food was abundant and there was no quibbling over it. I was in my bliss.

However, I couldn’t possibly do justice to the bounty that was offered and I knew there were many in the clan who would welcome this opportunity. If I could get so much myself out of this walk-about, why not take half the clan with me?

Around the hearth.

This was the genesis of Hazelnut Camp. As of this sun we are ten: Dakota, Canto, Zander, Wolfgang, Rose, Chris, Scott, Rob, Fredolin and Claire. We are camping west of Wolf Lake and taking this window of plenty to be off the food support by Teaching Drum. [This means that all participants who are not at their minimum weight are allowed to subsist entirely on what they gather].

 

 

Dinner.

Each sun something new seems to show up at our dinner circle: grasshoppers, fish, frogs, grubs, ant larvae, many varieties of greens, many varieties of berries, snake, burdock root, trapped mouse, (thanks Chris for a great trapping workshop!) and, of course, a mountain of hazelnuts. We have mostly been enjoying (occasionally struggling) with smaller group dynamics. We hear that the same is true for the temporarily reduced clan back at Waabanong.

Some fish.

It is unknown how long we will persist with this experiment/vacation as people fluctuate between here and Waabanong. Perhaps it will meld into apple and wild rice camps.

 

 

 

 

It has been exciting, illuminating, and mind altering to experience sustenance and trust in this way–new to us “civilized” folk, but basic to life.

 

 

Dakota
4 suns before the dead moon, Raspberry Moon

On Guidance

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Following is a post from Dakota

In respect and gratitude I offer this:
The only real guidance we can offer to another (beyond the physical realm) is how to recognize
the voice of Spirit–our heartsong
This is all we can do…and it is enough.
If we hold opinion
and think we see the Truth
We are in danger of inhibiting that awareness
in those we wish to serve
The truth has infinite perspectives
No two of us share
exactly the same vision
and only our own voice will bring us home.
These many voices singing in harmony
are this person’s vision of circle-consciousness.

 

Migwech!
Dakota

Da’i Walk

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Following is a post from the Rainbows on going on a ritual walk as part of Da’i, honorably returning the gifts of life and nourishment back to the Earth Mother.

You want to come with me for a Da’i walk? Maybe the sun is shining while we take a walk to our Da’i spot and choose a place to leave our offering. The ground is dry–or wet from the night, or rain. So will be your toilet paper, maybe leaves, maybe moss.

While we walk we feel the wind–he is coming warm and gently from the south this sun. Birds are joining us all the way–singing beautiful songs. We crawl under a fallen tree–he must have fallen in the night–this plant. You feel his bark, smell the pitch, and think about life and death for a while.

A squirrel is making loud noise because you get too close to him while entering your Da’i area. Which tree will it be this sun? And where is the moss or the leaves? If you have all, just dig a hole–leaning on the log of the tree, and go. Meanwhile, an ant is near and close by you, and less than ten mosquitoes are trying to have a meal of you. Anyway, you enjoy everything that you can see while giving back to the earth. Never gets boring. You close over your hole, and you make your way back to camp.

How was it in civilization? Go five steps, open and close a door, sit down, go, done. The only interesting thing that might happen is who the hell took the last piece of toilet paper and leaves me in this trouble?

So maybe you give nature a try next time. Let’s invite the sun, or sometimes the moon and the stars, the rain, go over logs with naked feet and feel the earth while finding your tree.

A Gift of Slow Time

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The following post is from the clan elder, Margaret, who has completed her time here at the Family Wilderness Guide Program this quarter moon and is returning to her home.

For many reasons this 3 month experience has been impressively challenging; in ways I had not even imagined. Among them were loss of structured time: schedules, calendars, making plans or even knowing what time it was. This created some vague, insecure sense of being nowhere. There were suns (days) that dragged. I had to deal with my thoughts of escape; of counting suns (days). Until I left I had to bring myself back to the present with all that was so new and different. I had to adjust to suns with little structure (after drinking water, peeing, and pooping). I could eat breakfast whenever. Usually there was nothing I had to do although plenty Icoulddo and that needed to be done. MEETINGS were the exception–very important to be at.

It seems so paradoxical that we deeply yearn for leisure time–less stress and demands on our lives–yet when it is possible, we struggle against it. And so, I have slowly been learning to move through the suns in a more spontaneous way; trusting my needs will be met; trusting that I will learn what I came for, and trusting that I don’t need to impress the clan with taking on any more tasks than I have energy or desire for.

One of the gifts I have given myself in slowing down is a quick meditative time at the evening sunset. Watching the sun sink behind trees and clouds. Often the sky is bathed in brilliant afterlight. Sometimes soft pastels. The lake is reflecting the beauty of it all. The loon might be calling out its plaintive wail. Or a great blue heron flaps by squaking like a prehistoric creature. I will remember how precious these timeless moments were. And hopefully create similar times of just being with the beauty of our natural world.

A Rainy Sun–How Things Can Change

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Following is a post from Sabrina

Around dinner time, we are planning the following sun. There’s a group that wants to gather boughs to cover the ground in one of our lodges. Another group wants to start very early–with first light–to gather berries for the whole circle. Other people are planning to go out fishing and there is also a trip with some kids to have an adventure–berry picking and frog catching.

In the middle of the night I can hear some soft raindrops on the tent. Later, as I wake up around sunrise I’m totally surprised. Wow. There is a thunderstorm above us. It’s loud, and the rain comes down very hard. I can’t hear any other sounds–no bird, no voice, only the power of the water and wind, the sound of thunder.

I wonder how all of these trips and plans can happen. I feel no motivation to go out. Yet it feels nice, I like the weather change. I decide to stay and rest a bit more. It’s cozy in the tent surrounded by the storm.

After I slept a little longer, I stand up to pee. I take a look at the hearth to see if there are other people. It’s still raining and I hardly can hear anybody. There are two clanmates sitting and obviously waiting for others. I decide to go back into the tent and use the silence in camp to write some letters. Then I hear a howl–Oh, I forgot! This sun it’s a food drop day. Yeah! We need to gather people and go out to the trail to get our food for the next two suns.

This is the part that’s fun–I tried it out. Remove all your clothes, wear your shoes an then enjoy running naked (maybe with underwear) out to the car to get the food and bring it back to camp. The first time I saw this happen I thought, How crazy can people be? But, it makes sense. Your clothes do not get wet, we will be warmed by running and it’s a nice, energetic start to the sun.

Back with all the food, people start to make fire, drying firewood, and clothes, and warming up a bit.The plans are not fixed anymore. It’s flexibility now. It is so powerful to see how easily things can change ONLY by going with what comes. Living outside means exactly this. And it’s a great opportunity to experience this. This rain is part of our lifeway; we need him when he is coming. The berries will be double as big, I hear Fridolin and Wolfgang saying. Yeah, and all the fresh leaves! And the frogs, they won’t die. So we are sitting around the fire, roasting our nuts and eggs for breakfast, honoring the weather and setting out some pots to keep the rainwater for cooking and drinking.

Migwech–be flexible and enjoy.

Sabrina

 

Raspberry Moon — Waxing Gibbous Update

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We are well into Raspberry Moon and the berries are in abundance. Yet we could also call this Busy Waters Moon, as it’s peak fishing time and the fish are biting. Here is a meaningful opportunity for the adult Seekers to make the connection between hunger and the hunt—to give up the protein and fruit the school provides for them and rely solely on their own efforts. They are already gathering all of their greens, so these would be their second and third steps toward Earth sufficiency.  It is always up to the Seekers to decide what their work will be, and letting go of that like-clockwork food drop has been difficult.

For almost a moon, inertia set in at camp around catching enough fish to live on, so they couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity. Many wanted to go for it, yet others did not.  Several of the Seekers proved to the circle that it was possible for fish to meet their protein needs, but still the whole circle could not come to agreement. Those who wanted to experience the hunger of the hunt felt victimized—stifled in their efforts to live in connection with the means and ends of their existence. Others felt pressured to do what they weren’t yet ready to do.  Reactivity and inertia became entrenched: they could no longer see all of their options and feel empowered.

Similar conflict arose around food that was going missing. A few of the children had developed a habit of stealing fruit, and no one was speaking up about it. A couple of parents wanted to protect their children by working with them privately or waiting to see where the issue went. Everyone agreed that punishment was not an option. Some felt that natural consequences should result from their behavior—but what consequences? Again, the circle was at a standstill.

Inertia had also set in across the lake. The Rainbows had spent nearly two moons away from the clan, and they were slowly getting closer to approaching their situation in a different light. One of the mothers put it like this: “I can be content and happy anywhere I am. Sometimes I don’t have a choice about who I’m with and what issues come up, and I need to realize that it doesn’t matter where I am.”

It took several quarter moons and a lot of contemplation and Truthspeaking for this circle to move through these issues together. Just a few suns ago, the Rainbows decided to move back to Waabanong and continue their efforts toward clan living. A quarter moon ago, 19 adults have decided to give up fruit and gather berries instead; and 18 have given up their share of the protein that the school provides. They are relying solely on the circle’s fishing, frogging, and insect-gathering efforts. The children continue to receive full food drops.

The issues that have come up for a circle are not anomalies—-they are a natural part of the wilderness immersion process. Each year, Seekers face similar thresholds and break through them—we all do when facing new experiences. There are four typical thresholds: the first three are personal, having to do with what we bring into the wilderness with us, and the last is cultural. The first one is missing the distractions from our psychological issues, and it typically looms within the first few suns. If we get through that, physical comfort threshold awaits, usually at around a quarter moon. Assuming we make it through that one by coming to peace with our demons and finding adequate shelter and comfort, the third threshold will loom at around the end of the first moon. It’s about balance: knowing that the sun will shine again even if it’s raining, and that it’s possible to stay warm even if the fire won’t start, and that the fish will bite again even if they aren’t today. There are ups-and-down cycles in nature, and when we can not only accept that but immerse ourselves in the cycles, we’ll find that we can be as comfortable in the wilderness as any place else.

The fourth threshold, however—the one many of them are now experiencing—is about other people. As social beings, we rely on our network of relationships for growth, as well as a sense of purpose and belonging.  We come from a culture of “I, me, mine,” and it takes about three moons in the wilderness to recognize this kind of existence as a sham. We defined ourselves by our egos and didn’t have to think about our clan in relation to our own survival. In the wilderness, it’s an undeniable truth. Getting through ego centeredness and recognizing our interdependence, our oneness with everyone around us, is the final threshold—the one we walk through continuously as we grow in circle consciousness.

While the Seekers have been wrestling with some of these issues, they have also begun hide tanning. They have been given the overview of the Ojibwe method of hide tanning, and they are gathering materials for scrapers, beaming logs, stretching racks, and paddles. Hide tanning is another opportunity for Seekers to complete a circle of connection in their life on this particular land, as they harvest skins from the animals that live here and transform them into soft, durable clothing with their own hands.

 

Part of the sustenance the Seekers have been gathering and growing into is found in each other. This is part of the transition through the fourth threshold. Women have been gathering regularly for women’s circles at the moonlodge, and they have been supporting each other to take solo time at the lodge. We’ll close this update with a small sharing from Dakota, who wrote it while during one of her times alone in the moonlodge. In many ways, entering and walking through thresholds is very much a little death for parts of us that hold on to beliefs about who we are. Insights like hers can be very valuable for a circle at times like these.

From a moontime vision quest halfway through Fiddlehead Moon:

There is a moon lodge here where women may stay during their moontimes if they wish. The tradition of separating women at this time is one that is generally misunderstood and often feared in the modern world. I, in my ignorance, considered it some patriarchal, fear-based rite probably instituted somehow by religious colonialists.

In my first moontime here I felt called to fast (food and water) for 4 suns at the moonlodge. It became immediately apparent how confused I had been. The bleeding time for a woman can be filled with powerful spiritual connection and insight—if space is allowed for it.

 For a woman the moontime is the dying time—

The giving time

Of giving up the possibility of a child

Often coming at the dead moon

That is why we hold such power

In our moontime

We are the keepers of

This cyclical rhythm

Embracing this balance of life and death

Within our bodies

Our culture sees living and dying

            as opposites

They are not opposed

One cannot exist without the other

They are two sides of the same coin

            and that coin is change

Life is the receiving

            death is the giving

Life is the inbreath

            death is the outbreath

We die every moment that we live

            and we live through our ‘death’

Enlightenment comes through awareness of this.

Not Doing

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Following is a new post from the Blueberry Moon by Rose, a seeker at Waabanong. A few more stories from this moon are at her website, metraylor.com.

Not-Doing

“How can my suns be so full of meaning, and yet I feel so purposeless?” I asked Chris as we watched children cavorting in the water, bathed in the intense golden light before evening. I didn’t expect an answer. It was the question I’d been asking myself the past few suns as in the still spaces –between gathering firewood, milkweed, boughs, playing with children, cooking, getting to know the people around me– I would suddenly wonder, But what does it all mean?

Squinting at me against the glare cutting across the tree line on the western shore of the lake, Chris listened to me seriously through the splashing and screams of laughter. With his wavy, graying hair down, the shape of his beard and the fine, aristocratic features of his face have always led me to imagine him serving some Spanish court. Or as a big cat, calmly watching, relaxed and always a predator.

Later in our conversation he told me, “Energy conservation. That’s really important for you. Every time you ask yourself, ‘Okay, what do I do next,’ don’t. The Toltecs called it literally ‘not-doing.’ It’s important that we stay engaged, and it’s also important that we have those spaces of rest to rejuvinate ourselves so we can give to our circle.”

The moon has died and her belly swelled with life again, and after three suns of closely packed meetings and relaxing in between, I’m ready to do. The sun is setting, yet I feel like I’ve done so little, I think, I still haven’t gotten my fishing gear together, or I could work on my tomahawk handle… or I could watch the sunset.

Meeting Joanna, our resident master of hook and line, I get a kit together under her supervision. The colors in the sky have faded and I wonder if there will be anything left to see as I pad down the trail to the swim area through a tunnel of fragrant zhingob saplings.

Settling down on the rock-shored beach, I prop my feet on the wave-worn log. My few framed by the sweeping branches of cedar and pine, I wonder how I could have possibly thought that these faded colors would somehow be less than their earlier glory.

Silhouetted conifer spires line the western sky along the shore of the lake, tipped with a warm rose that fades to beige. I’ve never thought of beige as a sensual color, the shade of prefab middle class housing developments and the pants of young urban professionals. But here, a swathe of color that fades to a shade I can only describe as dust, then to a powdery blue, all mirrored in the rippled canvas of the lake, it has a delicious richness I’ve never seen before.

I notice the globes of sturdy needles of the red pine bowing over the water, each spine etched against the sky. A fat-bellied spider wends her way from one puff to the next, as if walking on air. I feel myself drawn into the flow of photosynthesis, imagining for the first time in conscious memory drinking in the sunlight from such a narrow, tough surface, feeling the bloodstream of the tree flushing from needle to trunk, then breathing out again, releasing oxygen, which I drink into my lungs.

Trapline

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The following is a post from Rose, a Seeker staying at Waabanong. She has a few more stories at her own website, metraylor.com.

“Okay, Andre. Ant traps. Let’s do it.”

We’ve been talking about it for suns, each trip delayed by another soggy thunderstorm. Jason tags along, and I watch his nutshell of a canoe skim the waves, prow a fingerlength above the water as Andre and I steadily paddle across the lake.

“Blueberries!” Jason exclaims as we haul the canoes up the steep bank of the landing on the northwestern corner of the lake. “Dey are ready!”

“They look like they could ripen a little more to me,” I tell them, wincing as I imagine all the bushes stripped while the berries are still green. A few are blushing a tempting purple, but nowhere near their final dreamlike blue. I’m feeling anxious to get the kids moving; taking children along on my foraging trips tends to cut them short, and I have yet to give myself graciously to the inevitability.

“Nooo, dey are ready. Dey are blue!”

“You’re bonkers,” Andre informs me, elbow deep with Jason in blueberry bushes. I manage to coax them up the hill, over a valley in the sweet forest and through a waist high meadow of feathery bracken fern and stocky milkweed to the first trap. Lifting the layers of bark stacked on the anthill one by one, I’m not sure what to expect. But nestled under the last layer we find a pile of creamy capsules, rapidly swarmed by their guardian sisters who clutch them in their mandibles and scurry down tunnels.

“Get ’em, get ’em!” Andre says, reaching into the pile.

“Let me try one!” Jason says. “Ow! Ow! Shit! Ohmygott! Ow!”

I could never have imagined myself sticking my bare hand into a swarming nest of red ants, but there I am, stuffing my mouth with fistfuls of ants, larvae, and debris. This particular variety of ants is sharply lemony, the rich, juicy larvae popping between my teeth, the satisfaction dimmed by the grit. The air is perfumed with vinegar so thickly it almost burns my eyes as the ants spray their alarm signal.

Stirring up the nest again and replacing the stack of bark, we climb the bank to an overgrown logging road strewn with ant empires, the flight of tiny grasshoppers heralding our coming.

“Did you set up this one?” Andry asks, pointing to a nest with more square footage than my tent, a mountain of sawdust under a fallen red pine riddled with a labyrinth of industrious galleries. “Fridolin and I got so much here. Like, hundreds.”

Scraping away the surface layer of the hill, we hit gold.

“Does anyone have a bandana?” Andre says in his frantic mumble, looking around wildly. “Get a bandana, get a bandana!” I have a bandana and I’m not sure what he wants to do with it as I belatedly fumble it from my belt. “Put the eggs on there!” He keeps calling them eggs and as I follow his urgent direction I keep wanting to tell him they’re not eggs, they’re larvae.

Jason stomps away, arms flailing. “AHHHHH! Dey are in my pants!” I can feel a few scurrying through my leg hair, unaware that they are scaling their predator.

We bundle up the bandana, more than a fist sized ball, briskly brushing ourselves free of incensed, battle-ready ants.

The last trap is in a little meadow thick with milkweed and raspberry. As we push through the thicket between the meadow and the trail, Jason drops into a crouch and disappears.

“Strawberries!” he exclaims. “Dey’re not done!” Andre disappears next, and I hear them crawling through the brambles.

“Remember the Rule of Three, guys. If we see three of a plant, we take one. Same for berries. That way the rest can go to seed and we’ll have more berries next Turn.”

A pause.

Andre: “What?” He says it as if it is the most bizarre and unbelievable thing he has ever heard in his dozen Turns of life.

Jason has not nearly the passion for ant larvae that he does for fruit and keeps busily harvesting, but Andre loves them enough to pull himself away from the call of the strawberries. This trap yields only a palmful of larvae that I offer to an enthused Andre, who starts eagerly popping them into his mouth.

“Okay, guys, that’s the last one. Let’s head back ho–”

“More strawberries!”

“I want to eat these eggs,” Andre says.

“Can we go sit in the shade, then?” I ask, resigned. I’m tired, and I can feel the heat pounding my head. We find a shady spot to lounge while Andre tries to winnow his larvae from the debris with a thin stream of breath. Jason, who I can’t ever remember touching me, settles into my body like a couch, giggling. I smile, wrapping an arm around him, using the other hand to snatch at a deerfly. Andre resorts to picking out larvae one by one, and Jason lays across my middle, scouring those five square feet for every strawberry.

By the time we reach the canoe landing, the stiff wind that feels so refreshing on my skin has turned the lake into a gauntlet of waves. Andre and I can barely make it away from the shore in our two person canoe, and Jason is rapidly being blown into a cove. We manage to drag our canoes together by hauling ourselves along a fallen tree, and Jason and I lash his canoe to ours with a shoelace to tow him back.

“Heave!” I shout, as if we are pirates on a galley behind our oars, and Jason laughs over the wind behind us. “Heave!” Each stroke feels like I’m paddling something the consistency of pudding.

“We can’t get stuck in his cove,” Andre shouts over his shoulder. “My mom and Gio got stuck there when it was really windy and they couldn’t get out. They had to portage.”

“Keep paddling!”

We inch our way across the lake, and as we wind our way to the water of the swim area, I see Chris and Kerstin talking. Then I watch them watch us, bemused, as we literally get blown backwards.

“Heave! Heave!”

Blueberry Moon Update from the Seekers

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This quarter moon (the first of the Raspberry Moon) we have updates from the Seekers again! The following is a post from Dakota, and we will be updating tomorrow with stories from Rose.

Four suns before the dead moon and First sun of Raspberry Moon:

Aaniin family and friends:

I awoke before first light this morning (actually, I was awake many times in the night as the porcupine was chewing, chewing, chewing the log next to us again)  to walk the two mealtimes into the support center to send out this promised report:

The suns go flying by and we have now lived 1/4 of this amazing experience.  I call them Arriving Moon, Fiddlehead Moon, and Blueberry Moon.  (This sun is the first of Raspberry Moon and we are overwhelmed with them.)  Really, they could all be called Arriving Moon, as we are perpetually arriving at new awareness and our place in this unfolding.

The last two winters I have re-calibrated my mental state by living in the yurt without electricity – finding the natural rhythms of light, dark, weather, temperature, seasonal changes, and moon cycles.  The mental readjustment is now stepped up to a moment-by-moment experience.  It never stops, and is shared by all our clan.  It includes the previous changes (multiplied many fold) and adds more:  mindful relationship with all our circle – plant, animal, mineral, elemental, spiritual, time, space, each other all-one.  Never in this life have I experienced living so completely.  We are 23 adults fully committed to opening to Truth and diving deep; learning and embracing who we are, recognizing our place in circle consciousness, communicating truthfully/mindfully/effectively, learning the skills to interact in a clean, healthy, respectful way with our world,creating intentional culture and passing on the best of what we are gaining to our co-parented next generation.

This is, of course, not to say that there haven’t been stumbling blocks.  Rome wasn’t built in a sun and we surely won’t be able to tear it down in 3 moons.  Yet, it is the common willingness that so astounds me.  Letting go of the ego-based habit that we all come from is no small task.

So, my car sits empty except for a few probable mice chewing at the wires.  The life I have built in CA is left more or less on hold (though Pixy is frolicking along with the clan-building, goat walking, west coast version of this life).  I look forward to the Fall here with less mosquitos, humidity and mental/physical clamor.  I am told that the white season is “when the magic happens.”

Our daily life at Waabanong (Camp in the East) is full:  workshops (Truthspeaking – a combination of mindfulness, non- violent communication, deep listening, vipassana;  Empowered Child – how to apply truthspeaking to our parenting repertoire;  Fire skills;  Plant walks; Canoeing;  Hide Tanning;  Wilderness 1st aid/Safety;  Bow Drill Fire Making;  Lostproofing;  etc.), cooking (with an effort to reduce our dependence on pots and matches), exploring, foraging, woodworking (bowls, pack frames, tools, musical instruments), canoeing, fishing, frogging etc.  Really, we can pretty much follow our flow and do what we want with our time.  Few get a chance to experience this freedom in today’s world … such a sweet gift!

Our food here is exciting and delicious.  Certainly, my definition of exciting and delicious has been molded and altered by this experience.  Really, the food we eat from day to day doesn’t vary much unless we are delivered some exotic roadkill.  However, what it might lack in variety, it by far makes up in flavor, balance, nutrition, and wild exuberance. Someone fishing around in their soup bowl might find a hoof, an aorta, an anus.  I personally have added slugs, worms, toads, frogs, entire fish (heads, tails, bones, guts), all deer organ meats, brains, eyes, tongues, and even fetal beaver head to my culinary repertoire.  There are no processed/’treat’ foods.  Ever.

So far we are still living in our tents.  The three summer lodges (wigwams built by former seekers) stand empty awaiting our worthiness.  I think we will begin lodge building soon which will make us worthy.

The women’s circle here meets often and powerfully (the men also circle).  We have engaging exploration in and between these groups.  There is also a moon lodge (hut) where the women have the option to stay in their moon times.  The experience is affecting our moon times and I have only bled once since being here.  At that time I did a 4 sun food & water fast/vision quest that brought me much vision.  I am learning a lot about the power and opportunity of this bleeding time, that has been completely lost to most of our culture.

Eric is here now (going back and forth from work-exchange at the support center and visiting us at Waabanong) for a moon or so.  I am hoping to take the chance before he leaves for a seven sun walkabout by myself.  It has been wonderful to have Eric’s presence, and he is well liked by the clan.  As I had hoped, our relationship has been nurtured, guided and well supported within this process-fest.

I have thoughts of trying to write an article for National Geographic Magazine about this experience of creating culture.  If any of you have knowledge or suggestions about writing such a thing, I would be glad to hear.

Many thanks (Miigwech!) to all of you who are caring for our animals, and to all who have made efforts to communicate with us.  Thank you g’ma PatPat and g’pa Michael for your contribution toward our cold season gear and this experience as a whole.

We LOVE getting letters, and visitors.  If you are thinking of visiting, please schedule ahead of time with the school:  715-546-2944  or email the school.  If you want to write us the address is:  7124 Military Rd.  Three Lakes, WI  54562-9333.  Please don’t send packages (anything with more than paper in it).  The school won’t deliver them.

Here’s from the boys:

Zander:  I miss you all.  It’s a nice place here and I have a lot of fun.  It’s super nice picking berries and wild greens on the opposite side of the lake.  Love, Zander

Canto:  I’m having a good time with friends and making new friends.  We can go canoeing whenever we want and there are many porcupines.  I saw a beaver. I hope to see you some time after the year-long.  Love, Canto

Ishi (Izaiah):  I am learning lots of things here.  It is a fun place swimming on hot suns.  It is fun cooking here.  I miss my dog Kalik a whole lot.  In the beginning it’s hard here, and then it gets easier as I stay longer. I see lots of animals.

Teaching drum folks:  You have my infinite gratitude for all your wisdom and selfless service.

I love you all and appreciate your place in this life.

Niinzaagi’iwewen – we are in the state of being beloved (Ojibwa blessing)

Dakota