Wild Mind Writer's Retreat, Keene Channel Lodge, Alaska Aug. 1-7, 2021
This is the best time of day for me, this time before the wake up bell. Only a few people up. Fire purring in the fireplace, offering warmth. Everyone quietly writing. Saul scattering jewels in his field notebook. Virginia and Blair at the big slab table where they are every morning early, writing in their journals. Krista quietly reading. Soten and Shinei tending tenderly to their morning tasks so that the rest of us can give ourselves to the gift of contemplation.
Our final full day here together. The magic brew of place and practice, eagle and raven, tide and weather, pen and paper, and the friendships that can grow out of this kind of attentiveness, nestled within this kind of wildness. Gratitude naturally arises. More than ever this year - my final season after 27 years of leading Inside Passages retreats.
The question we will be taking home with us into a tumultuous world is the same as ever, “How, then, shall I live?”. But the question seems abstract when the moment itself contains everything we need. There is a deep sense of refuge in these moments of not needing to know what comes next. Or perhaps it is a building trust that we will be up to the challenges of whatever comes next, if we can meet it from a similar place of open-hearted presence.
As I write, the tide is marching out onto the mudflats, laying bare the rock pile bones of this bay. The clouds are layered from tidewater to mountain top, with shards of fog and mist drifting between the islands. The clouds open and slam shut again, with bursts of sunlight, and stretches of somber gray. While so much of the West Coast is baking in drought, and blanketed by the smoke of historic forest fires, we are blessed with a cool breeze blowing from the north down the narrows, washed clean by the drenching rains from last night. The breeze writes patterns of loveliness on the surface of the ebbing tide.
Yet our current good fortune here in this remote setting in Southeast Alaska is no grounds for complacency. The pandemic is surging again, as virulent than ever. My home in the Cascadia bioregion is experiencing record heat waves, coupled with heavy smoke from the forest fires raging across the West. This is the new face of wildness, a wildness that encompasses us all. Action is needed to bring healing on so many crucial fronts. Action is needed to meet our own suffering wisely, so that we will have the strength and resilience to meet the suffering of those around us. Changes in how we live will be required of everyone, whether we agree to them or not. We are truly in this together.
The metaphors of climbing and of storm seem right for the moment we are in – more so than floating on calm waters. The mountains we are climbing appear higher, with more exposure, than any generation has encountered before. But the climb is still just one step at a time. How we take each step, the degree of competence and care and love with which we show up for the climb, are still the most important things. The urgency is real, but the task is still the same. To meet what comes, no matter how daunting, with courage and fortitude, but also with curiosity and kindness. To offer aid and friendship to whomever we meet, regardless of whether it is returned. And to find the friendship and support we need by being ourselves trustworthy friends.
That means really showing up when the going gets tough. And it will. The active practices of kindness and compassion are intentions we must choose, over and over again. They are the fruit of a practice-based life. Nature still dishes up beauty everywhere, if we have the eyes and quality of attention to receive it. This is what gives me optimism. The choice is not dependent on circumstances. Sometimes the most profound beauty and opportunity is found in the heart of the greatest storms. Crisis and opportunity are woven together, and not to be wasted. Hope is a verb, written by the hands of beauty, but we need a practice of presence to incline the heart toward it.
When I remember this, and take action from this place, I can't help but notice how fear subsides, and a more resilient vitality can find its footing again. From such a place, I feel gratitude rather than fear that I get to be alive at such a hinge moment. To echo Mary Oliver, I look forward to seeing what we can still create together “with this one wild and precious life.”