Posts tagged with "solo"

Songs of NC Revolution

It's all connected, it's all intertwined

Our last weekend workshop has passed. Discussions about models of social change (plus co-creating our own idea!), plus a five hour solo from dawn in the bitter but beautiful cold, combined to deliver another challenging and uplifting experience - physically, intellectually and emotionally.  However, as soon as it was over, “life” took hold, especially my working life, and I was full of concern that it would be days before I would have time to blog.

But as I started my journey to London for a couple of days, I switched my iPod onto random, and this was the song that filled the space between my ears. Talk about synchronicity… I will blog about the weekend soon, but I just wanted to get this up, as it really made an impact: stopped me in my tracks in fact. Plus, it ensured I managed to “take with me” my NC experience as I went from meeting to meeting - trying to “encounter each moment before it had passed..” I’d love to hear you ideas about NC songs - what would be our soundtrack?

“You ceased to mow the lawn 10 years ago, you just want to see how your garden would grow.

You abandoned the pruning shears and welcomed each weed. You permitted the soil to select its own seed.

But it would be unfair to assume you don’t care, for you pay great attention to all that goes there.

But you simply abstained from a plan or design, you just let it all hang out and take it’s own time.

You just let it all hang out and take it’s own time.

And you follow the thread, in the book that you’ve read

Or in something that someone you heard somewhere said.

You say it’s all connected, it’s all intertwined.

You just let it all hang out and take it’s own time.

You just let it all hang out and take it’s own time.

Well you don’t move too fast, you make it all last - you encounter each moment before it has passed.

And you say walking slow in this world is no crime.

You just let it all hang out and take it’s own time.

You just let it all hang out and take it’s own time.”

Karine Polwart: Take Its Own Time

Stranger in a strange land

“To sleep under the stars, and drink nothing but well water and to live chiefly on nuts and wild fruit, was a strange experience for Caspian after his bed with silken sheets in a tapestried chamber at the castle, with meals laid out on gold and silver dishes in the anteroom, with attendants ready at his call.  But he had never enjoyed himself more. Never had sleep been more refreshing nor food tasted more savoury, and he began already to harden and his face wore a kinglier look.”

‘Prince Caspian’, C S Lewis, 1951

Seeing the Prince Caspian movie again last Saturday with my kids reminded me to find these words. The description of finding himself taking refuge in the simpler, hardier world of the forest after being expelled from his familiar comfortable world, resonates with the solo experience on this project.  We all recently had a catch up together to check in, and all of us spoke of a point of departure.  We’ve left some old self behind and now find a newly hardening self forming.

But its confusing. Its troubling.  It’s not yet refreshing or enjoyable as Caspian found in the deep forest exile.  Although there are foretastes of it.  It feels that I am more open and tolerant of nature yet maybe more intolerant of those who dont.  I feel that my sense of time has shifted a little. Took me a while to grasp this notion of ‘being present, be aware.’ Yet what a gift of time it bestows. Things that would have troubled me a lot more in recent times have less power over me.  So my sense of time and pace has expanded, and maybe actually my ’sleep is more refreshing’ after all.

Simplicity beckons.  So much more attractive than ever before.  The Apostle Paul wrote to a young Timothy of having ‘just food and clothing’ and being content with that.  I am not yet anywhere near that.  Not ready to be the sojourner, itinerant, unsettled, living by my wits, in extreme faith and wing and prayer. No do I think that is what’s needed.  But some kind of transcendance is.  An elevation from excess want, finding satisfaction in ‘well water…nuts and fruit,’  There’s quite a few things I cant be bothered buying anymore. Not feeling the pinch in the recession because the wants reduce themselves to needs.

Being hardier isnt that hard at all.  Just do without..that CD, that IKEA item, garment, thing, and things for things!  Find other comforts, discover, look around, walk, cycle.  Feels corny but as Mother Theresa said, ‘live simply so that others may simply live.’

A kinglier look is harder.  Its about our dominion and responsibilities.  Finding a way to discharge them fairly, with no entanglement with injustice, no taint of compromise, seems a way off.  We kings and queens of the new strange world are hemmed in by structures that we try to resist Canute like.  Caspian overcame it through new alliances,  a new community, but before that a period of living in the exile of the stranger.

To sleep under the forest....

Valuing the source

 ”Ah you could just take a book and read,” she said, clearly relieved as she recognised that activity as “getting away from it all”. 

 Well you could, but that’s not what people tend to do.  To allow something really different to happen people tend to de-tech completely and leave behind what would be distractions like books, phones, cameras etc and only take a journal to write in.  Actually a lot of people choose to fast as well.

 There was a visible struggle in comprehension and a short silence.

 ”Well it’s just like a walk then”.

 Actually we stay in a small area like 10 metres square so that we don’t turn the solo into a physical activity.  It’s not about climbing mountains, traversing, challenging, travelling, “getting there” or “having it all”.

It’s about letting the quiet voice speak up and listening to what it says.  It’s a journey inside.   

That is probably THE most important journey any of us as a human being can, or will, ever make.  It is the SOURCE of all our externalised actions, journeys, relationships, behaviours, careers and activism.  We need to take care of the source.

So how?

On a personal level I think it’s about acknowledging and valuing the source.  About finding the place where our gladness and the world’s hunger meet, trying to help, live and work with others authentically.  And really, really trying not to do it alone or feeling alone in this process…community.  Finding a place to share in a community.

On a Meta level it’s about creating real Values within structures.  If we as a society don’t first value the mental and spiritual health and well being of ourselves/our people/our communities how will we value the health and well being of other living things/systems - or vice versa?  

 Some folk have said this project is a bit touchy feely - I think that speaks volumes about what is “acceptable” today in our society.  In my mind, if we don’t attend to a wound it only goes septic - and spreads infection.  Is attending to the wound touchy feely?

The woman also asked “but what do they get out of doing this?” in a deeply puzzled way

Read the blogs I said.

Many thanks to “the woman” for inspiring this blog and no offence intended

Where our greatest gladness meets the hunger of the world

Your greatest calling

“is the place where your deep gladness

and the world’s deep hunger meet.”          Frederick Buechner

With this quote uppermost in our minds we set out on our second solo.  Much shorter, just an afternoon till dusk.  Much colder.  Damper and darker.

 I return to the forest stream.  To reflect more deeply on the need to rebalance things. 

 Seeing the view again I’m more struck with the symbolism of the summit ridge, taking me far away from the homely forest bank in my life.  How can I stay more ‘in sight’ of it? How can I find more time? Use less resources, need less stuff, share more?

 Perhaps here is the way to find that ‘greatest gladness?’  Maybe finding it needs me to kick back against giving in to the prevailing cultural structures that push us too hard to provide.  I need to reposition myself in the economic and ecological landscape, much closer to family and keeping work in line of sight, in calling distance.

 Applying what I think I now understand is receptive consciousness; drinking in details from around your immediate environment and finding their realignment to what you know intuitively, was a very clarifying experience.  I wasn’t learning anything new.  I’ve known for ages that I need a more balance in my life.  Projecting my needs into the environment just gave it a potency that I hope will spur me into action to begin meeting the hunger of the world.

Lost for words?

Have you ever been lost for words?  I find it’s usually because I’ve had a shock or surprise or some sort of dramatic experience.

Not this time.

Having just finished my second ‘solo’ experience I’m finding it difficult to find the words to describe it - because it wasn’t extreme.

I know folk are going to ask me when I get back ‘So how was it?’ or ‘Was it amazing?’  And I don’t want to disappoint them, but I don’t feel I can give them the answers they want.

It wasn’t amazing

or terrible

or relaxing

or insightful

or shocking

or profound, or hilarious or terrifying or frustrating.

And I found myself getting anxious about how I was going to write about an experience that wasn’t any of these things, but somewhere in the middle of two extremes.  Somewhere that didn’t have the words to express the more g e n t l e things we experience in life. 

I don’t have the words because they don’t exist in my day to day vocabulary. 

The words I have for in between extremes are:

• Fine
• OK
• Alright, or worst of all…………
• BO-RING (my personal biggest fear)

Because we live in extremes and we’re educated to think in and react to extremes.  And boring is the worst of all, because everything should be exciting.

When we were asked to blog on Saturday night I couldn’t do it, because I was searching for an angle or hook, something interesting enough to write about.  So I didn’t write.  I went to bed, feeling empty and inadequate.

Having had a deep sleep I opened the curtains in the morning to discover a blanket of whiteness covering everything in sight.  While I had been worrying about trying to create extremes, nature had done it without even trying.

My solo experience in Glen Tilt was very different from Knoydart because I had lowered my expectations about what I needed.  I was just grateful for the shelter I was looking for in that harsh environment, but it had offered me much more in return.

Going Solo

In the last five weeks I’ve facilitated three different types of ’solo’ with a very diverse range of groups. I never cease to be amazed, inspired and humbled by the affect these types of experience can have on people. Despite 12 years of practice and intense research, I am still convinced that something completely ‘magical’ happens during these times outdoors alone that will always lie beyond the realms of reason.

Often solo’s simply provide what people need most at the time. Sometimes that’s intensely personal - about self-confidence, challenge, reflection, relaxation and self-awareness. Other times social relationships are the focus - family dynamics, things happening with partners and friends, relationship issues, gender, ethnicity, bereavement, or the transition to a new job or relationship.

Quite often though, we can wake up to the fact that just because there aren’t any other humans nearby to talk to doesn’t mean we’re alone! There are five million creatures in handful of mud!

Solo’s can bring a deep and surprising awareness of the natural world. Boundaries get crossed and our relationship to nature becomes palpable, tangible, real and undeniable. Sometimes these experiences of relationship can also be spiritual - either in the context of some kind of religious belief or simply as an awareness that there’s ’something else’ beyond the human realm that is more powerful then we are. It’s no coincidence that all the major religions and belief systems have their prophets who spent time ‘in the wilderness’!

What’s it all about, Alfie?

“What’s it all about, Alfie?

Is it just for the moment we live?

What’s it all about, when you sort it out, Alfie?

Are we meant to take more than we give?

Or are we meant to be kind?”

Ah, Cilla. What a legend. And wise before her time it would appear. Surprise, surprise*, this was the song running through my head, over and over, when I was out on my solo day, and keeps making a return visit to my frontal lobe every so often, as if to remind me of my time in the forest.

It’s the biggest question we face of course, and if nothing else, this project is making me think big, prompting questions far beyond “is my washing up liquid environmentally friendly?” Any exercise which starts by making you look at your own values and needs will do that – but what’s interesting is the number of other people I’m finding who want to have similar conversations. Whether that’s to do with imminent planetary disaster or the financial turmoil hitting the headlines every day, I’m not sure, but the doomsday scenarios that are piling up around us do appear to be making us question all sorts of things we previously took for granted. Gotta be a good thing, right? Right?

I’m reading lots of commentators who are saying this situation simply must result in fundamental change worldwide – and that change could provide an opportunity for larger scale measures to tackle mass poverty and sustainability. Sounds a bit of a stretch I know, but I had a fascinating conversation with an economist last week at an event at Edinburgh Castle, who set out an entirely believable rationale as to how this could happen, if we had the collective will, globally. Very simplistically, the key will be in what are the measures – fiscal and otherwise – that allow us to rebuild, and rebuild in balance – not continuing to take more than we give?

To do that, more people need to understand and value that balance – which gives me a nice circular argument back to my main bugbear of how you persuade people that there is an alternative. Here comes Cilla again:

“I know there’s something much more

Something even non-believers can believe in”

So how do we start having these conversations with “non-believers”? Where would you start from? Give me a clue…

* Did you see what I did there? Did ya?

Fear of boredom?

As I’ve been describing the natural change process in Knoydart to people, inevitably the focus becomes the solo dawn till dusk experience (described so beautifully and personally in these blogs). 

“All that time alone in a small area?”  

 ”No-one took a book to read?” 

“I’d find it really difficult staying in one place for that long”. 

Those who have done a solo, including myself, claim it is an incredible, unique and unforgettable experience.  I think it’s something to do with having “unstructured” time, alone in nature.  Dawn till dusk at this time of year only lasts about 13 hours and we have decades of “time” in our lifetimes, yet the solo is usually the first experience of this kind where we give ourselves permission to just be, alone, in natural surroundings, without mountains to climb, “things to do” or any other distractions.  We face our fear of boredom and find it to be a shallow myth.  Instead, our mind is set free to roam and wander, to appreciate and reflect upon the things it needs and wants to. 

My daily life is usually so crammed with things to do at such a fast pace that every hour is congested, compartmentalised and severely rationed.  Sure this is modern Western life for most of us, but there is an unsettling feeling that such a pace somehow lacks an appreciation for life itself, certainly a wonder at detail or any time to “care” for anything.   And there is an almost pathological fear that we might get bored or be inefficient in our “use” of time.

In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved or freed or educated.  But in our century they want to be entertained.  The great fear is not of disease or death, but of boredom.  A sense of time on our hands, a sense of nothing to do.                                    Michael Crichton, Timeline

And yet that is exactly what the solo experience seems to turn on its head with such profound effect!  

Does anyone have any ideas on why solo wilderness experiences are so  affecting?  If you have done a solo I’d be really interested to hear how the experience affected you personally. 

Participant or Researcher??

Who am I?!

Typical philosopher – but this question is a bit more interesting. How much am I a participant and how much a researcher? From the start it has been an interesting tension – bringing myself as an outdoor educator with a passion for places, but also standing with one foot outside trying to capture the process as an ‘independent’ researcher.

I have had solo time before, and it has always been special – and the ‘main event’ of the weekend was no less deep. Wandering up in the hills, brain in neutral, a cave found me before the wind and rain started in earnest. The cave sheltered me for the day – I slept and sat and watched and ground garnets out of the rocks.

The relationships between the group have deepened so quickly, and we have reached a level of openness that reminds me of other really important times in my life. As a researcher I have had to tread carefully around this deep process and bring my time in the cave along with my endless jottings in the research diary…