Now, I'm sure you all are wondering what the heck I did last week. And man, I wish I could tell you. But truthfully, I am at a loss for words. The best word I have attributed to the week thus far is "intense." The week was so, so intense. In fact, I just spent the last twenty minutes or so trying to describe it here. I'm going to be honest, I couldn't. Perhaps the easiest way to give you guys a glimpse at what I'm trying to say is simply to state: this is not just a school. This is a group of people who have similar life views and passions, and who are creating an intentional community around learning primitive and naturalist skills. Much of what the first week focused on was this aspect of community, and making space for us all to open up and speak our intensions of coming to this place. I can now truly say that this program appears to be everything I had hoped for, and much, MUCH more. I wish I could describe the amazing changes I've gone through in the past week, but everything I write or say in words just ends up sounding hokey. I've attested it to being something like trying to describe an emotion, or a color, or a taste. Nothing I can say here would do it any justice, and I have too much respect for the whole process to do that.
Things I can say: we are going to be learning soooo much this year. They gave us brief overviews of many of the topics that we will be covering throughout the year, and golly-oh-gee I'm pumped. The whole program is centered around something known as the Medicine Wheel. Simplified, the Medicine Wheel is a way of organizing energies, using the cardinal directions. This organizational method can be applied to many different aspects of life, some that we covered were movement of the sun, the human life cycle, plant life cycles, duties of the community, inner energy tracking, and a few others as well. I might upload my medicine wheel that I drew out while taking notes to give you all a better idea of what I'm blabbering on about. Hearing it explained for the first time gave me chills, and by the end of the demo there was this air of excitement vibing throughout the group. It's one of those core ideas that we now can't stop relating things back to and discussing over again whenever the chance arises.
Our class, although very unified, is broken up into a number of smaller sectors. First, each of us has a nature name that we must study, embody, and learn from. Second, there are four clans that meet to form stronger bonds within a smaller group. Much of last week was spent participating in discussions, doing team-building exercises, and picking the minds of others within this clan. Third is societies. As previously mentioned, part of the Medicine Wheel describes energy types that need to be met in order to create a well functioning community. Within each clan there is a member for each of the directions on the medicine wheel, and the hold the space and energies of that direction. Each direction meets occasionally as well, in groups called societies. And finally, there are learning groups. These are the people who learn together during class and are assigned to one of the four core instructors.
Although I could write for the next three hours about my experiences here thus far, I have to go do (get this) HOMEWORK. Haha. It's true, among all this crazy awesome fun, we are doing a ton of learning on plants and animals of the region, primitive skills, tracking, awareness, bird language, etc. etc. on and on.
I really just wanted to get this entry out and let ya'll know I'm here and alive and well. More than well... I'm feeling so good about being here. Even just tonight I found my place here at the Mosswood community... one which I will have to divulge soon.
Missing you all quite terribly. Thank you to those who sent letters and postcards, it means the world to me. Blessings to you all.
Man I really want to tell you guys every little detail! Ahhh. Soon, soon. I will close simply with:
I am Estelle, child of the Dandelion. I hold the position of Southeast within the Winter Wren clan. I am here.
No comments:
Post a Comment