Stay lamb: awesome and cool gang.
It’s full on in the world; isn’t it?
Some years ago a mentor said some words to me that spoke to my need for anchoring and connecting amidst a collective, hyper modern, hyper-speed; capital driven collision course. He said:
‘The most radical thing we can do is slow down and build relationships with each other’
These words, simple on the surface; sink deep like a tenacious taproot into the subterranean subsoil of the soul.
In many respects, the operation at Camas Tuath has been fast paced, so the emphasis on slowing down this season has at times seemed absurd! Sixteen hour days for twenty eight weeks! Slow down? You’ve got to be kidding me…
So while it has been important for me to emphasise connection in this article; i also recognize some grief at having sacrificed conversation and hanging out to the need to do and the need to plan. Conversely, i’m sorry that emphasis on process has also left us sometimes late to get to the crag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwdJmEpLJYA
Slow down and hurry up, much been my induction over past ten months
Superhero(ine)s
As a resident at Camas Tuath, it’s been a privilege to spend the past few months collaboratively working such a group of volunteers as have lived at the centre. On seeing them, a mentor of mine, an indigenous man of the semi nomadic Nevi Wesh peoples; remarked on a summer visit to Camas:
‘Look at these people! they’re faces are all glowing with health and wellbeing’.
This is by cultural and natural design; the ergonomic confines of the bay lends itself to a DIY culture where we have been FREE to exercise our gifts and exorcise our schist! The volunteers have not just smashed it; they have rebuilt awesomeness from the foundations up.
Carrying Fire.
As you return to your home environment, or pursue further adventures; I just want to celebrate the culture we created together; a place where a positive group culture that emphasizes intimacy with nature, intimacy with each other, intimacy with one self and intimacy with the creative force that moves through all things.
I also recognize that there can sometimes be a heap of cognitive dissonance that emerges; when you try to integrate all those felt values in your body and mind; with the type of culture society at large emphasizes. I want to emphasize a need to carve out the time to slow down and build relationships! Being awesome and cool comes with responsibilities. Check THIS out:I n Last Child in the Woods’, Richard Louv notes:
“During my research for this book, i was encouraged to find that many people now of college (sic) age- those who belong to the first generation to grow up in a largely denatured environment- have tasted just enough nature to intuitively understand just what they have missed. This yearning is a source of power. These young people resist the rapid slide from the real to the virtual, from the mountains to the Matrix. They do not intend to be the last children in the woods.”
The above quote was written in 2008, placing the ‘college age’ kids now in their late twenties. Never has there been a more necessary time to introduce mentoring to our lives.
To the small tribe of 20-somethings who assembled for the task and I will name you here: Joshua, Mairead, Cormac, Aaron, Jonathon, Rachel and subsequently, Hattie, Davie, Jo & Kat. Do you intend to be the last children in the woods? If not your gonna have to wing it wowed and clear…
Ring the Anchor!
It is my contention that you dear reader, of this generation of superhero(ine)s deserve support, from a diverse source of anchoring relationships from various life-stages, if you are to succeed in mentoring the generation below you.
The realization that people needs resourcing comes with a personal charge: if we are to be strategic and wise enough to realize just how much a tide needs turning; then we adults in our 30’s, 40’s & 50’s, need to seek anchoring relationships ourselves.
Remember, if we want to be gnarled, wise old elders before we become ancestors, then it’s important that we periodically seek out support from our anchors to help answer that all important fourth tier questioning: ‘what is this teaching me about myself?’
It’s not that age presupposes exponential wisdom- like a weird linear hierarchy. Rather that, generally, people in different life stages have something vital and valuable to offer each other. Anchors listen deeply; something emerges.
An autumnal reflection.
Here at Camas, behind the scenes of twenty eight consecutive residential weeks, we have been involved in various experiential learning and mentoring processes ourselves, including:
- Developing small group facilitation skills including holding space for ‘story of day’ and reflections.
- Skills in peacemaking and resolving conflicts.
- Engaging in and facilitating the core routines of nature connection.
- Developing naturalist awareness skills and technical competence in adventurous activities.
- Building relationships with each other.
- Managing personal areas of responsibility and undertaking household chores such as cooking and cleaning for large groups.
- Moving towards personal goals, actualizing some; and celebrating achievements.
- Tools, including how to process and tend grief and process grievances.
Making an inventory of significant turning points in each of these areas over your time at Camas this year would give a firm foundation for visioning what you’d like in your life next year.
There is some good advice on a winter renewal process here; and i hope to forward some resources on establishing anchoring relationships by email soon.
Go well…. & all the best…
FOR A LEADER
May you have the grace and wisdom
To act kindly, learning
To distinguish between what is
Personal and what is not.May you be hospitable to criticism.
May you never put yourself at the centre of things.
May you act not from arrogance but out of service.
May you work on yourself,
Building up and refining the ways of your mind.May those who work for you know
You see and respect them.May you learn to cultivate the art of presence
In order to engage with those who meet you.When someone fails or dissapoints you,
May the graciousness with which you engage
Be their stairway to renewal and refinement.May you treasure the gifts of the mind
Through reading and creative thinking
So that you continue as a servant of the frontier
Where the new will draw it’s enrichment from the old,
And you never become a functionary.May you know the wisdom of deep listening,
The healing of wholesome words,
The encouragement of the appreciative gaze,
The decorum of held dignity,
The springtime edge of the bleak question.May you have a mind that loves frontiers
So that you can evoke the bright fields
That lie beyond the view of the regular eye.May you have good friends
To mirror your blind spots.May leadership be for you
John o’ Donohue
A true adventure of growth.
References:
1 Louv, R Last Child in the Woods.
2 Louv, R Last child in the woods
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