Primitive

Yesterday afternoon I got back from doing a three day primitive with Lehi, David and the new trailwalker trainees. Lehi wanted me to come so I could get to know the trainees since I am becoming Ridge.

We left thursday afternoon and headed out to LX spring in the Bloody Basin. We spent what daylight we had left gathering massive amounts of dried leaves for a leaf bed while a few others learned how to make fire using the bow drill method. We had a wonderful fire circle about why everyone had come to work for Anasazi.

I began the night sleeping in between David and Christian on the leaf bed. (we did not have sleeping bags or blankets) Our mutual body heat kept us very warm. (side note: if you are in a survival situation you want to be as close to someone else as possible to share body heat and try to get someone to breathe on your back between your shoulder blades as this will help your lungs and the air inside them to stay warm) I slept there for a while until one of my arms fell asleep and david began snoring in my ear. I got up at that point and talked with others who were sitting by the fire. I taught them how to make hot rocks to stay warm and how to cook prickly pear pads since we didn't have any food and were hungry. We didn't have a knife so we used a stick to break the pads off. You have to make sure you get the ones with white spines because the red spined ones will make you sick (we used the moon and fire light to make sure we got the right kind). We roasted them on the fire to burn off the spines and to cook them (you should not eat raw pads as they pull heat from your body to be digested and if you eat to many raw you can actually become hypothermic). Most of them didn't like the taste and I can't blame them. Its very bland and slimy but at least it was a little food.

I spent the rest of the night sleeping either by the fire or on the leaf bed with my hot rocks. I did get a decent nights sleep despite the limited resources. I did have a thin wool coat and a beanie which helped. When I woke up in the morning, I had leaves and grass stuck all over me and looked ridiculous.

The next day we hiked a couple miles over to a cow tank. We did the whole hike in silence and were challenged to just be in the moment and observing all around us with all of our senses. I enjoyed that because it got me out of my train of thought of worrying about my house. I did snack of some wild edibles as we walked, mainly ocatillo leaves and desert plantain. It was fun teaching the trainees in silence that they were edible.

We did blanket steppings and knife steppings with all the trainees so that they could begin working on their rabbitstick books which is what we did for the rest of the day. Even though I did sleep a bit the night before, I took a nap in the shade with the warm breeze blowing over me and it felt wonderful. I meant to only sleep for 15 minutes but apparently I was out for close to an hour.

We spent the night by the cow tank. Instead of going totally primitive, we got blankets to sleep with which felt like a luxury. We also split a badgerstone food pack and taught the trainees some basic recipes and how to cook on the fire. It was so funny watching everyone react to the simple food because we hadn't really had any since lunch the day before. I couldn't even wait for something to cook so I ate raw macaroni with powdered cheese first then I made some cold cereal with Hilary. That night we swapped embarrassing stories and there were some pretty good ones. Everyone was in much higher spirits now that we had food in our bellies.

The next morning I awoke to a beautiful red sunrise. I wish I had a picture to show you. I helped Lehi shuttle the vehicles to our new spot which took us a couple hours and then we no-traced our camp and headed home. Once back in town, we headed to a buffet for lunch. I enjoyed watching everyone load up their plates with food and stuff their faces while still filthy from the Trail. Its always hilarious to watch Trailwalkers eat "dirty dinner": completely oblivious to the looks we get from other people and laughing from our experiences and the risidual "Trail high".

Its Official!

As of wednesday, I am a house owner. That last week up to the signing was crazy. In fact, the morning of the signing I had to take an anxiety med which I haven't needed in three years. I have not slept in it as yet because I was on the Trail. I will post pictures of it in the coming weeks as I get settled. For now I am just glad all the craziness of the past month is over. I still can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that I am a home owner now. I mean I actually have a place thats mine; I have dreamt about that for years but now it is actually a reality. I will be able to have all my belongings in one place which hasn't happened since I was nine.
On another note, last friday I was asked to be one of the new ridgewalkers at anasazi. Ridgewalk is the backup for all the bands on the Trail, is in charge of logistics while on the Trail and the communication link with the Field Team in the office. I had always hoped I would have the opportunity to do the job especially since many people over the years have said I would be good at it, but since it had never happened before when the position was available, I had come to terms that I probably would never be offered the job. I was completely taken aback when sheldon told me. I had thought I was meeting with him and Lehi about other new positions that I would be interested in and then they just offered it to me. They asked me to think it over during the weekend. I did and gave them an answer on monday which was yes. This means I will be back to working a wednesday to wednesday schedule (for those of you who try and keep track) and I get a slight pay raise. Even though I have wanted the opportunity to do this, I am nervous because of the added responsibility, and I will be starting right at the beginning of summer which is the busiest season for Anasazi. I definitely will need prayers and guidance from the Creator to help me know how best to help the bands and to help Anasazi fulfill its mission for the families.

Walkabout/Family Camp

This week on the Trail, I had a little variety. We didn't have any new Young Walkers so I got to do a walkabout. The young walker was one I was with five weeks ago so it was fun to see the progress he has made especially in the area of spirituality. He is reading a book on buddhism and loves it. We hiked over Hutch Mesa on the western edge of the Bloody Basin; the last time I hiked it was in 2007 and I had forgotten how amazing the view was from up top. We could see from the San Francisco mountains in the north to the Superstition Mountains in the south; the Mazatzals in the east to the Bradshaw mountians in the west and almost the entire Bloody Basin. I know the area so well now that I was pointing out Final D's and hiking routes to the others. Unfortunately the risk with hiking on mesas, especially when its getting warmer, is you might not find water and thats exactly what happened to us. We dry camped on top but despite the fact I was quite dehydrated, we made the most of it by getting in some phenominal star gazing and learning new constellations from Nate's star chart. Before the stars came out, I had an awakening. Here we are in this amazing spot to watch the stars and I put my stuff under a bush. I knew it would be more protected from the wind under there and yet it offered me a tiny view of the night sky. I realized that this is sometimes how I am in life. I have this amazing opportunity to view the entire sky full of stars (this doesn't happen often because we are usually down in canyons) and yet I go for the spot thats safe. How many times do we do this in life, where the Creator wants to give us something amazing which may require a little discomfort on our part and yet we choose to take the safer route and miss the opportunity. The next day as we hiked down Jacks Gulch, I taught my young walker how to eat scorpions (pretty much you just cut off the stinger and pop it in, but he decided to kill it as well and he confirmed that it tastes like shrimp). He enjoyed that and later that day took it even further by eating two grasshoppers. He almost got me to eat one until he boiled it and it came out all limp. I would have eaten it if it had been roasted and crunchy. We also were able to see a gila monster (my seventh one I've ever seen in the wild) and watch it swim across the creek (my first time seeing that). The place that we stayed for Sunday layover was an old ranch. This meant we got an outhouse to use and there was some toilet paper stashed away as well. We also slept on old, springy bed frames that someone had dragged out under a juniper. They were five star accomadations by Anasazi standards. If we only could have gotten the pipe from the spring unclogged, I would never have left. Monday we headed into Final D. This involved hiking over a good sized ridgeline. I had done my best to eat as much of my food the day before so that my pack would be considerably lighter but it still was heavy. I realized I've softened by only doing rabbitstick hikes; the full badgerstone hike kicked my butt. We still managed to pass two bands before noon which I was impressed with considering they had a two mile start on us. In fact, we were the only band to hike the actual planned route. Once we reached Final D, my young walker had a sitting with me in which he thanked me for hiking with him once again and all the things I have been able to teach him. He said he likes the way I teach in that he realized what I was teaching was to benefit him and not just to make myself sound smart. I appreciated his remarks because sometimes I wonder if they like at all what I am teaching or if they are even interested. So the goal of the walkabout was to try and take things deeper with his ponderings. I think in some way we were able to accomplish it by creating more meaningful conversations on a variety of topics, but I don't know whether it sank in or not. I guess time will tell. Wednesday I checked out some cool indian ruins with the oncoming Trailwalkers. There were at least 10 rooms, a partial metate (grinding stone), a mano (handstone) and pottery shards everywhere some of which still had paint on them. Its been a couple years since I have seen a ruin in such good shape and this one was right above were switch-outs took place and we had never discovered them before. I also had a wonderful talk with Tate. He is a man I greatly admire and an example of what a trully humble servant is. Besides doing alumni for Anasazi, he also sponsors 12 people for AA and he volunteers for a homeless shelter. He looks at every day as a gift and the reason he is here is to serve and help others. He never takes credit for it but always says its the Creator who is leading him and blessing those people's lives. He is a testament to the fact that "he who loses his life for my sake shall find it." Family camps were great as always. I had two amazing families with wise young walkers. During the dawnstar ceremony, one of them talked about his lesson of life as a waterfall. He said that life can be turbulent like the water as it cascades down the rock but eventually it will hit a calm pool below and that even if its crazy now there will always be better times in the future. One set of parents asked forgiveness from their young walker for the decisions they may have made that contributed to the YW's backwards walkings. The other YW thanked her parents for sending her to Anasazi and how much she respects them for the tough decision they had to make. I love doing the dawnstar ceremony and I have yet to not cry at some point while doing one. I have also decided to pull Trailwalkers out of bands, if its feasible, so that they can see the family reunions because that is what Anasazi is all about, bringing families back together. I remember the first time I saw a reunion, I realized I would go through whatever to be a part of something so great. These same YW's came into the office today and spoke with the new parents. They were so willing to help these parents by answering questions and speaking about their own walkings. You could tell it eased the minds of some of the parents who were visibly worried. I am so lucky to work at a place like this and interact with such awe-inspiring people.