Medicine Club Traverse: 10-4-15

It was SO wonderful to spend this beautiful autumn day with the Dragonflies! These girls brought their adventurous spirits armed with their abundant nature knowledge to successfully lead us on our off-trail trek to the Teddy Bear Cove trailhead, smiling all the while and filling the air with laughter.

There is a reason this is one of our favorite outings – it's jam-packed with all the best elements of an Explorers' day: route-finding, reasonable risks, the need for collaborative decision-making, unexpected encounters with natural elements (fields and trails, downed trees, water, mud, dense forest, myriad plants, etc...), a walk through a beautiful old farm, vistas of islands, and more. Below are some highlights of our day:

• Spending an hour in our gathering meeting, collecting leaves in their various stages and colors of life and arranging them in a wonderful leaf mandala representing the natural cycles of life. This color wheel that became a reference point for the cycle of the seasons, of leaves, of where plants focus their energy in each season, of humans' life journey, and of the importance of death and decay in it all (we agreed that death is sad but not bad. As one girl said "Death is part of the cycle of life – dying allows other things to keep living!"). This leaf circle was a rich teaching tool, and led to further discussion about the role of decomposition in the cycle of life that carried on throughout the day. We also macerated some cottonwood buds harvested at an earlier outing, to be made into salve on our next skills day.  

• Collaboratively deciding on the "challenge by choice" of route-finding our way to the Mud Bay trail through dense forest (there was an option to take the more direct route of the Interurban Trail, but no one voted for that!).

• Finding rosehips and appreciating them for their fleshy fruit that is full of vitamin C and other goodies. At our last outing we processed these wonderful fruits to make into rosehip honey for spring eating!

• Immersing ourselves in the earth skill of Navigation all along our journey, pausing to establish cardinal directions, and repeatedly checking in with them ("Where do you think we'll end up if we keep going this way?" "Which way is the sea, and what direction is that?" "Which way is Teddy Bear Cove and what direction is that?" "Which way do you think we should turn to get to Teddy Bear Cove", etc...), helping the girls practice navigational awareness all along the way. Later in EC, we'll tie this in to an awareness of life direction, paying attention to the choices we make that determine where we're headed.

• Learning about the wonders of Devil's Club (and renaming it Medicine Club, due to its innumerable uses): as blood sugar regulator, skin infection fighter, tattoo maker, lice controller, deodorizer, and much, much more. Like nettle, misunderstood Medicine Club has a bad reputation solely due to its effective defense mechanism. It asks for respect, and in return offers many methods of healing and support. In learning about Medicine Club, we also learn about people. Do we know any people with sharp, spiny aspects? Are we quick to judge them? Very likely they have many wonderful aspects, just beneath the surface, like Medicine Club. 

• Doing S.T.O.P. risk assessments all along the way, traveling slowly and with awareness as we navigated through salmonberry, nettle, blackberry and "medicine club". We called attention to the different plants around us, and tested the girls' naturalist knowledge by asking them to identify many plants, to differentiate them from Medicine Club. Watching girls travel through this medicine club patch was inspiring; they were calm, focused, aware, and attentive as they walked through. A few girls were nervous about entering the patch at first, but with much support from their Dragonfly friends, stretched their edge and were able to move through their perceived fear (we encouraged them to ask: "Is this fear helping me or holding me back?"). This practice and habit of awareness is an important skill to cultivate, in forest travel and in life.

• Making collaborative decisions all along the way, practicing the art of listening to everyone's opinion, then coming to consensus about what can work for all.

• Watching these girls explore and joyfully play in the receding tides and glorious mud of Chuckanut Bay. Goodness they had fun! Not all girls had appropriate water shoes, but all made their way with more collaboration. Ask your girl about discovering a mystery of fur, intestines, and stomach that gave us pause to think about what it was and who ate it...

• Enjoying the pastoral peace at Woodstock Farm, and learning about the generosity of its founder, Cyrus Gates, who donated land for Larrabee, Arroyo, and Fairhaven Parks, Chuckanut Island, and many other green spaces in Whatcom County. Thank you Mr. Gates! And thank you too to the Mamosee people who occupied this land before, and who were the ultimate preservationists. 

• Peaceful Place on a beautiful bluff overlooking the Salish Sea, blessed by the warm sunshine and the bright colors of our day.

• Thoroughly enjoying each other's company, stretching our edges, collaborating and compromising, and, at the end of the day, enthusiastically appreciating one another and all the gifts in our lives through a circle of thanks. Some things these gals are thankful for: trees, Explorers Club, medicine club, sunshine, soil, decomposers, friends and family, one another, Cyrus Gates...

You may see the slideshow from our day here.

EC Mottos especially alive today:

* Safety First

* Be Prepared

* It's About the Journey, Not the Destination

* Leave No Trace

* Collaborate and Compromise

* Stretch Your Edge

* Challenge By Choice