Travel as Medicine

Wow, what an incredible experience these last two months have been. I feel full, grateful, charged. It’s been over six years since I took a trip that lasted longer than 2 weeks. I started my long-term travel lifestyle years ago (16, to be exact). A four month journey to South America primed me for the two year hitchhiking pilgrimage I would take a year later.

Landing in Cartagena after 10 days at sea from Panama. This is the halfway mark of my two year trip through Latin America.

For me, travel is medicine - potent medicine.

Any duration of time on the road is better than none at all. Last year, Amy and I travelled to Iceland for two weeks. Iceland was indeed a powerful, enlightening experience, but by two weeks it felt like we had just gotten into the new groove - and then it was time to go home.

Finding balance in Iceland

Fast forward a year and we found ourselves with an open-ended ticket to the South Pacific and no plan whatsoever. Yes there were motives and intentions which I’ll get into at another point, but there was no timeframe - This trip was all about flow.

Grinning away on our private kayak tour through Tonga

Flow-State travel is a new term for an old way of life. Many people know what it means to fall into the current of synchronicity. Sometimes when we’re open and aware enough, certain potentials appear on the path. People show up with the right advice, the right ride, or the seemingly impossible happens at the most improbable moment. This is Flow State.

Travel transforms the way I look at the world. It challenges my perceptions for a lot of reasons, but mainly because in many ways I’m in survival mode. I’m in a new place, surrounded by a new culture, waking up in a new time zone…you get the idea. Our conscious mind constantly filters out the things that it perceives are unnecessary. Most of us are walking around at half capacity, unaware of a universe teeming with life all around us. But travel forces my mind to let in new information; certain receptors that haven’t sparked in years alert me to new surroundings. With the right attitude and clear intention, amazing things come to light and form.

This medicine is a reminder that this state of being is not dependent on travel. Higher states of awareness are accessible only in the present moment. Whereever and however we travel, it is the present that must be the destination.

Wilderness Therapy: the healing power of nature

A year ago today I was camping in some pretty dire conditions. I was one of three staff members in charge of keeping a group of 8 emotionally unstable teenage boys alive during one of the biggest storms Oregon has seen in years. One experience comes to mind:

I’m awoken at 3:00 A.M. by one of the boys. “Staff! Staff! I can’t breath.”

I roll over and groan. (Totally the way to handle a potentially life-threatening emergency.) This particular individual had just had a panic attack around 11:30 that night and so my response was, “OK, just take some deep breaths, bud. Everything’s fine.”

Ten seconds pass. “Hey, I’m still having a tough time breathing.”

Another voice: “Me too! I’m having a hard time breathing, too!”

And another: “I can’t breathe either. What’s going on??”

Oh! I’ll bet that the four feet of fresh snow on everyone’s tent might have something to do with it. Holy crap! These kids really can’t breathe. Time to shovel them out.

This was one experience out of dozens. Anyone who has been exposed to Wilderness Therapy (either client of guide) knows that it’s the real deal. These kids are out in the elements anywhere from 1-3 months at a time – rain, wind, snow, or shine. The idea is simple: unplug from the “default world” and get back to basics. Surviving in the wilderness builds confidence; nature helps people develop a sense of place and belonging in a world gone mad.

I’ve been a wilderness guide for a long time now. I consider myself extremely blessed to be able to guide people for days on end through remote wilderness. When you take people out of their comfort zones you get to see what people are really like when they don’t get their fix, be it the internet, alcohol, or the sound of traffic (seriously some people can not go to sleep if they only hear crickets).

The transition away from the default world can be a rocky one, but after those first two nights of sleeping on the ground, something happens. It’s like we’ve realigned with an ancient memory encoded in our blood and we realize this is the real world. Afterwards, it’s the coming back to civilization that takes some adjustment.

This post is just a teaser. I want to dive much deeper into the philosophy of using nature to heal the human psyche in the weeks to come. I believe the earth has much to teach us. All we have to do is listen.

The Power of Collective Creation

This experience has taught me a lot. Yes the power of intention is essential to manifesting what it is you want. And yes, it is important to be specific with your desires. But never underestimate the collective power of energetic support. In a world that is so bogged-down with so many large problems, we must remind ourselves that these are problems we are facing together. We must learn to rely on each other and trust that whatever we put out, we get back. The more we support others, the more we ultimately support ourselves.

A Community of Change

Our life is made up of individual acts and decisions that have created our current present reality. In order to create positive change on this planet we must first evaluate our own motivations and why we do the things we do.