A participant in the July 2008 Opening the Book of Creation course made a Youtube video from photos of our week together. You can watch it here:
If you have problems viewing video on our site, you can watch it on YouTube by folowing this link:
http://www.youtube.com/v/dpWQfdMK1ww&hl=en&fs=1
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The following testimonial was written as a cabin log entry by a different participant on the last day of the same course. It beautifully expresses the sprit of that week:
Well, how to record in words, in these strange linguistic markers, these black fly tracks on a piece of lined bleached processed tree, all that has transpired, be spoken, thought, felt, sung, laughed, prayed, learned in this mere week?
Six twenty-somethings from the cities and towns of Southern Ontario, thrown into a Windstar (with very bald tires and a leaky gut), drive 12 hours to the middle of nowhere Northern-New Hampshire, walk over a creaky suspension bridge into a week of life transformation. We came here to learn to listen: to God, the subtleties in His Creation, to each other, and to the inner rhythms of our very natural bodies. We learned to open our fields of vision – both physical and spiritual. We learned to walk more healthfully, more lightly (literally and figuratively) on the Earth. The Earth who can now be called with more confidence, more conviction, more “knowing”: sister, brother, mother, friend...even self. For we have begun to grow in the understanding that we are not aliens on this Earth. We are part of creation. We are Nature. We are Nature observing Nature; interacting with Nature; healing our relationship with Nature. Nature, indeed, healing its relationship to itself.
We filled ourselves (Mark poured into us) practical wilderness survival skills. We made sturdy packs of our minds and tools of our hands in order to be able to go “into the wild” with very little on our backs. And we did it. A 24 hour wilderness experience tested us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Leaving human company behind and entering the unknown “wild”, you soon realize how the wild is not somewhere “out there” but something you bring with you. The loneliness you feel, the angst, the frustration, the rebellion, the fear you “find” out there is really a discovery of those things that are always there, in you, however, well buried. Similarly, the love, the patience, the openness, the peace you feel, the acceptance of other in nature, is very much an expression of those things God is cultivating in you even in the wilderness of city. But it’s the quiet embrace of green, of cold, wet, hard, soft, rock, moss, tree, stone, river, pond, “weed”, wildflower, root (even root that bumps up to trip you) which reach in and pull out the real you. For Nature does not judge. It does not seek to harm, it is only itself, alive and living. Your response to it will bring you greater, fuller, richer, deeper life or its opposite. It was said this week that water his healing. Likewise are forest, open sky, meadow, marsh, hill, rustic cabin and company.
The company of this particular group, in this particular setting, at this particular time was...healing. Waking, cooking, eating, cleaning, working, learning, playing, swimming, playing, sleeping, praying with one another was...transformative. We started to recall what it means to be fully human. Healthy, holy, whole. Healed toward completeness in our relationships with each other, with non-human nature, with our Creator in Christ.
So after all that wordiness, I still haven’t communicated this time even partially as well as I’d like. But, I guess, to close, I’d like to say thanks on behalf of all of us.
Thank you Pete Blogett CabinThank you beautiful Dartmouth Grant
Thank you wild edibles (and conventional) that sustained us
Thank you Earth, Sky and Fire
Thank you bodies
Thank you life energy
Thank you Mark-for all you are
Thank you Christ, Holy Spirit, God for it all
