Alaskan Passage

It has been a little over a month since I returned from a week-long meditation/writing/kayaking retreat on the Inside Passage in Alaska. There were just fourteen of us at a small lodge that sits on the shore of the Keene Channel, several miles north of the Wrangell Narrows. These past four weeks, I have been planning to write this post as a way of kickstarting a writing practice that has been more intention than reality for too long. Now, finally, it’s time.

 

For seven days, two of them mostly travel, I stepped out of my life. Or, rather, I took an amazingly beautiful alternate route through a world of towering spruce and hemlocks, wildlife-filled waterways and the freshest air on the continent of North America. A scenic byway along which I meditated and noticed details with all five of my senses (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting). A less worn trail with just a few fellow travelers, kayaking, reading, writing and sharing. A pilgrimage during which, as the days passed, my mind, my heart and my spirit opened. My lungs filled. My soul drank.

 

Sometimes you have to just get away, right? You have to be someplace else in order to find your bearings. It just so happened that every one of us, in that little band of ten retreatants and four supporting staff, was contemplating or moving through a transition of one kind or another. All of us were navigating that liminal space between what we had been doing and what we were thinking about doing next. We had all come to listen: to listen to ourselves, to one another, to the breathtaking natural world that surrounded us, to the whatever or whoever was present with us, in us and among us in that energetic field that sustains human existence.

 

For the first couple of days all I could do, in response to the “invitations” offered by the poet who facilitated our writing, was jot down random words and phrases in my “Rite in the Rain” notebook. From the first page, below my name: “tenderness/textures/soft undulating hillocks/bright green tan brown; fleecy covering of moss; harsh edges mute now once sharp”. And below that a sketch of a tree trunk. On the third day, triggered by a discovery on one of the islands, some internal dam gave way. As prose began to flow, I realized that the crafting of language is both nourishing and deeply rewarding for me.

 

So what does that mean in practical terms? I don’t know exactly. But I do know that I have come back from Alaska more committed to my writing. And that this space is the obvious place to begin working that out. I will be sharing a couple of short pieces from my trip here. And then, after that, you who are reading this are my witnesses! I will keep writing for writing’s sake. I will keep writing, just as I keep walking.

View north from the deck of Keene Lodge