This week we were blessed by a visit from Jon Young, a founder of Wilderness Awareness School. He no longer lives in the northwest but has gone on to share his gifts elsewhere. We were told he flew up here from California just for us, for our program. Our syllabus just read “Jon Young”, with no topic, as if that was enough. “So he’s just going to talk all day, and into the evening?” Yes, and it was enough. It was perhaps one of the most inspiring days yet.

We welcomed Jon into our circle and within minutes he made us feel part of something so much larger than our group of 30 around a fire on a cold but clear October day. He shared his inspiration and support in starting the school, including such varied influences as his own mentor Tom Brown, another mentor and friend from Kenya, Ingwe, the Findhorn community in Scotland, native american cultural influences, and many others. He stressed as our instructors do that our community and education models are not based on or taken from any other cultures, but more inspired by them and made into our own. But with this in mind, we are connected to a great number of both ancient and cutting edge educational organizations and communities all over the world who share similar threads. These threads include facilitating relationships- with each other and all living things, cultural mentoring- such as learning from our ancestors and elders, and environmental mentoring- learning directly from nature. For the first time I could see that what I am accomplishing by spending this time in the Residential program is so much more than an individual act, or even one simply involving the Wilderness Awareness School. We are part of a global community and not so alone as we sometimes feel in the greater community. As a powerful example of this we learned that our sister school in California had sent us not only their good wishes but a loaf of acorn flour bread and a song Jon shared with us. Jon also told us of schools he’s working with in Germany now following similar practices and core routines. It made us feel very very hopeful, for ourselves and the world.

Some common discussions that come up for those of us who feel like we are escaping from the world by being here include a fear of being boxed in, stuck in a box, living in the box, and other such analogies for the majority culture “out there”. This is often shared as a fear for when the school year is over and we have to return to the “real world”. Today Jon helped us feel that we are part of the real world, a world we are creating, or remembering, or a bit of both. He assured us that we could never really live inside that stifling box again. “Besides”, he said, “by the end of this year we will have made you entirely too big for the box. Boxes will shudder when you approach.” Based on some commonly heard reactions to our time so far I know this is true. Just today I heard, ‘I feel like a human again’, and ‘I can feel my heart now’. That and the incredible harmonies of 30 people singing loud around a crackling fire under a full moon assures me that no box could contain any of us ever again.

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