Body, Mind, and Spirit
This week was another varied week where each day brought us completely different lessons and adventures. Wednesday was a sign tracking day spent out in a nearby forest. The sun shone warm on us for a change, making us giggle and scamper like children and bask like cats. Several mammals made this a successful tracking day by leaving us plentiful tracks and sign, including Aplodontia (Mountain Beaver) chews on vine maples, a fresh Black Bear scrape among many old scrapes on cedar trees, fresh bear scat, and beautiful clear bear, bobcat, and raccoon tracks in the unmelted snow.
Thursday was spent back on school land focusing on communication and self-expression. We explored new animal forms, shared thoughts, ideas, and poetry, and worked on group processing. It was the type of day that will help our large group continue to function as smoothly as it does now- with openness, respect, and compassion not often found among such different people.
Friday was an edible plant day where we were presented some information and thoughts about nutrition in general, and got to experience first-hand an extremely nutritious common local plant, Stinging Nettle. This time of year nettles are popping up all over the place, and are the perfect healthful, detoxifying addition to the spring diet. We collected nettles from the land, drank nettle tea, made and ate nettle soup, and learned about and tasted nettle infusion. A few stinging fingers aside, we all felt fully nourished by the end of that day. This week in general was very nourishing, in body, mind, and spirit.