one week out.

It is hard to get ready for this journey. This is more than a journey away from home. This is a trip that I have been waiting to take for a year, for two years, three and a half years, ten years, for twenty-six years. It has been a year since my mother was diagnosed with cancer. It has been two years of touring with Momentary Prophets. It has been three and a half years with Goldberry. It has been ten years since my mind was split by the writing of Daniel Quinn. And twenty-six years ago, well, I was born.

I have been at home most of the past year doing what I could to help my mother move through cancer treatments. She is cancer-free(knock on wood) and beautiful. The toll of treatment on an individual can be hard to qualify, but can simply be said to be hell. She has come through with the resolve of one who never doubted her ability to win. It has been an important time at home for me, and it is hard to leave my parents again. I love them and will miss them.

Momentary Prophets has been a work of freedom, of hope, and of commitment. It has been at one the easiest and hardest thing I’ve ever done. The complex of getting on stage to play to as many people as you can means giving up many other things, namely a stable location and, ironically, the freedom to do something radically different. This labor of Love between Logan, Jake, and myself has been one of the most rewarding endeavors I have ever participated in, and I cannot imagine giving it up. I love them both and have been dismayed to realize their impending absence in my life – musical and otherwise. But. The same guiding force that sent MPs on the road is sending me to Washington: If you don’t do it Now, you may never do it at all.

My time with Goldberry has been some of the most meaningful of my life. Intimacy is not for the faint of heart. Our connection remains a deep and moving one, but we as an Us is also left behind in this journey. Love is not, and ours continues, if no longer behind the walls of a partnership. Thank you to those who have supported us as partners these past few years. There is bittersweetness in the parting, but we both have joy in knowing the flowering to be found in the other’s future. She is likewise on a path that takes her to the woods, to the Earth. She is already a wise woman and is only getting wiser.

Ten years ago Jon Barnett gave me a book to read called The Story of B, by Daniel Quinn. This book described the state of our culture today and compared it to that of ten thousand years ago. The difference was between a Taker and a Leaver. A Taker who consumed the world’s resources and ruled the earth with the surety that it was created for the purpose of Man’s ascent to dominance. A Leaver who lived in the hands of the gods, knowing that the Earth was made for All, and that to live well was to live within the law of Nature – that one competed to survive, but did not wage war on the Earth. This resonated with me on a very basic level. In a moment was born the desire to understand how to live with the land, not against it, to care for it intelligently and emotionally.
Finally, twenty six years ago I was born. I was cut out of my mother to keep from strangling on my own umbilical. Ten thousand years ago I would have been born into a culture that would teach me How to Live Upon the Earth. I would have been indoctrinated in the way of the moon and stars, the rivers and ocean, rains and sun, plants, animals, and insects. Ironically, though, I would have never been born. I would have been a stillborn, purple-headed danger to my mother. So I’m not complaining, not exactly. But I am going. And it's hard.

But it’s also the most natural thing in the world.  

So where the hell am I going?

Alderleaf is a wilderness college. It is a nine month program that is worth college credit through the right institution. It is about an hour northeast of Seattle, Washington, and abuts to thousands of acres of national forest. Effectively, this is the classroom. Alderleaf focuses on five skill areas: wilderness survival, ethnobotany, animal tracking, Permaculture, and outdoor education. These skills, combined in a human being, make, I hope, a vital and important member of a community bent on living well on the Earth.  
Survival skills entail everything necessary to create shelter, make fire, find safe water, procure food, and navigate, all using only a knife and the outdoors. Ethnobotany encompasses native edible and useful plants, mostly from the indigenous perspective, in this case the Pacific Northwest Tribes. Ethnobotany is everything from food to medicine to drugs to clothes and tool-making. Animal tracking means just that, learning to identify animal track and sign. Permaculture is literally Permanent Agriculture, meaning a version of agriculture that does not deplete the soil and destroy the ecosystem it exists within. The defining attitude of Permaculture is that: There is no such thing as waste; there is only a process that needs to be refined or a raw material that is not yet being utilized. Obviously this attitude has application in all aspects of human society. Outdoor education is the process of transmitting all these skills to a new audience, be they young or old.
There will be close to thirty of us in this year’s class, and we will be working together intrinsically for the duration. After many weekend trips and lots of preparation, the culminating event is a survival trip where we are left to our own wits without but one knife each for four days. I can’t wait. Some of you are probably cringing, but I can’t wait.
While there are many skills we will be learning, at heart, they are all sub-skills of Nature Awareness. What plants can you eat? What does the bird calling over the ridge mean about the habitat underneath? How do you know which direction is north on a cloudy day with a blindfold on while standing on your head? Maybe that’s a stretch, but maybe not.

I leave in a week. I keep thinking I am going to wake up any instant. I remember the advice from Kip Redick on our last day in Morocco with our native friends: savor it. I have been trying to do just that. This summer has been one long goodbye and I am ready to be going. Contrary to popular myth, I don’t think I’m leaving and never coming back. (I know, it’s the WEST coast, it’s incredible, everyone is made of sunshine and is enlightened and sexy) Here’s the thing, though. I love Virginia, the Atlantic, the Appalachians, my family, my friends. But I’ve been waiting for this journey for a long time. I’ll see you soon, In’Shallah. 

Alderleaf’s web site has a lot of wonderful things to learn: www.wildernesscollege.org
Daniel Quinn’s web site has lots of wonderful things to learn: www.ishmael.org
Goldberry’s web site has lots of wonderful things to learn(and buy at her etsy): http://withy-windle.blogspot.com/  (link works now)
Momentary Prophets’ web site has lots of wonderful things to hear: www.momentaryprophets.bandcamp.com
My mom’s web site is the world.