Move Like a Cloud

Yesterday, I had the privilege of guiding a group of child and family therapists in a mini- ecotherapy retreat in a park in Los Altos. Generally speaking, I look forward to work, but yesterday I was especially excited.

When I arrived on site, I immediately looked around for familiar branches and quickly took note of oak, eucalyptus, redwood, and wild plum. When I see trees I know, I feel home, even if I don’t know a single human. Walking from the parking lot to the park, cleavers waved at me and dandelions smiled bright from their spot in the groundcover.

I gathered some flowers and branches to brighten the altar, and to ground it in place. I walked the perimeter of the park and collected sticky sappy pinecones and a hollow piece of park. By the time the therapists arrived, I felt present and ready.

I won’t go into detail for all the exercises we did, but I want to zoom in on a couple because they led to some beautiful shares.

In Ecotherapy, we talk a lot about reflection and mirrors. Like in traditional talk therapy, we’re interested in what we can see about ourselves by looking at an “other.” Only in Ecotherapy, that other is often beyond human. For the first exercise, which I learnt in my Ecopsychology training at the Holos Institute, participants are encouraged to shape their body into the form of a being or entity they see which is beyond human— a mountain, a tree, a branch, or even just a leaf— and notice what it feels like. As I prompted the therapists to look for something to “mirror,” I watched as these professionally dressed, always poised, so-called “grown-ups” twisted their faces toward the sun, lifted their chins, and waggled their arms while leaning off to the side. They pranced and hunched and swayed. They let themselves hang.

Later, in an exercise about exploring darkness, I watched as a sixty-something therapist crept through a field, toe first wearing an eye-covering because he wanted to challenge himself to meet his surroundings without his vision. I felt a sense of profound satisfaction watching these adult, seemingly “put together” people, relax and let the facades fall. Therapists, who are so used to holding space for others by being neutral, controlled, centered, let themselves… were letting loose and connecting with childhood memories and nostalgia. They spoke of remembering how it felt to be bored as a kid, or to wander in the fields and get lost. One woman shared, in our debrief, that she mirrored a cloud in our first exercise and felt an incredible sense of freedom. Just floating. We all tried it and truly, it felt nice to just dissolve, to drift.

My friends, we all need chances to let loose and break the “normal” patterns of life under capitalism. We need to break the stale and form new neuralpathways for how we can move, think, and relate. How else can we break free? How else are we supposed to heal? How else will we be able to meet the Earth, and our environment, in a new way?

I’m offering a half-day Ecotherapy Retreat on Saturday June 8th exploring these ideas. Please join us as we return to our innate sense of wonder, play, and possibility for new ways of being to emerge.

Until then… Be well, and don’t forget to try this activity next time you’re outside!

My Dream Job!

I was reminded of an important moment in my life just now, as I spoke on the phone to someone interested in learning about my path to Ecotherapy. When I asked what got her interested in nature work, she recounted to me the feelings and insights she derived from an outdoor summer camp on the Oregon Coast she attended as a teenager.

“I was feeling pretty stuck in the social dynamics at my high school,” she explained, as her impetus for attending camp. “I decided I wanted to explore something totally new.” Camp was that, for her. She said that between the relationships she built there, and the time spent in nature: “It was the most healing experience of my life.”

Something inside me resonated as I listened to her. She described “values sessions” they held at camp, wherein the campers and counselors gathered in a circle to discuss big questions like What’s your biggest fear? What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?. Campers learned to share vulnerably, and to listen—to really listen—to each other.

This feeling of truly been seen and witnessed outside of a classroom setting and in the majesty of redwood trees, came back to me in an instant. My first job supporting youth was at the Mosaic Project, a Berkeley-based camp created by Lara Mendel during her time at the Stanford School of Education, where we brought together schools comprised of kids from different racial backgrounds and socioeconomic classes out in the woods to practice empathy and nonviolent communication, and worked to co-create a culture that celebrated both individuality and community.

Camp with Mosaic was the first place I felt comfortable being out as a mixed-race Jew, and the first time I got to spend an entire week calling nature home. I remember looking at the incredible (fun, deep, caring) staff members and thinking they had the best job in the world. I wanted to be just like them, and I couldn’t wait to return.

Fast forward twenty-years, and here I am on this call with another potential Ecotherapist, and realizing my teenage dream has actually come true. I am, for all intents and purposes, a glorified camp counselor helping young people feel beauty, freedom, and belonging out in nature, all while learning important concepts about empathy, acceptance, and embracement of their truest selves.

I don’t speak much about the behind-the-scenes of my job on this forum… my website is full of inspiring quotes and photos the joyful moments. But there are just as many moments of pain, confusion, conflict and struggle. I’ve seen students break down under the weight of anxiety, school stress, and family conflict. I’ve heard heart-breaking stories of rejection, social alienation, and sexual assault. I’ve looked parents in the eyes and seen generations of pain as they confronted the realization that the community would not accept or overlook their physical expressions of anger. And I’ve been witnessed in my own human ineptitudes and embarrassing mistakes by students, staff, parents, and friends as I’ve moved deeper into the heart of the work that has grown to encompass so much of my world in the last seven years since I started Soul|Light.

None of this even begins to describe the way at least three times a week I want to crawl into a hole and hide from the administrative, logistical, and decision-making responsibilities that come with the territory of creating my own community and livelihood, while simultaneously being the least technologically-inclined or organized person to walk Ohlone lands in the last decade. (Case in point: I accidentally-not-so-accidentally lose my phone in the woods and refuse to replace it at least once a quarter to stay sane, and that schedule is conservative and requires discipline!).

But even with these challenges, there’s no other job that draws upon both my strengths and my favorite activities. Being at the helm of the SS Soul|Light allows me to steer my own path, like last week when I took my tenth graders out on the water at Berkeley Aquatic Park for a rowboat ride (see photo) through Waterside Workshops, or when I get in the drivers seat to head north to the land of baby goats and big ocean vistas this Friday as we embark on the annual 7th grade spring campout at my friend Sam’s land in Caspar, Mendocino for a weekend of nature and fun.

My job is very much like navigating a boat filled with friend-ship (heh) and fun, a bucket full of sorrows, and an anchor we’ll put down whenever we need to take a pause from the hectic-ness of modern life and just share what’s on our hearts and minds for a minute, an hour, or an evening. I love my students as if they were my own, and their parents and siblings have become a part of the constellation that keeps me heading toward that north star. For that, I’m eternally grateful, and invite you to join us in this wacky, wild, and truly wonderful circle that we call Soul|Light.

Outdoor mentorship circles are enrolling soon for the fall school year, and we still have just 1-2 spots left in summer camp where kids play amongst oak and redwood trees next to a burbling creek, wrapped in the comfort of knowing nature is, truly, where they can belong and find home.