"Downtime......."

"Each of us is on a climb of a different sort, facing our own mountains, struggling to cross our own rough seas." Anon

Welcome back to both our friends and fellow adventurers at the 'Adventure Blog' and the 'Adventurist'... Jason (The Adventurist) is returning from one of those many challenges of life we all face, and Kraig (The Adventure Blog) is recovering well from multiple surgeries a few weeks back...

This gave me pause to reflect on my own down times, many past injuries, and a recent horrendous flu that I am just getting over, which left me as weak and vulnerable as a newborn...

There are many such unplanned diversions in the midst of our adventure plans and goals... Where the setbacks and ebb's of the situation are contrasted starkly against those times of flow we experience and so wish for... Many such moments I've mused about how N. Shulman wrote that: "Everyday all of us have to attempt a mountain of sorts... Those that refuse to give up and are always willing to struggle uphill, can truly call themselves mountaineers".

I vividly recall too... a participant in the Ironman, who after years of dedication, focused training and effort, was knocked flat like a wind blown forest by a subtle yet severe illness... You could feel his anguish and many looked away when he couldn't stop the tears in his eyes... At that moment he looked so lost...

It is a truism of life and a heightened reality especially in adventures' that we cannot, will not, ever achieve that state where the 'climbing is always perfect', and the 'paddling just so'... It can be as much of a challenge as being out there in the first place to accept that all such adventure experiences are never either good OR bad... positive OR negative... but more truly and naturally some of both and always with elements of each...

Many have written before that 'we cannot have the rainbows without the storms'...

I am still trying myself, to learn to appreciate both... And maybe even learn something from these down times... As M. Twain wrote: "Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful"...

And yet... we still fight it, don't we, at times... but every once in a while we may instead blend with these elements, and find ourselves at another level within our chosen adventures... and with even more hard won wisdom that may be transferred to the rest of our lives...

DSD

"It's Just A Stone....."

"The gem of meaning is set in the stone of long perseverance." Deng Ming-Dao

Here is a recent Finders story forwarded in an email from 'N'... A story of finding something simple... finding oneself... creating meaning... and in coming back...

'N' wrote:

Two of us found a summit stone on a hike in banff. My friend knew what it was but said I could have it because he wanted the adventure muse. I think I said 'it's just a stone'.

I didn't want to go hiking then. I didn't want to be there. It rained and was cold. I guess I am not much of a hiker is what I was thinking. I didn't care all day if I ever went back.

Since then I was injured while riding my bike and two of my best friends moved away. I miss them. But I think I have found over the last two winters that like this stone I am stronger than I realised. I do love the outdoors. I now understand that spring will always be there. I now understand that rainbows do exist just like on my stone. My newest best friend is a beautiful dog I've called rainbow.

I am looking forward to hiking again this summer. I am so excited about that.

It is just a stone. But not to me anymore.

Sincerely, N

Thank you so very much 'N' for sharing your inspiring story with us...

Just like you, I was... and still am... searching for all my own adventure ways and means to bring meaning into my own life...

I try to remember; "The most beautiful stones, have been tossed by the wind, and washed by the waves, and polished to brilliance, by life's strongest storms." Anon

You have given back to me so much more than the Summit Stone I placed for you...

You humble me with your words and the personal meaning you have created for yourself...

DSD

"Bone Games & The Journey Of Rob Schultheis..."

I have often mused over if you can have a mentor whom you have never met...

"Bone Games", by Rob Schultheis, is an amazing book that I found in the mid 1980's...

Since then, I have enjoyed pondering through it over twenty years of study and experiences and the intentions of 'Bone Games', meanings within it, and how it relates to our adventures in our own wild places... Here are a few choice quotes from the journey of R. Schultheis which began on Mt. Neva as pictured above:

"I hung there for I don't know how long: thirty seconds, two minutes, half an hour. I couldn't climb back up the overhanging rock, and I could not descend...". Yet he did find 'a way', and:

"Something happened on that descent, something I have tried to figure out ever since, so inexplicable and powerful it was. I found myself very simply doing impossible things...".

"I know my limitations, and I was climbing way, way beyond them. One small part of me trembled with fear and fatigue, cried out to be rescued, to be whisked away to any place other then this bleak precipice. The rest, confident, full of an unsane joy, revelled in the animal dance of survival, admired the brilliant crystals in the granite, the drunken calligraphy of ice crystals... was totally possessed by the act of mountaineering, rejoiced in the immense vertigo of the place. It was like certain dreams I have had...". "The person I became on Neva was the best possible version of myself, the person I should have been throughout my life...".

Powerful words reflecting potent experiences...

I have also included selected quotes by Schultheis in 'The Adventure Muse' respecting his depth of motivation and the life search for replicating these adventure experiences that he set out upon... He was passing forward valuable lessons through these writings in this most intriguing tome... I have found many of my own adventure elements mirrored within these pages as they mentored my own search...

The journeys written about reflect participation in many adventure sports, endurance experiences, metaphysical & spiritual wanderings, vision quests, intense solo's, among high mountains, deserts & valleys, through physical and emotional trials, with deep meditations throughout...

Read and muse over this inspirational journal and discover for yourself why Rob called this "Bone Games", and maybe even ponder how to invite such memorable experiences into your own adventures... You will not regret it... I never have, as an ordinady adventurer, and as Rob wrote of this: "Magic becomes a kind of habit after we do the difficult, the near impossible, over and over and over again; a habit that operates down in those oldest and deepest levels of the brain and the mind. Where pain and fear can be alchemized into blissful, sublime confidence, and stumblebums wake up to find themselves dancing on the business end of pins".... He writes further of such searching that, "What made it incredibly tantalizing was that It, the magic, was somewhere inside me; It had always been there, I felt, and It always would be... dormant, waiting to be awakened...".

And yes... I believe you can have such a mentor, a guide, who passes such experience, strength, and hope forward to you... even if you've never met them...

DSD