An Amazing Summer
By Elder Fred, 1935-2010
It has been an amazing summer! In my wheelchair, I have been able to go outside almost every day. I have watched our landscape attain its intended beauty through the hard work of our adult children and grandchildren. Trips to the community gardens have provided sheer delight. Sitting under the new gazebo I have watched the garden unfold, realizing an earlier vision. Although I can no longer dig, plant, weed or harvest, the ongoing dialogue with my fellow Biogaians (Songaia gardeners) keeps me in the loop of the landscape and garden plans and activities.
Elder Fred, 1935-2010
Originally published on September 6, 2010
It has been an amazing summer! In my wheelchair, I have been able to go outside almost every day. I have watched our landscape attain its intended beauty through the hard work of our adult children and grandchildren. Trips to the community gardens have provided sheer delight. Sitting under the new gazebo I have watched the garden unfold, realizing an earlier vision. Although I can no longer dig, plant, weed or harvest, the ongoing dialogue with my fellow Biogaians (Songaia gardeners) keeps me in the loop of the landscape and garden plans and activities.
It has been an amazing summer! Visits from colleagues, family and friends continue to provide stimulation and enrichment to my daily life. Total dependency on others for basic needs has increased. Most recently, community or family members “serve” me my meals as I can no longer use my arms and hands. Body work, hugs and other forms of touch are ever more significant, forming deeper relationships with those I encounter.
It has been an amazing summer! I look forward to each new day with its greater challenges of total dependency along with the new insights that come. I am hungry to learn something new. Due to my immobility, I find myself watching many nature documentaries with their captivating insight into the intricacies of the web of life. I realize that I am an integral part of this very web. Truly, we live in a sacred universe.
A wilderness rite of passage doesn’t begin when a participant arrives at the trailhead or end the moment they return home.
The weeks and months surrounding a rite of passage can be just as juicy as time spent in the wilderness. The experience itself plants a seed: a taste of independence, a new sense of wonder at nature, a question about identity, or a glimpse of who we might become. But what happens next is what allows that seed to burst into glorious bloom.
That’s why, at Rite of Passage Journeys, we see autumn as an essential season in the spiraling path of a rite of passage. When the energy and vitality of summer abate, we enter a season that invites us to cool off, slow down, and marvel at the changing colors of the landscape – both out in the world and deep inside.