I got back from a wilderness retreat a week or so ago. I’ve taken part in these for some time now; the experience grows in my mind and imagination even more when I’ve left. We pick an island and sail: this year it was going to be Insh, but the tides didn’t work out, so it was back to an island we’ve been to before- Lunga.
There is no experience I’ve yet found that is akin to being in a wilderness: it cares not one iota about you, you are at the mercy of whatever the elements throw at you and cannot control or subdue them. You only survive because of what you’ve bought and the assistance of others who’ve arrived with you: I am not an island. It’s not only their practical help, but their listening, story telling, mick taking,communal profanity and crudity: in fact all of those aspects seem indivisible.
We have times of reflection: I used an extract from this poem by David Wagonner one evening during one of them:
‘Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be made known’.
For once, 48 hours were not enough; I could have stayed longer to be truly ‘Here’- the weather was good and the space hadn’t fully done its work on me. I wrote things in a journal, I stared into space and out to sea, I walked, I talked and I listened. Sometimes I said nothing: I’ve used so many words over so many years that I don’t often feel I have anything fresh or particularly insightful to say, and I want to hear others speak.
It’s a powerful experience and even though these aching bones creak more as each retreat comes and goes, I’d like to be there next year: life would feel so different without the grounding of the wilderness and the companionship that I’ve found.
Wearily Hopeful 