Camping it up

Evening canoeing on Puget Sound is one of my favorite parts of camp

Take a week away from worry
Worry for another’s scurry
Winging along crooked paths
Eating junk food, taking baths …

Try Camp Parkview
Sing a song
Pull a paddle
Right a wrong

Last month, my brother Mark and Gordon and I went to summer camp.

It wasn’t just any camp. It was a camp for adults with disabilities, celebrating its 25th year at the Baptist-owned Camp Burton grounds here on Vashon Island.

Every morning camp co-founder Nancy Trenbeth led the group in exploring what community means

For many years now, since the mid-1980’s, Mark and I have enjoyed being together in a cabin with other campers and counselors and doing all the things you do at summer camp – arts and crafts (tie-dyed shopping bags!), archery (Mark got 4 bullseyes!), canoeing, swimming, and telling ghost stories.

Gordon and Carl Fox try on being a pig and a dog, thanks to Jennifer Burris's hats

Since Gordon came into my life, he’s joined us and has become one of the most popular counselors at the camp.

Annie (left) brought her good friend Maryann, who livened up this year's camp

What I love about Camp Parkview is taking a week away from my reality and getting into the rhythms of nature with a group of special people (aged 18 – 60something) for whom loving and eating are their primary foci. For many of them, camp is the highlight of their year.

Steve Jarvis always says "I want to go home." We imagine at his group home, he says, "I want to go to camp."

We danced a lot. In fact, the canoeing sessions often turned into dance-a-thons with campers rocking out on the beach.

Dancing to a live surf band at Grisham Hall is a favorite for many campers (and counselors)

My favorite moment is when we’re out in canoes with campers enjoying the smells of the water, reflecting on the day, hearing birds and belches after dinner.

Storyteller Merna Hecht brought the "Theater of the Beautiful Faces" to this year's camp. Chelsea helps hold the curtain.

It’s also fun to work with a truly intergenerational group of counselors (we had a great ratio this year – in our cabin, 4 counselors and 6 campers), many of whom spend their vacations volunteering at camp even though they work with special-needs populations all year long.

Anthony warms up for the Star Spangled Banner

The talent show on the last night is often a kick. This year, it started with longtime camper David DiJulio singing the Star Spangled Banner, while Anthony, in an American flag shirt, waved and danced around the stage. Mark played Jim Morrison of The Doors. He did a rollicking version of “Light My Fire,” with backup dancers Gordon (rubbing sticks together), Jennifer (lighting a match), camp co-founder John Holliday (flicking a Bic), and myself (lighting a longer lighting torch) singing along.

Mark Silha practices his best Jim Morrison imitation on the deck at Soundcliff

Camp, indeed!

Stairway to ... ?

Climb with me to the stars... aloft to the loft... where dreams coalesce...

It’s so important to think about where we need to go, and how best to get there.

For about a year, since the Forge (my writing cottage) was completed, we’ve needed a good way to get to the sleeping loft, the “treehouse” level, where a memory-foam mattress provides one of the best sleeping places in these parts.

Gordon has designed most of the Forge building itself, so he’s been thinking about this cosmic elevator for a long time. Built-in wall steps? A notched log? Fold-out stairs? A ladder? Ah…

The ladder stores elegantly against the wall, so the door to the mudroom can open

Our friend Hans Nelsen, a renowned woodworker and artist, saw Gordon’s drawings of a possible ladder, and made it real. Now there’s an easy ascent to the sleeping / napping / dreaming level.

A nap in the middle of writing? Why not?

The ladder bows in and out, and gives your climbing feet a sound massage with its cherry rungs, as your hands cling to its Douglas fir rails. It’s sleek, comfortable, graceful.

Even when not in use, it invites elevated thoughts...

Javier Sanchez, visiting from Mexico, was the first to use it to sleep in the loft.

And now the Forge feels more complete, even though there are a few more details to finish. So … no excuses not to write!

Thanks to coaching from my friend Ruth Ozeki, I’ve embarked on a daily discipline which will help me ascend beyond my own fears and into the realms of better sense-making and communication. No phone or e-mail in the morning! Instead, forging words, ideas, images.

Luminaria

A spontaneous parade moves through -- becomes -- the crowd at Victoria's Luminara Festival

Summer’s going too fast – I can’t believe they’re closing the Vashon swimming pool early because there’s not enough evening light, starting today. But there are other ways to bring light to our world. (Last night’s rare Northwest heat lightning show was one impressive manifestation.)

Amazing what can happen when a community pulls together its creative sparks

While traveling through Victoria, B.C. on our way to a wonderful summer gathering at Hollyhock Retreat Center, Gordon and I happened upon the city’s annual Luminara Festival.

Light drummers add visual beats to a pulsing summer night

Wow, it’s like Halloween in midsummer!

A light bear searches for light salmon...and finds them

There were gremlins and robots and Bucky Balls (soccer balls made as geodesic spheres) and drummers, fairy princesses and bears and wishing walls and fire dancers.

Reflect on this: What dragons are you facing, and how well are you facing them?

Families and performances, Magic Lanterns and spontaneous parades. It reminded me of the importance of ritual, creative expression, and humor in our daily lives.

You never know who's going to show up when you call a summer luminaria party!

The power of prayer

What a year for foxgloves! The wonders of nature inspire confidence in miracles

I’m convinced that prayer is a most powerful force for healing, dealing, and figuring things out.

This has been most evident recently in my nephew David Silha Reimann’s ongoing recovery from the “terrorist accident” he was in over Memorial Day weekend. He’s astounding the doctors as he body heals quickly – though maybe not as quickly as he would want. The prayers and good wishes have helped speed his miraculous healing.

Yesterday he went home for the first time to celebrate the birthday of his sister Sarah, his best friend and often “scribe” on the wonderful Caring Bridge website, keeping us updated on his daily progress.

Having grown up in (and still being a student of) Christian Science, I recall Mary Baker Eddy’s definition of prayer as the constant desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, and good deeds.

Grace. Something David is experiencing, as I am, too.

Many thanks to all who have prayed for and thought about David. In all ways, all traditions. I know it’s helping.

Terrors

There's gold at the end of the rainbow (this from our deck), but the process of finding it can be chilling

My nephew was in a terrorist auto accident Saturday night, and he's been in a coma since then. (I call it a terrorist accident because he was driving at night on a small country road in Wisconsin when a pickup truck suddenly rounded the curve in his lane and ran into him. Terror. The driver of the pickup died.) I’m on my way to Minneapolis right now to be with him and my family.

On Wednesday, one of our “godsons” came by, to help cut some limbs off trees to better sculpt our garden and let more light in ... I went out with Josiah to the edge of our cliff, where a tree holding a cliff together is about to topple to the beach ... I asked him to cut the dead main tree so that the child could survive and continue to hold the cliff.

At the edge of the cliff was a ledge, and on the ledge was an alder tree, intertwined with the oldest-growth Indian Plum either of us had ever seen. And bound around with blackberry vines. And blackberry canes. And jungley growth.

He walked out on the gnarly tree. He cut the berry vines and honored the Indian Plum. He was suspended 55 feet above the beach. He was balancing on the Indian plum vines. His body had no hesitation. He was up to the task.

He took the chainsaw from me, and carried it out as he balanced on the horizontal "plank" of the tree so he could cut off the dead larger trunk and lighten the load for the roots.

He navigated the light, bouncy, woody stems of the Indian Plum as they wove making love around the plank of the alder tree. It seemed he -- and the tree -- were constantly one degree away from being 55 feet below, on the rocky beach. I was in awe of Josiah. He was Angel Boy / Earth Boy / Logger Boy. He was sawing up from under the nearly horizontal tree, first. His saw bound. "God-dammit!" he said from the edge of the precipice. There was smoke. He tried to vibrate it out. The whole diving board seemed to shake. He edged it out. I prayed.

As he started to cut from the top, "CRACK" -- "SHOT" -- the roots seemed to shake and a shot rang out that sounded like a gun. The tree plunged to the beach.

When he got back to solid ground, we hugged. My nephew had just been in a horrible accident, and I couldn't imagine another.

Now our cliff will likely stay intact for years longer, as a result of Josiah's arborial prowess.


**
As often, I'm out on the edge of the cliff.

Media That Matters

Bill Weaver plans the Media That Matters gathering from the edge of his property on Desolation Sound on the east shore of Cortes Island

One of my favorite weeks each year (for the last 7 years) is this mid-May time, when spring is breaking and chartreuse leaves pop out in the middle of dark green Northwest forests. What makes it amazing for me is the opportunity to go to Cortes Island in British Columbia, Canada – to help facilitate a workshop called Media That Matters.

Media That Matters was created by a brilliant documentary maker, Bill Weaver (a Southern boy who did a stint in TV news in Portland, OR before becoming Canadian). Bill wanted to get media makers away from the “flickering screens” that become our lives and into the woods on one of the most beautiful places on the planet – to learn, work, dream, and play together.

Media That Matters is an invitational retreat which attracts journalists, filmmakers, web designers, novelists, academics, community organizers, and new media mavens. It’s always different, depending on who shows up. And depending on how open we all are to the astounding beauty of this place. The silences are even moreso (than Vashon Island or other places I’ve been). The birdsong (killdeer, wren, robin, oystercatcher, etc.) echoes across the water. Waves lap gently. Oyster beds abound. And the invitation to go inside and pay attention to inner voices resounds.

So this morning, my friend John Holliday drove me to the north end of Lake Washington, where I got on a floatplane and watched the water-dominated landscape of Seattle disappear as we made our way up past Whidbey Island and Port Townsend (paper mill pumping), past the San Juan Islands, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca and over Victoria, past the Gulf Islands to Nanaimo .

After a quick customs check (“do you have a work permit?” “no”), we flew over the Strait of Georgia, over many islands, BC ferry boats, forests, clearings, and limestone mines, to Cortes, where the Hollyhock Retreat Center is our Media That Matters home.

It’s always hard to get away from my routine, but when I do, I realize how important this is. I always have new insights here. I so look forward to this week. Deep breath.

New News Ecology

We mapped how a story gets written, edited, and distributed in the 'old' model 20th-century newsroom

I haven’t blogged about it much, but for me, this is the Season of the Journalism Conference.

I just returned from my first of three: Journalism That Matters: NewsTools 2008. It was a great gathering of nearly 200 journalists, technologists, educators, activists and bloggers – held at the Yahoo! Corporate headquarters in California’s Silicon Valley. (What a time to be at Yahoo!)

We kicked it off in URL’s Café (get it? Eat at URL’s!) – with a skit about old journalism (an intrepid newspaperman) encountering new, technology laden journalism (a Twittering young idealist). In order to create a common language between the “old” newsroom, and the 21st century “news ecology,” we prepared a map that drew out the roles and the values values (both tangible and intangible) involved in the process of getting a story out to an audience in the 20th Century.

Then we began to map the roles that might exist in the future. The experiment worked. While not everybody agreed about the new map -- in fact we began to identify lots of new roles that are developing – we had a great three-day “mashup” in which lots of new ideas were hatched, and lots of important connections were made between fascinating and diverse folks.

Next week, I’m off to Media That Matters at Hollyhock Retreat Center on Cortes Island in British Columbia, Canada – one of the true beauty spots on the planet. We’ll be exploring “Art, Story and Social Change.”

Then, on June 4-6, we’ll be at the University of Minnesota for another Journalism That Matters gathering called “A Passion for Place: New Pamphleteers/New Reporters: Convening Entrepreneurs Who Combine Journalism, Democracy, Place and Blogs.”

Hopefully, we're creating a new news ecology where truth, fairness, verification, and watchdog journalism can survive and thrive, even as new voices emerge as important storytellers in this turbulent time.

The emerging ecology takes the old roles of editor, reporter, and audience and converts them to sense-maker, beat blogger, and community.