Settling in at Your Sit Spot

7:30am

Who in the world is making that chattery noise outside my window? It seems to be the same time every morning. I carefully peak out the window, attempting not to disturb whatever is making the noise. The first thing I notice is a bird frantically hopping around the fig tree outside my window chattering away, twitching and looking this way and that. But what bird would use so much energy and draw so much attention to itself? It looks like a cardinal but the coloring is all wrong...oh wait, it is a juvenile, of course! This late in the summer and still sounding like a begging fledgling? The subtle movement of a branch farthur up reveals the father, bright red, and yet still less conspicuous than the youngster. He is calm and aware, looking after his child. He alternates between calculating scans for danger and cleaning his beak on the bark. He snatches up a small caterpillar in an instant.

But where is his mate? Dead? Cardinal pairs have an intense bond and will spend the year together hardly ever out of sight or chirping distance, usually until one of them dies. Maybe this silly adolescent is all the male cardinal on my fig tree has left. After a long summer of feeding and caring for 2-4 broods and losing his mate, this one juvenile might be all he has left. All the others have either left their nesting territory or more likely did not survive the summer. In North America, 70-90%(depending on who you ask) of perching birds don't make it to adulthood. Between the nest robbers like crows, jays, squirrels, raccoons and snakes and bird eaters like foxes, some hawks, and owls, this adult male must have developed intense awareness and survival skills. It is hard to be a bird.

Suddenly he looks up and flys off. The juvenile does not notice for quite some time and then flies after its father in a panicked flight. With that level of awareness, it may never live to have a red beak. I look outside. The mourning dove is still feeding in the weed garden. The carolina wren is still singing from the hedge and the starling is giving its syncopated verbalization from the top of the post. What made the cardinal fly off? Did he just spook prematurely, without any real danger? No, he probably would not have lived through a summer of raising young if he used up his energy overreacting and misjudging. He must have noticed me peering at him through the window. Despite his ninja-like awareness, he will probably not live more than a few years even though cardinals can live up to 15 years in the wild if they are not killed.

All this drama, and what is funny is that if you walked by in the heat of the day, or weren't really paying attention, you would probably wonder if any birds even lived here...

-Geoff Cox

Settling in at your Sit Spot

By this coming Tuesday (7th), you should be have found the sit spot that you are going to commit to for the semester. Whether discovering a new sit spot or returning to the one you found last week, use this week to start to feel a little more at home. Remember that your sit spot practice starts the moment you leave the door to go to your spot.

Sense Meditation: Take a deep breath and exhale, releasing the tension in your body and your mind. Soften your visual focus to settle into the "wide-angle" vision we explored at Corbin Cabin. Allow your eyes to relax, not focusing on any one thing and becoming more aware of movement in your periphery. Notice how your ability to detect motion is greatly enhanced. Expand your hearing 360 degrees around you, listening for the quietest sound on campus. Taste and smell the air. Feel your body, your feet on the ground, your breath. Relax and smile. With this relaxed yet hightened awareness, wander to your spot. Can you get in the mindset of heading in a direction but being in the moment every step along the way?

This is not always easy. When thoughts arise, smile at them and just let them come and go. Don't push them away or hold on to them. Allow your thoughts to just be part of the landscape of observation. Notice the thoughts arising and passing like clouds in the sky or the sudden flight of a startled bird. If you have trouble doing this, notice that too. If this is a struggle and thoughts of self-judgement start to arise, just notice those too, smile at them and let them go. The key is to be gentle with yourself.

Map: In addition to spending 20-30 minutes sitting silently at your spot, spend some time mapping the area around your spot in a 15-step radius. This time you can map while you are there. Bring a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and draw the area around you in as much detail as you can. Notice how many kinds of plants, trees or critters you see. Put them on the map even if you don't know their name. Feel free to give them a name. Really look at the plants and trees around you. Challenge yourself to study some of them close enough that you could draw a leaf or branch from memory. Maybe try to draw one or two from memory in your journal. Feel the dirt in your fingers. Label North on your map, even if you aren't exactly sure.

Pony Pasture Plant Walk

On Sunday morning a small group of fearless Lodgers joined together for a walk along the river to learn some of their plant neighbors. Lee led us around the familiar paths of Pony Pasture, stopping every once in a while to introduce us to one of the locals. No longer do we have to walk by the spicebush, the hackberry, the redbud, the wild grape, the sycamore or box elder without noticing them or knowing how to acknowledge them.

Now we can say, "hi river birch!" not as a way to define or control, but as a first greeting, the beginning of a relationship. Now that we have met them, I start to wonder, "why didn't I say hello sooner? What was so important that I never stopped to learn the names of my neighbors or see how they were doing or marvel at their seasonal displays of aliveness?" I realized that many of these trees were here long before I was and will be here long after. Even stinging nettle has a sweet side. Although painful to touch, a boiling bath will render the hairs painless and allow for a nutritious tea (high in iron!) or bite to eat.

And I can't forget the nutritious and delicious fruit from the paw-paw tree. This time of year, the fruit is becoming ripe. It is best when squishy to the touch and has a taste somewhere between a mango and a banana. Here is a picture of Paul savoring its sweetness.

In addition to meeting some of the local plants, we also noticed the tracks of some of the local animals. After tracking the elusive Sarah across the sand, we started looking around to see what other animal tracks we might find. Nikki spotted the prints of a raccoon in the mud while we crossed a pipeline bridge.

Towards the end of the walk, Paul noticed some more raccoon tracks, and he tracked it to the water's edge where it bent down to drink. He also helped solve the mystery of a female deer who had walked through the stream. Ask him how we knew it was a female.

Finding Your Sit Spot

This past week, I have been exploring the campus and surrounding area in preparation for this class. I have been wandering around campus in search of my sit spot, feeling like I am exploring a strange new land. And the more I explore, the more I realize that it is a strange new land. I am finding water where I had never thought to expect it, hidden stands of trees, edible and medicinal plants peeking out of the mulched landscaping, trees and shrubs that I had never noticed before, birds species from the small Carolina Wren to the larger Red-tailed Hawk, animal tracks of deer, raccoons, a fox and maybe even an opossum. I realized that North is not where I had thought it was all these years and that I really didn’t know the topography of the campus very well. On Wednesday, I got so carried away listening to bird language and poking around in the dirt that I had forgotten I was supposed to be heading back to the office. This past week, I have been utterly fascinated by the influx of hominids of all different shapes, sizes and colors. Some are clearly very new to this strange land, and some seem to be returning (migration pattern?). Despite my familiarity with this specific species, so much of their behavior utterly mystified me…
-Geoff Cox

Finding your sit spot: Spend some time this week wandering the campus as if you were a surveyor seeing the campus for the first time, or Ish exploring a new world. Allow yourself to be led to a spot on campus that calls out to you, maybe one you have never been to before. Your spot must be outside and should be in a place where you can observe what is going on around you without interacting with other people. You can choose a location that has a view of an area with frequent human activity, but you will still have to make sure you will be able to sit still and not be required to interact with others at your spot. You may have to get creative to make this work. You can consider what the best camouflage might be around other people.

Although any spot can be a sit spot, you may wish to consider:
-being near a body of water
-being on an edge area (for example, where a meadow meets a forest)
-a place with a diversity of natural elements
-a place with a broad view where you can see a large area well
-an area where you are unlikely to be seen or noticed by other people
-a place where you can sit comfortably
-and most of all, a place that invites your curiosity!

At your spot: When you find your spot, spend 15-30 minutes sitting there, looking around and getting to know the place. How many different kinds of plants and critters do you see? Can you tell which way North is without a compass? Settle in and allow your mind to become still.

In addition to your journal: After returning from your spot, draw a map of the area around your spot from memory with as much detail as possible. Bring your map to class on Tuesday.

Sit Spot Journal

Throughout the semester, you will be developing your observation skills, sharpening your awareness, challenging yourself to deepen your capacity for critical thinking and pattern recognition while integrating your personal experience with the texts we will read in class through weekly written reflections.  Your Sit Spot will be a spot on campus that you will get to know intimately.  Your weekly visits to this place in different seasons, weather, times of day and mental state will facilitate both a deep knowledge of place and yourself.

            In a recent National Geographic article,  journalist Michael Finkel spent some time in Tanzania with the Hadza, one of the rare remaining communities of people living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.  Finkel wrote of his arrival in the bush, "...there was [tribal elder] Onwas's son Ngaola waiting for us. Apparently, Onwas had noted the stages of the moon, and when he felt enough time had passed, he sent his son to the tree. I asked Ngaola if he'd waited a long time for me. 'No,' he said. 'Only a few days.' "

            A few days!  Can you imagine waiting in one place for several days?  It seems like most of us start to get antsy after just a few minutes of waiting, preferring to sink into a world of digital distraction or compulsive thought.  Can we sit undistracted with our senses wide open for even five minutes?  Ngaola and the rest of the Hadza have no choice.  A high level of focus and multi-sensory awareness as well as a finely honed capacity for pattern recognition are completely necessary for their survival.  Mental agitation, distraction and tension are “luxuries” the Hadza cannot afford.  Ngaola is native to the area in which he lives, but his being native has nothing to do with the color of his skin or being part of what we now call an “indigenous” people.  Being native means having developed enough awareness to know a place so intimately that over time one understands the layers of interconnectedness and the patterns of nature enough to live naturally in that place. 

            My year in California was a doorway into starting to develop the awareness necessary to be native to a place.  I learned to start seeing the farm I lived on through new eyes, eyes that were open to a whole world that I had trained myself to overlook or disregard through years of distraction and disembodiment.  This year, when I returned to Richmond, I realized that although I had lived here for five years before, I was nowhere close to being native to the place.  Sure, I knew how to get around the campus, had a sense of what college life was like, and had lots of memories, but as I look around now, I realize that in my years here, I had somehow almost completely overlooked the physical world, a world teaming with life in every inch, every inch intimately connected to the rest.  Now I am starting to  look around, like a curious child, eager to explore the mysteries…

            Through your time at your Sit Spot, you will start to become native to the Richmond campus.  Over the course of the semester, you will be challenged to explore your world inside and out through developing sensory awareness, mapping skills, observation, pattern recognition, and a relaxed, still mind.  You will also start to develop a relationship with the natural world by getting to know some of the plants, trees, and animals (yes, including those curious bipedal hominids walking all over the place).

-Geoff Cox

Guidelines

Visiting your spot:  You will spend at least 1 hour a week, during one or two visits, sitting quietly with all electrical devices turned off at your spot practicing the sensory awareness that will be explored throughout the semester as well as any particular assignments for that week.

Getting to and from your spot:  The sit spot practice starts the moment you step out the door.  Once through the door, you will start practicing expanding into your sensory awareness, calming your mind and paying attention.  From that first moment out the door, you are encouraged to tap into your inner curious child, making observations, asking question and exploring possibilities.  And remember, you will have to be paying close enough attention to make sure no other Lodgers see you, because…

Keeping your sit spot secret:  Throughout the semester, you will be challenged to keep your sit spot a secret from all other Lodgers.  Some spots will be harder to keep hidden than others and may require some creativity.

Finding other Lodger’s sit spots:  You are also challenged to find the location of other Lodgers’ sit spots and take a picture of them at their spot without them noticing for extra credit.  If you discover the location of another person’s sit spot, you are required to keep their spot a secret as well.  Although teamwork is an important aspect of the Earth Lodge experience, any photos taken as a result of someone intentionally revealing their sit spot will not be considered for extra credit.

Misty Mountain Hop

 EARTH Lodge vet & founding member Geoff Cox will be joining us this semester to help facilitate our field study and share the 'hands-on' education he has gained since graduating from UR. Recently we scouted out the cabin reserved for our retreat yesterday on a day when thick clouds drifted across Skyline Drive with temperatures in the  70's.

The hike in to the cabin is a rocky 1.4 mile downhill walk, so be sure to bring appropriate footwear to protect your feet and help support pack weight. If you have your own pack, sleeping bag and pad, please bring them. For Lodgers without equipment we will have a brief equipment orientation session before we leave and supply what is needed.

Corbin Cabin is on the National Register and seems to be known even in Japan since we encountered about a dozen Japanese hikers resting nearby when we arrived. Even though we're in the dry time of the summer, the nearby Hughes River (really more of a creek) is flowing nicely and might even offer a few good swimming holes for the hearty - bring your bathing suit!

Though it looks like a lonely cabin, Nicholson Hollow was actually one of several settlements as described in The Displaced:
"European settlement was inaugurated in the broad Weakley Hollow valley in the mid-eighteenth century with the legal patenting of large tracts of land which quickly attracted farmers, millers, and merchants. The strongly-flowing streams of the hollow supported at least one grist mill, two sawmills, and a host of legal distilleries, while a road through the hollow connected these businesses with two villages. By the early 20th century, Weakley Hollow boasted its own village, complete with a post office, two churches, two stores, and a school. In 1932, residents owned properties varying from one to 470 acres, living in frame and log houses ranging from the spacious three story home of Haywood and Daisy Nicholson, to the single-story log home of Tera Weakley. Perched high on the slopes of Old Rag Mountain, the newly-abandoned Weakley home was easily missed when the CCC boys swept through the hollow on their mission to restore nature. The house and nearby henhouse stood nearly intact until November 2000."

In 2000 there was a huge forest fire that destroyed many of the buildings and we could see the signs of an old fire all around us. The building itself is a text, showing the marks of making. In the image below the left circle highlights the marks of an "adze" that was used to shape logs and the right circle features an example of the "dovetail notch" style of  cabin assembly.

Even the trail is a text to be read, full of fascinating detail for the attentive hiker. On our way up the mountain we encountered two strange things on the trail - can you identify what they are?

  

 The image on the left is of an Owl pellet....see the tiny bones & hair?
The identity of the second image is not for the squeamish. Can you see that small brownish triangle in the lower right part of the mass?
It's part of a deer hoof, most likely a fawn, in a large dark pile of bear droppings (aka spoor, crap, manure...).

While we are not likely to have any encounters with bears, this is a reminder that the Bambified image of nature we sometimes see in the media is not accurate. Nature, though beautiful, is "red in tooth & claw."

Corbin Cabin Retreat

We have reservations for a 19th Century cabin by the Hughes River in Shenandoah National Park through the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) for our pre-semester retreat August 20-21.
EARTH Lodgers who will be joining us should arrive Friday the 20th to  have time for unloading and setting up your room before we leave for the mountains at 4PM. The cabin only sleeps 12 but if everyone joins us we can set up a tent annex! 

The cabin is located down in Nicholson Hollow and will not have cell service, electricity or running water but a river is nearby, and the cabin has a wood cook stove and a fireplace. Our brief stay should give us a good sense of what it would be like to live in a low-tech world like George Stewart describes in Earth Abides.

To learn more about the history of the area check the Virginia Trail Guide blog entry about Corbin Cabin and review this outline of Appalachian geography and stay tuned to our blog for some basic camping, backpacking and gear tips...

Finally, be sure to read Stewart's novel Earth Abides before you arrive on campus so you'll be ready for group discussion during the trip. Copies will be available in the campus bookstore if you're in town early or you can order your own through Amazon.

Message From An Earth Lodge Alum

Hello! My name is Brian Holcomb and I, like Geoff before me, am writing to communicate a little bit of my experience living in the abode formerly known as The Outdoor House. To speak plainly, any Richmond student who is open to making new friends, taking a mind-expanding course, and going on great trips in the woods should join The Earth Lodge!

During my time in The House (the 2006-2007 school year) I reaped the benefits of living in a small, close-knit community. I only knew one of the students who would be living in The House that year, but I figured I would get along with the others because outdoorsy-types tend to be pretty cool people. Well, I was right! The types of folks who choose to live in Earth Lodge are open to meeting new people and going on adventures—they are cool, indeed. 

The Earth Lodge curriculum—camping trips in the Blue Ridge, movie discussions, classes at the James River, cookouts—all of it is geared toward fostering community and respect for the natural world, and inspiring inquisitive minds and adventurous spirits. As an added bonus, my three best friends today are all fellow alumni of this program!
 

In addition to building friendships in the dorm, you also get to take Professor Carleton’s English course with everyone in the Earth Lodge. This class was a lot of fun for me because we were encouraged to go beyond the typical class model and incorporate our experiences in the woods into our studies. This course got me excited in learning for the sake of learning, and Mr. Carleton’s open-ended journal assignments allowed me to explore material that interested me. It was also nice to have friends who would make sure I was awake in time for class! 

My experience living in Earth Lodge helped me develop an identity for myself as one of the ‘outdoorsy’ Richmond students, and live with a group of people who had similar interests. It also helped spark my interest in experiential education. Today, I am interning with a semester-long, residential high school in North Carolina called The Outdoor Academy. Here, I’m living in a close-knit community not unlike the one I enjoyed in The Earth Lodge, and serving as a dorm parent for seven 16 and 17 year old boys. On the weekends, I co-lead wilderness trips such as backpacking, caving, paddling and rock climbing.

When I tell people about my job, they are really inquisitive as to how I ended up here. To read between the lines, many people are thinking ‘what sort of odd, meandering path did this guy take to end up leading backpacking trips at a semester school in the Appalachian Mountains’? Well, I tell them, it all started at The University of Richmond’s living-learning community, The Earth Lodge…

 I hope you choose to live in The Earth Lodge, you won’t regret it!

-Brian