While I have been out and about these past few days, my 'reporter's hat has been on my head. Sitting in the late afternoon sun at Panther Meadows on Mt. Shasta who should come walking over but a gentleman friend of long past who I have not seen for at least a couple years. After the greetings, I showed him my card and asked him if he had thoughts to share about renewal.
Bob is 72 this year, came from a highly technical corporate background to settle a few years ago in Siskiyou Co where he married again and had 2 children now nearly teen aged. In this time, rather than using his mind on detailed engineering problems, he leads vision quests for other men who, like him, are exiting the tech world to rediscover their very human cores.
"I've been renewing myself for a couple of decades," he says, "I guess my second family has shown me some things about what I missed before, like, that I have a very mushy heart, I love to play frisbee and checkers with my kids and that I was probably much too serious about money and prestige in my younger years. Being in love again has warmed me up and I like that very much."
"Vision quests are my gift to some of the men of my generation who kind of lost themselves and are taking back the power they gave away to their bosses and an ideal which left them hollow and dissatisfied by the attaining of the very accomplishments they had striven for as worthwhile."
"Renewal means to me, renewing myself first. Now what I am doing feels very much more like real accomplishment."
The next morning while I was walking around the alpine campground there were two beautiful, very young people relaxing in their camping spot. I went over and introduced myself. After hearing a little from them, I asked them for their ideas about renewal.
River is 29. He lives where ever he is out on the road, working when the need arises. He says he is concerned most about improving himself, seeking to learn true spiritual ways. "I'm not sure I can marry and have a family. I've seen so much of that kind of life that I am a little scared that I would lose what I have found of myself. Still, I love my woman. We talk about what if we should marry. There really are no clear answers yet for me. I see the world changing. I have no place in the world of my parents, nor do I have any idea how I might make my way in an emerging world. I believe that if I keep my heart open, a way will be shown to me."
While many of my peer group have settled in front of the TV, on the properties or in the homes their hard work achieved for them, only a very few realize somewhere that the need our society shows us to have our own money, our own house, lawn, and automobile somehow robs us of experiences of a collective wisdom, shared resources and a more human spirituality not church or organizationally based.
The younger ones, say those with only 2 decades or 3 behind them, are convinced by the ecological mess the natural environment is in that there must be something better. It is hard to break out of the old conditioning but they are daily breaking down barriers. They know it is a real challenge making a living as a fringe dweller.
They are saying there is more to life than surveillance cameras watching and recording every move we make, that the burgeoning prison culture is anathema to the pure spirit in each person, They believe that fewer things and voluntary simplicity can renew us all.
Money is not it. Love is. What is the state of your heart today?
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