Re-Entry is a Gift

What does it mean to re-enter one’s life?  Wasn’t the vision fast part of the whole fabric of what I consider “my life”?  So why do I have this feeling that I am entering anew my life, my work, my responsibilities, and my relationships since coming out of the wilderness? 

I suppose one piece of the answer is that the “liminal space” (‘occupying a position on one side or the other of a threshold’) – having a totally different sense of time, sans meal rituals, a pause from human conversations, ‘shelter’ made out of a sleeping bag) in which the fast occurs really does have an altering effect on the faster.  I “felt” like myself when I was out there; I didn’t feel altered.  And yet, I had adjustments when I came home (some of which I mentioned in a previous post).  I also heard from two of the other fasters who were out on the land two weeks ago; they, too, had a few days just after returning to home and work during which they felt a bit unable to manage.  My fellow fasters and I took our time, as much as our hectic life pace would allow, to move back into daily life.  This is the transition back to routines.

The transition reminds me of my fortunate experience in my teens:  being accepted as an exchange student abroad during my final year of high school.  The American Field Service (AFS), with whom I interviewed for a placement, sent me to Japan.  I lived in a small city in the northern part of Honshu (the island on which Tokyo resides).  I recently wrote an essay about the adjustments I went through during the first few weeks (especially) in the country.  Sure, there was culture shock; I had expected there would be. What came as a total surprise was the “reverse culture shock” I experienced upon return to my home in the U.S. one year later.  Like my recent return from the wilderness, I saw things a bit differently when I came home from Japan, and I had to make alterations in my speech, behaviors and daily “routines”. 

I am at home in the wilderness; I am one with all that I encounter.  I am free there.  Yet, I have become accustomed to feeling “at home” within the four walls of square shelter that, most of the time, I call ‘home’:  the place I eat my meals, conduct my business, and pay for each month.

I find this transition (or re-entry) time to be a privileged one; it is a rare and wonderful opportunity to spend four days and four nights in solitude (away from humans) and in the presence of all the creatures that live in the sage/ponderosa wildlands of central Washington.  It is a privilege to be able to take the time away from work to go out, to sit on the land, to adjust back to daily routines at home, to come back with newfound perspectives and clarity, to reminisce and learn about the deep cycles of Self and Other that are Nature’s mirror to those who will quietly sit and listen.  And, it is a gift to re-enter this life of routines.  I am at home in the wild; and I find the wild within still alive and thriving even as I move back into conversations, meals, and my material-laden world of “being at home”.

All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.