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Summer has been beautiful and busy for our business and our family. I’ll begin with some personal insights from our Labor Day camping experience at an Americana music festival in Yosemite, California. We arrived at the entrance gate at 7 AM to find hundreds of cars ahead of us, awaiting the 8 AM opening. The festival had been sold out for weeks and 5000 people would be camping and attending four days and nights of music and workshops. While Richard drove, I happily slept while we waited for entrance. During this period I had an awesome out-of-body experience. Tallinn, our beloved Samoyed, had died from old age a few weeks before this trip. And as we waited in the car, I was sleeping, knowing I was asleep, but at the same time was outside, behind the car on the road. I was seeing everything as though I was physically standing there. And I was petting Tallinn, telling her it was okay. I knew she liked to go “bye-bye” with the family. Other people were standing around on the road, talking, but I continued to pet Tallinn, telling her how happy she had always made me, I also started visualizing my spirit guide Abenda and how Tallinn now needs to stay with Abenda. I woke up with a start and told Richard, Hunter and Cheyenne, “Tallinn is here. I’ve just been petting her at the back of the car.” Cheyenne, being the sweet spirit that she is, opened her car door and called Tallinn’s name, saying, “We can’t leave her out there. She wants to be on the trip with us.” We finally entered the festival camp grounds at 10 AM. Since our experiences here at the festival over the Memorial Day holiday (see Richard’s article “Doing What You Most Love To Do”), we added blowup mattresses and a separate tent for Hunter and Cheyenne. The children had been communicating with their festival friends all summer via e-mail, and within 30 minutes of our arrival they had regrouped and were quickly off on their own adventures. |
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Richard emerging from the tent in Yosemite during a break in the rain. |
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Once we had set up camp, Richard and I walked the huge area, watching the woods come to life with multi-colored tents and imaginative group-campsite configurations. Children and adults on bicycles zigzagged along the dirt roads. A truck lumbered slowly through the arising community, spraying water to minimize the dust. After a leisurely hike, some Chai tea soy lattes, and a wonderful vegetarian meal at the Blue Moon Cafe, we were ready for an evening of music starting at 5 PM. Richard was delighted by the opening act--The Crooked Jades -- a San Francisco band we’d never heard of. But as darkness settled over “Music Meadow,” and the third act was beginning their set, the sky looked a lot like rain and the temperature dropped like a rock. To make a long story short: Soon after we fell asleep in our tent, I sat bolt upright in our zipped-together sleeping bags and nudged my husband to wake up. Rain was dribbling on our tent and it sounded like a bear was rooting around outside (there were several bear incidents over the four-day festival). Richard got up and poked his head outside with a flashlight. “I think it’s just people moving around, because of the rain,” he said. It sounded like a bear to me. |
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Tara relaxing at base camp at the Yosemite music festival over Labor Day, 2000. |
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When the rain really let loose, Richard checked the tent for leaks. He hadn’t caulked the seams and water was coming in. “But I did bring two large clear plastic tarps, just in case.” With a tarp over each tent and no sign of bears, we fell back to sleep. It rained hard all night long and was still raining when we awakened in the morning. Water was pooled in the lowest corner of the tent, seeping into one of our travel bags. We could see our breath inside. “No music, no matter how much I love it, is worth sitting in the rain to watch,” Richard said, glumly. I silently agreed, because it really wasn’t my kind of music in the first place. “Let’s eat in the dining hall. At least we’ll be dry and warm,” he suggested. To my surprise, neither Hunter or Cheyenne were daunted by the weather. Rather than accompany us to breakfast, they wanted to rush off to find their friends. “We’ll eat at the food stands,” they said and were gone. Rain pounding on our ponchos, my husband and I made our way up the muddy dirt roads to the dining hall. We were soon sitting at a long picnic table eating a hearty breakfast and drinking hot coffee. Musicians played on the stage at one end of the hall. “Well, what do you think?” I asked Richard. “What at this moment is lacking?” he said, lifting his coffee cup as if to toast an occasion. “I asked myself that little Zen question as we trudged through the mud to breakfast.” “And?” “Well, I decided warmth and dryness were lacking, but I have the ability to layer up with my clothes so I’m plenty warm. And thanks to our ponchos and plastic tarps we can easily remain dry. I’m here in these beautiful mountains with the people I love most in the world, to have an adventure and listen to the music I love most in the world. Even if we’re not up to sitting in the meadow to listen to the music, we can listen to it live over the pirate FM radio station. So ... I decided nothing is lacking. I’m fine with seeing it through. What about you?” I laughed. “I was processing myself the same way, but from my Shaman perspective. I asked myself, what kind of an Indian are you if you can’t stand a little rain. Then I felt strongly that if we stayed there would be a gift in the experience.” And I’m happy to report that the gift was a fabulous time. I learned we could easily survive the elements, and although the rain was light and intermittent during the days (it poured each night), we enjoyed almost all the shows performed live in the meadow. In the end, the rain actually added to the adventure. As usual, Richard processed his responses to life through Zen filters, while I did the same from a Shaman viewpoint. Although we go about it differently, we usually end up seeing things the same way. |
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Sedona, AZ: A small cave leads from one side-canyon to another in Boynton Canyon. |
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Patrick Smith birthing his way through the cave to reach a ledge in another canyon. |
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Sedona: Richard and Patrick in an overhang high on a Boynton Canyon cliff wall, where the remains of an ancient Yavapai dwelling remains. The black above their heads is the result of smoke from the cooking fires. |
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