NOLS OES 2/13

A COLLECTION OF WORDS SHARED AND PHOTOS CAPTURED THROUGH OUR SEMESTER

OES 2-13

NOLS SPRING 2020 WYOMING AND UTAH

OES 2-13 This book, made of words and photographs, is a collection from our NOLS course: the Outdoor Educator Semester of 2/13/2020. Thanks to Alex for gathering the text – poems, and other words our group chose to share aloud many if not most of our days together. This is Charlotte writing this note to you, whoever you are reading this. I took the words from Alex and put them together with photos to form this book. The photos in this book – lots are film ones I took, but there are also other photos taken by others. I hope this book offers a glimpse into, or a reminder of, our wonderful, magical, hard, beautiful time together. The course was cut short but the weeks in the snow and brief time on the river fill me with love. Love for the place, you all, the learning, teaching, growth, vulnerability, honesty and care shared between us in the unique space we created together.

Contents Foolishness? No, It’s Not by Mary Oliver Excerpt from a speech delivered to

environmentalists in Missoula, Montana in 1976 I Worried by Mary Oliver

by Edward Abbey

shared by Claire Morning Poem by Mary Oliver

shared by Alex at The Ranch Two Drops of Oil, Excerpt from “The Alchemist”

by Paulo Coelho Praying by Mary Oliver shared by Jenna on the river

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

shared by Jeremy at The Noble When I Am Among The Trees

by Mary Oliver Desiderata by Max Ehrmann shared by Alex in the Wyoming Range

Sharing Love by Ross Gay Wild Geese by Mary Oliver shared by Alex at river camp two shared by Chrissy we think

Excerpt from “Teacher and Child: A Book for Where Does The Temple Begin, Where Does It Parents and Teachers” by Haim G. Ginott End? by Mary Oliver shared by Mira on the river shared by Alex in the Wyoming Range

Briefing for Entry Into A Harsher Compiled Quotes by Mary Oliver Environment by Morgan Hite shared by various people

shared by Josh on the river The Guest House by Jalaluddin Rumi

shared by Charlotte at high camp River Angels by Mary Oliver

shared by Alex Excerpt from “Walden” (Henry David Thoreau)

shared by Alex at camp two Do Stones Feel? by Mary Oliver

A Single Footstep (Henry David Thoreau) Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver shared by Alex at camp two shared by Miriam at river camp two

Excerpt from a speech delivered to environmentalists Missoula, Montana 1976 Edward Abbey

One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a halfhearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.

tents and pads drying in the sun after our weeks in the snow

Two Drops of Oil, Excerpt from “The Alchemist” Paulo Coelho

A merchant sent his son to learn the Secret of Happiness from the wisest of men. The young man wandered through the desert for forty days until he reached a beautiful castle at the top of a mountain. There lived the sage that the young man was looking for.

However, instead of finding a holy man, our hero entered a room and saw a great deal of activity; merchants coming and going, people chatting in the corners, a small orchestra playing sweet melodies, and there was a table laden with the most delectable dishes of that part of the world.

The wise man talked to everybody, and the young man had to wait for two hours until it was time for his audience.

The Sage listened attentively to the reason for the boy’s visit, but told him that at that moment he did not have the time to explain to him the Secret of Happiness.

He suggested that the young man take a stroll around his palace and come back in two hours’ time.

“However, I want to ask you a favor,” he added, handling the boy a teaspoon, in which he poured two drops of oil. “While you walk, carry this spoon and don’t let the oil spill.”

The young man began to climb up and down the palace staircases, always keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. At the end of two hours he returned to the presence of the wise man.

“So,”asked the sage, “did you see the Persian tapestries hanging in my dining room?

Did you see the garden that the Master of Gardeners took ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”

Embarrassed, the young man confessed that he had seen nothing. His only concern was not to spill the drops of oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.

“So, go back and see the wonders of my world,”said the wise man. “You can’t trust a man if you don’t know his house.”

Now more at ease, the young man took the spoon and strolled again through the palace, this time paying attention to all the works of art that hung from the ceiling and walls.

He saw the gardens, the mountains all around the palace, the delicacy of the flowers, the taste with which each work of art was placed in its niche. Returning to the sage, he reported in detail all that he had seen.

“But where are the two drops of oil that I entrusted to you?”asked the sage.

Looking down at the spoon, the young man realized that he had spilled the oil.

“Well, that is the only advice I have to give you,”said the sage of sages.

“The Secret of Happiness lies in looking at all the wonders of the world and never forgetting the two drops of oil in the spoon.”

Excerpt from “Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers” Haim G. Ginott I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate.

It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.

Briefing for Entry Into A Harsher Environment Morgan Hite People always talk about what you can't take home with you after a NOLS course.

You can't take home the backpack, or at least it has no place in your daily life. You can't take home the rations, and if you did, your friends wouldn't eat them. You can't take home the mountains. We seem to have to get rid of all of our connections to this place and our experiences here. It's frustrating and can be depressing.

This essay is about what you can take home. What you can take home, and what, if you work at it, can be more important than any of those things you have to leave behind.

Let's look at what we've really been doing out here. We've been organized. We lived out of backpacks the whole time, and mostly we knew where everything was.

We've been thorough: we counted every contour line on the map and put every little bit of trash in a bag. We've been prepared: at this moment, every one of us knows where his or her raingear is. We've taken care of ourselves. We've been in touch with basic survival tasks. We've taken chances with other people, entrusted them with our lives and seen no reason not to grow close to them. We've persevered and put our minds to things that never seemed to end. We've learned to use new tools and new techniques. We've taken care of the things we have with us. We've lived simply.

These are the things you can really take home. Together they comprise the set I call "mental hygiene," as if we needed to take care of our minds the way we take care of our bodies. Here they are again, one by one.

1. Organization. The mountains are harsh, so you need to be organized. But that other world is much more complex, and even harsher in ways that aren't always as tangible as cold, wind and rain. Being organized can help you weather its storms.

2. Thoroughness. Here it is easy to see the consequences of leaving things only half done. That other world has so many interruptions, distractions and stimuli that it is easy to leave things half done, until you find yourself buried under a pile of on-going projects with no direction.

3. Preparedness. Out here you've only had to be prepared for every eventuality of weather; but in that other world you have to be prepared for every eventuality period. There are no rules, shit happens, and only the prepared are not caught off balance.

4. Take care of yourself, and do it even more aggressively than you do it out here.

The environmental hazards are even greater: crowding, noise, schedules. Take time to be alone and think. Never underestimate the healing power of being near beauty, be it a flower, music, a person, or just dinner well-prepared.

5. Stay in touch with basics. Continue to cook your own food and consciously select the place where you sleep at night. Take care of your own minor injuries and those of your friends. Learn about how the complex vehicles and tools you use work. The other world is far more distracting and seeks to draw you away from the basics.

6. Keep taking risks with people. Your own aliveness is measured by the aliveness of your relationships with others. There are so many more people to choose from in that other world, and yet somehow we get less close. Remember that the dangers are still present; any time that you get in a car with someone you are entrusting that person with your life. Any reasons that seem to crop up not to get close examine very carefully.

7. Remember you can let go and do without seemingly critical things. Here it has only been hot showers, forks and a roof overhead. But anything can be done without; eventually for us all it is a person that we have to do without, and then especially it is important to remember that having to do without does not rule out joy.

8. Persevere at difficult things. It may not be as concrete as a mountain or as immediately rewarding as cinnamon rolls, but the world is given to those who persevere. Often you will receive no support for your perseverance because everyone else is too busy being confused.

9. Continue to learn to use new tools and techniques. Whether it is a computer or an ice cream maker, you know now that simply because you haven't seen it before doesn't mean you can't soon be a pro. Remember that the only truly old people are the ones who've stopped learning.

10. Take care of things. In that other world it's easy to replace anything that wears out or breaks, and the seemingly endless supply suggests that individual objects have little value. Be what the philosopher Wendell Berry calls "a true materialist." Build things of quality, mend what you have and throw away as little as possible.

11. Live simply. There is no substitute for sanity.

These eleven things are the skills you've really learned out here, and they will serve you in good stead in any environment in the world. They are habits to live by. If anyone asks what your course was like, you can tell them. "We were organized, thorough and prepared. We took care of ourselves in basic ways. We entrusted people with our lives, learned to do without and persevered at difficult things. We learned to use new tools and we took care of what we had with us. We lived simply." And if they are perceptive, they will say, "You don't need the mountains to do that."

Angels Mary Oliver

You might see an angel anytime and anywhere. Of course you have to open your eyes to a kind of second level, but it’s not really hard. The whole business of what’s reality and what isn’t has never been solved and probably never will be. So I don’t care to be too definite about anything.

I have a lot of edges called Perhaps and almost nothing you can call Certainty. For myself, but not for other people. That’s a place you just can’t get into, not entirely anyway, other people’s heads.

I’ll just leave you with this.

I don’t care how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It’s enough to know that for some people they exist, and that they dance.

Do Stones Feel?

Mary Oliver Do stones feel?

Do they love their life?

Or does their patience drown out everything else?

When I walk on the beach I gather a few white ones, dark ones, the multiple colors.

Don’t worry, I say, I’ll bring you back, and I do.

Is the tree as it rises delighted with its many branches, each one like a poem?

Are the clouds glad to unburden their bundles of rain?

Most of the world says no, no, it’s not possible.

I refuse to think to such a conclusion.

Too terrible it would be, to be wrong.

Don’t Hesitate Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.

There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Foolishness? No, It’s Not Mary Oliver Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a single tree. To do this I have to climb branch by branch and write down the numbers in a little book. So I suppose, from their point of view, it’s reasonable that my friends say: what foolishness! She’s got her head in the clouds again.

But it’s not. Of course I have to give up, but by then I’m half crazy with the wonder of it — the abundance of the leaves, the quietness of the branches, the hopelessness of my effort. And I am in that delicious and important place, roaring with laughter, full of earth-praise.

I Worried Mary Oliver I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not how shall I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.

Morning Poem Mary Oliver

Every morning the world is created.

Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches— and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies.

If it is your nature to be happy you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead— if it's all you can do to keep on trudging— there is still somewhere deep within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted— each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly, every morning, whether or not you have ever dared to be happy, whether or not you have ever dared to pray.

Praying Mary Oliver

It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.

The Summer Day Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I meanthe one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and downwho is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

When I Am Among The Trees Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”

Wild Geese Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Where Does The Temple Begin, Where Does It End? Mary Oliver There are things you can’t reach. But you can reach out to them, and all day long.

The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God. And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily, out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing from the unreachable top of the tree.

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around as though with your arms open.

And thinking: maybe something will come, some shining coil of wind, or a few leaves from any old tree– they are all in this too.

And now I will tell you the truth.

Everything in the world comes.

At least, closer.

And, cordially.

Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake.

Like goldfinches, little dolls of goldfluttering around the corner of the sky of God, the blue air.

Compiled Quotes Mary Oliver

This is the first and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely on attentiveness.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

And tell about it.

We’re soaked in distractions.

The world didn’t have to be beautiful.

We can and should think about that beauty and be grateful for it.

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast, there the blue plums.

Here the clam in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not halfperfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work.

The Guest House Jalaluddin Rumi

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Excerpt from “Walden” Henry David Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

A Single Footstep Henry David Thoreau

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

OES 2-13 Countoff Joe Giesen Jim Muir Josh Matz Alex Elron Max Owens Elizabeth Jeffries Mira Menyuk Nico Palmisciano Charlotte Reider-Smith Mahon Yoder Claire Giannaula Jenna Stanze Miriam Taylor Chrissy Turk Brooke Price

Winter Instructors Amy Lones Guda (Rebecca) Yaguda Mike Froehly Jeremy Cronon

River Instructors Pip Coe Becca Abuza Leia Young