A couple decades ago, I was in St. Kitts visiting a beach. Every time someone would get up from their chairs and go to the water, monkeys would rush to the abandoned chairs…and drinks….and proceed to fight for the fruity, alcoholic drinks.
At the edge of the jungle, sitting high in a tree, a lone monkey screamed at the others and I heard, very clearly, his words, “Damn! The monkeys.” I imagined he was their treatment director screaming at them to abstain from the mind-altering substance that was crippling their lives.
I wonder….do our angels or guides or ancestors hang around us saying similar phrases to us? Hoping we’ll make better choices?
It’s easy to repeat the same old patterns, much easier than changing. Every time I see this photo and remember that experience I remind myself to dig deep, reach for the stars and know that I have everything I need to make this the best life I possibly can…without competing for things I don’t even need.
As many of you know, I’m starting a holistic fly fishing program to help empower individuals, called Wading Women…men are welcome, too, in case you are wondering.
In order to better understand what people want in outdoor experiences, I created a survey and shared it via email and social media. It wasn’t a researched-based survey because it wasn’t a ‘tested’ instrument. I was simply taking a pulse on what people want and how they relate to Nature, as I plan programs for Wading Women.
Things that stood out to me: 75% of the 72 participants rate themselves at a 7 or above in a wildness scale of 1 to 10; ninety-two percent reported they are deeply connected with Nature; and 88% are satisfied with their relationship with Nature. Over half of those surveyed prefer water over land. Participants are connected elementally with water more that the elements of earth, air and fire with over 50% choosing the element of water and 33% finding the element of earth their favorite. There was a wide range of people doing their favorite activity—37% said they don’t get to do it enough and 33% said they did it 5 times a week or more. Almost a third reported the reason for not doing what they love outdoors is having nobody to go with them and 60% said lack of time was their reason. Perhaps most surprising to me was 67% reported negative emotional reasons for not connecting deeper with Nature (fear, feeling inadequate, self-judgement, feeling disempowered or incapable). Forty-three percent reported outdoor meditation and yoga appealing as ways to deepen their connection with Nature. And finally, nearly half reported their connection with Nature is spiritual (as opposed to mental, physical or emotional). Guided experiences outdoors were what 57% surveyed found appealing as ways to deepen their connection with Nature.
I was delighted and grateful that people took the time to complete the survey and will be using their input as I move toward a launch date for Wading Women. Of course, if they know me or follow me on social media, they would not be a random sampling of individuals as they would probably have a bias for Nature; but the survey was very helpful in giving me good ideas of where to focus my efforts and what people want.
In my personal journey, Nature is where I heal and connect. It was already my intention to have mindfulness as a key component of experiences with Wading Women. The survey reminds me that I’ll be providing something people actually want, not just what makes it awesome for me.
(David Knapp, one of my fly fishing mentors)
It’s possible to use fly fishing as a way to grow, heal, and connect. The survey showed that people feel deeply connected with Nature and find a spiritual connection to it, rooted in water. What better way to expand that than fly fishing and wading.
By adding mindfulness, yoga, and having the practices of catch and release and keeping fish wet, it makes sense to call it holistic fly fishing. While catching fish can be part of it, it will never be my goal to set catch records or pursue fish relentlessly. It’s all about balance of body, mind, spirit and emotions, not photographs of stressed fish. It’s about cultivating relationship with Nature…that includes fish, water, trees, rocks, self and each other.
I am taking the entire month of July to celebrate and launch this new adventure and hope you’ll join me as we explore our connection with Nature and ‘dance’ with fish and their amazing ecosystem.
To learn more, please visit Wading Women online. Just about everything you need to know about your day in the water is there. If you have questions or wish to schedule, please contact me by email or call 828-333-3990.
A little about me…I’m a Nature writer and photographer, fly angler and newly hatched guide with decades of leading various outdoor adventures. I have been a scuba instructor and trip leader, ropes course facilitator, zip line guide, state park naturalist, environmental educator and counselor. My undergraduate degree is from Auburn University with a BS in Outdoor Recreation and a minor in Resource Management. My graduate degree is in Counseling from Auburn University at Montgomery. I can’t wait to share the joy of holistic fly fishing with those wanting to wade and explore Beauty.
I walked to the trail on the paved road. After a short hike on the trail, I cut through a section of woods to reach the creek. I was headed for a particular bend in the creek that was deep and very fishy. Water levels were low so the bottom was slick; however, that particular creek bottom is always slick as snot, so I carefully crossed and walked along the bank to the spot.
Storms and floods had changed it significantly from the last time I was there, so casting was challenging through several downed trees. But within a few minutes, I had a very nice rainbow dancing with me. Usually I’m wading; however, because there was a steep drop-off in the water, I was standing on the rocky shore.
I was stripping line and walking to a better place to bend down and release the fish without bringing it out of the water. Easy, with nothing out of the ordinary except the strange, black blob flattened right where I had been kneeling.
Upon closer examination, the blob became a bat. At first, I thought it was dead; but with even more careful observation and a gentle nudge with my wading staff, the bat hissed and I was the one disturbed. I had been kneeling there. Like…right there.
Knowing that bats are the most common carrier of rabies, with 3% being infected, and seeing that it was close to mid-day and the bat was not sleeping, I knew better than to touch the bat. But it was at the edge of the creek so perhaps it fell out of the overhanging tree or missed a swoop to get water during the night. Bats cannot take off from the ground. Maybe it was thirsty. So I got a thick stick and wet it and dripped water on the bat’s face. It drank so I then allowed it to crawl on the stick and airlifted it to the tree. It crawled off the make-shift airplane and huddled on the tree.
I thought about the weird encounter, how strange it was, for the hours I spent wading upstream. Later than afternoon, when I removed my pants (no, I wasn’t wearing waders…I was wet wading) I saw a red mark on my knee. Ugh.
I fretted throughout the weekend, wondering what to do. Did it bite me? Did I even kneel on it? Monday my doctor referred me to the health department who referred me to animal control. The lady at animal control was blunt, “You do not have a choice. You must get the preventative treatment.” I won’t go into the actual experience of the series of shots but I certainly am glad they are over and I’m now protected from further encounters with potentially rabid creatures.
But seriously….what in the world?
Having studied shamanism for many years, I realize that encounters such as this are powerful and the animals are significant teachers. The bat is symbolic for letting go of the old and bringing in the new, of transition and initiation and a new beginning. The bat is a symbol of promise in the chaotic energy of change. Ted Andrews writes in Animal Speak, “The bat reflects the piercing of new barriers and the opening to higher wisdom. It symbolizes a new truth being awakened.” He writes further to say that it implies strength and stamina to handle issues that might arise as you open to new consciousness. “Its message contains the promise of new horizons and unexpected views about to manifest…the bat is powerful medicine. It can be trying, but it always indicates initiation—a new beginning that brings promise and power after the changes.”
In the three weeks since that encounter, the way has opened for Wading Women, a holistic fly fishing program, to be birthed…many months ahead of what I intended. In fact, this week was so chaotic, in a good way, to birthing this program that my head has literally been spinning. Everything came together seemingly suddenly, even though I’ve been steadily working on it for over a year.
I’ll write more on Wading Women soon to share the mission, the intention, and the specifics. But for now, I’m just sitting on my front porch, watching the mountains across the valley, thankful for little…and big….miracles that are happening to launch a program of empowerment for women. And thankful for encounters with many beings, both animal and human, that change the trajectory of my life.
It took a while. In fact, it took several years. But this week, I finally let go of cave diving.
I hadn’t been cave diving in a while, after enjoying it for nearly 100 cave dives. But diving in an overhead environment requires honed skills, not occasional dips into underwater caves. Unless you do it often, it’s really not safe. So, I finally listed a set of double steel tanks on a social media scuba page and sold them within an hour or so which led to selling my regulators, deco regulator and my reels. They went quickly after so many years of pondering the question: Should I let go?
Today, after dropping off the set of tanks to a buyer in Hickory, I drove on to Winston-Salem to see my friends Van and Patti. Van was my Intro, Apprentice, and Full Cave instructor as well as a dear friend through the years…but I hadn’t seen either of them in a while. He had contacted me about someone giving him fly rods that he was bringing to me to donate to Wading Women, a fly fishing program I’m planning for women that want to be empowered through wading and fly fishing. It’s rather odd that my friend, my instructor, was there in person after I released my last piece of cave diving gear, waiting with fly fishing gear for the program.
And on the way home, I stopped in Asheville to visit my friends Laleah and Bill. Bill had already gifted me with some really nice fly fishing gear he was no longer using. Today, he passed along salt water fly fishing gear, as I’m starting to plan some trips to salt flats, back bays, and other coastal places. The gear is amazing. And I am so grateful.
Today felt like such a powerful day of letting go and opening to whatever is coming next. And it must involve fly fishing. I was gifted with 9 older model fiberglass fly rods and reels that are epically retro as well as 7 very nice salt water rods and more reels that I can sort in my travel-fatigued brain tonight. So I’m in a place of ‘what just happened?’ I’m almost in shock that the act of letting go of something I loved so much opens the door to new adventures in teaching fly fishing and deepening my experience by playing in salt water with fly rods.
Here’s the other thing….every single time my mind starts coming up with doubts or negative self-talk about the idea of Wading Women, I get signs that I’m on the right path. Today, it feels as if Wading Women reached out and grabbed my shirt collar and said, “Hey, do you still doubt that this is the right direction? Do you? Are you paying attention?”
Yes!! I’m paying attention. I won’t fear letting go and letting doors close. New doors are opening and they are opening in a BIG way!
Van was there at the beginning of my cave diving journey and today, he was there at the end of it. But, he came confirming the next step. How cool is that? It’s probably been 15 years since I’ve seen Van and Patti, but it was so sweet to connect with them again. And to visit with Bill and Laleah on my way home to my mountain paradise.
What an amazing day of friends, closing doors, opening doors, and the way forward being shown to me so very clearly. I am deeply grateful.
Sometimes it takes letting go to clear the way for something new and wonderful to be birthed.
It had been a lovely day of wading. Several brookies and a rainbow danced with me. I helped a bat get back to his tree, found three spools of expensive tippet in the water, and enjoyed the green bursting out everywhere in the mountain forest.
As I was finishing my hike, I glanced across the field, behind the old church, and saw a wedding happening. The white dress, bride’s maids…the whole thing. My car was parked along the dirt road, past the dressed up folks at the wedding. I was wet wading so was soggy up to my knees, had on a muted green jacket and a baseball cap. Scrambling up and down banks, slipping on wet rocks…doesn’t lend itself to fancy dress.
(Photo by David Knapp)
Normally, I’m happy as can be in my fishing clothes. But today, I noticed something happening within me as I contemplated walking out in the open, past the wedding party. I noticed I started walking with my head down and feeling self-conscious. What am I feeling, I asked myself. The answer came immediately…shame.
My brother and me enjoying dirty feet and freshly caught fish.
It was like my entire life flashed in my mind and I saw how hard it was for me to be myself growing up, which was a jeans and tee shirt girl with skinned knees nearly all the time. It wasn’t any better moving into my teen years when expectations to conform to social pressure were high. I never fit into the girlie mode yet feared if I was myself, I wouldn’t be accepted. But I still wore jeans, avoided the ‘in-crowd’ and always felt like I didn’t fit in.
I’ve always been fierce in standing up for myself…what to wear, how to be in the world…30-something Simone
Feeling that way helped me grow to love solitude. I could be myself when it was just me and my horse or my dog. I could dress however I wanted to, ride on the dirt road and open my heart to the sky and fields, free from the pressure but grievously aware I didn’t fit in, hardly anywhere. Anywhere except with Nature.
I hadn’t thought about any of this in decades until I noticed shame arise when I was faced with dressed-up people in the field I was about to walk through. Of course, now I realize I was dressed appropriately to be in a national park, out in the woods…hindsight, you know.
I reflected on my life as a kid and teen a bit after that moment of shame arose. The definition of shame is the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous done by oneself.* As if the way I dressed or the fact that I loved horses and dogs and being outside was somehow ridiculous because most kids didn’t do that…no, most girls didn’t do that.
Yes, I wore a cowgirl outfit as a kid and loved my grandmother Wenzel who grew flowers and had puppies.
How much pain we go through being real. By the time many of us are adults, so many protective layers have been applied that we hardly know ourselves. If we are courageous enough to strip away those layers and be real, I suspect we’ll discover light that would illuminate the world.
I still love dogs…
The solitude I cultivated as a teenager has blossomed into a deeply spiritual practice. As I wade and hike and cast, I open myself to Life…and it is so good. And to the girl with skinned knees, the teen riding her horse in jeans and a tee shirt, and the 60-something year old woman wearing fishing clothes, I say this: your beauty shines bright, keep your heart open, and never, ever be anything other than yourself. When who we really are is embraced and encouraged, magic happens.
(One of the reasons I am creating Wading Women is to empower women to claim the wildness within, to enjoy Nature without feeling a need to fit in or conform to anyone else’s expectations. And to fill their lives with their wonderful, shiny hearts.)
