Elevation (Day 4)

I awoke with the early morning rays seeping through the clouds that were starting to hang around, threating rain later. But the morning was fine, cool and brought with it a sense of adventure for the day ahead. And it was true, I had lived through the night! I readily gathered my stuff together after dressing for the day and headed over to the volleyball pit for sunrise yoga.

Yoga brought more balance to the already serene morning and to the campers gathered in a spirit of harmony and respect. After yoga, breakfast began. It was probably a good breakfast, though details have slipped out as to what it was, it would be surprising if it wasn't oatmeal though. Conversations like to abound during breakfast times, what else could a spirit of belonging bring?

At this time, once breakfast had ended we gathered into our pods and meditated about the coming day and bond together more as well as a chance to journal further. At one of these morning pod meditations (possibly this one) we ended up with a pod cheer, based off of a bag of popcorn that Aunt Jemama brought for us, it's title was "Boom Chicka Pop Popcorn" our cheer was "123, Boom Chicka Pop!" (with a high note on the Pop!) We liked this cheer and used it a few times.

We then readied ourselves for solo time that would be happening soon, gathering such items as snacks, journals, lunches, water and whatever else you may have been inclined to bring to meditate and enjoy some solo time in nature. We gathered into pods and our pod mentors directed us to where we would go and have our solo time.

I ended up on a rock. A big rock by the creek, a good big rock by the creek. I varied what I meditated on throughout the few hours we'd been given to meditate. At times I would journal, at others I tried to get comfortable on the rock, and yet at others I just contemplated the beauty and serenity of being in nature, especially right next to a creek as I was.

In this picture you can see how the creek turns into a fork to continue on it's path, I thought about how I seemed to have taken the smaller fork, the road less traveled as Frost said in his poem. While most of my peers in the world would take the larger stream, (the right bend around the rock) I would take the smaller, less noticed stream. (the left bend around the rock) As I reflected on it that day, (and this day) I noticed that my life was not normal. I've known this, however, I knew that I would do great and different things with my life, good positive things that would bless many people.

After a few hours of contemplation, meditation and coming more in harmony and balance with myself, my pod's mentor Aunt Jamama came over and started talking with me about what I'd been thinking about. She reaffirmed the good thoughts I'd been having about my life, told me of the goodness she saw in me and said that she felt the same in many ways.

[We can choose who we'll be, and just a moment of quiet reflection and pondering can help us create an image of ourselves as who we want to be, and then go become that.]

After discussing with my mentor, I had a little more time to reflect and ponder on things. Then we gathered all our pod together and discussed insights we'd had during solo time. There was a spirit of love and belonging in that conversation and we all bonded further together. We took a couple pictures with our pod and then left to go back to the main area of camp.

It was a little after coming back to camp that I finally decided that I would go tackle ascending since I'd not done it yet. Unfortunately the sky had gathered rainclouds and it was starting to sprinkle and drizzle a little bit, removing the chance to use any of the climbing gear due to safety concerns. Since that was the last chance to conquer that challenge of ascending at Elevation, I determined to take the next chance I get in life to conquer that and show myself that I can get higher than a third of the way up the rope.

There was many good conversations that happened during free time. Some games were played and though there was water coming down, it was still a good time. There was one lad who had caught a crawdad and some people watched as they interacted with it on a puddly table.

Since the rain came down really hard at times, we gathered under a roof that was for the pool-food shack-restaurant-patio-thingy. I played a couple games of chess as well as something similar to reversi. There were a couple guys that grabbed a log and did a short Caber-toss challenge between themselves, but alas I did not get a picture since it was raining and water and cameras don't mix. They did it though, and inspired me to try it when I had the chance later that Summer, it is a fun, though dangerous sport! Be careful if you're not familiar with the Scottish tradition of the Caber-toss.

One silver-lining benefit to being limited to the patio if you wanted to stay dry, was that I was able to start having people sign my yearbook! This was the first time I'd had a yearbook, and it was actually just the back of my notebook, but it has been so good to go back and read all the entries of my friends and their words of encouragement.

At the appointed time, or maybe later due to rain preventing campfire cooking, we had dinner of hot dogs at the patio, cooked on grills. Being the last night, some left over foodstuffs were brought to add interesting elements to the hot dogs, though unfortunately the weirdest I remember right now is BBQ sauce on them, and that's good! And actually, it was tacos or quesadillas that were the first food choice, but those ran out so we moved to hot dogs, which also ran out. But most were filled, even though there was talk of making a Mickey D's run to sate over all possible remaining hunger.

Sometime during dinner a campfire had been ignited, despite mother nature's protest with the rain. Once it was blazing pretty well there was a small burning of a pair of pants that had been found along the river at one point. (being at least the second pair found) They slowly disappeared.

The time had now come for "My Pod's Got Talent!" all the pods got together briefly and planned out a short skit/story/song/act/sketch/performance to play out in front of all the camp. As our pod deliberated, I threw out the possibility of telling a story of my Great-grandfather's life. The details I gave excited them and so we planned out how to turn it into a short skit to perform.

Then came Showtime! The order of events went something like this, a head mentor singing a song with a guitar accompaniment, leading into the whole pod singing along with them. Then a reenactment of the headmaster and his instructions regarding walls, and then exploring the thoughts of those involved in the activity. Ranging from, "does my breath smell bad?" to, "man, she is so cute!" and the like... (the re-creation of the headmaster's looks were quite accurate)



Which is which?

Then followed some form of line-chicken dancing-fighting. The journalistic evidence only shows blurry pictures and a couple of chickens lying on the ground, then those same chickens with other fellow chickens reaffirming their eliteness over all the others, ever. A demonstration of the newest iPhone followed. Enacting the positive and negative elements of the many apps that will come with it, and their lagginess or inability to work.

A run-through of a normal day at Elevation appears to have been next, though maybe something else. At this point our pod went and reenacted the story of when my great-grandfather was executed by the Russians, and how he then went back to the German lines back to join his unit in the German army. But that's a story for another day...

The final skits are unidentifiable by photo or memory, but alas 'tis so.

Later events of the night may have included a rating of the best skit, but it at least contained a brief pod devotional-gathering. As well as ballroom dance moves in the volleyball pit and further yearbooking.

Then the mentors finally coerced all of us to go to bed, despite our desires to continue bonding and talking with each other through the night, the morning held promise for further great things...