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Youth Wilderness Immersion Story of the Day: October 26, 2014
Tracking at the Beach: Chert and Bobcat Tracks Today was full of many discoveries and full-body connection with the landscape as we chased waves, tracked each other, rolled off sand dunes, and buried each other in the sand. After the rain yesterday, the air was fresh and the weather was warm and clear, and many of the kids observed the water felt warm too. After our opening circle, we headed to the beach where we successfully passed a flock of Western Gulls without scaring them into flight (until later when we were running from the waves!). We heard a story about Elephant Seals, played “Ocean Relay,” and ate snack, watching the waves, surfers, cormorants and a sea lion from our warm base camp on top of a tall sand dune. We spent a long time playing wave tag and jumping off the sand cliffs, testing our speed and trying to stay dry but laughing as we got soaked. The ocean has a great way of bringing out the attribute of aliveness and vitality. We eventually found a large knot of seaweed and untangled it so we could use it as a ‘climbing rope’ for the ‘cliff’ of sand, and we actually could team up and hold it so that everyone got a turn to climb the ‘cliff’ (slope) holding onto the rope - even me (at 190 lbs!) without the kelp rope breaking. We ate lunch and then played Flags, renamed ‘seaweed,’ and then headed up to the terrace where each half of the group took a turn running, leaving a long (5 minute) trail in the dusty road, and hiding while the other half carefully tracked them. As we tracked we ended up discovering lots of beautiful coastal chert, the stone used by American Indians for arrowheads and stone tools. One of the kids found an arrowhead, missing it’s base. I was impressed by the focus and real tracking that took place during these scenarios without my direction: Tracks were circled, the teen’s track was distinguished from the kids,’ the false trails were identified and avoided. We even used Pressure Releases (see The Science and Art of Tracking, by Tom Brown, Jr) to tell when they were walking backwards, trying to trick us! After these adventures we returned to the beach by a different trail and found fresh Bobcat tracks and a complete skeleton of some sort of prey (any guesses based on the photo?). After a water/snack break, at their request, we buried two people in the sand. The wind had picked up and the tide was going out. On the way back, the wind was blowing so hard someone’s hat flew off and rolled on its brim right towards the ocean, leading to an eager chase/sprint...and recovery of the hat. In our closing circle, we played Finger Catching and shared stories and highlights from the day, and then went our separate ways.
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Well, today was full of surprising sea creatures...We began with a gratitude circle at the tide pools since it was a very low tide. We heard someone’s friend had found an octopus a few days ago, so I challenged the group, “If we only find one thing here, let’s find an Octopus!”
We searched for hours, mostly being content with the sea stars and hermit crabs which captivated us for a long time. A beautiful abalone shell showed up. And some of us jokingly put our finger under a rock overhang when someone suddenly noticed a large rock crab right there. We challenged each other to lift it, since it had an enormous pincher. I finally picked it up by the pincher so it couldn’t pinch and we admired it’s colors. Eventually, we headed up to a sheltered spot for lunch. While eating, we saw a dad on the beach with a bucket and his daughter was looking into it with excitement. We sent some scouts to take a look and soon they were waving at us to come see...an octopus! It was red and fast, darting around the bucket by propelling itself with its tentacles. The friendly dad told us we could take it over to one of the enclosed tide pools and let it go to watch it change colors. He explained that lifting large rocks is the best way to find an octopus. It crawled up someone’s hand and for a moment changed to match his skin color! We made it to the tide pools and let it go. Its sleek body suddenly developed a rough texture and developed light spots, imitating the coral on the rocks. Then it turned dark red as it entered the shadow under a rock. We lifted it out gently and watched it crawl across the land, raising its eyes bulging to the left and right as it decided which pool to enter. The suction of its tentacles felt really sticky and its body was slimy. It was so amazing that after setting an intention as a group to see an octopus, we actually did! After lunch, we headed to the marsh to look for the Talking Tree. On the way we found another large rock crab, and we gathered some yarrow and learned to effectively identify poison hemlock. We tracked rabbits in the thicket, finding their ‘coco puff’ scats and rushes clipped at 45 degree angles. We listened to the talking tree for a long time, each of us hearing something different, before we climbed all over its low-spreading branches. As we prepared to leave, we saw two birders who let us borrow their binoculars to watch the Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons nesting in the distance. (This is one of the largest local heron rookeries I know of). On the way back, we followed raccoon tracks to a large heavy log. As always, there were too many moments to write down all of them here. Our day was filled with interesting discoveries and sightings, but at a deeper level, our agility and courage was being tested (by slippery tide pools, crabs, the parking lot climb, and the octopus). My highlight was to see once again that when the group sets a unified intention, after sharing gratitude together, synchronicity undeniably rules the day. And one slimy thing proved this to be true once again...the Octopus! |
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