Tales From Dark Canyon
The poetics of pathfinding, navigating stages of consciousness, and embracing mediocrity.
This is an account from my recent 6-day backcountry trip to Dark Canyon Wilderness Area in southeastern Utah as part of a course with Flow Genome Project, an organization blending peak performance with leadership training.
I’ve already riffed on the why and wherefore in a previous entry, but to recapitulate – it was largely inspired by a few things: my recent 40th birthday and initiation into middle age, a desire to shake my life up and take stock of where I’m at and where I’m going, and signing up for a multidimensional challenge across the spectrum of human development (i.e. physical, mental, emotional, spiritual).
In short, though I did my best to suspend my expectations, it delivered; I’m still in the midst of unpacking my experiences. Despite disappointments, it did not disappoint.
What all did the training entail?
The Skittles Of Development
Though it was a hiking trip, it wasn’t just a hiking trip. It was a leadership course masquerading as a hiking trip.
It could be divvied up in three parts – the social element of leadership and communication, learning wilderness skills and camp craft alongside map and compass usage, and engaging in reflective discussions in circles via Socratic dialogue – a kind of hybrid among geography, philosophy and poetry under the expansive domed ceiling of starlit skies. A classroom with a view if ever there was one.
In a sense, the curriculum was informed by a journey through the stages of consciousness – survival, mythic, achiever, collective, and the view that holds them all. I’ve touched on integral theory’s stages elsewhere.
To elaborate – we learned the survival skills of building emergency shelters, tying knots, collecting water with a solar still, and starting fire with a bow drill. We accessed the mythic through imaginal visualizations and discussing myths like Prometheus and Plato’s Cave. We dropped into the achiever mentality through competition, games and evaluations. And finally, we were thrust into the collective level of consciousness through hands-off self-organization, not unlike a Lord Of The Flies simulation.
There were about thirty of us, divided into two teams. Each of those 16 member teams were divided again into tent groups of four. Each team had a lead guide and two assistants.
Peaks & Valleys
I would say that my personal highlights included savoring sacred and silent solitude while enjoying a night to myself, falling asleep to the twinkling constellations that twirl around Polaris, the North Star—like an umbrella along Earth’s nightly arc—unfamiliar to urban lifestyles and the convenience of artificial light, and having the rare opportunity to witness an annular solar eclipse on the morning of the second day.
As for the sticky bits, I am sitting having realized my fear of being the weakest link in my tent group, despite the presence of strong and experienced hikers. In the context of the simulation which was made clear at the outset, I did not measure up as I would have liked. One point of redemption was being adequately conditioned to keep up with the ambitious pace, but in terms of wilderness skills, I lagged behind. I was definitely out of my element; I was slow, disorganized, and had trouble grasping the finer points of knots, packing and navigation. This is understandably confronting but valuable feedback to chew on.
I was decidedly ordinary, mediocre even.
And that’s okay, though it brings to mind some lyrics from Radiohead’s “Creep”:
I don't care if it hurts
I wanna have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul…
And of course, the chorus…
But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here
To bear the tension of desired perfection and approval on the one hand, with the sobering slap-in-the-face of feedback that disabuses any imagined self-estimate like a splash of cold water, on the other.
To resist the urge to become bitter like Cain, casting aspersions on the whole thing, taking my ball and going home, to find a smaller pond to swim in. Certainly these thoughts and feelings arose, but they will pass, like the unpleasant sting of disinfecting iodine making first contact with a fresh wound.
What can I own?
As the adage goes, the devil is in the details. It wasn’t until the last day I realized that having an extra garbage bag waterproofing my sleeping bag made the whole packing process take inordinately longer. That was the lead domino upon which all other decisions rested. And though it was offered, perhaps pride got in the way of asking for help as I contracted like a porcupine while feeling exposed and thought I simply needed to figure some things out. Alas, I didn’t even know what to ask help for, precisely. Unknown unknowns. Even as I watched the moon eat the sun, I recall my mind whirling with all kinds of narratives around inadequacy, insufficiency and incompetence. Under duress, I see just how unkind my mind can be.
A final remark on this aspect of the training that’s thrown me for a loop is that both the assessment of trusted stakeholders and my own self-assessment about what I thought I came there to work on turned out to be precisely inverted in the field. What I thought were my strengths were my weaknesses, and my weaknesses were my strengths. I have no idea what to do with that yet.
In the coming days and weeks, I’ll sit with the experiences and how to unpack them, but for now I’ll let them marinate and percolate.
At the end of the day, I trained with some beautiful people in a beautiful setting and remember that I voluntarily signed up for this of my own accord.
Life goes on.
I’ll close with four maxims from Jamie Wheal, cofounder of the Flow Genome Project (which he nicknames “Montessori for Grown-Ups”) – Stay Awake. Build Stuff. Make Art. Help Out.
Big love, gratitude and appreciation for everyone involved and whose paths crossed mine.
Your honesty about feeling out of your element and grappling with self-perceived inadequacies is truly inspiring. I can relate. Thank you for sharing your inner work.
Great piece, Tai. And great experience! Love the Wheal maxims. :)