360 Degree View

Chemo # 8 of 12

One Full Moon ago I spent the night naked, out in the wild.  I told people I know of my plan to spend the night outside in the Silent Pool at Breitenbush Hot Springs.

After I accomplished this little feat, I didn’t have much to share about it…no remarkable revelation…but I do have something to say.

I went alone, on a 2.5 hour drive to a wilderness resort.  As my guiding spirits would have it, I met an acquaintance upon my arrival, and we had dinner together.   I set up my tent for sleeping when morning came.  I offered this space to my Wise Woman friend for the night, since I intended to be in the water.

Where did I find myself when darkness came, instead of in the water?  At an ecstatic dance jam-- just shaking my things all over the place with a bunch of folks seeking authenticity and self acceptance.

So I can do that when they say I’m Stage IV.  Dance up a sweat with the best of them.  And no one I don’t know is the wiser.

I slipped into the pool around 10pm.  It was so easy to exist in the nude with the mastectomy scar in the darkness.  People silently slipped in and out of the pool until about 2am.  What a long night in the darkness, in the geothermal heat of the water.  What a long night of resting my head on a rock, and later a rolled up, wet, cold towel.  What a long night of experiencing a man or two coming and silently sitting in this pool with me, where talking is taboo. 

I was afraid of wildcats.  I know what animals they say reside in the forests, mountains and river of the Breitenbush area, and am not familiar with their habits.  So besides, being alone in the night with my old PTSD condition related to men sneaking up on me as a child during the night, I was afraid of the native four-legged hunters of this land.  I was at times frozen with fear.  After all, I was nude, unarmed, and unskilled at self defense.  What was   I thinking spending the night out there like that?

So I would be mired in this intense fear.  I moved around the pool trying to figure from where I would have the best vantage point—and here’s what I learned:

Eventually I have to relax my body, and no one can ever see 360 degrees around them.

I stayed out there until about 6am, with silent, nude stranger-men who had drifted in around 4.

My friend had padded down my tent with extra blankets before her early morning departure, and I slinked off to my nest, slept until 11, enjoyed a geothermal sauna and nude lizard-like bask in the sun, was fortified by organic vegetarian food, and rolled home to my family.

Again, I have to relax my body, and no one can ever see 360 degrees around them to secure safety.

Love,  Carri