This post was written by Diamond, one of the graduates of the Guardian Intensive, about her field experience in the Northwoods this past summer.

This bend is it.

Of course, it isn’t. This creek meanders like tangle of spaghetti, and every time I think it’s going to open up into the river that is our destination, it doesn’t. It’s like having an incessant five year old in the back of my brain, “Are we there yet?”
“Not yet, honey.”
“Are we there now?“
“No.”
“How about now?”
“DON’T MAKE ME STOP THIS CANOE.”

I’m sitting in a nutshell of a canoe, my pack frame loaded in front of me and a bundle of bear fat insulated with sphagnum moss, wrapped in birch bark and rawhide, behind me. A short canyon of marsh grass stands over my head on either bank. The current ripples the rich tannic water, and brilliant orange and purple and yellow flowers I can’t even name tantalize me with their passing greetings. It’s a lovely, relaxing paddle (after dragging our canoes for two hours through alder thickets), and I’m honestly having the time of my life.

Still my mind reaches for the unattainable: for what’s next, to be now. One more bend, one more beaver dam, then the river, tarp set-up, and sleep. One more cycle of the sun down, one less day I’ll be here in this program. My anxiety is mounting as I calculate the angle of the sun, the time it will take to set up camp, whether there will be time to cook dinner…

The urge to already be doing the next thing comes up in our group so much it’s comical. We over plan our days constantly. Our conversations always drift to what we’ll do after this experience or how we’ll incorporate it into our “real” lives.

Oh, when I go on that camping trip with my friends next year, how cool will it be to show them my tarp lean-to without string…

But I’m here, right now, living in a tarp lean-to without string, and in my mind I’m there, a year in the future, a future that may not even come to pass. My campmates rave about the recipes they’ll create with skillets and ovens using the ingredients we’ve come to love out here.

Still in the Ocean munches on a fire-roasted half cabbage dripping with bear fat, and laughs at himself. “Here I am, fantasizing about all the fatty cabbage I’m going to make at home, and I’m right here, eating this fatty cabbage!”

Suddenly I see myself as microcosm within macrocosm, a mote in a maelstrom of humanity. I imagine the immensity of human consciousness straining at the bit for anything that isn’t here. That isn’t now. How many of us live for the future?

When I retire everything will be better…
When school is out…
When work is over…
When that person finally leaves…
When my partner finally comes home…
When the weekend comes…
When I get that car/phone/doodad…
When I get that job…
When I am out of the woods away from these three people who are driving me nuts…

Be here, now.

With mindfulness all the rage, the aphorism has become a cliche. It is still my constant reminder when I find myself straining for a future state, some goal, accomplishment, change. Just be here now. Relax into the process. To just exist in the present moment without wishing for it to be different is a herculean task for my hypertrophied intellectual mind.

When I’m in my head fantasizing about some future condition or acquisition, I’m living in a mirage with all the substance of cotton candy. I’m losing the ecstasy of what I’m experiencing right now, like sand through my fingers. I’m not hearing the nuances of the wind in the grass, tracking the changes in the land from tamarack and balsam to red pine and birch. I don’t notice the duck until she’s already flown away in alarm, I miss noticing when the nettles first start to appear on the shore. I’m distracted from the fullness of my own emotions, the richness that comes even with the uncomfortable, so called “negative” ones that I need to experience to be a fully actualized human. When I’m wishing I am with anybody but the people I’m with, I’m missing out on enjoying them for who they are and what they bring to our group.

One bend at a time. One beaver dam at a time. One paddle stroke. One breath.

If we don’t make it tonight, we’ll be okay. We’ll take care of each other. We’ll get there when we get there.