Never Alone, page 34
That’s just one of many shifts in my world since my return. Though it’s been several years now, my arctic journey still touches my life daily in profound ways. Its impacts go far deeper than the ones on my body and my career, but are harder to put into words.
It was the most powerful gift of my life, and those ten and a half weeks were the most deeply connected I’ve ever felt to a wild place. Though the experience helped me make peace with many hard losses and let go of some of my deepest griefs, it left me with others. To get a brief taste of the life I’d always dreamed of—one closer to that of my distant ancestors—but then to be torn away from it again, was in many ways more devastating than continuing to believe that such a life wasn’t possible for me. Just as I took pieces of the land up north back with me, I left part of my heart on those icy shores. When I returned home, my soul never stopped longing for that missing piece, and I felt subtly incomplete.
How do you find your way again, when a generous land hands you a compass—a magical letter N that marks your north star—and you have to leave it behind? How do you return to the human-created world, when you’ve known what it is to live in the wild like a creature that belongs there and is part of it? I had tuned myself to the quiet voice of the land on the peninsula, but when I left there, the buzz of machinery and the noise of traffic muffled it and made it harder to hear. I missed it terribly.
I had anticipated this, and hauled as much as I could of that place home, desperate to bring some of its magic back with me—the baskets and clay pots, my rabbit scarf and half-finished burn bowls. Out of context though, they no longer had the same life in them and became simply objects. The real gifts were things that couldn’t be bundled up into my luggage and flown home.
And yet, even as I mourned the loss of my wilderness life, many gifts I couldn’t yet see did come home with me—the mysteries of the universe, though harder to see and feel, were still working their magic.
I came home not just believing in but certain of my abilities and my own worth, and that has changed everything. I no longer feel compelled to prove myself, to me or to anyone else. From this more empowered and relaxed place, it’s easier to see the ways that my lack of self-acceptance for much of my life pushed the things I wanted away from me, rather than drawing them in. I finally feel free from this pattern.
Eating has changed forever for me, in wonderful and meaningful ways. I have a whole new relationship to the life force in the food I eat. Understanding what calories really mean to my body, I find I need less of them and am more devoted to higher-quality and wilder foods, and to dietary practices like eating seasonally and depending less on grains. Greater still—having achieved it once, I now know that there is such a thing as living on beauty and that, should I need to, I can still call upon that special type of metabolism.
My relationship to hunting and trapping has also changed. Just as the Goddess Artemis is the goddess of wild animals and also of the hunt, I no longer see the two as opposed to one another, but as mutually supportive. Having dismissed trapping as cruel for most of my life prior to depending on it up north, I went on to study with a master trapper in Alberta, Canada. I now understand that trapping can be more humane than bow or rifle hunting. With most predator populations in decline, it can also be an important tool to maintain healthy populations of prey species by preventing overpopulation, disease, and resource scarcity. Both hunting and trapping—done skillfully and with one’s heart in the right place—can be an act of connection and communion. One can love something, and also kill it and eat it, and this isn’t ironic; it’s part of an ancient and sacred cycle.
My experience of listening to, connecting with, and eventually becoming an ancestor was incredibly powerful. I now see abundance and lack, struggle and ease, and life and death more like my ancestors likely did. All were regularly present in the lives of the wilder human generations that came before us, and I recognize now that each pair is intricately tied and neither extreme is better or worse than the other. Though not palpable in every moment, as they were toward the end of my time in the Arctic, I still feel the regular presence of the ancestors in my life.
Shortly after I returned from the north, I learned that my hearing the voices of the ancestors so strongly there wasn’t coincidence. Only three months after I returned to the US, the Lutselk’e Dene of the region agreed to participate in creating a new national park in the area. The name of the park is “Thaidene Nene.” The translation: “Land of the Ancestors.”
I can’t imagine what my life would look like today had I not responded to that first Alone email—had I not been willing to surrender what I thought was true about myself and trust in a knowing bigger than me and my logical mind. Like the epiphany I had by that mountain stream during my graduate research—when I realized that the shallow pond was not for me and that my spirit needed the colder, more turbulent waters—I couldn’t have made peace with saying no to the Alone adventure and choosing what was safe, familiar, and comfortable.
Listening to the world around me and letting the journey it invited me on transform me was, as I suspected it might be, an important step in the development of the woman I was always supposed to become. Seventy-three days of surviving the northern wilderness by myself was intense, dramatic, and put me in situations where, had I not made the right decisions, death was a potential outcome—but that was what it took to make the final change from caterpillar to butterfly. In the arms of that benevolent wilderness and the life-altering process of integrating the wisdom it gave me, I was finally able to shrug off the caterpillar form of the girl who never quite believed in herself, unfurl the colorful wings of a stronger, wiser, more confident woman, and fly.
The helicopter landing at production base camp after pulling me out of the wilderness. Photo by Dan Bree, November 2018. Used with permission.
left: Me during recovery in a Yellowknife hotel. This is after three days of refeeding, so I have filled out a lot with water weight but am still haggard. The skin of my hand is still stained with dirt and charcoal, and behind my hand is deep purple discoloration on my thigh, a remnant of the multiple welts I suffered from in my early weeks on the peninsula. Photo by Jessie Collins, November 2018. Used with permission. right: Me during recovery, wearing the pants I filled out nicely before launch. This was taken six days after the photo on the left. I have filled out more, but the difference between my body before and after Alone is quite dramatic. Photo by Ben Keightly, November 2018. Used with permission.
Shopping for a new, extra small wardrobe, in the weeks after returning to California from Canada. Still amazed at the strange reflection in the mirror but coming to terms with it.
Me busily writing on the riverside farm in Northern California where I lived for much of my recovery the summer after my return from Season 6. At this point I had gained my weight back and then some, but was healthy and thriving once again and thrilled to be writing in the sunshine.
Epilogue
It’s 10:30 pm and I’m standing in line at Safeway, several weeks after my return from the Arctic. I’m at the point of my recovery where I’m capable of being out in public again but certainly not back to what I would consider “normal,” and I have no desire to be what our culture considers normal ever again.
I’m a health food store and local co-op shopper, so buying food at Safeway at any time would be challenging for me, but in my current hypersensitive state, it is particularly so. It’s far too busy and bright for me in here, and the fluorescent lights cast everything in unnatural tones I find jarring, but I was journaling in the park until after the co-op closed, and I’m out of greens at home, so here I am.
There’s only one register open at this hour, so my fellow shoppers and I all funnel toward the same checkout aisle.
I look at the contents of the other shopping carts and baskets. Brightly colored sugary cereal, microwaveable deep-fried fish sticks and chicken wings, cookies, and soda. It isn’t food, I think to myself. None of this is food. I stare around at the shiny packages of candy bars and chips lining the checkout aisle. Not a bit of real food in sight.
I’ve just come from the wilderness, where lack of food was slowly killing me. Now I’m surrounded by more calories than I could eat in my lifetime, and I’m absolutely horrified by it. All I can think is this stuff is poison. It’s literally true. These calorie rich, nutrient poor, highly processed foods are the bane of our society. The vast majority of illnesses that so-called “civilized” people experience are due to overabundance of foods we were never meant to eat and lack of the daily activities and natural rhythms that characterized our ancestors’ lives.
What would our world look like if we all knew the real value of food and gave our bodies only what would most nourish and fulfill us?
If I could give the world anything, it would be to offer each and every person an experience like I had in the Arctic. There are few things as transformative as feeling seen and held by an intact wild place, merging with the natural world around you, and coming to see yourself not as separate but as an important and valued part of it—feeling a belonging so deep that there’s no such thing as loneliness.
While I wouldn’t wish the extreme deprivation I experienced on anyone, I do think that there’s immense value in the gift of lack. When we live for a time with less than enough, we often learn that we are far more resilient than we had ever imagined and come to appreciate more deeply the things we have, rather than focusing on what we don’t.
I know most people will never have an experience like mine on Alone, and given the chance, most would run away from, rather than toward it. Providing an opportunity to live it vicariously, and to receive some of the same gifts, is a big part of why I wrote this book.
I’m not a survival superman. I didn’t grow up with an innate understanding of my physical strength or capacity. I was a small, insecure, lonely, only child who carried ingrained beliefs about not being good enough into adulthood. I was in my late twenties before I learned to believe in my body, and well into my thirties before I firmly believed in my inherent worth.
That’s why I needed to be out there, and why I needed to share the journey with you. Because in many ways, I am you, with my own challenges and struggles, and by the same token, you are me. And you can do this as well. You too are the product of countless years of human evolution and of the strength and resilience of your ancestors.
We don’t often know what is inside of us until we find ourselves in a position where we don’t have a choice—I know I didn’t. When we get there, we can either push through or perish. The messages you tell yourself right now, today, are part of what will help you push through and bravely meet the challenges you will eventually face. The attitude you carry into them will help determine whether they break your spirit or build it up. The choice is up to you. But remember that choosing well doesn’t just lift you up, it also impacts those around you and those around them, and thereby, the world at large.
I’d like to leave you with some of the most profound and life-changing lessons I brought back from the Arctic:
It’s easy to feel isolated and unloved in the modern world. If we are able to let go of the perceived boundaries between ourselves and nature, and approach it in the right ways, we may find that it is right there, remembering and waiting for us, ready to embrace us with open arms.
Any day with food in it, particularly when it is enough food, is a good day. Food is not something we are entitled to, and for most of human history, our ancestors had to work hard for it and often went with less than enough. Every time you sit down to a meal, remember to look at the food in front of you with tremendous gratitude, and know that you are, in fact, immensely wealthy.
We can be nourished by a lot of things. Cultivating connection to the world around us, our human community, and ourselves, will take us a long way, as will looking for and appreciating beauty. It won’t always be easy to see, but learn to pay attention to it, and when it shows up, surrender to it and let it transform you.
It’s important to set small, achievable goals, and celebrate our victories. This is how we teach ourselves to believe that success is attainable, and we’ll never achieve it without that belief.
Our bodies and minds believe what we tell them, so the language we use when we talk to ourselves matters. Most of us have been taught by our culture that we can never be slender enough, smart enough, attractive enough, or capable enough. Do your best to reject these teachings and tell yourself that you are enough right now. Let the messages you send yourself be ones of belonging and empowerment.
We never know what we are capable of until it’s really all on the line. You likely won’t ever be pushed as hard as I was in the Arctic, and I hope you aren’t. Rather than waiting for an experience that proves it to you, start believing now that you can achieve the staggering accomplishments of your wildest dreams.
About the Author
Woniya Thibeault grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Northern California. She doesn’t remember a time that she wasn’t drawn to and fascinated by the natural world. As a young woman, she devoted herself not just to studying biology, but to learning to be part of nature, and to cultivating the skills that countless generations of our human ancestors relied upon before modern technology made us feel separate from the wild world around us.
As of the publication of this book, she has been studying and teaching ancestral and land-based life skills for nearly thirty years. With a master’s degree in environmental science and a lifetime of wilderness experience, her teaching blends an understanding of and reverence for nature with the hands-on skills for making a life within it.
As a writer, teacher, speaker, and consultant, Woniya aims to inspire and empower others to awaken their innate human skills and to live their wildest, freest lives.
Visit www.woniyathibeault.com for more ways to learn from her, or join her inner circle by becoming a member of her Patreon team at www.patreon.com/woniyabuckskinrevolution. You’ll get invitations to her interactive calls, discounts on her online offerings, and the inside scoop on her projects, and you’ll be part of helping to make them happen.
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Woniya Dawn Thibeault, Never Alone
