Wilderness is medicine

Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center

A few months ago, I attended the annual BIPOC meditation retreat at Vallecitos in the Tusas Mountains of New Mexico, the ancestral homeland of the Jicarilla Apache, Ute, Navajo/Diné and Pueblo Peoples. It was like visiting family.

My doorway to Buddhism within this lifetime was through Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, then Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin, CA. It was my first spiritual home, and brought many gifts. My love affair with this lineage ended after working in a few Buddhist centers and experiencing numerous incidents of racial harm. Coupled with my experiences living in New Mexico, Montana, and an ex-pat heavy community in India, my awareness of the ongoing violence embedded within western Buddhism and this country was heightened. And I no longer felt safe within the Western Buddhist world.

I also have a number of friends who teach Buddhism at Spirit Rock, East Bay Meditation Center, Vallecitos, and other Western Buddhist centers. Beautiful, heartfelt bodhisattvas who are deeply dedicated, likely across lifetimes, to liberation for all. Systemic change is slow and difficult. And like many BIPOC, I long for our own spaces to heal and to gather.

After practicing within Western Buddhism for 9 years, I finally understood an integral piece of the practice through living at a Mahayana monastery in Taiwan and at the foot of the holy hill Arunachala in Tiruvannamalai, India. In New Mexico, I attended a series of lectures at Tower Gallery in Santa Clara Pueblo, opened by artist Roxanne Swetzell. Her son, Porter Swentzell, taught me that indigenous knowledge is vertical, while Western knowledge is horizontal. Western knowledge seeks to generalize across time and place, to be applied to everyone. And in this dilution, much is lost. Indigenous knowledge is connected to place and time, it roots deep in relationship with the land over countless generations. Living in New Mexico, India, and Taiwan, I saw that these ancient wisdom traditions are connected to the land, the culture and the people. I experienced the power of interdependence and the intimate connection of practice and service.  We practice to live our dharma, to pour back into the stream that we drink from.  Without this connection, the practice becomes a hungry ghost, unrooted, pliable to the dominant narratives of domination and control.

I remember the first time I saw a Chinese American Daoist qigong teacher practice the form. I burst into tears, feeling the presence of 武當山 (Wǔdāng Shān) within him. I realized that the practice is a prayer, a dance, a way to honor 武當山, the land called China, our ancestors, and all that is good in the culture. Many qìgōng (氣功) and tàijíquán (太極拳) practices originate from 武當山, one of the five holy mountains of China. They are a transmission from the mountain himself, heard by practitioners who spent lifetimes learning to listen and receive these teachings for the people. Each movement holds secrets of ancient Chinese culture, of how my ancestors related to the land.

I remember the pain of taking a qìgōng class from a famous white shaman who had been practicing for over 20 years and received permission from her teachers to offer the ancient medicine. She laughed at the name of a Daoist diety and the movements, saying, “I don’t know why it’s called this.” Like one Vietnamese American acupuncturist said to me, “Chinese medicine” (which, like Yoga, Ayurveda, Buddhism, Daoism, and martial arts are largely white worlds in the West) “is a transmission from the ancestors. How could someone who denies their ancestry possibly understand?”

It is difficult to discuss Buddhism, Daoism, or spiritual practice in this country without touching on cultural appropriation.

I digress.

I love the land that Vallecitos is on— sacred ceremonial indigenous land. I love the land, certain places in the world, like others may love people. Just to have the honor of being on that land was enough. The incredible blessings from being on wild land are priceless. To feel the balance and harmony that are natural in each moment. Where the point of life is not to be someone or get somewhere, but simply to rest in the joy of being. To hear only the noises of nature— which included hours and hours of relentless rain in the middle of the night leading up to the powerful full moon/solstice double header. I was wired like the time I nearly OD’ed on coffee in college. A deer napped near me one afternoon when I missed my beloved kitty. Numerous snakes slithered hello. I ate wild strawberries off the mountain face, and a huge yellow butterfly batted her wings as a new friend and watched with wide grins splitting our faces.

The heat emboldened several of us to jump into the rushing river, engorged with the steady rain. The shock of the cold and the intense pleasure of bathing in the wild against the dramatic rock face, surrounded by trees, left me breathless with gratitude. I remembered that I am whole; nothing is wrong with me, and my breath deepened with ease into the lower belly and back. Screaming in joy, my young friend down river laughed and danced along.

Even though I was there for the land, I was delighted by all the singing we did. Lifting our voices together in prayer and song is ancient medicine. An indigenous woman gifted us with her fierce vulnerability and wisdom. She reminded us simply that we live to become good elders, then good ancestors. Several young Black men touched me with their sweetness. Sweet BIPOC men are rare in my experience— the world hardens them early. An old friend from New Mexico was there— with her deep dedication to liberation for all. She formed a Watermelon Group to feel and support Palestinian liberation. I said to her one evening— you can take a break and she shook her head in pain— I can’t. It’s in me.

Two aunties— one Mexican, another Japanese, flaunted the silence by giggling and gossiping all day, and the rest of us couldn’t help but laugh along. A QTBIPOC man found his worth among the elements, and we all cried in joy and sympathy.

There was so much ease in being together, this group of bold, fun, new and experienced practitioners from all over the country. We went deep, then cracked each other up with silliness and dance.

On the four hour bus ride back to civilization, a warrior disguised as a sweet woman— a Latina lawyer, said to me casually— I believe that Trump will win in the fall…that he will destroy democracy as we know it, and it will create an opportunity for transformation. We are preparing.

My heart pounded in resonance with this powerful prediction. And I am preparing…with grounding practices, by taking time to listen to my heart’s deepest knowing, by facing the moments of terror and despair, by receiving the abundant support that is here in each moment, by savoring the sweet moments of peace that come with the warm wind on summer afternoons as I chant the ancient Buddhist prayers…so that when I am called, I am ready to serve. We are all needed for the revolution and the revolution includes being, joy, and play.