How I’m Adventuring This Year

Jun 1, 2015

How I'm Adventuring This Year | www.nalumana.com

When I accepted the offer to write for Women’s Adventure Magazine as one of their Adventure Mom columnists, it caused me to become more introspective about how I engaged in adventure, and how I defined it.

Sure, I’ve undertaken some pretty epic adventures, but having a three-year-old and a baby at home has definitely thrown my idea of what constitutes as adventure into flux.  As many of you with small children know, sometimes just getting out the door is a fairly sizeable quest.  Backcountry canoe trips have given way to toting our six-foot pop-up trailer from one family-friendly campground to another all summer long; even the ski hill that we once flew down several times a week in the pre-baby days feels a bit like shangri-la at this point.  Though I’m confident my truly adventurous adventuring days will return, in the meantime, I’ve been given the gift of realizing that, to small children, absolutely everything is an adventure, and that I have the choice to cultivate that within my family.

Sometimes, though, I feel like I might have lost track of my inner adventuress – especially when my days consist of a lot of breastfeeding and, well, not a whole lot else.  To reassure myself, I made a little list of all the ways I’m adventuring this year.  I found that the list fell nicely into some categories that I imagine I might use in years to come when planning my adventure goals.  If they resonate with you, either as a seasoned or budding adventurer, feel free to adapt and use them to motivate your thrill-seeking this year, too.

Travel 

This year, for us, it’s a bucket list trip to Hawaii.  We’ll do a bit of local travel as well, including a camping trip to a great paddling destination and another awesome local surf spot with my SUP in tow.  

Learn something new

I’ve got this one covered in 2015 with a lengthy list of random things I want to take a crack at:  I have already learned how to make a video, how to crochet, and how to make DIY natural remedies.  Still on my to-do list for the remainder of the year is to learn how to grow, dry and blend herbs for tea and join a Samba Band (with the ultimate goal of becoming the Whistle Blower), 

Take on a physical challenge

If my postpartum body allows, I’ve got my sights set on a 10km race and a sprint-distance triathlon.  

Do something that scares me

The big thing I wanted to do this year scared me a tiny bit, but mostly filled me with elation and warm and fuzzy feelings of self-indulgence:  I booked a cabin in the middle of the woods and spent a long weekend there, nestled in the snow-covered trees, stoking the wood stove.  This was only really scary after dark, when things started to go bump in the night, as they have a way of doing in the wilderness, but nevertheless the weekend made me feel confident and re-charged.  The other scary stuff I’m doing:  getting more proficient on my motorcycle, which I found surprisingly terrifying when I first starting riding, despite the fact that I had always wanted to do it.

Compiling this list made me feel reassured that, indeed, adventure can come in many forms: the only true prerequisite is that you endeavour to do things that push your edge a little, make your heart go pitter-pat with excitement, and allow you to take a step in to the unknown.

How are you adventuring this year?  Do you make adventure goals?

The Becoming Podcast has been on a short hiatus while I focus on writing my book, but oh what a comeback episode I have for you!

This month, I spoke to Toko-pa Turner, who many of you may know as the unofficial patron saint of many of my circles and gatherings because of the sheer number of times I’ve quoted from the wisdom of her book, Belonging.

Toko-pa is a Canadian author, teacher, and dreamworker. Blending the mystical teachings of Sufism in which she was raised with a Jungian approach to dreams, she founded The Dream School in 2001, from which thousands of students have graduated. She is the author of the award-winning book, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home, which explores the themes of exile and belonging through the lens of dreams, mythology, and nature. This book has resonated for readers worldwide, and has been translated into 10 different languages so far. Her work focuses on the relationship between psyche and nature, and how to follow our inner wisdom to meet with the social, psychological, and ecological challenges of our time.

Here’s some of what Toko-pa and I talk about in this episode:

> The dream that changed Toko-pa’s life, causing her to question her career and, ultimately, her identity

> How we can court our dreams to support us during times of radical transformation – and the reasons so many of us have a hard time remembering and working with what shows up in our dreamscape

> Toko-pa’s perspective on the message of Belonging after the divisiveness our society has experienced in the years since it was published

> What happened for both Toko-pa and I when we fell out of belonging from the ideologies of the “wellness world”

> How to build community when you’re under-resourced

> “The Big Lie” when it comes to belonging, and how we can reclaim a sense of belonging to the greater family of things, as Mary Oliver so famously wrote

Listen to the episode on iTunes

 

Show Notes

Toko-pa’s Website

Belonging:  Remembering Ourselves Home, Toko-pa’s book

The David Abram video about animism mentioned in the interview

Toko-pa’s self-guided program, Dream Drops

Companion, the program that accompanies Belonging

 

Also, while you’re at it, if you enjoy The Becoming Podcast, I would be so grateful if you would rate and review, and even subscribe to it on iTunes.  That goes a long way to helping more and more people find and benefit from hearing these interviews!  Thank you so much!