Anasazi, The Making of a Walking

A lot of you know that I worked at Anasazi, a wilderness therapy program for troubled teens, but with all the excitement of the wedding I didn't get a chance to tell you all about it.  It was a unique opportunity that helped me transition from the mission to the real world.

Anasazi was another one of those life changing experiences I'll never forget.  I went to Anasazi not knowing what I was getting myself into.  I was excited to get a job that I was paid to hike through the wilderness and hopefully have the chance to influence lives.  I quickly found that Anasazi changes all lives it doesn't matter if your a TrailWalker, YoungWalker, or family of someone that participated.

Everyday was another challenging adventure.  We spent our days hiking and our nights eating rice and lentils by the fire.  And yes we started our fires with a stick and bow, made our spoons out of wood and used a rain poncho not only as a shelter but also to make our packs every morning.  There were a lot of cold nights and even more long hot hikes.  I loved every minute of it.  In fact, I loved sleeping on the trail so much that when I came off a soft warm bed didn't cut it for me.  I found myself looking for a spot on hard, uneven ground and missing the chance to look up at the incredible stars.

Anasazi gave me the ability to have many awakenings, that's the Anasazi word for that moment when our hearts are softened and able to learn or understand something in a new and different way.  For me those awakenings came at the most challenging, difficult and humbling times.  When I would look up ahead and see an overwhelming mountain we would have to climb up and over.  There wasn't ever a trail to follow and we were often bushwhacking and even belly crawling through the manzanita or cat claw.  I still have scars on my arms reminding me of those wonderful experiences.

Anasazi even gave me the opportunity to do something I never thought possible.  At least not for me.  Our entire band, the group of YoungWalkers and TrailWalkers that hiked together, agreed to do what we called a primitive.  We left behind our packs including sleeping bag, FOOD, and extra clothes for four days giving us the chance to live off the land.  Of course it rained on us and we had to swim to get down the river because of the steep surrounding cliffs.  I spent those cold, wet nights hungry and curled around the fire.  On the third day after having very little food we were able to fish for crawdads and I can honestly tell you that nothing has ever tasted so good as sharing those pesky little crawdads around the fire.  Yeah, I know I've heard it a million times...you all think I'm crazy, but this was one of those humbling experiences that opened my heart to many important and spiritual things I needed in my life.

I wish I could write this blog and tell you about all the times I changed and influenced someone else's life through my time at Anasazi, but I can't do that.  I will never know the influence I had on those amazing YoungWalkers and SinaguaWalkers that walked with me.  But I do know that they changed me.  They opened their hearts to me and my life will never be the same.  I am eternally grateful for those young people who taught me.  I am a better person because of their determination, their courage and their love.  I will now be a better wife, mom, sister and daughter because of what they taught me as together we overcame those long, exhausting and grueling hikes as we recognized our true potential, our seeds of greatness and around the fire we planned a way to accomplish it when we reentered the REAL WORLD.  And now that we are in the real world that's the challenge.  Not to forget our seeds of greatness, the awakenings and how are life's were changed as we continue walking forward.

Thank you to all the YoungWalkers, SinaguaWalkers, fellow TrailWalkers, Shadows, field team, and all the other staff at Anasazi.  I am Peaceful Mountain Breeze and I have spoken.

If you want to be a TrailWalker or know someone who could benefit from Anasazi check out their website.  http://www.anasazi.org