Graduation thoughts

This the short reflection I gave at my graduation from Wilderness Awareness School:

American poet Mary Oliver asks at the end of her poem "The Summer Day"
Tell me, what is it that you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I know that for those of us who came to the Anake Outdoor School nine months ago we were seeking the answer to that question of what would we do with this wild and precious life? A journey that had many discoveries along the way...

So what did we discover?
1. Tracking isn't just something that happens in substrate or on the trees around us but it also means tracking what is going on inside our hearts, minds and souls.
2. Before coming to WAS we knew that the birds were always speaking but now we know that they have something to say.
3. Fire by bow drill or hand drill is no longer something that we always have to do solo, in fact, it often increases the chance of a coal when we work at it together.
4. And community is often broken up into two words "commune" and "unity", we often tend to emphasize the "unity" aspect of that word but the minister in me is more attracted to the "communion" aspect of that word meaning that it is about being present with one another especially when we don't always have "unity".

I've been asked by family and friends back in the Midwest "What will you do with this schooling?"
I don't think that they are asking the right question when I hear this. There's an implication that the stuff we are learning and have learned is something that we'll do later on. And I think I speak for my 30 Anake classmates when I say that we're already doing this, it isn't something that will happen later on. And in that way of doing and in that way of being... we have become more connected to our one wild and precious life!!