Virginia Seacrist posted on October 30, 2010 14:27
Birthday Girls Seek Challenge and Reward
Single and married women of various decades are coming to celebrate their birthdays at the treehouse/yurt and to the historic cabin on the Santa Fe River. Within a week three women chose solitary birthdays as treats to themselves.
The first call came from Lisa who had many questions about safety while camping alone in the woods. I assured her that the only fear she might have would be loneliness, not creatures or people in the woods. Yet, I recall my own first solitary camping experience at Panther Creek decades ago. I know that fear lurks inside until we challenge ourselves to face being alone.
Several reassuring calls later enabled Lisa to take the plunge, and she reserved the yurt for two nights to celebrate her birthday alone in the woods. As chance sometimes intervenes, I needed a ride to the river where I had left my car, so Lisa had me as a guide riding through Alachua and Gilchrist’s beautiful countryside. Once at the treehouse, she was eager to be on her own to explore and delve into her own consciousness.
Filled with excitement about her accomplishment, Lisa sent me a beautiful photograph and poem of a red and black spider she observed spinning its home in the woods. She parallels the spider’s incessant repair of broken web strands to her own life’s experiences. Lisa accepted the birthday challenge and grew more confident alone in the woods.
In the same week Cindy called deciding to give herself a treat on her birthday, a decade older than Lisa. Cindy decided on the historic cabin, because it’s at the end of the Ichetucknee River where she and friends kayaked. Since it was her birthday, although she’s married, she treated herself to a night out without the family.
Another group of sisters celebrated one of their birthdays, the seventh decade of life, with their first camping experience at the treehouse. These gals had a “ball,” leaving a bin of beer cans behind testifying that they were not rocking chair grandmas.
I always wonder why alcohol and woods coincide, when the wonders of nature can blow your mind…especially when you’re alone in the woods at night. Just open you eyes from a beautiful dream, look at the sky through the translucent dome in the treehouse. You will see that the earth has spun giving you a new view of the universe from your very own bed on Earth.