On Friday afternoon, 12th of February my girlfriend Sequoia, a mutual friend of ours, Eryn and I went to the coolest spiritual retreat in South Florida. A cypress swamp. Just before we got to dirt road where we parked Eryn’s car it started to pour a cold rain and it rained most of the time we were walking to the area where we were going to camp. It showered on and off as Sequoia and I pitched a tent and Eryn hung up her hammock. I took it upon myself to see if I was still good at starting a fire with wet wood. It took every bit of a half hour, even with a little sterno helper, to get a blaze going enough to get warm in our soaked clothes and Eryn and Sequoia started on dinner as I kept up the firewood hunt. The three of us love garlic and Eryn was generous with it. Sauteed the garlic, added some water and couscous with tomato sauce and we were ready to serve that on some tortilla wraps. Gourmet camp food if I’ve ever had it. We ate and talked a while, saw the stars coming out and finally went off for a cold night’s sleep.
When I sleep outside I have that sleep where I feel like I’m awake but daydreaming. It’s a light sleep but still relaxing. I got up at first light and went to making a fire to chase off the night’s chill. With the fire going the girls got up and we had some coffee and tea to warm the insides before we re warmed the leftovers from dinner and had them for breakfast.
We also had some hard boiled eggs that we brought with us for a well rounded breakfast. It was good eatin’. after breakfast we started to hang up sleeping bags and blankets around the fire as we broke camp. Once we were somewhat packed we went for a short walk to a wild orange tree and saw the most beautiful oranges.
They were a bit sour but there was no doubt they were as organic as you could possibly get. No one had been around that tree in ages to put any fertilizer or pesticides on it much less pick those oranges. That tree was so beautiful and no one was to credit but the tree itself. A reminder that nature does just fine if you let it. Given the chance it can put you right as well.
We walked back to camp to drop off the oranges and decided to walk in the opposite direction for a while and found a wild lemon tree. Talk about sour! Again it was another example of a beautiful and loaded tree that did just fine on its own. Everywhere we looked there was beauty that we just don’t get to see everyday. Eryn told us of the story when a para military camp was to be built in the area we camped. She said it was one of those times when the hippie environmentalists and the rednecks worked together to protect the swamp they loved. The para military camp never got built and the area looks great. Eryn took us to see a huge cypress tree that had its own little island to live on and next to a little beach area that was under three feet of water just the night before.
Eryn also showed us “Redneck Jai Lai”. First you find a dried carcass of a walking catfish, preferably one that is long and somewhat straight. Then you put a small wild orange in it’s mouth cavity. Voila! Redneck Jai Lai! I watched in amazement as she launched a wild orange from her walking catfish jai lai stick towards Sequoia who was across the river. The crowds would have gone wild.
Getting back to nature in a primitive way lets you really connect with the core of your humanity in a way you can’t do if you take an RV, folding chairs, TV, radio, battery operated lamps and such. The entertainment of stories and conversation naturally replaces seeking radio stations or fumbling with the remote. Watching the fire can keep our attention more than anything on TV ever will. It’s amazing how relaxed you get when you go home. People can be nice when you get them away from what they do. For a couple days we were transients in someone’s neighborhood. We respected that and left only ashes from a fire and footprints.
I hear it’s about 2000,000 acres out there and I have to say it was tempting to just keep on walking and see what was around the next set of trees but daily life called us back by Saturday afternoon and we were on the road. We were going back to city life after a little swamp therapy, campfire smell on our clothes and burrs in our hair, lovin’ it and hopin’ to go back soon. Here it is Sunday, Valentine’s day and I’ve already had Sequoia’s version of key lime pie. First, no key limes. She used the wild oranges from the swamp and they make a great swamp orange pie. I’m sure Sequoia’s swamp orange pie will be the hit of the 21st century. I like it.
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