The Rucksack Letters - Rowe the Boat

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
- Dale Carnegie

October 14, 2001 - Rowe, Massachusetts
Leaves are changing slowly in the Berkshires - reds, yellows, and oranges falling to the ground like my collection of former beliefs - soon to cover the ground, making me wonder who will rake them up. –I am hoping they will burn brightly on a cold October night - smoke drifting upward through darkness to hazy yellow stars, a new Autumn moon, and a come-around sun to mask the memory of former days of disillusionment with radiance and glory as new life begins from the ashes of the old.
Nora and I arrived at the Rowe Camp and Conference Center to serve as volunteers for a week as I tried to discover what the place was about. That was a month ago. I think I'm beginning to make progress.
The directions I received the week before from Jonathan, the office manager, led us to the Farmhouse where he greeted us with a warm smile and began our tour of the facility. He's a tall sort with buzz cut brown hair and on-again, off-again, plastic rimmed glasses. He told us that he had previously been in the high tech business, a computer programmer or some such job, but gave it up, big salary and all, to come work here. As he strives to practice Buddhism, I can't help but respect the sacrifice of finance for the sake of the spiritual.
I later mentioned to Nora that I considered him meek, to which, as with most things that come out of my mouth, she had to disagree. I hope to one day find the scientific explanation as to how the sound of my voice can automatically trigger PMS in her.
The arguably meek Jonathan led us around the grounds, pointing out the cabins, the sauna, the sweat lodge skeleton, the barn, and the rec hall - where he informed us, much to my enjoyment, that we were always welcome to raid the kitchen. He gave us a brief history of the place, from how it began as only a summer camp in conjunction with the Unitarian Universalist Church, to how they started holding weekend seminars in the early seventies. We walked the trails past the goddess statue and the labyrinth. At one point along one of the trails, Jonathan pointed out the booby tree, a gnarled old oak that looked to be covered with breasts, and phallic piled rocks that sat on the alternate side of the path to balance the sexual energy in the place. I realized that there may be more here than I will ever fully comprehend. Of course, I'm realizing that everywhere I go.
Those who live here at Rowe consist of full-time staff members and people who have come for work study - trading hours of service in various jobs for the opportunity to take part in the weekend retreats. Nora and I signed up as volunteers, neither of us planning to stay the full six weeks required for the work study program but still offering a few hours a day in service to cover our room and board. It wasn't long before we were stuffing envelopes and applying labels to the course catalogs, catching glimpses as we went of the types of conferences offered. The retreats offered here run the gambit from Shamanistic studies to Mayan healing rituals, with writing workshops and living through song - offering a little something for everyone who wishes for a liberated lifestyle through personal empowerment.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this group. Being raised in the Baptist church, the only thing I had ever heard about the Unitarian Universalists was that they were wrong. I didn't know who they prayed to or if they prayed at all. I didn't know if our beliefs were in accordance or if they believed in anything. I was curious not because I wanted to share in their beliefs, but because I wanted to better understand them, as I feel all people should. And that, as best as I understand it, is what they believe - the dignity in difference of every person.
Each of the people I've met here at Rowe lean on traditions from various religious practices, though I've found few that adhere strictly to any one given dogma, which creates for an atmosphere of wonderful cooperation and understanding amidst such a wide array of diverse beliefs. I think this was the foundation of America - to live and love with people you may very well completely disagree with, but you honor their path to fulfillment just the same.
We met for dinner at six for a vegetarian meal - a cuisine I've become quite taken with, thanks to the brilliance of the cooks here. I sneaked a couple of cheeseburgers on trips to Northampton after the first week - carnivorism being so engrained in my psyche from the habit of being an American - but for the most part, I have been eating entirely vegetarian ever since. Before we took our seats, we had a moment of silence, as we all closed our eyes at the time I had been brought up saying grace - each of us giving thanks to whatever or whomever we considered the supplier of this bountiful feast. In our first meal together, I discovered an amazing openness in the people here, and I immediately fell in love with all of them.
My second night here, I began talking with Mark and Ted after dinner. The initial subject was me and my journey, or the hope thereof, to which Mark related his bicycle trip across India. He had some interest in Buddhism before that time, but the month-long stay in a monastery there - with eight hours a day in silent meditation - cemented the idea that this path was for him. I felt a bit ashamed that I left the monastic life after only one night, but it only makes me respect a guy like Mark all the more and understand that my path is surely not as his.
The conversation moved on, and Mark got involved in a magazine, as Ted and I started talking about the WTC and conspiracy theories. Since this initial conversation, I've found a great friend in Ted and have decided that, if he should ever start a cult, I will most assuredly join. We've spent many hours in the sauna - discussing philosophy and how he thinks the ping-pong obstinacy between Nora and I must surely be love, and driving to Northampton to play pool and drink beer, where every time, someone says he looks just like Jesus with his wavy, shoulder-length hair and week-old stubble.
Upon moving to Los Angeles several years ago, he found himself homeless for almost two months before finding work selling alternative healing methods. This spurred him on to learn more about healing by means other than those approved by the American Medical Association. From diet to electronic frequencies, he learned that the body is a more intricate and mysterious machine than he had ever given it credit for and that there are more efficient ways of healing it than the popular pharmaceuticals, which now plague our world. He told me fantastic stories of men who can disintegrate tumors with energetic healing, just as Jesus healed with the touch of his hands. He told me of Royal Rife, an inventor who found a way to heal cancer and other diseases through electronic frequencies, shortly before he was killed and his research was mysteriously destroyed. And he told me of the idea of Breathatarianism- people who survive entirely on the energy of the universe without the aid of food or water. Ted says he'd like to get to that level, to be able to live without food. As for me, I'm taking it one step at a time. Besides, I think I'd miss ice cream.
But each person here has his or her own story or gift that brings so much to the enrichment of this place. Heidi, who did energy work on my back, taking away an ache without ever touching my body. And the other Heidi, who worked her way across New Zealand in a farming co-op exchange. And Michael, who has preceded me in a tour of communities, moving from one to the next across the country, working in kitchens to learn the culinary arts. And then there was Ailsa, an Australian woman who was doing a work exchange for one of the weekend conferences. At the staff meeting, on our first week here, they called for volunteers to transport some compost. Since no one else spoke up, and since I had no idea what I was getting myself into, I said I would do it. Next day, Ailsa and I set to work shoveling the summer's worth of rancid compost out of a large plastic bin and transporting it in three truckloads to a nearby neighbor's garden. I can honestly say that I have never smelled anything worse, and given the choice, I would rather stick my head up my own ass than to do this job again. Four days and a full bar of soap later, I could still smell the lingering stench. But I was amazed at this woman, Ailsa, who, wanting to be so thorough in her job, actually crawled into the composter to shovel the vile filth out of the sides. She's a better man than I am.
One of the more enjoyable jobs came as a spur of the moment decision, as I was walking past the barn one night. Mark had gotten some ducks from his girlfriend's farm and was intent on making a pen for them as a shelter from the cold and protection from the foxes. He had brought a pitcher of beer from the rec hall, and since he had an extra glass, I was more than happy to help. Mark and his girlfriend Lucia had done most of the work earlier in the day, being joined by Scott a short while before I arrived, but the pitcher was still full, so I picked up a glass and a hammer and hit nails between sips.
Scott arrived at Rowe during my second week here, an early twenties searcher on the path to enlightenment. I've often seen him as a younger version of myself if I hadn't wasted my twenties working for Disney and waiting tables. Our background is identical - a childhood in the Lutheran church, followed by a Baptist adolescence, which led to religious disillusionment and the search for greater meaning. Of course, he is searching at a faster pace than I am, and I can see the hunger in his eyes when we talk about things unseen. As he's been reading Wallace Black Elk and the I Ching, I've been reading Eckhart Tolle and Lester Levenson, and we amaze each other with the syncopated rhythms and ideas in the Power of Now and the meaning of awareness.
So the building of the duck pen was our first task together, and we filled it up with sawdust and moved the ducks in after performing a little fertility ceremony. We each held one of the four ducks. Those who held females thought about laying eggs, and those who held males… well, they thought about sex with ducks. Then we introduced the ducks to their new home, passed around an embered celebration, and waited for breakfast to be laid. Unfortunately, the ceremony didn't really take.
Long about my third week here, Doug Wilson, the executive director of Rowe, hearing that I was writing about communities, pulled me aside and asked if I would like to have a few words with him. To be honest, being so caught up in the people here and my own personal studies, I hadn't even considered the idea, but I jumped at the chance to take him up on his offer. We met for breakfast the next morning and talked about his first ministry after his ordination into the UUA, and the question of “what next?” when the internship was over. Having no better options after leaving the church in New York, Doug decided on a little soul searching on the Appalachian Trail. After six months of living in the wilderness, he heard of an opening at Rowe for a winter caretaker.
Within the first year, he approached the board of directors about starting weekend retreats for adult education and contacted gurus and teachers like Ram Daas for inspiration and any ideas on how to start such a thing. He told me he was much too young to understand that his goal of changing the world was impossible. But as he has proven after more than twenty years of weekend retreats expanding the spiritual awareness of youth and adults alike, the impossible is only that which you don't try.
My time at Rowe has been exceptional. I can't say I've learned much about community, but I've learned a lot about myself. And I guess that's where community has to start.
When I informed my new friends that I would be leaving, three weeks later than I originally intended, they decided to throw me a goodbye party. When I left Sarasota, my family didn’t throw me a party. And when I left Asheville, my friends, who I've known for years, didn't throw me a party. But these people, who I'd known for only a month, saw it as their obligation to see me off right. Now it's possible that they just wanted an excuse to get drunk, but I still appreciated the sentiment. So we met in one of the cabins late Saturday night with margaritas and candles. The women got all dressed up and even brought extra dresses for some of the men to wear - they throw weird parties here at Rowe. And then they all went around, when we were all good and drunk, and told stories about me - how much they've enjoyed having me around and would miss me when I'm gone. And even Nora, who has decided to stay for work study since being furloughed from her job with the airline, had nice things to say about me. Then we had a little ceremony where one of the ducks was named in my honor, and I tell you, I've never felt so blessed. I'm gonna miss these people.


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