Becoming Sage

Beginning Becoming Sage

Back in 1998 I wrote the following:

PURPOSE STATEMENT
To provide spiritual and practical guidance to individuals and groups for the purpose of deepening their love and connection to the earth with the ultimate goals of enhancing their personal/spiritual growth, encouraging cultural change, protecting the environment and promoting world peace. Adhering to the ethical guidelines established by the Wilderness Guides Council to protect fragile ecosystems and promote conscientious land use.

NAME Becoming Sage
This name is inspired by the desert sage plant which lives out its life in service to the earth. In an environment that is dry and windblown, sage serves Grandmother Earth by providing cooling shade, creating habitat for numerous creatures, conserving precious water and creating fertile soil out of which grow the beautiful desert wildflowers. Each sage plant is at once complete unto itself and part of a larger community. It is no coincidence that the word sage also means "wise through reflection and experience" and is derived from the words sauge, salvia and salvus meaning healthy and safe. A sage is one who is venerated for her/his wisdom and sound judgment. We can all benefit from becoming sage.

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Today I still feel the calling. Then I was just a novice apprentice. Now I guide vision quests and I am part of the leadership of the WGC. I have opted to lead trips for other organizations rather than to establish my own, but the affinity I feel for sage lives on. I am honored to have a plant as one of my most valued and respected teachers.

Welcome to Becoming Sage

Today, with the help of Janet Tokerud, my good friend and an experienced blogger, I entered this world of the weblog. My intention is establish this and my sister site, WGC Netkeeper, to stay in touch with friends and colleagues, and hopefully discover some new ones along the way. For me Winter Solstice is the beginning of the new year. I am only a little late. Beginnings may be conceived intentionally but they are not always born on time.

Some years ago I conceived the name "Becoming Sage" when I was in the initial formative stages of becoming a Vision Quest guide. I spent a few days in the high desert of California that year and encountered more than a fair share of big-leaf sagebrush. It is a rather ubiquitous plant in those parts, yet because it is so common, it is frequently overlooked like so much background noise. That year I spent literally hours hunkered down on my haunches gazing at twisted branches and gray-green leaves. I learned more than I could have ever imagined about an ordinary bush. Enough so that after a few days sagebrush appeared to me as anything but ordinary. These bushes with roots plunged deep into the dry desert soil are each like us, individual beings living in a thriving community. A sage plant is like an oasis of shade, preserving water and filling gravel bottoms with lucious organic matter. As a family they spread out over the land creating a maze of paths that slow down even the most rushed of travelers.

And so on and so forth... TO BE CONTINUED