The Cave of Dagobah

Luke Skywalker: “What’s in there?”

Yoda: “Only what you take with you.”

Who knew that building and sleeping in a snow cave in the back yard would lead to “a metaphorical journey into the window of the inner self” such as those taken by the likes of Odysseus, Plato and Luke Skywalker.

Much like Luke, the padawan to Master Yoda, I am kamana to my mwaalimus Chris and Lee of the Pine Project’s Wild Deer 1 Wilderness Skills and Mentoring program.  Kamana means apprentice in the Akambe language of Kenya and mwaalimu means teacher.  The Kamana Manual, is a centerpiece to the wilderness skills program I am enrolled in.  I am currently training, much like Luke did with Yoda, to learn powerful ancient skills that have been in great part lost to our civilization.  In my case, it is tracking, fire building, native plant knowledge, shelter building, primitive tool making and connecting to nature.

It all started innocently enough.  After the recent failure of my recent quinzee build, I thought I would give staying out in the snow another try.  I decided to re-purpose the failed quinzee I had built in the backyard into an emergency snow shelter named the “coffin” by  guest instructor Cole Mwaalimu at our first weekend meetup.

The ominous name did not even register with me at the time, but it would not be long before it did.

I dove into the new project with enthusiasm, blowing off my quinzee failure, and endeavoring to learn from my mistakes.  I used a saw to cut out blocks from the centre of our sad, sagging quinzee, then piled the blocks on top of the original wall to raise the height inside the new emergency snow shelter.

The ruin of our failed quinzee.

One of the main problems with the quinzee build was that the ceiling was too low and did not allow for any movement, clothes changing or equipment adjustment and contributed to a feeling of claustrophobia.  This time I would do things differently.

My assistant and I placed some old cedar and xmas tree poles over the rebuilt walls for a roof.  We ran out of suitable materials in our backyard so we used some leftover lattice supported by a couple cross poles.

We did more field testing and measuring this time to insure enough head room.

We sliced some thin snow slabs and shoveled loose snow on top of the roof for insulation

I had a nice crisp night with lots of moonlight to set up my bed.

My bed was balsam xmas tree boughs, a Thermarest, a heavy winter synthetic sleeping bag and a thinner liner bag (to reduce condensation on the inner bag).

I fashioned a door with my packs and boots.

The view above my head.

I blew out my candle lantern and got ready to sleep.

So all in all I was quite pleased with myself.  I had learned from my earlier mistakes and created a cozy shelter to protect me from the -14 C outside temperature.  Plenty of room to change, breathe and move around yet compact enough to trap some heat and keep the wind off.  Like Luke Skywalker on Dagobah, I was progressing  in my apprenticeship and feeling pretty confident and comfortable in being a Wild Deer 1 kamana.

I was ready for sleep and climbed into the “coffin”, the naming of which I would soon come to understand all too well.  After crawling into my sleeping bag and adjusting the hood I just stared at the ceiling for a bit, aware how quiet it was in the shelter and then slowly dosed off.

It was not long when I woke with a start with overwhelming thoughts and feelings of my own mortality.  Thoughts and visions of dying, being dead, the acute conscious awareness of the coming end of me and the terror of one day leaving my young son on his own assaulted me much like the vision of Darth Vader attacking Luke in the Cave of Dagobah.  Unlike Luke though, I had no light saber, no defense and no escape other than fleeing the cave and seeking shelter in the comfort, familiarity and  distractions of our house and companionship of my family.

My feelings were of being excruciatingly lonely, defenseless and terrified.  I am not sure where these fears arose from.  I have done alot of solo camping in all seasons and never before encountered such powerful thoughts and emotions.  I do have an active imagination and vivid dreams but these are often very abstract and not so literal.  I still struggle with PTSD symptoms including night terrors but it did not feel like that.  I also suffer from sleep apnea when I sleep on my back causing me to stop breathing numerous times during the night but that is an unconscious event.  I would say that small spaces are not my favourite places to be and would label myself as mildly claustrophobic but heading to sleep I was not feeling in any way closed in.  I have passed the middle age crisis stage and thought I was pretty comfortable with my view that all life ends and is recycled (and that there is no afterlife as promised by organized religion), and what we pass on is our genetic material if we have kids and the ripple of our interactions with others.  I suspect that it may actually have something to do with the fact that I have previously died from a ventricular tachychardia event (4 times) and was revived.  I am aware of the feeling when I am dying and often get false symptoms that cause me to wonder if I am about to die again.  I have also had dreams and waking moments from sleep wondering if I am dying.

Whatever it was, I cope with a lot of my issues by keeping busy, using distractions and disassociating.  In the snow cave it is almost silent.  The snow not only insulates from the cold but it almost completely insulates the interior from all sound.  I am used to sleeping with the radio on and some ambient light from the sky or streetlights, but in the coffin, there was no sound, no wind, no visual stimulation; it was quiet, still and dark.  Without the benefit of my usual distractions my mind must have wandered to a place many of us try to avoid.

I was confronted by my eventual death in the cave of snow, much like Luke was confronted with his own dead face under the mask of Darth Vader in the Cave of Dagobah, and I cringed and ran from the vision, unable for that moment to cope with the thoughts and feelings.

I will go back to the snow cave or Cave of Dagobah or coffin, but this time more prepared having shared my experience in writing, armed with my grounding tools and perhaps with something to distract myself  if things get dark again.