My Wild Alaska Adventure – The Big Dipper and the North Star Pointed Me to a Safer Harbor, Within
June 19, 2013
I was recently speaking to a family friend. He’s in his mid-twenties and has been reviewing my book. He spends a lot of time outdoors and he told me he really likes the chapters about my wild adventures in Alaska (Chapters 13 and 14 in True North – The Shocking Truth about “Yours, Mine and Ours“). He loved reading about the action-packed life on a fishing boat and thinks it’s awesome.
As I look back at the Alaska adventure chapter in my life, I am reminded that deciding to go to work on a fishing boat in Alaska was truly a step of courage – a leap of faith. Though the sheer distance didn’t remove the damage that had been done to my psyche, my heart and my life, after all; I had finally broken free from the family, the “big lie”, and the life of violence and depression.
Once again, the healing power of nature stepped in and took over without my even knowing it. You see, when one is on a fishing boat on the water in the middle of one of the most pristine environments in North America, there really is no escaping its call. With every breath and thought, or non-thought, I was communicating with, and connecting with the wild – mountains, whales, eagles; even the stars – the Big Dipper and the North Star shining brightly in the Alaska night sky on my Alaska adventure served to point me to a safe harbor, within.
Adventure? Yes. A growing and learning experience? Yes. But most of all, my Alaska adventure was one of the greatest gifts I could ever have given myself and received, especially at that point in my life.