Light and Warmth At The Outdoor Academy

OA Semester XXII students gather after utilizing their firestarting skills.

by Mark Meyer-Braun

Along with you, we’ve just made the annual adjustment to our clocks – time to “fall back,” as the old saying goes. Our morning hike will now get a second wind, reclaiming a bit of daylight, and our afternoons will transition into evening more abruptly. With this, we are now in the heart of the autumn season. This is the time when we become increasingly aware of the scarcity of light and warmth offered to us by the sun. Frost befalls our early morning meadows and Orion, the hunter, can be glimpsed dancing along the horizon deep in the night. Despite the additional planning required to embrace this cool – soon to be cold – season, we relish this time of year. Our days and weeks are infused with reminders of our dependence upon light and heat, just as we are dependant on one another within our small community. We grow together through the autumn and into winter, knowing that we will emerge in the spring with new insight – wiser and more capable than the season before. Let me share with you some of the moments we spend together, blessed with the gifts of light and warmth, during this cool season.

Each Monday evening, the entire Outdoor Academy family gathers for our weekly Community Meeting – a time to share our ideas, concerns, and mutual support. We open this gathering in a manner that raises our presence of mind and awareness. Under student leadership the community of roughly 40 forms a circle, joined hand-in-hand in the darkness. We observe silence for a moment and then a student voice speaks. The student invites any member of the community to come forward and offer a wish for the community. As the impromptu wish is spoken, a candle is lit in the center of the room. This light burns throughout the meeting as a constant reminder of our unity in the OA experience. In similar fashion the light is extinguished at the close of the meeting – this time as a reminder of the fleeting nature of our time in the mountains.

The woodstove is also central to our cooperative life during the cold months. Students and faculty spend hundreds of hours working side-by-side throughout the year – cutting, splitting, and hauling firewood. Wood is carefully stacked and sheltered from the elements so that it will provide heat in the most economic way. During fall evenings, starting and nurturing fires in the cabins and Sun Lodge is an essential chore. The duty is shouldered by one and all. As winter sets in, the more organized cabin groups will orchestrate an overnight fire watch. You can imagine the quality-of-life significance of waking up in a warm cabin, instead of waking up to the sight of your own breath as you pull on frigid clothing and brush your teeth. As much as woodstoves teach us about cooperation and teamwork among our peers, they also show us that resources are precious and finite. Kindling is used sparingly, and fires are snuffed down when buildings are not in use.

Another campus venue that draws us all together around heat and light is the kitchen, of course. Due to the boarding aspect of our school, students experience the kitchen as a classroom, far and away more productive than the average home economics classroom. Now halfway through the semester, our students are becoming increasingly fluent in the art (and science) of food preparation. The French class has already presented their delicious rendition of French cuisine. The Spanish class will soon follow with a Costa Rican flair, I’m sure. The Appalachian History class and Appalachian Studies program will also be providing regional specialties for the community. One of my favorite aspects of these culinary endeavors is that the teamwork required to pull off the meal at hand seems to grow exponentially as the vision becomes more ambitious; and when it comes to meals, our students tend to dream up some very bold projects. At the heart of it, our kitchen program reminds us that we are inextricably tied to one another and the elements that put food on out table.

Holding council over us all during the autumn and winter season are the constellations of stars and the ever-changing moon. The cold season offers our best opportunity to view these distant neighbors. For me, their brightness seems to somehow compensate for the limited sunlight we experience through these months. Next week, as our students are backpacking in the crisp air of Pisgah Forest, the lights of the night sky will serve to enlighten their evening activities. And for the remainder of the semester, these gifts from afar will illuminate our life at The Outdoor Academy, offering an invitation to be present, act with intention, and belong to the natural world.