A day of contrasts. I spent the morning and afternoon with a couple of friends and a wilderness skills instructor, Peter Wolf, who was kind enough to give us a workshop filled with pointers on awareness, shelter, fire-building, finding water, and the uses of a few plants. I learned a lot of little details and was inspired by Wolf’s easygoing style and his life experiences. It’s good to get in touch with those people who know about the spiritual life in nature, and are humble about it and eager to share their knowledge.

This evening, my friend Peter Castorena and I went out and bought some hot tea and sat by the lake near our dorm, just lounging on the sandbar and smoking cigars that Wolf had made gifts of. It was only my second cigar and Pete’s first; we are not by nature the kind that indulge ourselves in vices, but it’s nice to stretch the boundaries once in a while. I don’t do drugs and I don’t drink at all (can’t stand the taste) and I don’t have wanton sex. But tonight, we smoked cigars.

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