I fasted for four days out in the woods at my friend's place. I can hardly remember it now, it being one week later. While it was on, I moved real slow. I thought out every action before making a single move. For example: I need to get a fire burning before night falls, I look up to the sky to see where the sun's at. It's past the high point and it's coming down. I decide to go sit on the warm canoe back down by the lake where I might see more animals and at least I can absorb some sun before it's too late. On my way back up, i'll break some pine branches off the pine tree that I saw just off the path, and use that for more kindling. That said, I still have to will myself to move. I look at my feet, clad in Timbaland steel toes, damn I'm glad for these boots. Slowly, I tuck one foot and then the other beneath me, dry leaves scratching sounds, before slowly rising to standing. I look in the direction of where I'm going, scanning it all. It's all greens punctured with brown and grey branches and trunks. So much green (the greenest green you ever seen). My foot takes the first step, and I'm off, keeping my eyes gazing a few feet ahead at the path. I step gently and I gaze gently, it feels crucial to be deliberate, that it is the only kind of energy that I can summon.
By the third day I already know my routine. I survived a heavy rain fall the second night, and I spend the third day comforting myself by a smoky fire. There's much fewer places to be on the third day due to the damp ground. The second day, by contrast, was spend lounging in the bear grass up on the hill with my sleeping bag under my head; my sketchbook filling up with sketches and writing. Painting down by the lake a windy and difficult watercolor; sitting in the meadow watching lace wings alight on purple fleabane. Staying up reading in the candle light of the lodge hearing the wind whip through the forest , ruffling up the canopy, bringing in the thunderstorm.
The first day held the best potential for destinations: down through the birch stands beside the lake, scaling steep hills to perch on an old boulder way up in the woods. But by the fourth day, I mostly sat at the camp waiting for my friends to arrive. Waiting to end the fast with the sweatlodge...and never forgetting about the feast to follow! I carved a few spoons from pine branches, made a few paintings, took a nap in my cosy lodge, but mostly I sat, and listened and stared verrry slowwly...
