I had hoped that I would be writing a blog post all about my Seek the Clearwater Trek this past weekend, complete with stunning photos of a frothing mountain river and a crackling campfire. Alas, there was no hike.

The weather report heralded thunderstorms on Friday and rain through Sunday. Thursday and Monday? Great weather, but the three days I aim to be in the woods? Thunderstorms, baby.

I was originally intending on spending the weekend on the Kelly Creek Trail in the North Fork area of the Clearwater Forest, but my daughter had a softball game in Kooskia on Thursday evening, so I adjusted my plans to be out on the Selway River Trail instead. I was alone, so I could do what I wanted, eh? She played a good game and I’m glad I got to see it.

Despite the weather reports, I loaded up my gear and headed out to the trailhead after my daughter’s softball game. That put me out at Racecreek Campground a little after 10pm. I set up my air mattress and sleeping bag in the back of the Subaru and settled in for the night. Somewhere around 3am, I woke to a flash of lightning followed by a deep rumble of thunder.

“Oh, good,” I thought, “Maybe it’ll blow through before I even hit the trail.”

Intermittent thunder and lighting, and a little hail, made for broken sleep over the next several hours. Eventually, I succumbed to the knowledge that if I set out into that downpour, I was going to be wet for three days straight. I was going to be holed up in my tent, just like I was in my car, with no real chance to dry out my clothes. I was going to be packing and hauling a wet tent, and I was going to have to find a place to dry all of my gear out once I got back to my apartment.

I came out here to settle my mind, not saturate it with stress. The truth is, I had nothing to prove and no one to prove it to. So, I packed up and headed home.

There is a part of me that is disappointed in myself for getting chased away by the rain. Some of the most powerful moments in the wilderness come in the worst of weather. What did I miss? Part of me is frustrated at not being able to make that decision earlier, before I packed up and spent the night in my car. Why do I have such a hard time listening and responding to my inner voice? There’s another part of me that was just happy to be dry.

But cutting through all of my analytical indecision were a few clear thoughts. One, I had nothing to prove. Two, even a night in my car sleeping through a thunderstorm was connection to nature, and I’m grateful I spent the night there. And three, most importantly, nature connection is not a magic pill. I can seek the clear waters within right in my living room. (Or in my car during a thunderstorm.)

When I first began seeking to understand transformational change, it was in the context of prison. I came across a lot of ideas, even about nature connection, that promised transformational change through one medium or another. A religion, a practice, a philosophy, some new habit. You name it, someone was selling it. But I knew that whatever the “solution” was, to be real it had to be relevant and accessible to a man in an 8 by 8 cell block.

As the volunteer coordinator in prison, I handled religious property for the inmates. I knew personal transformation couldn’t be ordered from a magazine. I believe in the effective power of nature connection, but that isn’t any good to a man separated from the nearest tree by layers of razor wire. Prison taught me that if our hope comes from something or someone outside of ourselves, then we can be cut off from that hope and we are dependent on whomever or whatever controls our access to it.

Whatever truth I seek to connect to in nature or community is already true in me. That’s what makes the connection possible. When we Seek the Clearwater, whether alone in nature or in community with others, we are not seeking some hidden or missing element outside of ourselves. We are seeking to connect that spark of the divine within us to the spark of the divine in the world around us.

And yeah, you can do that right there in your living room. Or in your office. Or in an 8 by 8 cell block. Our Seek the Clearwater Discovery Trek is just a tool to help us make that connection and carry it with us back into our everyday lives.

#SeektheClearwater, my friends.