Chapter Six

Acorn Mush

Through the years from about 1964, I have gone camping by myself. I discovered that when Myasthenia Gravis started to become a problem and things became confused in the way I was managing the condition, a four or five day trip would iron out the wrinkles. I think most MG people will agree that social pressures have a direct and usually a negative effect resulting in MG weakness. Camping by myself eliminated these pressures and if I didn't impose pressures of my own, I could have five days of total freedom from MG. The second part, of not creating my own pressures, doesn't just happen and needs some practice but it can be achieved.

I made no plans. No guide lines or timetable that I would have to worry about or try to adhere to. Everything was simplified. The supermarket provided a lot of fresh vegetables, cheese, summer sausage, dried fruit and coffee. A special stop at Mama Lina's for six small loaves of bread with that delicious hard crust and I was on my way. I always forgot something, but veggies packed in clay and thrown into the embers, are every bit as good as veggies baked in foil. Within twenty four hours all confusion, anxiety, cobwebs or whatever, dissolved like the morning mist.

What happens to the mind and body over the next four or five days is so wonderful, so startling, that I would like every human on the face of the earth to experience it. I should emphasize that this is five days of zero contact with other people. If I met someone by accident I simply waved but did not speak. The healing process of mind and emotions under these conditions is swift and sure.

I did many things on these trips. Sometimes I drew or painted. At other times I just hiked and explored my surroundings. I did things that reinforced the fantasies that I used in the mornings.

Once, while hiking, I discovered a small spring in a place where no human had set foot in a jillian years. I named it "Chetusu Springs" and it became mine. (The name "Chetusu" is another story). I could return to Chetusu Springs anytime I wished, in my mind, while having morning coffee.

One time I spent the first day gathering acorns, splitting them and spreading them in the sun. When they were dry I used a native grinding hole in a nearby rock to reduce them to powder. After winnowing the meal, to eliminate any chunks, I made a sand filter in the stream below my camp site. Eight hours of leaching the bitterness from my acorn flour and I hoped I would have my supper.

I had intentionally refrained from eating all day in order to more fully appreciate the experience of surviving on what God had strewn all over the forest floor.

It was eight in the evening when I was ready to cook my days work. I was hungry. I did use one of my metal pans but didn't put the pan in the fire. Just as the natives had done with their clay pots, I heated small stones and dropped them into the flour and water, stirring with a stick. The mixture thickened into a cream colored mush. I plunged two fingers into the pot and, putting them in my mouth, I ate much the same way that the natives had done.

The mush had little or no flavor and just a hint of bitterness. The leaching had not removed 100% of the tannin but it was enjoyable considering the extent of my hunger after a twenty four hour fast. I resisted the temptation to cap off this feast with a hunk of summer sausage and some bread. I wanted the meal of acorn mush to stand on its own and remain fixed in my memory forever. It has.

How very different this day was from our civilized days in the city with our cars and jobs. I was tired but emotionally refreshed. Everything, at my camp site, had been reduced to a very simple, easily understood, equation. Nothing existed except Me, my camp and God.

As you will see, in this book, I have a visual mind. Everything that I think of or learn I must visualize in some way. That night I saw our lives in mathematical equations. In my minds eye modern man's daily life looked something like this:

On the other hand, at this moment, my life was more like 2+2=4.

No anxieties, no uncertainties, everything, easily understood. 2+2=4. It has occurred to me that this experience, unfortunately, might be limited to those few who have the skill to camp and are not afraid to do so by themselves. This obstacle could be overcome in a number of ways.

A husband and wife or a father and daughter, brother and sister etc., could set up camps within easy earshot and agree to not have contact for five days unless absolutely necessary. Agree ahead of time to leave notes when leaving etc. I don't know if this would be the same but certainly it would be better than nothing.

The use of a small hut to reflect, meditate, and restore the spirit has, I understand, been used for centuries. The person lives in the hut with no outside contact. Meals are left on their door step.

I don't believe the means to achieve this goal of solitude is important. Its value is tried and true and, although I did stumble upon the benefit, as it relates to MG, by accident, it has been around for as long as people have become stressed.

Each time I went camping I came back with new ways to enhance my fantasies. Now they were not just daydreams but were solidly anchored in reality and my experiences camping. They now had the same effect, on a smaller scale, as the camping trips themselves. My fantasies were made more effective than they were in 1964.

An unexpected visitor

It was the middle of winter and, as far as I was aware, I was the only one in the campground at Black Canyon in Southern California.

Busy with a painting, I caught a glimpse of movement coming in my direction. I continued with my work. As it grew nearer I recognized the stoop of an old man, flannel shirt, baggy pants, a stocking cap and well worn boots. No pack so he hadn't come far but I wondered where he had been hiding these past three days. He never hesitated, but walked directly into my camp and said "Do you mind if I rest on your bench?" I didn't speak, which was my habit when camping alone, but I smiled and, with my paint brush, pointed to the picnic table. He smiled back and sat down.

In the next twenty minutes not a word was spoken. I painted and he watched and then, rising, he walked to my canvas, bent to get a better look, pointed his walking stick at it and, turning, smiled. He raised his hand slightly, in a gesture of goodbye, walked out of my camp and down the road.

That night, sitting before my campfire, I reflected on the day and my little old man. I wondered who he was. Old men are immediately suspicious. Every night, on TV, some old man has done something. Molested someone. Drunks, bums, homeless people, it seems the list has no end.

As I watched the flames of my campfire a feeling of peace came over me. I was being a fool. Think about this old man. Had he been threatening in any way? Did he do anything to make me think all those thoughts?

He had ask a favor and I had granted it with a smile. He had returned the kindness with a gesture and a smile of his own. I had given him love and he had given me love in return. Can anything in our lives be more simple or more beautiful?

Was I reading more into this happening than it deserved?

That night, for the first time I understood that ones perception of life is, by far, more important than life's realities.

I slept very well that night.