Wisdom of the Wilderness

As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com or @cactusmoose on Instagram with questions, comments and guest suggestions. There might be a slight shift in the podcast as momentum builds on another project I've been pondering.

Feel free to contact me with questions, comments and guest suggestions at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com or on Instagram @cactusmoose

Last Saturday, July 22, I ran a 50k ultramarathon in the town of Fernie: the Elk Valley Ultra by Stag Leap Running. Today I'm sharing my race-day experience: having stomach issues 5 miles in, seeing a bear cub, and doing a lot of climbing while it was 95 degrees. The course is gorgeous, and I highly recommend it for the views; it's also tough, and will test you on the climbs and technical sections.

It was a blast to go out and see how I fare against others, and we were blessed with a beautiful bluebird, smoke-free day in the valley.

As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest ideas. I'm also on instagram @cactusmoose

Fire safety is great to review periodically, especially when heading out to camp, run or hike in fire-prone areas. Just like I could have easily been in a bad place when the winds shifted, you could find yourself stuck in an unfortunate situation. The tips were modified from a Department of Interior website, and common sense hopefully prevails when people are recreating in the bush. Please do not do something stupid like setting off fireworks to reveal whether your baby will be a boy or girl.

As always, connect with me on Instagram or through wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest suggestions. Until the next episode, I hope you have a wonderful day and get a chance to decompress in the fresh air.

“Values are directions we keep moving in, whereas goals are what we want to achieve along the way,” Dr. Russ Harris writes in the book The Happiness Trap, “A value is like heading North; a goal is like the river or mountain or valley we aim to cross whilst traveling in that direction.”

Material for the episode is from a conglomeration of websites including this one.

As always, contact me with questions, comments and guest suggestions via Instagram

Cheers, friends, and be sure to get out into nature today!

Today's episode is another with my good friend Realist Idealist. Unfortunately, the first 45 minutes of our discussion of language is lost to the ethers, but what's left is a neat discussion. It's a philosophical discussion the likes of which I enjoy for the different perspectives that we can access.

Language is a powerful tool. Realist Idealist ponders what we can become aware of as we notice how the use of certain words make us feel. 

We chat about lifestyle design, affirmations, how to stay positive while your focus isn't manifesting, and what you're speaking into existence. There's a discussion about how if an affirmation is not going to change you, it's not going to work.

A big part of this episode is our chat about values - what is important to you, and are you making that a priority in your life? It's been neat for me to reflect upon that concept as I've redesigned my life to fit my values rather than those of external organizations.

When you think things are falling apart, what if they are actually falling together? Could a shift in perspective or language help you through a situation you're experiencing?

Realist Idealist organizes her life around living the question, and then living her way into the answer. The full context of the snippet can be found in the poem below or at this link:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke

As always, thanks for listening! Feel free to contact me at cactusmoose@protonmail.com or on Instagram with questions, comments and guest requests.

Thank you for listening! As always, you can connect with me on Instagram or through cactusmoose@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest requests. Enjoy!

Thanks for listening, friends! Today's episode is my perspective of the events from the Aravaipa Running Black Canyon 100k that I ran on February 18, 2023 in Arizona.

It was a great experience: meeting new and old friends, being part of the race community and supporting others. 

A lot of things happened that day, and even in the recording and as I write the description I realize I've missed a few things. Here are a few links to topics or people I mention during the episode:

Heidi Garner Studio made the awesome Black Canyon 100k buff racers received

Race results are here

Black Canyon Trail

My friend

My friend Lindsay

My friend Emily

My friend Jen

Phoenix PT and dry needling

As always, contact me with questions, comments and guest suggestions at cactusmoose@protonmail.com or through Instagram

As always, connect with me @cactusmoose with questions, comments and guest suggestions.

Today I'm answering listener questions about my truck camping setup for road trips, how I get water, where I get clean, and how I choose sites for the evening. I also discuss the many decisions anyone on a road trip faces every day, and some ways to prevent those processes from becoming overwhelming. Breathwork (Wim Hof method; Kim Anami style), taking things one step at a time, gathering information and trusting the process are strategies I use to keep from being overwhelmed.

I recorded today's episode from a trailhead in an undisclosed location as I watched the colors start dancing on the incredible geologic formations. 

As always, connect with me on Instagram @cactusmoose or at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments, and guest suggestions. 

Enjoy your day, and here's to a magical experience in nature.

I'm mentioned on Gremlin Talk as for my role in Mak's race experience at Javelina Jundred.

As always, connect with me on Instagram @cactusmoose or at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest suggestions. 

Have a wonderful day, and remember how great you feel after getting into nature for some fresh air!

This episode details how cougar patrol came into existence, how it's both a real thing and a playful way to create content, and some trail safety thoughts. It was recorded while grounding myself in the majestic landscape of White Sands National Park.

As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com or on Instagram @cactusmoose with questions, comments and guest suggestions.

Here's to a wonderful day!

longevity

open spaces and openness of people

harsh environmental conditions requiring adaptation and resourcefulness

facing yourself

spiky plants

sunshine

Edward Abbey

Morgan Sjogren or Instagram 

Episode 111 with Megan

As always, connect with me through wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest suggestions, or on Instagram @cactusmoose.

Thank you for listening! Please consider leaving a review on your podcast platform of choice.

Thanks for listening, friends! Today I share what transpired as I DNF'd my attempt at the 106 mile Deadman Peaks ultramarathon near Cuba, New Mexico. 

It didn't end how I anticipated and I learned a lot about myself, about preparation, and about leaving it all on the course. It was a fantastic, albeit painful, experience, and I'm planning to return in 2023 to finish and claim my buckle.

Big thanks to everyone at the race, all the volunteers who helped out, the other runners, and race director Eric Bailey. Follow along on the Deadman Peaks Instagram page for more updates. 

In today's episode, Megan @mkupres22 shares some wisdom and insight from her journey into trail running, competing and coaching that extends far beyond start/finish lines and trails. 

Megan's positive energy is contagious, to the point she seems to be the Energizer Bunny. 

We chat about a variety of subjects including Aravaipa Running, what it's like to coach, how to influence high school to make running fun, the importance of community, staying motivated during an injury, perfectionism versus living life, learning from mistakes, learning patience through trail running, how the trails reflect life and work back to us, mentoring younger women and pursuing passions versus staying put in life.

As always, connect with me through wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest suggestions, or on Instagram @cactusmoose.

Thank you for listening!

Please consider leaving a review on your podcast platform of choice.

As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest suggestions. You can also find me on Instagram @cactusmoose

Here's to a wonderful day of sunshine, fresh air and quality time spent in nature!

As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com or find me on Instagram with questions, comments and guest suggestions.

Until next week... #optoutside, friends 

I'm really excited to share today's episode with the hilarious and inspiring Jen Laughlin because... cool people do cool stuff.

We have a wide-ranging discussion about how to balance ultramarathon training with family and work responsibilities, creating and sharing adventures, the awesomeness of Arizona, the value of networking and some of our favorite beers. We even chat about beer selection before introductions!

It was a lot of fun to chat with Jen, another contact made from random synchronicities in my life. We discuss training (and living) in the heat, living in the desert, following intuition and what it's like to manage a LOT of social media accounts. There are gems of wisdom hidden throughout the episode, and I encourage you to listen through the end to find out what Jen's top three beers actually are. You'll also hear a great recipe for a kind-of rehydrating orange dreamsicle.

We chat about a lot of different organizations and places... if you're having trouble finding any of them you can connect with myself or Jen and we'll point you in the right direction.

Tower Station IPA

Mother Road Brewing 

Aravaipa Running

Mogollan Monster

Coros watches

Tushars Mountain Run

Sounds of Freedom IPA from State 48 Brewery

Late for the Train coffee

Instagram

Facebook

Squirrel's Nut Butter

Filiberto's Mexican Food

Arizona State University Sun Devils

University of Arizona Wildcats

Dirtbag Runners

Tuscon Marathon

Javelina Jundred

Run Steep, Get High

Salt Stick

Cocodona 250

Church Music IPA from The Shop

Voodoo Ranger

Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA

As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com or on Instagram at @cactusmoose with questions, comments and guest suggestions.

Here's to a magical day spent out of doors!

It really helps me out if you can give a review of the show on the podcasting platform you're listening to; the list of platforms upon which the show can be found is through this link to Anchor.fm

During the episode I refer to episode 100 with Realist Idealist discussing the difference between jumping into or jumping out of life, quote Robbie Burns, and share a perspective about which meridians flow through the tooth I broke... and how that relates to the emotions I experienced and sought to subconsciously self-manage with a significant injury.

Fret not, friends: I'm fine, and by the time this comes out... the dentist's kids' tuition will be halfway paid, I'll be back from a backcountry adventure and eating solid food again. 

As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com for questions, comments and guest suggestions. You can also follow the wisdom I glean as I create life on Instagram: @cactusmoose.

Thank you for listening today, friends! It's Episode 102, and today's topic is the wisdom from Eyes of the Eagle which I accessed through the free oracle cards available on Colette Baron-Reid's website. It's a gem that connects with much of my experience over the past 72 hours, before pondering the couple of years before that. It's always fun for me to look for deeper meaning in the seemingly-random "coincidences" that define my experience. 

As always, #optoutside and enjoy the lovely living world around us, friends. Connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest requests. I'm excited to have more guest on the show in the next few months as we all expand and support each other.

I've got Realist Idealist back to celebrate the milestone 100th episode of Wisdom of the Wilderness... and want to thank you, the listeners, spread out amongst 42 countries.

This is a wide-ranging conversation (as usual) covering spiritual aspects of navigating life and the balance between planning versus going with the flow. We spontaneously create new words, ponder the role of horses in catalyzing personal growth and cultural change, consider the energetic differences of jumping into or out of a situation, and reminisce about how the Universe provides gifts to us in the form of synchronicities when we're on the right track. There are heaps of nuggets of wisdom in this chat between friends: we ponder attachment to identity, seeing evidence of possibility rather than lack, and the space that opens up when releasing longtime hobbies... complete with real life examples.

We reference a number of topics that can be further investigated through these links:

14ers.com is my favorite website for accessing route descriptions, trailhead directions, photos, trip reports and conditions when hiking the 14,000' peaks in Colorado.

Moab, Utah is one of my favorite areas... the landscape and energy of the rock formations, canyons and mesas, arches and ecology is magical. The Moab Information Center has great resources, friendly volunteers and maps. To learn about the area I suggest reading my favorite book, Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, as it derives from his journals as a park ranger in Arches before it was developed.

Realist Idealist partners with a BLM mustang, a wild/feral horse who was adopted after formerly ranging freely. Mustang herds across America are caught in the middle of a protracted political debate concerning their future on the rangelands.

As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest suggestions. I enjoy reading listener comments, especially how episodes have influenced your lives.

Until next week, opt outside and enjoy some quiet time in nature today, friends.

We're back today with some observations about how nature can help remind us to be present and to reduce the stresses we place onto ourselves with expectations. I mention Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now, and how remembering to breathe can help reduce the physiological stresses generated when what we're experiencing doesn't match what we hoped, anticipated or planned for. 

As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest suggestions. Until next week, #optoutside and enjoy the magic to be found outdoors in nature.

It's a solo episode for May 2, sharing my experiencing of kindness and compassion from a mountain biker after my gnarly crash on the trails, and how that connects with the energy of deer. The topic for today is actually coming out next week, as a young deer appeared out my window just before I hit the record button, and, following the Just Wing It episode, I went with that. 

The deer interpretation is from the Sams & Carson deck of Medicine Cards

Some tips for driving now that it's animal movement season again:

Geico

From a law firm

Driving tips for rural roads

I've seen so many birds out here lately - red-tailed hawks, osprey and osprey nests, eagles, crows, ravens, little forest birds, flickers, blue jays, pileated woodpeckers and turkeys - that I got to thinking about wings... then about how the advice "just wing it" can be a great way to approach some situations. Today's episode is sharing thoughts and experiences about the differences of planning everything versus going with the flow, how the best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley (Robbie Burns), and transitioning out of culturally-conditioned norms. As Wayne Dyer says, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Some of the links mentioned in the episode:

The poem To A Mouse by Robbie Burns

The River by Garth Brooks

Wayne Dyer

Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd

This week's episode continues where last weeks unexpectedly dropped off with NatureWise Mama. This is a more broad-ranging conversation covering a variety of topics including sleep as medicine, NatureWise Mama's adventures in the desert, on the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands, how to poop in the woods and using dirt for cleaning, a tiny bikini, the role of nature as a shaman, counting one's blessings and some of her favorite books. In no surprise for longtime listeners, NatureWise Mama asks me a few questions and we chat about group dynamics in the context of a BOSS course. 

As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest suggestions. Opt outside today, and have fun!

Links:

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

Deep Survival

Thanks for listening, friends! Today we've got a special guest, Naturewise Mama of www.naturewisemama.com 

We have a wide-ranging conversation that actually - spoiler alert - got cut off, so prepare yourself for the upcoming part 2. Some of the topics discussed include

Lafayette, CO

Old Town Longmont, CO

Lafayette Florist

Colorado Athletic Club - Tabor Center

Attachment parenting

Turtle energy

Consciousness

Weaving consciousness into the mainstream and awakening

Being open to learning

Seeing the world we wish to see

Colorado clouds

I mention a few of my favorite podcasts, authors and books throughout the course of the podcast. Daniel Vitalis had an amazing podcast called ReWild Yourself; his current venture is Wild Fed. It's been highly impactful for me to listen and learn as I go; I first heard of him on the Life Stylist podcast. 

RewildU is a great resource for rewilding topics, as is rewild.com, especially their detailed analyses of the misrepresentations of hunter gatherers in common culture, and the huge implications those sometimes-purposeful misrepresentations have on our perception of the role of hunter gatherers, tribalism, peacefulness, land use, and their lives of meaning. It's definitely worth checking out, and checking your media-conditioned presumptions before you read the articles. 

Christopher McDougall wrote Born to Run, a bestselling book that spurred the interest in ultramarathons, barefoot shoes, zero drop and the colorful characters in the ultramarathon world including Jenn Shelton, Scott Jurek and Barefoot Ted who promotes natural movement. 

Local plant books are a great way to reconnect to the wildness and beauty around you; Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies is what I'm currently reading.

Enjoy the episode, folks! As always, connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest requests. Cheers!

Jaguar wisdom from Tanya Casteel 

Jaguar wisdom from What Is My Spirit Animal 

Jaguar wisdom from the Sams & Carson Medicine Cards deck

Today's episode is about the stages of grief that humans experience after a loss (which often, but not necessarily is a death), and some tips and suggestions on how to move through the 5 stages of grief. These are suggestions and offerings from my own experiences, and I am not a counselor or therapist. For specific questions and individual concerns you can connect with a specialist in your area with a simple internet search; I use DuckDuckGo.

This is a great article that details five stages of grief, and here's Homer Simpson going through all five in less than a minute. 

There are numerous resources available online to assist anyone struggling with any of the stages, and suicide hotlines for those in the depths of depression. 1-800-273-8255 is the number to call in North America. If you are struggling with any aspect of processing grief, connecting with someone to share what you're going through is a courageous step to take.

As always, y'all can connect with me at wisdomofthewilderness@protonmail.com with questions, comments and guest suggestions. 

And, as always, remember that some of the greatest benefits for physical, mental and spiritual health occur when we #optoutside