I went climbing again yesterday. The whole time we were doing to walk on, I had this nagging feeling from last week's experience, but I didn't want to disappoint my second.
This time, it was just the two of us, and I was the more experienced climber. Anyway, we went to Sadia Peak, and hiked down to the climbs. I was leading trad this time on a 5.7+ route. For the non-climbers, leading trad means the rope is below you, and you put in bolts and cams in the cracks between the rocks, and clip the rope onto them, so that if you fall, you are caught. It's a little more dangerous than top rope.
The climb was pretty long, and I was about at the halfway mark, when I got a little stymied by a move. I made several attempts at it, and when I finally got to the handhold I was shooting for, I found mud and loose rock inside of it
It had rained recently, so there was mud and slime in some of the pockets in the rock.
I had good protection in at this point, but I had gone through over half my rack of quickdraws (the slings and kerabiners that you clip the rope and protection bolts to). I had been on the rock for a while, and my leg was starting to do the dog-leg (when your leg shakes on the rock for no apparent reason).
I decided to back off, and I had my second lower me down...
I haven't done this in a long time, but the Mojo wasn't there for some reason. Anyway, in order to back off, I had to leave a nut and a quickdraw on the rock, and I wanted to retrieve it. So we had to try and walk on from the top of the climb and rappel down.
There was supposed to be an anchor station of bolts and slings fixed into the rock at the top, and we scouted for it. We couldn't find it, so I decided to create my own with my gear, and rappel down to the quickdraw I had left on the rock.
I hadn't set up a system like that in a while, and it was good practice. I made everything triple-redundant, just to be sure, and rappelled down to the gear I had left.
Interestingly, enough, the fixed anchor station was still nowhere to be found. Some purist had gone in with bolt-cutters and removed it (it happens).
So if I hadn't backed off, I would have gotten to the top, and found nothing to clip into, so I would have had to build my own system anyway. I may have been in a VERY precarious position, with a lot of my gear already used up in the climb, and pretty tired from clawing up that far.
All said, it was probably better that I backed off.
Trusting your instincts, even where that instinct is fear is probably a good thing...
This time, it was just the two of us, and I was the more experienced climber. Anyway, we went to Sadia Peak, and hiked down to the climbs. I was leading trad this time on a 5.7+ route. For the non-climbers, leading trad means the rope is below you, and you put in bolts and cams in the cracks between the rocks, and clip the rope onto them, so that if you fall, you are caught. It's a little more dangerous than top rope.
The climb was pretty long, and I was about at the halfway mark, when I got a little stymied by a move. I made several attempts at it, and when I finally got to the handhold I was shooting for, I found mud and loose rock inside of it
It had rained recently, so there was mud and slime in some of the pockets in the rock.
I had good protection in at this point, but I had gone through over half my rack of quickdraws (the slings and kerabiners that you clip the rope and protection bolts to). I had been on the rock for a while, and my leg was starting to do the dog-leg (when your leg shakes on the rock for no apparent reason).
I decided to back off, and I had my second lower me down...
I haven't done this in a long time, but the Mojo wasn't there for some reason. Anyway, in order to back off, I had to leave a nut and a quickdraw on the rock, and I wanted to retrieve it. So we had to try and walk on from the top of the climb and rappel down.
There was supposed to be an anchor station of bolts and slings fixed into the rock at the top, and we scouted for it. We couldn't find it, so I decided to create my own with my gear, and rappel down to the quickdraw I had left on the rock.
I hadn't set up a system like that in a while, and it was good practice. I made everything triple-redundant, just to be sure, and rappelled down to the gear I had left.
Interestingly, enough, the fixed anchor station was still nowhere to be found. Some purist had gone in with bolt-cutters and removed it (it happens).
So if I hadn't backed off, I would have gotten to the top, and found nothing to clip into, so I would have had to build my own system anyway. I may have been in a VERY precarious position, with a lot of my gear already used up in the climb, and pretty tired from clawing up that far.
All said, it was probably better that I backed off.
Trusting your instincts, even where that instinct is fear is probably a good thing...
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Soul Retrievals
Anthropologist Hank Wesselman and his wife, shaman Jill Kuykendall (sharedwisdom.com) discussed spirit medicine in relation to soul loss & soul retrieval. People can lose parts of their soul due to traumas such as abuse or the loss of a loved one, explained Kuykendall. There are three aspects to the soul spirit, body and mental which roughly correspond with Freud's superego, ego and subconscious (id), Wesselman further detailed.
The missing element of the soul might be found in the "lower world," a protective place that animal and plant spirits inhabit, said Kuykendall. She also named a "middle world," that is akin to the dream state with both positive and negative attributes and an "upper world," a place of divine knowledge that is home to angels and ancestral spirits.
In her work as a shaman, Kuykendall said she enters into the spirit realm by listening to drum beats and then conducts retrievals or repairs for persons who have the sense that they are missing part of themselves or are damaged. She described one case where a man was denied a communion service as a young boy, and in her visit to the spirit realm she was able to sense Jesus' presence carrying the implements of communion for the boy in order to heal him. Kuykendall called the kind of spirit medicine she performs "deep prayer" and said that this type of connection with the divine can work with any religious affiliation. She and Wesselman will next be teaching workshops in shamanism at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY.
[Edited on Jul 29, 2004 4:08AM]