Chris' sleeping porch

Here's a post you may enjoy on Chris Corrigan's blog about the practice of sleeping outside.  The post is about the absolute joys of connecting to the 'real' world by sleeping outside every chance we get.

Quote:

"My house faces southeast, so I know which planets are up, when the dawn is and what kinds of winds are buffeting the inlet below us.  I hear barred owls calling most nights, making a huge racket on full moons, and the deer prowl the slopes around me.  In the morning the autumn dawn chorus consists of chickadees and stellar’s jays looking for seed, while ravens towhees and flickers go about their business.  From the lagoon a half mile from my house, Canada geese and gulls chatter in the morning air."

I love to sleep outside. It feels like the ultimate luxury. While I was reveling in Chris' post, I remembered some journaling I'd done last December while sleeping under the weeping birch in my suburban back yard, keeping a fire stoked as part of a vigil for clarity.

The weeping birch in my backyard in spring from the vantage point of where I sometimes sleep.

I’m alone with the fire.

It’s cold—in the 20’s all night. Windy. The fire literally dances and sways. Clear skies with crowded stars. Around 3:30am the snow-drenched clouds sneak over the horizon.

In the meantime, the fire up-lights the ancient white-barked birch. Snuggled in warmth from the fire and down from some unknown but thanked geese, I couldn't be happier.

The tree is alive—she is a white-skinned virgin and an ancient crone. She is, in this early winter time,  leafless but no more vulnerable than in full regalia.

The half-moon starts at the top of the backyard fence around midnight. I watch its pilgrimage across the tree—first through outer branches, than across the southern sky, in and out of sight.

So the tree is up-lit and down-lit. A mysterious, intimate presence.

I think about this ancient journey happening every night, whether or not a fire is lit or anyone is watching or whether the moon actually shows its face. Both the moon and the fire are friends with the tree. She knows them far more intimately than I know myself. I make a vow to sleep out here more often. I need this beauty, this sweetness, this connection.

I sleep. The fire dies down and I wake to stoke it. When I poke my face out of the down sleeping bag, my face and nose-hair freezes, and it makes me smile. Sitting up on my cot, with my feet propped on the side of the firepit, I sketch the tree's bark and I'm surprised at the results, especially since I'm doing it with gloves on.

At 6am, the fire sputters. The first light is sneaking across the backyard fence. I stretch and do a simple closing ritual with the fire and am grateful to walk up the back steps, clear-headed and alert, into my cozy bed for a couple hours of deep sleep.

The vigil is over. But not the vision of the tree, fearsome and friendly, welcoming the firelight and moonglow, as well as not resisting the bronze birch borer beetle that is slowly munching her lifeforce.

Any stories to share of your adventures in sleeping outside? Would love to hear them!

Thanks to Dave Pollard for his Saturday Round Up for October 4, 2008  and finding Chris Corrigan's post on the practice of sleeping outside. Made me remember my journal from last winter, and voila!

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