When The Crotch Is Narrow

Every Spring at the Awareness School, we erect a tepee which serves as our meditation hall for the summer retreat season.

Erecting a tepee requires attention, precision, cooperation, and patience. It does not require brute strength, copious amounts of people, or extremely heavy lifting (especially if one is ingenious enough). By hook or by crook, sometimes starting over, troubleshooting, or trying again, it gets done. Some years are better than others, and every year we marvel at what an amazing structure it is.

That is what I have learned after doing it 6 times.

This year’s seventh iteration, however, proved to be an elevated experience that rendered a nearly flawless tepee. There were many factors contributing to the ease and grace with which it went up, but only one can account for the magical flow that occurred over those 3 days.

There were many who were familiar with the process – only 2 people out of eleven had never done it before. No one really repeated the role they had had the previous year. We never assign who is doing what in any of our projects;each person self-directs as to what is needed in the moment from their own initiative. No one is barking orders or commandeering the situation.

Everyone is encouraged to act from an active “do” (as in do, re, mi of an octave) rather than a passive “do” in which they are told what to do.

We use a set of written instructions and ask questions to those who have done it many times, but no one is an expert. Each year, we try to improve the design, learning from previous mistakes and do-overs. Every group has different insights into what might be going awry as we go along.

One mistaken measurement or mistied knot usually compounds mistakes down the line.

This is where patience, accuracy, and communication come in. Ideally, if there can be a majority of people able to “disidentify” with their particular job, the magic begins to happen. People start listening without being disrupted by their own inner reactions. They are not offended when something needs to be done again. No shame arises – or if it does, we observe it within ourselves.

No one is doling out their own opinions as the final word, even when it requires the group to acknowledge an error and begin again with greater accuracy.

When this is actually occurring, things fall into place seamlessly as if the outward act reflects our inner state.

This is how it happened all weekend long!

We came together as a seasoned group carrying the aim to stay collected inwardly as we worked. This is the aim with all our group projects.

Stronger members wheeled down clay and gravel to level the ground. Others took the tepee out into the field to make sure it was clean. Another group checked the poles, using the chainsaw to clear the base of any rot. The bones and skin were ready for assembly.

As always, we stopped on the hour to become still; aware of our awareness; a reminder of how we want to be while we work. An energy began to grow with each hourly stop. Those pauses got deeper and more still.

We seemed to have achieved efficiency and group flow early on.

Assembling the tripod requires someone to tie a tight clove hitch to hold the three poles together and form the foundation on which to lay the rest of the poles. That foundation is made up of three V’s or crotches, as they are called, in which four poles are stacked within each crotch. This is what creates the tepee shape and strength of the structure in which the weight of each pole is held firmly in place. With each pole, the crotch gets more narrow.

Maneuvering a twenty-two foot pole into the narrow crotch requires at least 2 or 3 people at the base of the pole and at least one pair of guiding eyes on the sidelines…and it has to be done twelve times.

This step can go terribly wrong, which then affects the width of the “neck” and how the skin will hang. Believe me when I say we have done this wrong many times and have seen in hindsight how it affects every subsequent step.

Ready to go with people in place, I yelled “pole one in North crotch” and…well, everyone started cracking up. The pole end was wobbling everywhere and finally made it in the crotch as many yelled “yes, yes you're in the crotch!” I realized the person aiming the pole was one of the “rookies”.

This continued with more laughter and sexual innuendo as the crotch got smaller, and we aimed to get the crotch as tight as possible for optimum leverage and size so the skin could fully reach around the bones. Said rookie managed to lay the poles in the tightest crotch ever. He was dubbed Narrow Crotch by another participant, and in good humor wore the moniker well.

There was a sense of joy that continued to grow between all of us. We were able to be collected as the energy coalesced, which in turn increased the joy in our hearts. We maintained a deep silence and stillness as witnessed in our meditations and stops while simultaneously growing the sense of levity and lightness of being.

As the days went on, it was like breathing large inhales of peace with exhales of joy. Long stints of collected silence were interspersed with laughter and connection. All was right with the world and the tepee.

As we reverently entered the sanctuary for our final evening program, we marveled at our work over the previous days. We could feel the magic of the space that engulfs us every year. All was trimmed and finished with wall liners, rainfly, carpeting, and firepit. The tepee did not have a single wrinkle and hung perfectly on its bones… like us.

 

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Molly Knight Forde is the founder of the Awareness School and author of Be Present: Reflections On The Way.

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