Finding Baseline: How One Mother’s Journey with the Wilderness Awareness School Transformed Her Perspective on Nature, Parenting, and Community
For many participants, the realization arrives quietly, often disguised as the rustle of leaves or the sudden silence of a forest canopy. For one Seattle-based mother, the path to the Wilderness Awareness School—and its flagship training initiative, The Immersion—was a journey that unfolded over more than a decade, weaving together family struggles, personal growth, and a profound redefinition of what it means to truly pay attention to the world.
Looking back on the day she finally registered for the intensive program, she often reflects on the choices that might have unfolded differently had she graduated from the life-changing curriculum decades earlier. Yet, rather than dwelling on timing, she finds solace in the advice of poet Galway Kinnell in his renowned work, Wait: "Distrust everything if you have to. / But trust the hours. Haven’t they / carried you everywhere, up to now?" In retrospect, she entered The Immersion program at precisely the right juncture in her life—at a moment when she was uniquely prepared to receive its deep, foundational teachings.
The family’s relationship with the school first took root in 2010 through a series of summer camps. That initial season proved to be the catalyst for many more summers of outdoor education, eventually paving the way for her son to enroll in the Friday Community School program during a particularly difficult juncture in his life. As a sixth grader, he had found himself woefully uninspired and underwhelmed by the rigid environment of his new middle school. The weekly immersion in nature—spending Fridays out on the land—provided a fierce, restorative joy that acted as a protective buffer, sustaining him through the remainder of the academic year.
That experience was nothing short of life-saving for her son. Witnessing the transformative power of those weekly outdoor sessions planted a seed, creating a strong desire to experience that same connection to the land and community for herself. That personal aspiration eventually led her to enroll directly in The Immersion at the Wilderness Awareness School, stepping onto a path that would fundamentally alter her daily perception of the natural and social worlds.
Through the curriculum, participants cultivate a specific philosophy that alters how they navigate everyday life. A core mantra emerged from her time in the program: "Just because I didn’t know about something until now, doesn’t mean it wasn’t there all along."
In practice, that realization could refer to any number of hidden realities—a barred owl resting quietly on a limb just above head height, a cougar silently stalking the distant edge of a pond, a teenager subtly and desperately calling out for emotional connection, or even a deeply ingrained, harmful pattern of privilege that a community member gently asks her to examine and let go of. Learning how to practice this heightened level of awareness required dedication and humility. While acknowledging that she remains imperfect in applying these lessons, she notes that the training continually nudges her back toward active curiosity and self-reflection.
After graduating from The Immersion in 2018, her commitment to the institution deepened rather than waned. She chose to continue her education through the Youth Nature Instructor Training program, stepped into a role as an active member of the school’s Equity Council, and regularly volunteered for both summer and school-year programs. Her dedication to fostering these learning environments expanded further when she joined the Adult Nature Instructor Training program, stepping into a supportive mentorship role for subsequent cohorts of Immersion students.
This enduring pull toward the community begs a fundamental question: What is it about this specific program and its surrounding network that consistently draws people back? The answer, according to long-term participants and mentors, centers on two core concepts: awareness and camouflage.
Navigating daily life in an urban center like Seattle involves balancing a multitude of diverse circles and responsibilities. Her schedule includes serving on the board of a local outdoor preschool, participating actively as a philanthropist, engaging in parent-teacher associations at her children’s schools, and sitting on the equity committees of three separate organizations. Furthermore, she maintains a deep personal commitment to anti-racism work, engaging in continuous self-reflection through white caucus groups and mixed-race communities of practice and action.
Above all else, however, she identifies primarily as a mother of three emerging adults. In that role, she has found that her children are best served when she actively notices, listens, and protects them for life’s challenges, rather than trying to shield them from those inevitable experiences.
Before undergoing training at Wilderness Awareness School, her understanding of camouflage was strictly conventional, limited to clothing patterned in splotches of green, brown, and tan, paired with similarly colored face paint caked on for concealment in the woods.
Her perspective shifted dramatically through the curriculum. Following her time in The Immersion, she came to realize that she is frequently in full camouflage when wearing entirely different attire—such as a formal black dress paired with a string of pearls. Her instructors taught her that true camouflage is about blending seamlessly into the baseline of any given environment.
Whether that means remaining nestled quietly in a clump of sword fern beneath a towering Western Red Cedar, sitting unobtrusively by a campfire surrounded by a circle of teenagers, or using a salad fork with effortless discretion at an upscale dinner inside the Four Seasons Hotel, the underlying principle remains the same. By mastering the art of blending into the baseline, an individual can accomplish meaningful, impactful work without causing unnecessary ripples or concentric rings of disturbance in their surroundings.
Reflecting on more than a decade of shared learning, mentorship, and the tight-knit community she and her son discovered through the Wilderness Awareness School, she expresses profound appreciation. As she looks ahead, she carries the lessons of awareness and baseline integration forward, eagerly anticipating the decade of growth and connection yet to come.
