“Stay Strong Over the Holidays” – Dispatches from Atz

December 22, 2022

Dispatches from Atz’ is an on-going series chronicling the writings of Atz Kilcher during his time at Freedom Ranch for Heroes with the veterans of Project Healing Waters.

Vietnam veteran Atz Kilcher is an accomplished singer, song-writer, musician, story-teller and proud father. He is most widely known as the patriarch of Discovery Channel’s Emmy-short-listed program Alaska: The Last Frontier. Atz joined the Project Healing Waters family in 2021 during a trip to Freedom Ranch for Heroes.

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Stay strong over the holidays

Have I told all of you how much I love writing these dispatches. I probably have but I can’t remember for sure, but regardless, I’ll say it again. I love writing these dispatchers I even love the word. Dispatches. I think it kind of makes me feel like I am writing an ancient scroll, maybe on a piece of birch bark or papyrus. Not even sure what that is, but I think I learned about it in junior high. I picture something like birchbark, which I have actually written on when I was a kid on the homestead.

Not only do I love writing these dispatches, but I am very grateful for the fact that they are posted ,that they are being read and enjoyed by other people. I appreciate all of your kind responses. I am also grateful to Daniel Morgan, the marketing director of Project Healing Waters, whose idea it was to publish these.

Been thinking about the holidays the last couple of days. I was recently asked to join a mental health challenge which my daughter Jewel was heading up. Among other things, they are trying to raise awareness of mental health issues, especially during the holidays.

When I worked as a social worker with adolescents in residential treatment, I was always so saddened by the many traumatic stories the majority of those troubled teens had about the holidays. For so many of them that is when the shit really hit the fan. That’s when the serious drinking started. That’s when the serious abuse started. So sad when you think about it. Such a joyous occasions as Christmas should not serve as trigger to take these young children and teenagers back to those traumatic painful times.

As social workers we always had to prepare for the holidays. Even though they were far from home and several of them had been removed and in residential treatment for years,the shit just kept hitting the fan. Whatever their issues were that caused them to be removed from their homes and to be put in a treatment setting, all increased over the holidays. More running away, more stealing, more serious emotional issues of all sorts, more acting out behavior. How very sad to see the cycles repeated.

One year, a 16 year old boy from a remote Alaska village had no place to go for the holidays, so I brought him down to Homer to our family gathering.

I’ll never forget when on the drive from Homer back to Anchorage he said to me, “ you guys drink just to have fun.” I asked him what he meant and he said again, “you guys drink to have fun”. I recall feeling a little defensive. I thought perhaps he was judging us for not being able to have fun unless there was alcohol involved. He went on to explain. He said in his village around the holidays people did not drink to have fun, they drank until they fell over. And I am sure that before that falling over stone drunk phase, a lot of shit hit the fan.

Reading this boys case record was depressing. Two of his siblings had frozen to death as babies sleeping beside an open window, neglected by parents that were intoxicated.

I mentioned in a dispatch I wrote earlier, but possibly has not been posted yet, about the many layers of trauma that most veterans live with. For many of them the first layer of trauma was an extremely dysfunctional childhood.

When I think about my childhood Christmases as a child on the Homestead the saying comes to mind and I can’t remember where it is from, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. Fortunately my younger memories are all good. When I feel giddy with excitement and joy that I almost cannot contain, I always compare it to Christmas morning on the Homestead. Aside from doing chores we did not have to work. We finally got to open the presents, most of them home made with love and care.There were always homemade goodies! There was always a feast. It always had a magical feel. When on Christmas Eve, the homemade bees wax candles were lit, that humble one room log cabin was transformed. My mother would set out a bowl of milk and cookies, and in the morning it would be gone. Santa clause cleaned up every crumb and every drop and usually left some sign that he had been there.

I am not sure if the tension between my parents increased as I got older or if I just did not notice it when I was younger. But as I got older Christmas represented increasing tension and pressure and anxiety, which usually came to a head about the time the Christmas celebration started. Getting to know myself better as I have grown up, I am quite sure that for my dad Christmas represented many unpleasant things. Not enough money. Not being a good provider. Not having thought of all the beautiful gifts my mother made for us and bought for us. I’m quite sure he felt left out. Not included. Jealous. Kind of embarrassed and stupid. Less than. Compared. All feelings I am very familiar with myself. Sometimes those tensions escalated to shouting and screaming. Sometimes it escalated to more. That feeling of somebody ruining something beautiful, stealing my joy, has also been something that has stayed with me and has been a challenge for me all my life.

I still don’t do great at Christmas gatherings, whether at my home, my childrens’ home, or somebody else’s. At the same time I have many miraculous and joyful memories of early childhood Christmases that have lasted a lifetime. Those joyful memories have strengthened and the others have faded.

So this dispatch is especially for all of you who have more challenges emotionally or mentally or spiritually, during the holiday season. It is especially for all of you, whether veterans or civilians, who are on a healing journey of dealing with and overcoming and triumphing over multiple layers of trauma. My thoughts and prayers will be with you over the holidays. Stay strong.

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“Cues and Triggers” – Dispatches from Atz

December 12, 2022

Dispatches from Atz’ is an on-going series chronicling the writings of Atz Kilcher during his time at Freedom Ranch for Heroes with the veterans of Project Healing Waters.

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Cues and Triggers

The more I think about it, and the older and hopefully wiser I get, the more I realize how often my behavior and my moods, and the way I end up feeling or treating people, is caused by triggers and subtle cues outside of myself. It rains and blows into my face and I get mad. Somebody smiles at me and I feel good. Somebody cuts me off on the freeway, and to keep from getting angry or taking it personally, I have to repeat a mantra I have developed,” bless you angry man, bless you angry man”. I am not sure which angry man I am blessing. The driver who cut me off might just have been in a hurry or was having an emergency, so I guess the angry man I am blessing is me. I am out in the beautiful wilderness, and I feel inspired. I watch a movie like ‘a River runs through it’, and I am deeply touched for years. I see life more and more as just a never ending series of cues and triggers. And sadly, it follows that when something triggers me, the way I act in turn triggers those around me.

This message came to me while I was out jogging this morning. I have gotten some good messages out jogging. Not sure where they come from, but they definitely come to me more at certain times of day, or while I am doing certain activities, like jogging or driving or out in nature. It’s sort of like cell phone reception. I’ve had to learn what time of day and where to be to get reception. Sometimes these messages are only a thought, they come and go. Other times they may become a poem or a song. Sometimes a story, or an essay, but more times than not I believe they are for my betterment. Usually these messages feel like they are in answer to something I have been thinking about, working through, or struggling with. I usually don’t argue with these messages, or judge or evaluate them, because they all do me some good. Sometimes it’s the same message I’ve gotten before, sometimes it’s said in just a little different way. Sometimes it’s a brand new one. Or it could be that it just seems new because I forgot the old ones.

This morning‘s message came from two horses grazing in a meadow along the road where I went for a jog. I think in part it also came to me because for the last 24 hours I have been interacting with Veterans. I’ve been thinking about some of the serious triggers many of us deal with.

Our group leader/coordinator is a third generation cowboy. By cowboy I mean he was raised a cowboy and he is still a cowboy. Cows, horses, ranch, blue heeler, rodeos, the whole works. So I think it got me going down that cowboy trail of my past.

You see, I used to be a cowboy myself. First I was just a homesteader, a sodbuster, a farmer. Name anything to do with farming or homesteading, well I did it. And what I did is what I was. It’s how I defined myself. Well, then some cowboys from Arizona and New Mexico moved into the area. It wasn’t a big career change for me to become a cowboy. I just had to learn how to rope, and castrate and brand and de-horn. I had to learn how to train horses. I learned to train cows to accept an orphan calf. I had to train calves to hook up with a new mom. I had to learn how to give shots, do minor surgeries, deal with prolapsed uteruses.

And I’d say one of the most important aspect of being a cowboy is learning how and when to sometimes be louder and scarier and more aggressive than a mean horse or cow that is trying to hurt you, and when to be gentle. Learning what kind of cues those animals are sending you. Are they scared, or hurt and asking for help, are they about to try to take you out? And what kind of cues you are sending them? Like, “mess with me and you will be real sorry”, or “I am harmless, I am part of the herd”.

And of course I wore cowboy boots and spurs and a cowboy hat and was proud of it. Not only did I know I was a cowboy but I wanted everyone else to know. I would say it was my first real identity. There were only two other cowboys in my school so being a cowboy wasn’t real popular. But I didn’t care. Because I finally had a family, I finally had an identity. And, it beat my previous identity of being a backwoods Homestead hick.

Back in 66 when I won the Alaska Junior championship all-around cowboy title, well it was like getting a PhD in cowboyology. Didn’t matter a bit to me, that “all Alaska”, really meant just a small part of Alaska that had cattle and horses and cowboys. It didn’t matter that if I remember right there were only about 10 guys under 18 participating. Nope, didn’t bother me at all!

But am I still a cowboy? I feel more like I used to be a cowboy. Just like I used to be a social worker. Just like I used to be a school teacher. I say that I am a musician because I still perform and write songs. I used to be a pretty good athlete but I no longer say that I am an athlete. So at this point in my life I either say that I used to be, or that I am retired. Interesting how we define our self.

But I am a veteran. I didn’t used to be a veteran. I didn’t once was a veteran. I am not a retired veteran. And I think it’s a title we’ve earned. Kind of like once you’ve been a Senator you can always be called Senator, or Governor or President. Just the other day in a coffee shop in Homer, the barista asked me if I was a veteran, I said, “yes ,why?” She said that a veteran had been in earlier and given her $100 to buy free coffee for any veterans that came in!

A coffee shop at the Bozeman Airport when I arrived, said there was no charge for Vets. I love it. Funny,how even a small thing like that, served as a powerful trigger! Held my head just a little higher. Felt just a little more proud.

So I’m jogging down the road and there are two horses loose in a field beside the road. I know enough about this area and about horses to take an educated guess that they are tame, probably well trained, probably used a lot. Still I’m smart enough to know that even well trained horses can be scared of strangers. Or they can have a mean streak. I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want to scare them. But I’m tapping into my used to be cowboy days, and want to have a little chat with them. So I step across the ditch closer to their space and tell them that I don’t want to hurt them and ask them if they are scared. They say they’re fine. So since our relationship is moving along fairly well up to this point, I ask this closest horse if he wants to come over and visit a little bit. I give him some arm and hand signals welcoming him into my space. Then I let him know I am not scary and not gonna hurt him by looking down at the ground and not straight at him. I turn away just a little. And I hear him say, “yeah, you’re a cool”. Then he walks over to within inches of me. I pet and scratch him. We had a nice moment together. It sort of made my day. We were communicating, we were picking up each other’s cues, triggering each other in a good way.

Now if you don’t own horses or dogs, haven’t hung out with them or trained them, or know that communicating with them is very real, not only with hand signals or word, but even with emotions, you will think I may have jogged a little too far, and was a little dehydrated and heads started imagining things.

Now I realize horses are curious creatures and sometimes will come right up to you even if you don’t do anything. But I do know one thing for sure, had I given that horse different cues he would’ve run away. Had I put my arms up and my fingers out like the claws of a bear, or made myself look big and scary like a cougar up on a rock, or slithered on my belly in the grass like a snake, He probably would’ve run. Chances are also pretty good that had I been really scared, or acting really weird, or otherwise giving off bad vibes, I would have gotten a different reaction. Chances are he would’ve run away. He certainly would not have come up to me.

We give off some kind of cues all the time. Cues that say, come here I am friendly, I want to get to know you. Cues that say, stay away, I want to be alone. Cues that say, I am dangerous you better run like hell cause I’m gonna hurt you.

The other day I was driving home and going pretty slow. I think I may have been daydreaming. When I looked in my mirror there was a big black scary looking truck right on my bumper. I think he was sending me a message. So I sped up to the speed limit which was 35. He stayed on my bumper. I just concentrated on staying calm. When I took my turn off, I swear he almost brushed me as he sped by and gunned his diesel truck so hard it sounded like a freight train, blew black smoke all over my sweet little innocent Tacoma truck, and scared the bee whacker’s out of me! I repeated my mantra all the way home. “Bless you angry man, bless you angry man”. I was not the angry man that I was blessing, I was the scared man. “Bless you scared man bless you scared man”! Not sure if that would be considered a cue he was sending me, a trigger, or a full blown message, but I definitely got it!

I’m not a cowboy anymore, but it has made me partly who I am. Lots of good training and philosophy that has stayed with me. I have done a lot of things. I have been lots of things, ended all is still part of me.

But I am a veteran. Not a retired veteran, a full-time veteran. And as a full-time veteran I’m making my full-time job studying the cues and triggers that still affect me. I am still learning how they affect me. Still learning which cues are helpful or hurtful. I am also trying to become more aware of those cues I send to my fellow humans. I am learning to become more aware, not to send out negative or angry cues when I am having a hard time, when I feel depressed or anxious. I am also learning that there is a very good chance that when I send out negative cues, inpatient cues, or angry cues, that it will set off all sorts of triggers for people around me, especially those close to me.

Do I pay attention to a certain cue because it might save me a lot of trouble and keep me from harm right now, or is it a cue from long ago? How can I reduce the power which that trigger has over me, by perhaps saying to it, “I once needed you, you had an important job, you helped me survive, but I don’t need you anymore.” Can I learn to treat the unwelcome cue of long ago as I might a young child, by gently rocking that memory, that traumatic experience or trigger, until it falls back asleep? Can I learn to pause a moment, to be mindful, to pay attention to that voice or memory or trigger, to see what it has to say and then instead of reacting, choosing an appropriate action instead?

Because I believe I’m still a simple part homesteader, part cowboy at heart, I try to keep it simple. It’s all about triggers. It’s all about cues It’s all about choosing which ones to listen to, which ones to intentionally send out?

Ultimately, I think it’s about learning to trust our own inner voice, our own higher power, and to cue less and less off of people and things out of our control, outside of ourselves. Ultimately, to learn to accept that which simply is, and cannot be changed. To try not to live like a leaf tossed by every breeze that comes along. To learn that just as clouds come and go, the weather and the seasons change, there will always be highs and lows and ups and downs and painful memories of the past in our life. We have no control. If we can only be happy when the weather is perfect, well, we will be unhappy a lot.

Sometimes just knowing those cold, dark, and angry clouds will pass, is all we can do. And I believe if we work at it long and hard enough, we can even learn to see those dark clouds as decorating a beautiful sky.

“They’re just clouds”

I long for a place where I can make my bed

Safe Harbor soft pillow where I can lay my head

And listen to my heart and try to realize

These dark clouds won’t always be in my skies these dark clouds won’t always be in my skies

There was a time not so long ago

Her warm arms were the first place that I would always go

No words needed she spoke with her eyes

Those dark clouds won’t always be in your skies

I started writing this song because I was feeling a lot of anxiety and depression. I just started singing and this is what started coming in. It was my unconscious helping me review all the things I have tried in the past. All things which worked for a while. Safety, comfort, sleep, soft arms, a woman. Even though they were only temporary distractions, I kept believing that at some point the re-occurring pain or anxiety or darkness would start to go away and eventually disappear.

You keep hoping. You keep looking for that feel-good.

But I didn’t want to be reviewing what I add done in my past to feel better, that’s not why I was writing that song, I wanted an answer to what I could do differently, and I had a feeling it would come in the chorus of my song. I worked on the song for quite a few weeks. Eventually something else came drifting in but it was just another no good verse!

Where are my old friends, who took away my pain

Gently rocked me, then locked me inside my foggy brain

And every morning with taunting voice they cried

“nanny nanny boo-boo

those dark clouds are sti -ill

in your sky

Nanny nanny boo-boo”

and now you have a hangover on top of it

Nanny nanny boo-boo”

When I was performing this song for the vets I actually interrupted my chorus and saying that Nanny nanny boo-boo, in an attempt to trial this voice, taunting anothechild.They especially chuckled about the fact that the next morning you still feel bad but now have a hangover on top of it. I think I will throw that Nanny nanny boo-boo in there every time I perform the song from now on. Hey, their chuckling was a cue! It triggered my feeling of success, of hitting my mark!

Those dark clouds will always be in your skies

Okay okay I’ll admit it! There were many years of my life when I looked forward to that time evening or late afternoon, when I could begin drinking, or getting stoned, anything to take away the pain. Maybe tomorrow would be the day those dark clouds would go away forever!

I kept singing those three verses over and over. Even without the answer, without the chorus, it did me good to review my life. It did good to realize those dark clouds would always be there. Maybe it was time to believe my”Old friends”. They tried pointing it out to me many mornings over a period of many years But I’m not sure it made me feel a whole lot better. Butt it did make me realize since I could not make them go away, and they had been there all my life, I perhaps was barking up the wrong tree

I still remember the exact place the chorus did come to me. And yes it did come to me out of the clouds. I was coming back from the head of the bay. I had just come out of the brush line and started across the mud flats. I was between the first and second bridge. I looked up at the sky, partly blue partly rain clouds, and the chorus dropped in on me. I could almost hear that hallelujah chorus!

You can’t blow them away

you can’t wish them away

you can’t scare them away

they’re just clouds

But you can change your point of view!

They decorate the blue!

Doing what clouds do!

They’re just clouds!

Bingo!

I had to take a moment! I turned off my Honda four wheeler. I didn’t have to sing it over and over to memorize it. It was solid. It was part of me.

I cannot claim originality. I am sure I have heard this message many times and in many different ways in my life. But for some reason, which is hard for me to fathom but I will not argue with, I really heard it for the first time. It sank in! And even though I was hearing my own words, my own voice in my ears, somehow it was authoritative. I didn’t just have to wait and suffer while the black clouds passed over! I could look at them as decorating the blue sky, even though I couldn’t see the blue sky behind them. Somehow seeing the clouds as decorations, made them more friendly and more temporary. And I swear to you my veteran brothers, I now see my dark moods, my depression or my anxiety not only as passing, as temporary, but I have truly begun to see them as something that will always be there, decorating my beautiful soul which always lies just underneath. And yes, they will pass as all clouds do. Focus on the blue sky, just a few layers down. Focus on my beautiful soul just behind that depression. Keep breathing. They will always be there. And they will always pass. What I do have control over, is focusing on the blue, seeing them as decorations, breathing.

It’s always hard for an artist to pick their very best piece, their best poem, their best song. This song,”They’re just clouds”, may not be my best, but it has certainly had the most profound impact on my healing journey. And my journey ain’t even done yet!

But this here little song, this here little nugget that dropped down on me right there at the head of the bay where I chased cows and protected the herd against predators for many years, where I did so much growing up, where I learned so much, where I did so much healing, where I went as a young teenager trying to figure out what it meant to be a man, how fitting that right there in that magical place where I had just spent a couple of days, that little nugget would you give me a big boost. Give me a lot of courage to go from here to the end of my trail with a little more joy and confidence, and with a little more acceptance for what I cannot change, and a little stronger belief that I no longer have to shiver and cower or run for shelter, when I see black clouds. Give me a little more confidence, that the harder I looked, and the more I searched, the more other answers would come to me.

Amen! Hallelujah!

What a beautiful 75th birthday gift. I used to run the mile. Four laps. The Last lap was always the best. Maybe not the fastest but the best. Well, I got three laps of 25 years each under my belt. I’m at the three lap mark. Three quarters of the way done! And I have every reason to believe the last lap will indeed be the best. Looks like it so far! I checked the weather just to make sure, and sure enough! The word is out! There are some really beautiful playful dark black and gray clouds lining up on the horizon! Tons of them! All of them so excited to keep decorating my beautiful sky!

What makes this story even more magical and miraculous to me is this. My father had many skills and strengths. Many essential homesteading tools. But I don’t believe he had any tools for dealing with his internal demons and pressures, much less the many pressures of survival, having to raise and protect a family in the wilderness. Bad weather and his tendency to avoid and put things off, greatly increased his already touchy and volatile nature.

For me as a young boy it was like watching the building of the perfect storm. The rainy season and freeze up was approaching. The window would soon close for bringing our winter supply of coal up the dangerous,narrow and steep switch back road from the beach. My father procrastinated, did not take advantage of those sunny dry days. It started raining hard. The muddy road was now slippery and treacherous winding up the steep canyon. It started freezing parts of the road were now glaciered over. Not only was the job made much harder. Get stuck. spin out. Unload the coal. Drive forward. Carry those heavy chunks of cold with freezing hands, up the slippery road and put them back into the trailer. Only to do it again and again.

But I am sure it was the fear, the very real fear of slipping off the edge, into the canyon, that was the worst. It had happened before.

Whether that scenario or any number of others, that were precipitated by something needing to be done last minute because it had been put off, but now having to be done in the driving rain, or snow, or strong winds. The perfect storm for always the same. And I got better and better at predicting them. But there wasn’t much I could do to prepare.

I watch the storm build. I can do nothing but brace myself. My fear of the danger. My fear of his screaming. My fear of his fear. My fear of that hard strong calloused hand that sooner or later will find a good reason to slap me so hard that I will see stars. It only takes me a second to be right there again. But only now, when that frightened inner child finds himself there again, I can reach back and hold him and comfort him and tell him that none of it is his doing. Only now, I can also put a comforting strong, loving and understanding arm around my fathers shoulder. And I tell him as many times as he needs to hear it, that those important tools he and my mother gave me, those gifts of nature and music, had within them, all the answers I would need as I was growing, all the good medicine I could ever hope for. Little Atz under one arm, my young 45-year-old father under my other one. I can feel them relax. I can feel myself breathing again.

For years I was affected by weather and seasons. Spring with its limited time and pressures to get seeds into the ground. Fall and the short limited amount of time to bring in the crops, left to grow as long as they could, needing to be harvested before they froze. The many things to do, to prepare for the long cold winter ahead. The pressure of the hard work of the task itself. The pressure of having procrastinated. The pressure bad weather.

Those shoulder seasons! Bad weather! I am still happiest in early spring. Midsummer and midwinter. Autumns are still a challenge. Bad weather and angry building dark clouds. Still a challenge. No wonder I use dark clouds as a metaphor to describe those challenges of my soul. Weather passed on to me genetically, or whether learned from my father as I shivered and trembled there by his side through those storms. Whether added to by the traumas of life. Addictions. Divorces. The death of a young baby. Or the traumas of Vietnam and a homecoming to a divided country. It really doesn’t matter.

My life’s task has been to overcome those challenges. To improve on what I was given. To slowly learn to love and appreciate all seasons, and all weather. To slowly begin to see that gratitude and acceptance and changing my point of view are really the only things I have control over. And I am gaining just the little every day!

My life’s work now is to pass on to my children and grandchildren, the tools of pioneering the soul. And if they already have them and know how to use them, at least I can show them that I’m using them, that they are working. As a dad, I can still be a good example.

My life’s works now is to show them as often as I can the healing power and the magic and the medicine of nature and music. To remind them to be grateful every day for the great heritage my parents came to this country to pass on to them.

Thank you music! Thank you creativity! Thank you mom and dad! Thank you my understanding and forgiving children! Thank you nature! Thank you God! I am grateful!

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“Getting back up!” – Dispatches from Atz

December 6, 2022

Dispatches from Atz’ is an on-going series chronicling the writings of Atz Kilcher during his time at Freedom Ranch for Heroes with the veterans of Project Healing Waters.

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Getting Back Up!

It always amazes me! Us humans. How alike we all are, and how different. It’s all in where you look. Where you hang out. It’s probably why we like hanging out with people who are like us. It’s easier, more fun. There’s more to talk about when you have something in common. I suppose that’s why I like hanging out with fellow vets.

But it is more of an art, a little harder, to get along with, or even get to like someone who is different. Especially when it comes to some of those often divisive differences such as politics or religion or race. To me, part of being a compassionate human being, is learning how to find commonalities, in spite of our differences, and hang out there.

A brand-new group of vets here at freedom Ranch. Eight men of different ages and ethnicities. I am sure if I inquired, I would also find differences in politics and religion. But guess what? We are hanging out in our areas of commonality. Love of nature. Love of fishing. We are veterans. We are not only all hanging in there, we are survivors! Survivors of traumas of the past! Survivors of surgeries, and illnesses. We have all had to make some major adjustments in our life. We have all learned to be grateful for what we have. We have all learned acceptance. None of us are quitters. We all believe there is more, that we can be better, that we still can heal.

Yep, we have a whole lot in common! Differences, if they are noticed at all, soon slip away. It’s all in where you look, it’s all and where you hang out, what you choose focus on. And of all of our commonalities, the one that is the most important to me, is not the love of nature , or fishing, or our military background, to me it is the courage not to quit. The drive to fulfill our destiny. The desire to continue discovering our purpose. What we want to do, what we were meant to do.

I talked with two guys this morning. Both have gone through some serious illnesses and surgeries. Both have gone through major adjustments. One guy, survived cancer. Serious surgery. Chemotherapy. Months of being hooked up to bags, and tubes. Lots of rerouting of internal plumbing. Learning how to live differently, how to care for himself differently. Right down to the nitty-gritty of having to learn how to deal with bodily functions differently. Every day having to make careful choices about what to take into his body. I can’t imagine!

The other guy, in part because of a recent surgery, and in part because of nerve problems in his hands, has had to retire from his job. Suddenly having to adjust to not working anymore. He told me how coming to a place like this helps him unwind, helps him slow down. Whether you are from a small rural town like he is, or from larger urban areas which some of these vets are from. A place like this helps them slow down, to unwind.

When I got done hearing these two Veta stories, I felt such a joy and happiness. I felt such hope and inspiration. Perhaps you might think it to be a strange reaction to hearing just a brief synopsis of what they have been through. But what I felt was due to their attitude. As they talked to me they actually smiled, they actually seemed excited about their new opportunities. Anybody listening to them would have said they seemed really happy. I felt happy for them because of their ability to face their challenges. Their ability- not only to accept all that they have been through, all that they have lost, all that which they can no longer do, but their ability to feel gratitude for what they still can do, for all the good that lies ahead, all the opportunities that still await them. One guy said,”I get to learn how to spend more time having fun.”

Don’t get me wrong. I am not a naïve beginner on that long trail of healing, of changing, of facing difficult challenges and traumas of the past. I know these two guys I talked to, probably have many down days, many days when they feel like quitting or giving up or feeling hopeless. But they’re on the trail. Gaining just a little everyday.

“Gaining Just a Little EveryDay”

Bless you, if you’ve been healed

by one single prayer

or the laying on of hands

Or the latest drug

And now you’re a new man

Bless you

And bless you if you’ve been healed

Buy mindfulness and gratitude

Or weekend seminars

Or campfires blazing

Or gazing at the stars

Bless you

And bless you if you’re more like me

with no change overnight

But every day you’re showing up,

and you’re still in the fight

Through the mine fields and the nightmares

You’re still trying to find the way

Gaining just the little everyday

Gaining just a little every day

Bless you if you’ve been healed

By working out in the garden

Or working out in the gym

By playing on your old guitar

We’re Singing gospel hymns

Bless you

Bless you if you’ve been healed

By holding to the sacred word

Or to a fishing rod

By listening to the voice of nature,

or the voice of God

Bless you

I prayed for a miracle but it never came

Compared myself to someone else

who seemed to have less pain

I finally found new normal

I care not what people say

I’m gaining just a little everyday

And bless you if you’re more like me

with no change overnight

But every day you’re showing up,

and you’re still in the fight

Through the mine fields and the nightmares

You’re still trying to find the way

Gaining just the little everyday

Gaining just a little every day

It’s not a race, set your own pace

Take time have faith and pray

Gaining just a little everyday

It’s not a race

Gaining just a little every day

Set your own pace

Gaining just a little everyday

Have faith and pray

Gaining just a little everyday

Gaining just a little everyday.

~Atz Kilcher~

In my humble Homestead opinion, what defines a man, what really shows what he is made of, aint how rich he is, it ain’t how important or famous he is, it aint about his rank or job title. What defines a man, is how gracefully, and how gratefully, he can get back up, and wipe off the dust, after having gotten bucked off and kicked in the face and stomped on, how courageously he gets back in the saddle. Not only getting back on, but feeling grateful that he gets another chance, to ride, and to learn. To be able to resist the urge to be mad at the bronc that bucked him off! To be willing to learn to accept what happened. To be able to smile and wave his hat high and proudly at the cheering crowd.

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“Just Add Water” – Dispatches from Atz

November 21, 2022

Dispatches from Atz’ is an on-going series chronicling the writings of Atz Kilcher during his time at Freedom Ranch for Heroes with the veterans of Project Healing Waters.

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Just Add Water

We live in an age of instant everything. Instant soup. Instant coffee. Fast foods. High speed Internet. We want everything instantly. I fear we are becoming an impatient culture. We are forgetting those days when it took a long time to get to California by horse and wagon. It took a long time to cut down the trees to build your Log house. It took a long time to plant a garden and wait for the harvest. It took a long time for a letter to reach a loved one, and for you to get an answer. We live in an age where we want to just push a button, and get what we want, see who we want, talk to whom we want, or make another instant friend on Facebook.

We carry a campfire with us in a backpack, disguised as a tiny camping stove with an attachable bottle of fuel. We heat water and add it to a pouch of dried food and have an instant meal! All we have to do is add water! We’ve come a long way, or have we?

I left Homer Alaska, and traveled here to Freedom Ranch close to Wise River, Montana. It took me almost 24 hours. Three flights. Two long layovers. And then a 2 Hour drive. It was a brutal redeye flight. I had jet lag and my neck hurt from the three hours of sleep I got between Anchorage and Denver. Pure torture! Brutal!

So to make myself feel better I did what I always do. I thought about my father’s journey from Switzerland to Homer, Alaska. First by steamship, then hitchhiking across the United States to Seattle. Then another steamship to Seward, Alaska. And then walking a couple of hundred miles to Homer, crossing wilderness, swamps, mountains, and glaciers. I felt instantly better as I always do.

I came down here to this beautiful serene natural setting beside the gently flowing Big Hole River to sing and tell stories to some fellow veterans. These veterans were brought here by an organization called Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing. Here at Freedom Ranch, surrounded by fellow veterans who share similar traumatic experiences, and floating down the peaceful river while fly fishing, magic happens, healing happens, camaraderie and deep connections happen. It is humbling to witness this, to be part of this. No therapists. No medicine prescribed. Just nature. Just healing water. Just caring Veterans who smile and nod and validate as you tell your story. They don’t need advice. They don’t need sympathy. They just need that nodding head and knowing smile, saying, “I hear you, I’ve been there, I know what you’re going through, I know what you’ve been through, I admire your courage, I got your back.“

Tears flow. The healing waters flow. And as veterans, collectively and individually, we take another step towards the light, towards higher Ground. At the end of my first evening of performing for these veterans, I talked for a few minutes about how I always feel connected so quickly to fellow veterans. It is similar to meeting a fellow recovering alcoholic. You instantly know you are among family, you are among your fellow tribesmen. Sort of like meeting a long lost friend you haven’t seen in a while. All the memories of all the things you have done together come flooding back in just an instant. When you meet a fellow veteran, you look at each other and you recognize each other. There is a strong bond of commonality and understanding. The difference and the details don’t matter. He might have been a cocaine addict, I was an alcoholic. He was in the infantry in Iraq, I was in the artillery in Vietnam. He was wounded, I wasn’t. He did three tours, I only did one. He was not in a combat zone when he was seriously injured during training, another guy was seriously injured in combat. The details really don’t matter. We share a much larger commonality, of what we’ve been through, and what we are now doing in an attempt to get to a better place, in an attempt to find purpose and meaning and joy in life, in an attempt to no longer be an angry or depressed victim, believing we have no choices. That is our bond, that is our commonality.

I went on to say that meeting fellow veterans is like meeting instant friends. Jack, sitting just to my right, looked out the window at the Big Hole River flowing slowly by, full of healing water, bank to bank. He pointed at the river, and with his booming deep bass voice, he said, “Yep. Instant friends, all you gotta do is add water.” I love it! I’ll take it! Instant friends. Years in the making.

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“Poem: I Know You” – Dispatches from Atz

November 14, 2022

Dispatches from Atz’ is an on-going series chronicling the writings of Atz Kilcher during his time at Freedom Ranch for Heroes with the veterans of Project Healing Waters.

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I Know You

I know you

Fred and John and John and Jack and Tom and Jeff and Ken and Lonnie.

I know you.

How well?

Hell, how well d’you ever know anybody.

We know a lot of people, but what do we really know about em?

About the really important stuff!

The glue that holds them together.

The splints and the stints.

The bypasses and the surgeries.

The beliefs and convictions and prayers and faith that keep them going.

The important stuff.

The times they were broken.

Came unraveled

Blown up

Bounced back

Fell face first

Got back up

Sometimes again and again.

But giving up

was never an option.

You might’ve been at the edge

But you came back

You might’ve rolled the cylinder

Contemplated

But didn’t

I know where you’re from. I know where you’ve been. I know you’re Village.

I know your tribe.

I know your Relatives.

I know What you’ve been through.

I know how you got here.

I know what you’re doing to keep your head above water. I know if we called each other in the middle of the night In a time of need

We’d come running.

I know you. Fred and John and John

I know you Jack and Tom

I know you Jeff and Ken and Lonnie.

And when anyone asks

How well do I know you?

I will say , “I know them well.”

And it’s an honor!

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“Airport Anxiety” – Dispatches from Atz

November 7, 2022

Dispatches from Atz’ is an on-going series chronicling the writings of Atz Kilcher during his time at Freedom Ranch for Heroes with the veterans of Project Healing Waters.

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Airport Anxiety

Avoiding. Embracing. Fearing. Loving. Accepting.

You can avoid something or fully embrace it. If you live in fear you’re pretty much not able to feel love. Acceptance seems to be a pretty darn important starting point.

I’m sitting in the Denver airport on my way to Montana to give a humble offering of songs poems and stories to those veterans that will be attending this week’s fly fishing outing. It’s part of a wonderful organization called Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing. (PHWFF) I feel nervous.. So the best thing I can do right now is just accept it.

It feels a little like starting a new career at age almost 75. I’m nervous. Do I still have it? Hell, I’m damn near deaf! There are times I have trouble staying on pitch with the guitar. My voice sounds weird and my hearing aids are like a bad sound system. Poor me! Snivel snivel!

I’m sitting here thinking about aging. About time I have left. About quality versus quantity. About what I want to accomplish and what my priorities are. The words that came to me at the beginning of this writing are all choices that I have as I head down what I am calling the homestretch, towards the finish line. Actually they are choices we all have at any point in our life.

Choices. Such a simple concept. Such a difficult thing to remember, Especially for those of us who tend to react without thinking, for those of us who suffer from trauma, for those of us suffering from any type of PTSD. All of us for whom that hair trigger split second reaction is so deeply ingrained, that the concept of making a conscious choice at that point is as foreign as a foreign language.

I use an athletic metaphor comparing this part of my life as the homestretch for a good reason. I was a competitive athlete through high school and college. As an adult I competed in local triathlons, as well as in state and national cross country ski competition. To make a very long story short, growing up it was my identity, my way of feeling important and special, that I mattered. It was a way to believe I was getting my fathers praise. He seldom attended any of my events but I believed nonetheless that he was proud of me. With my work ethic, and my strength and endurance from life on the homestead, and my desire to please adult role models, I was every coach’s dream. The game is not over til it’s over. You never quit. With only seconds left, I once shot a jump shot from the corner during a high school basketball game. We were one point behind. The ball was in the air! The buzzer went off! Swish! We were now one point ahead. We went from being the loser to being the winner. I was a hero for the evening. But the reason I remember that night, aside from the fact that our cheerleaders (as well as some of the out-of-town cheerleaders), were treating me like a hero at the dance, was the lifelong lesson it instilled. Never quit. Things can change at the last minute. There’s always time for change.

One more quick athletic story. I ran the mile in high school. Another local boy named Steve Nixon always beat me by just a few seconds. He was one year behind me. We came in number one and two throughout the region. At the state track meet, by some miracle, I took the lead. This was my last race as a high school senior and I really wanted to win. It was an unbelievable feeling being in the lead. Now it was Steve who was two steps behind me instead of the other way around. As we got close to the finish line, my subconscious told me something wasn’t right. I did not belong in the lead. My place was behind Steve. I set a new personal record of 4:52 that day! Steve’s time was 4:51.5. He barely beat me, but he did. One of my inner selves who lacked faith that things can change, that it’s never too late, took over the controls. He put me back in my place! The place I was used to. A well worn rut I had been in for years. Another valuable life lesson learned! Both of those events happened 60 years ago. I remember them both as though it were yesterday!

So I have a choice. I can be depressed and sad and fear aging and death. Or, I can accept it, and embrace it. I can allow the fear and anxiety of the future to choke out any happiness and love I may feel. I can become another jaded aging person, focusing on what I no longer have, and what I can no longer do. I can give up and exude all of that negativity which some aging people possess, which people want to avoid being around A quitter. A downer. A loser. Or……?

That is the big question. The “or”.

Or, I can believe I’m still in the race. I can believe I still might shoot that winning jumpshot. Or, I can give up just before the finish line, and fall back into old patterns and listen to those negative voices. That’s about it. Two choices. Pretty simple. Now I could stop right there and believe that I have made my point. But I am the son of Yule Kilcher! A filmmaker, a lecturer, a politician, a multi-linguistic verbose and loquacious orator. A man who knew how to take advantage of an audience. Back on the Homestead in the old days, when people still had to walk a couple of miles to get to our house, it was a big deal when visitors showed up. My parents were always at their best. They would shine. They would entertain with old country grace and hospitality. My mother would get out her best smoked fish and smoked moose meat and pickled mushrooms, homemade bread and delicious homebrew. And my father would sit at our homemade table and be in his element. Talking on many subjects to an enthralled speechless audience of two or three. It could be neighbors, or visitors from farther away. It could be fellow politicians, US congressman, or state governors. That’s when he was at his best. Performing, sharing information and experiences. Motivating others to a simpler lifestyle, explaining how to be more in tune with the land and nature and to live more self-sufficiently.

As I head towards Freedom Ranch, I feel that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I used to see only rotten apples. I used to feel I was a rotten apple. I used to hope that I would roll far from the tree, and inherit nothing from that branch from which I fell. I used to wish that I was a red apple instead of a yellow one, so that no one would know which tree I was from.

But again, I have a choice. I choose to see only a beautiful thriving orchard which my mother and father began with all of their homestead ingenuity and hard work. I choose to believe I am still a sound and solid apple, still full of potential.

I carry my childhood with all of its beautiful lessons. I choose not to see the blemishes and the scars and broken branches. I choose not to see those many rotten spots in my core, which I had to stop feeding and nourishing.

I carry my mother and my father with me on this trip. What I will share with those courageous disabled veterans, is my story, my lessons, my ups and downs, my successes and failures, the winning shots, and the races lost. All of that which I learned early in life, at that simple homemade table in our Homestead cabin, surrounded by wilderness. What I will share in story and song, is choices I have made: to believe I am still a solid sound Apple. To believe I can still win the game and make a difference. To believe I still have something to offer. A choice not to give into fear, a choice not to fear the fear, but to accept and embrace it, and to recognize that only by fully accepting and embracing it as part of life can I live the remainder of my life with love and happiness, mindfully making sound choices every moment. I will end with a short story, a sort of testimonial I heard from a young man, as he told me how Project Healing Waters had saved his brother’s life.

His brother suffered from severe PTSD. The signs that he was headed for suicide were obvious to his family. Somehow, someone talked him into attending a Project Healing Waters outing at Freedom Ranch.

While fly fishing, floating down a beautiful river, in the middle of God’s nature, with another veteran in the boat with him, a miraculous healing occurred! At this point, as this younger brother was telling me the story, he was sobbing with tears running down his cheeks. He said it was partly the beautiful healing surroundings, but mostly the love and support he received from the other veteran in the boat with him. With very few words, this fellow veteran let this older brother know that he had also been there, and knew what that older brother had gone through in combat, and what he was going through now. Somehow this supportive fellow veteran sent the message that life was worth living, that the game was not over, that he did not have to listen to the negative voices, that he could push proudly past the finish line. That he could make peace with his demons, accept them, not let fear rule him.

As this younger brother sat across the table from me, tears rolling down his cheeks, telling me this beautiful miraculous healing story, such a beautiful picture unfolded. Two Veterans floating down a peaceful river, fly fishing truly in the moment. Rewiring old circuits. Erasing old tapes, recording new information. Choosing to feel, to feel it all. To accept it all. Choosing to believe that not only was the game far from over, but that they still were valuable players, still needed, with still a lot to share and contribute. I see the younger brother’s face so vividly with tears streaming down his cheeks. Tears of joy and gratitude. It keeps me going when I am down. It gives me hope and courage to believe that I am still in the game, still a valuable player, that I still have something to contribute. It helps me remember to be grateful, that I am blessed to be able to share this section of the trail with fellow veterans as we support and encourage one another, as we bravely show up to do the hard work. The hard work of not only staying in the game, but playing with enthusiasm. Believing that we are winners. That we are still valuable. Still capable of getting off that winning shot just before the buzzer goes off!

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“Ok, what’s going on here?” – Dispatches from Atz

October 31, 2022

Dispatches from Atz’ is an on-going series chronicling the writings of Atz Kilcher during his time at Freedom Ranch for Heroes with the veterans of Project Healing Waters.

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Ok, what’s going on here?

The image that title conjures up for me is a parent walking into a room and one of the kids is crying. It’s time for that parent to figure out and sort out what is going on. Why the tears? Make sense of it all. Not only so they know what’s going on, but to help that kid make sense of whatever brought on the tears, understand their emotions, see what they can learn from that experience. It could be one of the most important things parents do. And, I would venture a guess, that most parents are not taught that important skill. They either learned it from their parents or they didn’t. So sad when you think about it. All of those emotions that we are given, that we experience, designed to give us important information, we are never taught to interpret or to understand or to grasp how to use them. Sadly, too many times, children are just scolded, or shamed, told to shut up and bottle those strong emotions of anger or sadness or jealousy or fear. “Quit being a baby“. “Grow up!” “Stop being a scaredy-cat“. “I’ll -teach -you -to hit -your -brother!” This said as a parent is hitting the offending child to punctuate what they are yelling.

I was always so impressed and blown away when I watched my children helping their young children deal with their emotions so much differently than I dealt with theirs. So much differently from the way my father dealt with mine. I don’t know where they learned it. It certainly wasn’t from me. Probably their mother. When there was any type of crisis with our children, their mother’s first task was to get me out of the room. Some amazing things must’ve happened after I left the room. I might have learned a lot had I stayed on the other side of the door and eavesdropped. But alas, I was too busy getting my own quivering quaking inner child under control. Coming from the kind of childhood I had, it is easy to understand how watching my grown children deal with their young children, and helping them make sense of their emotions, always blew me away. Several things always happened simultaneously at those times. Part of me went right back to being a young child, and in an instant, became terrified that on top of the strong emotions I was feeling, I would be somehow hurt, humiliated, shamed. That part of me would just freeze. Go numb.

Another part of me stood in amazement with jaw dropped! Watching my children dealing with their children in such a different way than had been done to me, then I had done to them, it was like watching aliens. Another part of me suddenly became a young child again in a safe environment, and I soaked up the goodness that my children were passing on to my grandchildren. I was right there in the goodie line. Getting my share. It may be a couple of generations late, but what the heck. Better late than never!

“So what does it feel like? Where in your body do you feel it? What do you think it’s trying to tell you? What do you want to do about it? When did you start feeling it? Hell, I’m still not sure what I’m feeling and where in my body I’m feeling! Can you imagine the Headstart my grandchildren will have in life!

To say I always felt extreme pride at those times as I listened to my children talking to their kids, is to put it mildly. I was in awe! Totally blown away! Of all of my children’s accomplishments, which are many, I am the most proud of how they handled their children’s emotions. I am sure it will save countless trips to the therapist, save lots of money, and prevent many divorces.

I’ve cried twice in the last 24 hours, so something within me, a higher self, a kind inner parent, is asking, “what’s going on here?”

As a hunter and an outdoorsman who has spent a lot of time in the wilderness, I have learned to pay attention to the little things, the little clues, and see what they mean, see what I can learn from them. I have learned many times over how easy it is to get into serious trouble by not paying attention to small details. Rocks that are ready to fall on you. Ground that is ready to slide out from under you. Quicksand that is ready to pull you down. Icy rivers that are ready to sweep you downstream. There are always little warning clues if you only pay attention. I have missed countless opportunities to shoot the game or catch the fish I was after, or never found those beautiful high mountain valleys and camping spots, because I missed those small cues, I did not pay attention to nature’s signs and arrows along the trail, pointing the way.

The first time I heard the term “mindfulness” defined, the first thing that jumped into my mind was being out in the wilderness. Paying attention. Noticing the river or the quicksand or the landslide or the avalanche before it swept you away. You don’t have many choices once you’re being swept down the stream in that emotional flood. Not much you can do when you’re being tumbled over and over and suffocating under an avalanche of fear. Being alert is the key, noticing the early warning signs that’s what mindfulness is. Learning from our emotions but not being swallowed and controlled by them. I have heard it said that we should feel the heat but not be consumed by the flames.

I was driving back from the Bozeman Airport with Montana. No, not the state, a young veteran. Hey, we’re in cowboy’s country, his Dad’s name is Rooster! We had just taken some veterans who had spent a week fly fishing at Freedom Ranch, to the Bozeman airport.

It’s a couple of hours drive, lots of time to talk. Two guys in a van. A young veteran in his early 30s who helped eliminate ISIS! An old veteran, almost 75 years old, who helped fight the Vietcong. As we drove and talked, differences slipped away. Differences of age, what war, who the enemy was, why we were there, what good we did. Differences in scars and wounds. Differences in what state our own country was in when we returned. Lots of differences. But like always, when veterans get together you quickly find those areas of commonality and go there. Telling our stories, hearing those of others.That’s where the good stuff is. That’s where the healing is. That’s where the goosebumps and the tears are.

We had a lot in common besides our military experience. I used to work as a clinical social worker with teenagers who had serious social and emotional issues. Many of them had been incarcerated for serious offenses. Montana has done very similar work as a drill sergeant, at a youth academy for a similar type of youth. They run it like a Boot Camp.

After Montana got the job of working with veterans through Project Healing Waters, he told me that he thought to himself, “I am helping young people find their way forward, and I am helping older people find their way back.” I had him repeat that so I would not forget it! Beautiful!

He went on to say how unbelievably grateful he was to be making a living, to be earning money doing this type of work, in this beautiful setting, close to where he was raised! Using his experience, his training.

He played me a song on his iPhone that he helped co-write and his songwriting buddy recorded. An amazing song! I read him something I had written about this veterans retreat. We had a lot in common, our differences slipped away.

We talked about the healing we had witnessed here at Freedom Ranch at this fly fishing veterans retreat. We talked about the miracle of veterans healing veterans. There are no doctors and patients. There are no therapists and clients. Just veterans sharing stories, sharing their successes and failures, sharing ingredients in their recipes for reclaiming their souls and their lives.

Many times during this drive, because of things we were talking about, Montana would rub his arm and say, “wow that gives me goosebumps.” Indeed, we were talking about stuff that gives you goosebumps, stuff that makes you get teary-eyed, stuff that puts a lump in your throat. Good stuff!

At this point in the drive back from Bozeman, young Montana told me a short story. I had heard the same thing said in different ways. I had experienced it myself. I had written songs about it and performed them. I had written a piece about this very thing when I was in a deep dark depression feeling very hopeless just a few months ago. Yet hearing his story told in a different way, with different words, with a different metaphor, well, it made me cry. A young soldier was told by his platoon sergeant to dig a hole. He was given a shovel and a bucket. The young soldier started digging. He dug deeper and deeper. The young soldier shouted for help, “how am I ever going to get out of this hole?” Somewhere from up above the answer came, “just use those tools the military gave you!” The young soldier kept calling for help, all the while digging himself deeper into the hole. Soon the VA came by, and threw a bunch of pills down in the hole. The young soldier started taking all the pills and kept using those military tools, he dug himself deeper and deeper.

At this point in the story, something inside of me shouted, “I love this story already and I don’t even know how it is going to end.” But I knew it was going to have the ending I needed to hear. It’s one of those stories where you get goosebumps and tears and lumps before the punchline. I forgot that Montana was telling the story, I forgot that we were in a van driving down the highway. All I could see was that young soldier digging himself deeper into that dark hole. I became that young soldier. It all came flooding back. I remembered. I kept listening. Montana continued.

When the young soldier was about to give up, he heard something and looked up. Another soldier jumped in the hole. He was dirty and grimy and bloody. He landed at the bottom of the hole beside the other young soldier. “What good is this going to do us, now we’re both down here in this hole“, said the first soldier.

“Don’t worry, I can help you“, the second soldier replied, “I’ve been here before I know how to get out.”

This is when I started crying. That feeling of release. Of knowing you are finally rescued. The wait is over. I cried for that soldier within me who spent years in that dark hole waiting for help! I cried for that brave young wounded soldier within me, who had been in that hole many times, who knew the way out! That young brave inner soldier who could now perhaps at times be a guide to others. It brought up a lot of good stuff.

I guess I needed to feel that again, to revisit it, to revisit both of those soldiers in the hole. The one afraid and paralyzed, not knowing how to ask for help, not knowing how to get out, and the one who has been there many times and has the way out memorized.

It reminded me that I can certainly feel more sympathy for those people who seem stuck and see no way out. For those who don’t even know they are stuck, don’t even know they need help. I can certainly do a better job of keeping my eyes open and offering my help. I can also get better at recognizing when I once again let myself get into that deep dark hole, and to remember to stay calm until that other soldier arrives to show me the way out, that other soldier within me who is gaining just a little every day.

I called my wife Bonnie this morning, and told her that story that Montana had told me yesterday. And darned if I didn’t cry again! All good. All good stuff!

You can talk about a lot of things in a couple of hours. You can feel a lot of things. You can remember a lot of things. But at the end of the day, at the end of the trip, just a few things that you both said stick with you. And as time goes by even those things fade. Even what you felt, even those goosebumps and tears fade away. Or do they?

I believe they stay with us, they become part of us, just like all the trauma we have been through has become part of us. I believe they are added to all of those other goosebumpy and teary experiences. They are added to all of that other good stuff that keeps us going, that helps us remember how to get out of those dark holes, or how to help others get out.They are added to that reservoir, to our strength,to our core, to our most noble and higher self.

So to answer the question, “so what is going on here?”, I guess I would have to say. A lot of good stuff! A lot of healing!

PS. Extended Epilogue

A few days before this, a veteran friend of Montana’s had come to town. They had spent some time together. Without going into detail, Montana told me that this friend was going through some really rough times. When I hear a veteran is going through some really rough times I think I have a pretty good idea what that means.

Montana invited this young friend to come fly fishing with us, even though he wasn’t technically part of the program, he would be a helper. Montana told me that he had let this friend read the story I had written about our trip back from Bozeman, the story of the soldier in the hole. He said his friend loved it.

The next day I met this friend on our fishing trip. He went out of his way to seek me out in private. With touching words and real emotions, he told me just how much the story meant to him – it could not have come at a better time in his life. He went on to say that he got back on track, it was just what the good doctor ordered. Was I the good doctor? Was Montana the good Doctor? No. I give him all the credit. He did the hard work. He asked for help and was ready when it came. That’s what all these veterans at this healing retreat are doing. Asking for help and being open to it. No matter how many times they find themselves in that deep hole!

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“Size. It Don’t Matter” – Dispatches from Atz

October 24, 2022

Dispatches from Atz’ is an on-going series chronicling the writings of Atz Kilcher during his time at Freedom Ranch for Heroes with the veterans of Project Healing Waters.

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Size. It Don’t Matter.

Last night I was getting ready to sing to eight veterans, and one trip leader, a total of nine. As they were gathering, I got a text from a friend who said he was in the audience of a Jewel concert back in Boston. She had just come on stage. He even sent me a photo of her on stage.

Amazing this technology we have at our fingertips. Here I am sitting in front of a group of veterans, all seated in this comfortable living room of this lodge. At that same moment she is somewhere in Boston on her stage. She is starting a nationwide tour which will take almost two months. Since she is playing with several other popular groups, I imagine the venues and the audiences will be fairly large. Over the course of the tour, she will be singing to many people, touching many lives with her inspiring songs and voice.

After all the veterans had gathered, I told them about the text I had just gotten. I used that theme as a springboard for my evenings offering. I call it an ‘offering’ rather than a performance. For some reason, it fits for me. Instead of seeing myself as the performer, the entertainer, and them as the audience or the listeners, I see us all as bringing something, as being participants, as all having something to offer.

To treat every audience the same no matter how large or small, is something that my first wife Nedra and I believed very strongly, and tried to pass on to our family when we performed together.

Later after the divorce, Jewel and I performed together for a few years, mostly in bars and restaurants. I told a story about one evening when she and I were playing in a place called AmVets, short for American Veterans, a place in Anchorage. There

was only one man sitting at the bar, nobody at the tables. You could tell by the way his head was nodding that he was either really sleepy or had been drinking a lot. When we got up to go to the restroom we could tell he had been drinking a lot. As we sang our songs it was very obvious to see that Jewel had a bad attitude. You could hear it in her voice, you could see it in her face. She was communicating her thoughts and feelings, as only a young teenager can do. So I reminded her that the size of the audience didn’t matter, that we were getting paid, that our one-man audience deserved our very best. I could tell I was not getting through to her.

A few moments later this extremely inebriated man came staggering up to the stage. He looked up at us. The stage had stopped his forward momentum, but his feet were still kind of shuffling like a wind-up toy when it runs into something and doesn’t stop. You could tell he was trying to focus on us, and was getting ready to say something. He looked at Jewel and said, “Whaatshh yorre problmm sourpuss?” Message delivered. He proudly staggered out the door. He had probably been sitting there at the bar for some time thinking about this. I imagine that he clearly felt he was being talked down to, or sung down to. And he was being dismissed, not seen. Like any of us in that same situation, it takes courage to go up to the manager and say that we had a waitress who was very rude, it takes nerve to give someone feedback.

After he walked out the door, I turned and looked at Jewel and raised an eyebrow. I didn’t need to say anything. But the lesson stuck. She often refers to it. So here I was. With nine fellow veterans. Veterans who see each other and hear each other. Veterans who don’t feel unimportant or discarded or set aside. Veterans who feel honored and important. Veterans who understand each other because they know where they have all been. It is healing. It is emotional to be talking or singing while feeling strong emotions, while watching the audience of nine sitting just in front of you and beside you within reach, with their emotions showing on their face, and in their body language, and in their tears. Happy tears. Peaceful tears. Tears of coming home.

As is usually the case, when I got done, conversations started. That’s the important stuff. Kind of like a good dessert after a meal. And the really cool thing is this: It’s not about me. It’s not about fans saying how great you were. It’s not about you feeling that you did a good job, delivered a good product, that you met the audience’s expectations, that they really got their money’s worth. Nope. It’s about feeling safe enough to open up that private room of healing. That personal space. And it’s about realizing that every time you do that, those scary memories, those demons, those voices, have less power, less of a hold on you. It’s about believing more and more that the shit you went through was real. It’s about believing more and more that life will always throw shit your way, new shit or old shit recycled in the form of Flashbacks or triggers. But ultimately, it’s about believing more and more that there’s always a way out, and that each time, you find that way out sooner and quicker. It’s about learning sometimes just to hunker down, and keep breathing, and keep telling yourself help is on its way. I’m OK.

Sitting here in the sun writing this here at Freedom Ranch, I feel very inadequate, at a loss of words, to describe what us 10 guys went through here last night. I guess you would’ve had to have been there. I tried to sum it up as I talked with these veterans last night…I told them that so far the most important healing and satisfying performance of my life was right here singing to these brothers all within arms reach. That my most important gratifying healing performing experience so far, had been the night before as they were practicing fly casting on the lawn and I pulled up a chair and sang them a song I wrote called, “Welcome Home.”

It’s one of my many story songs. I tell a story about how the song came to be. Sometimes in the middle of the song I’ll tell another little story or two. When the song is done you can always count on me telling another story. It’s kind of like a package deal. It’s not that I feel the need to explain or embellish or stretch out the song. It’s more like introducing a near and dear friend. You don’t just say, “this is my friend Jim.” If the setting is intimate and you’re among friends, you want to say how you met Jim maybe mention his major accomplishments, what makes him special. I do the same thing when I have someone over for dinner. Call it old school. I tell my guests what they are having, “This is a black bear roast that I shot last fall out on my property by the cabin. This is some lettuce my wife grew in the greenhouse. We froze these nettles when we picked them last spring.”

It used to embarrass me when my dad did that before dinner. He’d say “Everything on the table except the salt, we grew right here on the Homestead, including the butter.” I hate going to dinners where you have no clue what you were eating or where it came from. If it is a gathering of people where everybody brought a dish, I hate not knowing who brought what and what it is. It’s not that I think my audience is a bunch of dummies. Like they won’t get it without my explanation, like they won’t feel the full impact. Part of it might be the singer songwriter style. And part of it is also that I always love hearing how someone else’s song came to be. So I introduced the song.

In about 2007 I was flying from Seattle to Anchorage. A guy in the seat in front of me was wearing desert camo. I tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around I said welcome home and I shook his hand. The guy beside me in civilian clothes heard me, and told me that he had been over there for the past year volunteering as a civilian. He was an attorney. I shook his hand and said welcome home to him also. As we talked, these two men had very different opinions about our involvement in Iraq. But I thought to myself that they both deserved to be welcomed home because they both had done a service and had risked their lives.

I landed in Anchorage and had a four hour drive to get to Homer. Lots of time to sing and write. Lots of time to think about the welcome home I did not get when I came back from Vietnam. I thought about the wars since Vietnam. Who made the decisions to go to war? What were the reasons? What have we found out years later about the real reasons we went, about the good if any that we did while we were there? I thought about all the different motivations for going. People join for many reasons. Some are drafted and did not volunteer. All of that aside, they all deserve to be welcomed home. If we, as civilians, or even as veterans, have a problem with any war being fought, we should take it up with the politicians, and not take it out on returning soldiers.

Just because nobody said welcome home to me when I first got back from Vietnam doesn’t mean I can’t say it to others now. It doesn’t mean I can’t give others what I did not get. And by doing so, I am giving it to myself as well. An important lesson in life. I think it might have something to do with, ‘do unto others.’ It works!

WELCOME HOME

There were no flags waving, sure as hell wasn’t any marching bands

I was a troubled boy of 21 when I got back from Vietnam

I didn’t know what I expected, I didn’t know I’d feel so alone

I didn’t know that there would be no one there saying, soldier welcome home

I’ve done what I’ve had to do to take away the pain And I have tried to do for others what I didn’t get that day

And it don’t matter from which war or how young or old

I shake their hand and I look em in the eye and say soldier welcome home

Chorus:

Welcome home my arms reach out for you Welcome home I know what you’ve been through Welcome home mothers fathers all my daughters and sons

Welcome home, welcome home, welcome home

You’ve been my flags awavin’ you’ve been my marching band

It isn’t always easy living with this wounded man Your gentle love has taken me to places I’ve not known

With your arms open wide saying, “soldier welcome home“.

Bridge:

There’s a time for disagreement and there’s a time for debate

Don’t let the innocent feel your hate

Sometimes we have no choice,

But we all deserve to hear that healing voice

Chorus:

Welcome home my arms reach out for you welcome home you did what you had to do

Welcome home mothers fathers all my daughters and sons

Welcome home welcome home welcome home.

Just a small group of veterans standing around me in a loose semi circle. Some had their cameras out. They all were holding their fly rods. But none of them looked antsy, like I was interrupting their activity or acted like they had their mind on fishing. Like there was somewhere else they would rather be. They were all right there. In the moment. Listening deeply. Not just hearing but feeling what I was saying.

Just one song , “Welcome home.”

One song.. A handful of vets and the fly fishing instructor, who was also a Vietnam veteran. Another Vietnam veteran could not stop talking about that one song on the lawn that evening. Everytime he mentioned it, it was sincere and with deep emotion. I totally got him!

A beautiful setting in nature beside the Big Hole River in the Big Hole Valley Montana. Just one song in the evening Sun. But a whole lot of healing. There’s always room for more healing. There’s always room for another welcome home

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“Lessons” – Dispatches from Atz

October 17, 2022

Dispatches from Atz’ is an on-going series chronicling the writings of Atz Kilcher during his time at Freedom Ranch for Heroes with the veterans of Project Healing Waters.

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Lessons

Lessons come in many shapes and sizes. I put them into two categories. Those that are pleasant to learn. They are easy. Fun. It’s sort of like a freebie. You learn something important, you walk away a better and wiser person. You didn’t even have to work for it. And then there is the other kind of lesson that might hurt. There was a steep price. There might’ve been physical or emotional pain involved. You might have felt embarrassed, like you’re stupid. It might have been at someone else’s expense. But one thing about it is this. It seems to me that once you enroll in the class of life lessons, they just keep rolling in. Whether you want them or not.

Once you have made the conscious decision to learn. To improve. To be more mindful. More finely attuned to your thoughts and feelings, it seems that you run into lessons everywhere. Most of these lessons have several takeaways, you can choose the one that you need the most, that suits you the best. I said earlier, that you don’t even have to do anything for some of these lessons to come along and bless your life. But it would also be true to say, that’s the price we pay for all of these lessons is just living life. The price we pay is all the tiny decisions we have made to bring us to the point of being open to these lessons.

Hard lessons are always hard. But like other aspects of growth, or facing your demons, it becomes easier, you become stronger. It becomes easier to admit your weaknesses, your shortcomings, your flaws, or your PTSD. It becomes easier to laugh or joke about some of our oddities or our quirks. It becomes easier to be more accepting and forgiving of ourselves.

The lesson I just learned here, once again, at the Bozeman airport was not to judge. To always think the best of everybody and to send healing loving light to everyone around you. And, that people will not only treat you as you treat them, but they even treat you as you feel about them, the way you were thinking about them.

You think someone is going to be crabby and rude to you ,you believe they look like a rude person. Guess what? You will be giving off those crabby rude vibes, and that’s the way they will treat you.

Having to learn this lesson once again, was a bitter pill for me to swallow coming from where I have just been for two weeks. I just spent two weeks with two different groups of veterans. It was a very supportive accepting nurturing healing environment. I would say pretty much zero judgment going on. I would say pretty much 100% healing and loving light going on.

Could be that I am a bit tired from the two intense weeks. It could be I was hungry, or just plain tired. It could be that I once again had to let my cynical judgemental, and a little bit angry and fearful self, poke his head out just to see what would happen.

I had a couple of hours to wait at my gate so I decided to order a Montana elk burger. The service was wonderful and the food was wonderful. The waiter was very friendly and helpful, he kept checking-in on me. Asking if I needed anything. Asking if my water was OK, even though it was just an inch from the brim.

Before I knew it, kind of like a drop of ink slowly polluting a glass of water, I started becoming annoyed. I think the next time that overly friendly smiling waiter comes by I will say something to him like this. “I’m a 74 year old Vietnam veteran. I’ve taken care of myself for quite a while. How about if I just raise my hand if I need help. I just want to sit a while and relax, I don’t want you coming by every few minutes and disturbing me.”

I knew I would not say anything. I sort of listened to that inner self of mine like you would to an unruly child, and cajoled him back into silence. While I was at it, I checked my inner landscape just to make sure my unruly ‘sometimes hold it in and then get angry self’, wasn’t anywhere close to the surface. All was OK. Felt heard and listened to and was mellowing out.

But I couldn’t help but wonder why, coming from the experience that I had just had, this friendly waiter was annoying me. “Yep“, I said to myself, “I do have that inner self that quickly becomes annoyed. Quickly feels he is being forced or controlled. Quickly feels he needs to ‘by-God stand up for himself and just tell somebody off’”!

I was having trouble holding off that annoyed self when the check never came. So I stood up, preparing to leave, assuming a waiter would come over and tell me what to do. He finally stood and came over. Still smiling. Still. Uber helpful. I was on good behavior and asked him, “how does a guy check out of here?” He said something a little too quietly so I did not catch it. I asked him to say it again please. And then I heard him say, “It’s on us.” I heard him but I still did not get it. So I asked him what he meant. He pointed to my Vietnam veteran hat and said, “You’re a Vietnam veteran. It’s on us.”

Well, I’m sure that you as a reader are right there with me at this moment, probably feeling a lot of the things that I was feeling at that moment. Amazed, overwhelmed and incredulous! I came home in ‘68 and this is the first time this has ever happened. What was even more amazing was how I felt. I felt like I had just won the lottery. I just spent two weeks in a healing veterans environment. I have just been recognized and appreciated. I had just gotten my first free meal because I was a veteran. And I learned, once again, a wonderful lesson for a fairly inexpensive price. I did not even have to scream and holler at the waiter and make an ass of myself. As I left that restaurant area and walked down to my gate, I was thinking and feeling a lot of things. Mostly how fragile we are as human beings. How those thoughts and feelings run our lives and rule us (unless we learn to be a master of them, of course). I had just come from spending two intense weeks with Veterans with various degrees of PTSD and disabilities. All a witness to how these God given emotions can go awry, can get stressed out, and numbed out. How our natural hardwiring can melt down and get short circuited. How that happy-go-lucky fully-functioning and healthy young man can come back from war, depressed and angry and feeling hopeless.

I thought about how quickly I became annoyed and started making up stories about a waiter who was treating me like I was helpless, and ignoring me when I needed him. I thought about how telling me my lunch was on them caused me to feel such deep gratitude and humility. I thought about how fragile we all are and how we all need each other. But mostly I was thinking about the fact that I could, at least now, more easily laugh or smile at myself when the various lessons of life come along.

On my way to my gate I ran into Greg, one of the vets I had just spent a week with. He told me they barely made it to their gate on time and that next time we needed to leave earlier so it wouldn’t be so anxiety-inducing for them. He was traveling with another man, and at their age with their PTSD negotiating airports was quite anxiety inducing.

He told me a touching story.

“When we got here I told Joe that I had everything under control and for him not to worry. I told him he could relax and stay calm and he didn’t have to run until I said run. As we got through security and I could see what time it was and how far we still had to go I looked at him and said, “OK now we have to run.”

We all have our airport challenges. We all have our challenges in life. Whether we are combat veterans, or veterans of any trauma of life.

For whatever reasons a combination of life traumas and my time in Vietnam, certain situations trigger me more than others. It seems the airports have more than their fair share of triggers. Given the fact that I am getting so hard of hearing, it makes it almost impossible to hear any announcements at the gate. Which number, which zone, which group, anybody needing special assistance, military, parents with young children, it’s all just noise. Sometimes by the time I finally board, I just kind of melt into my seat!

A few months ago a kindly gentleman at the gate told me that I should board when they called for people needing special assistance or extra time to board. So I started doing just that. Made my life so much easier. The hardest part for me now is lining up behind those people who obviously need much more assistance than I do. Had you been at the Freedom Ranch retreat where I had just come from, I don’t think any

one of us would’ve looked like we needed any type of special assistance. An 80-year-old Vietnam veteran could still do 25 push-ups! There are many kinds of disabilities. So many you cannot see.

So I’m sitting there at the gate trying to keep my anxiety down and now I am making up stories about the mean witch at the gate. She’s probably going to tell me I have to board with everybody else in my group number four. (I know I know I have some authority issues, waiters may not be authority figures but still they have some control over me!). I am trying to hang on to that good feeling of having had lunch bought for me because I am a Vietnam veteran. So I bravely walk up to the gate, to the wicked witch and her assistant. I pretend I am special. I act like I am an important person with something extremely interesting to say. Before I can stop him, that inner overconfident entertainer takes over: “I just have to share something special that just happened to me with you ladies”. OK, maybe I did say, “(with you lovely ladies who are so gracious and helpful”) and I relayed to them how the restaurant just across the lobby had paid for my lunch. They were genuinely both touched. The lady in charge replied, “you are free to board when we call for our veterans to board.“

As I returned to my seat I felt sort of like a yo-yo or a ping-pong ball. Traveling down from Alaska to the unbelievable healing experience of singing and talking to these veterans and interacting with them, hearing all of their inspiring stories, to the anxiety of entering the airport trauma, to wanting to throw the waiter out the window, to just such humility and gratitude and embarrassment and chagrin at having my meal bought for me, to the soft emotions I felt at Greg shepherding his veteran friend to the gate. A man who for the first time was traveling without his Service dog of seven years. How he told him he had his back and not to worry until he said run, and then bouncing back to my own gate anxiety and my fear of the gate ladies, and then back to myself, the best version of myself. Sitting there calmly waiting to go home.

Yo-yo or ping pong ball. Doesn’t matter. I can wish I were steady as a rock. With my feathers never getting ruffled. But the first step, the very first step is noticing and accepting where I am. And today I notice I am a lot like a yo-yo or a ping pong ball. And the small miracle is, I can chuckle, I can smile. And I send some healing love and light to my veteran Brothers who are all traveling home. Welcome home.

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“Real Heroes” – Dispatches from Atz

October 10, 2022

Dispatches from Atz’ is an on-going series chronicling the writings of Atz Kilcher during his time at Freedom Ranch for Heroes with the veterans of Project Healing Waters.

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Real Heroes

Last day of fly-fishing.

There will be a dinner and an awards ceremony tonight at the Wise River Club (a local restaurant). They asked me to sing at the restaurant, but there will be too much noise, it being in a public restaurant and not a private event, my ears will not be able to handle it. So I will just sing the national anthem instead. A cappella. No guitar.

My ears are getting steadily worse. Last night I only sang one song, read a couple of pieces I had written about my experience here at Freedom Ranch, and did some talking. I am definitely transitioning out of playing guitar. Just too hard to hear the guitar and my voice and stay on pitch.

So, as my hearing worsens, as it surely will, I will either sing a cappella, or just tell stories and do poetry.

Like any loss in life, or any major transition, it’s never easy. Whether transitioning into old age, or transitioning from military into civilian life, or having to give up something we love to do, or giving up a major part of who we are, like expressing ourselves through songwriting and music, it’s never easy. It’s something that every veteran here can relate to. Transitioning. Loss. Getting used to certain disabilities. Trying to focus on what you can still do as opposed to that which you are no longer able to do.

Yep! I hear my wise old inner cowboy gently saying to me,

“well pardner, you couldn’t be in no better company then these here veterans as you’re havin’ t’ face losin’ your hearin’, doin’ things different. So don’t even think about snivelin’, just dust yourself off and get back on that bronc! Just look around you, you won’t find any snivelin’ among this group of Vets!”

Such wisdom for an uneducated old cowpoke! But all so true. There are three Vietnam veterans here, one just a little younger and two just a little older than I am. Our group leader is a really old guy, he’s 77. Looks like he’s in his 50s, I guess all of his years of fly fishing walking up and down the banks of rivers and in water up to his waist has paid off! I am among fellow veterans. I am among other men who are aging, I am among men who are healing, accepting limitations and loss. I am among men who are supportive. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Next week there will be a new group of veterans here. Chances are really good that if I did no singing with my guitar, but only sang a cappella, if I only read poetry

and told stories, that nobody would walk out. A good chance that nobody would look at me and say, “Kilcher you suck!“ Chances are good that no one would feel something was missing, that I had fallen way short of the mark, that I was no longer able to do my job! Self judgment is always the harshest! It is so important to also see ourselves through others eyes, and of course through the eyes of our higher self.

In my last dispatch (Gift Exchange), I compared this fly fishing retreat to a feast, where we all brought a dish to share with others. It’s not like I won’t be able to bring a dish to the feast in the future, I will just have to change what I cook, what I prepare, what I bring. Instead of my signature sizzling homegrown steak, I will just bring a stew. As my dad used to say, “A damn good stew!”

After my mom and dad divorced, and my dad lived alone, he basically lived on soups and stews. Nothing wrong with that. When you came to visit him in our old family log cabin where he lived till he died, the first thing he would say was, “Are you hungry? I have some damn good stew!” That has become a family joke. Because some of his stews and soups were a little bit ripe. They had been added to, too many times. They had been sitting unrefrigerated for too many days!

I was going to make a journal entry every day that I was down here. But I have failed miserably. I have never kept a journal. I don’t know how. It’s kind of like asking a marathon runner to run a hundred yard dash. It’s kind of like having to describe the most fantastic vacation of your life in the most exotic place, in only one paragraph. I just can’t do it. It’s just not who I am. So I will just write and not worry about whether it’s a journal entry, a short story, or a book.

I like the metaphor of comparing this experience to a feast. An important part of any feast isn’t just eating and enjoying the many dishes, but the important digestive process after the feast. For me, writing about an experience IS the digesting part. It’s the reviewing part. It’s a chance for me to integrate and assimilate and really allow the experience to soak in.

This experience here at Freedom Ranch with these fellow veterans, this “feast” as I referred to it in my last dispatch, it’s not about the accommodations or the food, or the fly fishing, or this beautiful remote natural setting. For me, the feast is about the healing going on. It is about emotions that are felt and shared. Where your vulnerability is accepted and validated and valued by other men who know what you have been through. An incredible feast! Because keep in mind, the whole purpose of Freedom Ranch, the whole purpose of Project Healing Waters, is to help veterans heal.

How many times have we seen a man start to cry in public, hear his voice break, only to have them quickly wipe away the tears and wait for composure, and then apologize. Not here! Voices quaver. Lips tremble. Tears flow. And these men keep right on talking. No one feels uncomfortable. That’s part of the magic.

As I said in my last dispatch, we all bring a dish to this feast. Whether I sing a song or read something which I wrote, whether another veteran shares what he has been through, his lowest point of putting the barrel of a pistol in his mouth, or shares a secret he has discovered to help himself get out of the dark deep hole he still finds himself in at times, it all contributes to this feast. It doesn’t matter if one of the veterans says nothing, shares nothing in these group settings. His presence, his tears, his spirit is the dish he brings and shares with us.

Case in point. There’s a guy here four months older than I am. Also a Vietnam veteran. I have shared some amazing private time with him, hearing his stories, what he has been through, the challenges he still faces bravely. Yesterday before our evening get together, he told me how someone once asked him why he didn’t talk in groups, and he told them that he just didn’t feel he had anything to say and would rather just listen. He did go on to say however, that when he does share in smaller settings, he always feels deeply heard and understood and listened to and validated, not by professionals, not by trained therapists, not by the VA, but by his fellow veterans. I hear this all the time.

So last night as I was singing and reading, and doing my schtick, I was watching this guy. His eyes were teary most of the time. I heard him. He didn’t need to say a word.

He was contributing to the feast.

Last night, the young veteran who had trouble seeing himself as a hero, came to my room after our evening get together. He wanted to talk. He had more to say.

To call it talking is really not accurate. We shared. We emoted. We listened, we heard, we felt, we grew, we healed. We took another tiny step, in a long long line of tiny steps, towards climbing that mountain which we once thought was far beyond our reach.

In another life, I used to be a clinical social worker. I worked with troubled youth and their families. I worked with corrections and social services. I worked with countless probation officers and social workers and foster homes and institutions and judges and courts. Basically I was in the people business. Trying to make a positive difference in people’s lives. To help them get to a better place. I spent a lot of years getting my degree. I spent a lot of my years trying to help people. I spent a lot of years trying to figure out which therapies, which modalities, which approaches were the most effective towards affecting change. I spent a lot of years thinking about what motivated a person to change or heal. I spent many years in therapy myself. I’ve been in therapy by myself, with wives, with my children, and with my father once. So I have been on both sides of the fence. Both sides of the couch. I spent a lot of years grappling with that term, “healing.”

Here is my latest definition. It’s like being in the garden and watching flowers unfold and open, pedal by pedal, in all their glorious colors and shapes and sizes, right before your eyes. It’s a miracle. And healing isn’t just about watching your own flower open and unfold, it isn’t just about watching others, it’s about experiencing it and witnessing it again and again. Each time new. Each time different. Until over time, your garden has more and more beautiful flowers, fully blooming, and fewer and fewer thorns and thistles and bare spots.

It takes many ingredients to make a delicious dish. It is difficult to see one as more important than the other. It’s the same with the healing that takes place on these fly fishing retreats. It’s a combination of a lot of things. But certainly one of the main ingredients is the baring and sharing of human souls in that most perfect environment, in that most fertile soil where seeds can germinate and grow and blossom.

As the beautiful and bright flower of my hearing, of my singing with my guitar, fades and slowly dies, as all flowers do, I have the opportunity to focus on, and be grateful for those many flowers still in full bloom. I have the opportunity to be grateful for other flowers not yet blossomed. Flowers of singing a cappella. Flowers of poetry. And most importantly, beautiful flowers of faith and belief, that even if I go totally deaf, I am still a beautiful flower. Check back in with me in a few months and see how I am doing with that one!

Well I think that about does it for my dispatch for the day. Feasts and beautiful flower gardens. That’s where I want to hang out. With other men and women on the same journey, on the same trail, learning from each other. Humans not afraid to show their weak underbelly, not afraid to shed a tear or talk about scary stuff. Strong men. Strong women. Real heroes.

I think that will be the vision I take with me into the future. Me sitting at a banquet, a feast, in a beautiful flower garden. With real men and women. With real heroes.

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