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No Mirrors in the Woods

Dear Friend,

There are no mirrors in the woods. The only reflective surface to see yourself in is the water, which is always running and rippling, distorting the image of your downturned face. If you’re lucky, you can find a calm stretch of water, but even then there’s no denying the pebbly ground or deep bottomless black underlying your likeness. Such imperfect mirrors are a message: the impossible depths and gritty slime of the natural world are what we’re made of.

But we’re also made of each other. During those weeks out on trip there is little else to call precious beyond the stark land and the charcoal-and-grease-smudged faces sitting around the fire. The faces of our peers are the clearest reflections of ourselves we could ever find, and as long as we’re alone in the woods they’re the most precious things we have. 

We’re all travelling to the same place, so there’s no shutting others out when we fight, and we end up treasuring our group all the more for it. In the world back home we can so easily shut each other out, and it’s full of technology that has convinced us it’s more beautiful than the faces of those around us. In this way, the wilderness revealed to me as a child – and continues to show everyone who journeys there – that a love for other people is the crux of self-acceptance. 

Max Greenwood, Former camper and staff

Board of Directors
Phoebe Knowles, Chair
Maddy Vertenten, Vice-Chair
Susannah Ross, Treasurer
William Porter, Secretary
Hardin Coleman, Director at Large
Christopher Foster
Jason Lewis 

John Moses
Louise Moses
William Nuckols
Kathryn Stauffer

Advisory Panel
Katherine Finnegan
Josephine Moore

Staff
Gail Coleman, Executive Director
Ben Simmons, Assistant Executive Director

Emeritus Circle
Libby Moore, in memoriam Founding Director & Chair

 
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Red Canoe Foundation | 608-469-4752 | gcoleman@redcanoefoundation.org

 
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