42 Hours in the Woods

 

What can 17 people with over 160 years of collective experience in their field accomplish in 42 hours?

Seemingly, quite a lot.

In mid-September, 17 HIV-professionals came together.  They escaped their clinics, offices, and cubicles.  They flew and drove between 1 ½ to 4 hours to get to the woods in southern Iowa.  They came together to be inspired by prairie grasses, flowers, spider webs, grasshoppers, slugs, deer, bunny rabbits, one lost kitten, and an expansive night sky with no light pollution to interfere with star and galaxy gazing.

Click here to see a beautiful slide show by Jordan Selha of the event

It is in this setting that each of these 17 individuals unzipped from their dogma and destabilized fragmented and stagnant protocols that are no longer quite as useful in the fight against AIDS as they used to be.  They did this through a sort of “gestalt”; a being able to view the whole as other than the sum of its parts.   The first morning walk set the stage with an immeasurable number of beautiful, strongly woven, dew-kissed spider webs.  The metaphor was too blatant to miss.  Nature was screaming to notice the strong web of interconnectivity between the participants from all over Iowa-Sioux City, Des Moines, Urbandale, West Des Moines, Ankeny, Jamaica (the town), Waukee, Iowa City, Washington (the town), and even Washington DC (the Capitol)(of the United States). 

But the metaphor goes beyond interconnectivity. There is interdependency in a spider web-an infinite beginning and infinite end. And, of strength. This group came to know and understand that respecting the interdependent web is an effective response to the dangers of both individualism and oppression.  That it can be our solution to the seeming conflict between the individual and the group.
That evening, sitting around the fire, this group didn’t just think “outside the box”. They BURNED the box.  Thus, “the box” was destroyed and the group escaped.  They took the unencumbered and open road of understanding and hope and created a new tribe with a new language without the confines and walls of "the box".

Most impressively, these 17 individuals set aside insecurities (in some cases slayed their insecurities) and removed the blinders that they had imposed.  They faced, head on, difficult conversations and challenging relationships.  They faced them with openness, respect, and even innovative ways. 
Whether this group was in a conference room or a cabin, on the hiking path or around the fire-pit, there was an engagement in open dialogue, complete with authentic listening, a lot of passion, and even more laughter.  Oh, boy, did this group laugh! The kind where your belly hurts, the muscles in your happy face ache from such a workout, and laughing tears creep out of the sides of your eyes. 

Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes. -Unknown

There were shaky and cracking voices too.  There was the dilemma of succumbing to public tears. Or not.  Why? Well, when you’re sitting around a campfire, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, engaging in a refreshing, yet slightly scary, interchange of ideas pertaining to your professional life, many realizations, and remembrances, that fighting for the underserved, the stigmatized, the traumatized, is, has always been, or has become…your life’s work.  And…in this setting…it is impossible to ignore the ferocity of responsibility associated with your life’s work. 

Push…gently…respectfully push…beyond your comfort zone…where lessons await…to move you forward…to move your colleagues forward.

To burn, baby, burn that box.

Thus, 42 hours after they met for a Wednesday night barbeque, they left with a renewed passion and energy, a reinvigoration of spirit and hope, to meaningfully, collectively, contribute to an AIDS-free generation - and to the best health outcomes for Iowans living with HIV.

And, some SMART goals to get there.