That First Time I Got Naked In A Forest
Reflecting On The Moment I Became Norse
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
I was alone. It was cold. There was no ritual. No magic words.
I was at alpine level, right at the cloud line, in the Shaanxi mountains of China.
There was a light drizzle. Not heavy rain, for I believe I was too high in the clouds for that.
I was at the altitude where rain would begin to form or only have but so far to fall.
It was the wind that whipped it around. Sometimes, the rain droplets even seemed to fall upward.
I had spent about 4 years in the Chinese wilderness, on and off.
I hadn’t been living out there every day for the entire time; I returned to Xi’an, the city that housed the first sovereign emperor of China and his Terracota Warriors, to fulfill my visa obligations as an English teacher.
So, when school was in, I’d return to the city.
When school was out, I’d return to the forest.
It was a private school that operated on its own schedule, so school would be out for a few weeks several times throughout each year—different from the public school schedule.
So, several times per year, for at least a week at a time, I was out there in the wilderness, keeping my cost of living low to save money, while simultaneously and knowingly gambling with my life—part of me genuinely hoping to die.
Because, at that point, I had lost everything. I had been homeless three times in my life: twice while I was a child through no fault of my own, and a third time by my own decision not two years prior, to keep my dignity as I walked away from an abusive family.
I was dealing with psychological trauma from the military, as well as trauma from my childhood. My father was murdered when I was four years old, and I spent my childhood being abused in various ways by different people as I came of age.
And, by this point, I was in my mid-20s.
Some women found me attractive. Yet, I had no spouse at the time: I either ignored them or drove them away.
I was dealing with a lot, and I was suffering from what is commonly called “Doc Holiday syndrome,” which is a psychological condition popularized by mainstream media (like the movie Tombstone, starring Val Kilmer, Japanese anime like Cowboy Bebop, and comics like Aliens, or the movie First Knight starring Richard Gere).
Doc Holiday syndrome is a mentality of not caring whether you live or die in a way that feigns bravery in risky behavior. It gets its name “Doc Holiday” from an actual historical figure from America’s Wild West, who had no competitive shooting skills…
…yet would somehow beat the top gun duelists of his time simply because he wasn’t afraid to die. He was so bold that he yielded successful outcomes from risky situations he threw himself into that would crush the average man, who would hesitate out of otherwise normal emotions like fear.
That said, I wasn’t brave or “cool” for wandering into the mountains alone the way Hollywood often depicts my archetype; I was depressed.
Bravery requires attachment to something you may risk losing; however, if one does not care about their own life, the variable of fear necessary for bravery doesn’t apply.
Doc Holiday syndrome is actually a complex form of cowardliness with an edgy face.
A person suffering from Doc Holiday syndrome may even come off like a daring psychopath in some instances, but the difference is in how the former is truly and fully capable of feeling the full range of human emotions and evolving from experience; whereas, the latter is intrinsically inhibited.
Characters like Spike Speigal, Doc Holiday, and Lancelot were not psychopaths; they were truly good men deep down. Just traumatized, sad, and afraid to face themselves as necessary to fully actualize.
I was traumatized, sad, and afraid to face myself as necessary to fully actualize.
And, like Hamlet running from the throne, I exiled myself to the Chinese mountains because I wanted to get away from society. I didn’t want to harm society; I just wanted quiet. I wanted to shirk responsibility and maybe have a little adventure before the mountains killed me.
…if I didn’t choose to kill myself.
I would either heal and transform or perish.
Roll the dice.
This story may sound unbelievable, but there is a plethora of pictures you can look through if you click here.
There was actually a lot that happened in China. However, this article focuses squarely on the moment I became Norse.
Our Thoughts Are Not Our Own
How many of your thoughts are actually your own?
You’d be surprised: Most of them aren’t.
…We just like to think they are.
Like taxes and automatic expenses wittling down the actual money you would take home from a paycheck, a combination of environmental factors, genetic memory, epigenetic triggers, and defensive mechanisms wittles down the percentage of thoughts that are actually your own.
We are all driven by a variety of factors, both conscious and subconscious.
Psychologists from Freud, to Jung, to Peterson would mutually agree that who “we” are, as we identify ourselves to be, is actually the amalgamation of multiple sub-personalities, ancestral memories, and hybridized evolutionary responses to stimuli that form your perception of reality, and the decisions you make within that reality, that you are not entirely consciously aware of.
And that concept gets even more interesting in interracial people like myself, as what you biologically inherit from the combination of differing parents, grandparents, and so on comes in sets.
For instance, you may receive the eyes, hair, and nose of your father, but the lips, ears, and skin color from your mother. Or vice versa.
…Or any randomization in between.
You may receive one set of ancestral memories or personality traits (be they beneficial or detrimental) from one tribe while looking like another.
Roll the dice.
For instance, I am phenotypically “black-dominant,” yet what possessed me to go into the freezing mountains?
When forced in an extended survival situation, the question about which genes were activated and which were not pertaining to my survival begs the question about internal relatability to various concepts that are actually ancient...and...well...in retrospect…
…pagan.
...such as what subconscious thoughts drove me to climb the mountains to find myself in the first place.
Because that’s not what black people do when they’re depressed.
…that’s what Nordic people do.
What I did was a very Nordic thing, without realizing what it was until a long time after, analyzing in retrospect from a position of higher education.
What I did was so Nordic, in fact, that the concept of doing so is legally protected in Scandinavia. It’s called the “right to wander.”
...and that was before I was even self-aware.
Let’s also observe cultural tribal songs like “Lyfjaberg (Healing Mountain)” by Wardruna.
Look at that title: “Healing mountain.”
I wandered into the freezing mountains subconsciously hoping to heal or perish about ten years before this article was written.
Then, cultural songs like these were released five years later.
There is absolutely no connection between me and Waridruna.
Yet it is not a coincidence, for art reflects its people.
Yet, I do not look Nordic.
This is a matter of what Jung described as the “collective unconscious.”
I had no idea what I was doing…at least not consciously.
Yet, some ancestor did.
Some ancestral DNA recognized my pain. Something matched. I theorize that it was some kind of epigenetic trigger that, even to this day, I do not understand.
…I’m not intending to present this article as a definitive fact. Only my best attempt at being as rational as I can be about my experience.
I was subconsciously driven to wander into the mountains with the intent to challenge and heal myself, accepting that I may die in the process.
Then, it must have been a combination of the altitude (with its air pressure), the cold, and the water…
…and perhaps the fire.
The small campfire I had lit to keep warm.
I performed no dance, for I lacked knowledge of any steps.
I recited neither poetry nor magical words, for I had not studied them.
There, while sitting in mud by my fire, rainwater dripping down my face, painful memories flashed before my eyes; yet, I did not feel their pain.
I felt a shift. A smooth, sinking feeling. A release. One almost…euphoric…as I looked up into the night sky.
I shed my clothes as I would shed my memories, to be free in the wind, embracing the cold.
And, I heard a sound escape my lips: A howl.
I found myself in disbelief, chuckling at my insanity. I even spoke to myself: “What the fuck am I doing!?” I laughed.
But I looked around.
To the left: nothing but trees.
To the right: nothing but a cliff, a precipice before trees that disappeared into the darkness.
There was no one to judge.
It was just me, myself, and I.
Or just me, myself, and the forest.
…or me, myself, and my ancestors.
So, I stopped resisting.
…because, why not?
Who cares?
Do it again.
…Go for it.
……Enjoy it. I heard my mind say.
Breathe. Embrace yourself.
Nobody gives a fuck about you. Nobody’s going to care. You are not important enough.
Be who you truly are. Beneath the mask. Let it out.
I growled. I snarled.
I thought of it as the empowering of my traumatic memories, as though it was an act of individuating my shadow. Letting out my shadow before the fire.
For just a night, I could let it all go.
You’re not a bad person, I told myself.
…I smiled. Perhaps a little too much at the relief.
I genuinely felt just a little better.
And it was only in retrospect, with self-driven research, that I realized what I was truly doing. That I couldn’t get rid of my traumas; I couldn’t forget them.
…but I could master them.
And perhaps an ancestor or two were speaking to me in a language my subconscious mind could understand, what I needed to truly become myself and start caring again.