Stories of Salem: Solo Passage with Glenda Goodrich
Produced by Meghan Jonas and Ashley Jackson Lawrence. Story by Meghan Jonas.
“But that’s how questing in the wild is. You get what you get, then you look for the meaning of it all,” writes local author and artist Glenda Goodrich in her book “Solo Passages,” which releases September 26th.
Affectionately known by her inner circle as GG, Goodrich is a mixed media artist, writer and ceremonialist who has used wilderness questing to find answers to her lifelong questions, turning the results into art pieces that are inspired by her travels.
“I call myself Mother Nature’s daughter,” Goodrich says. “That’s where I find my respite.”
“Solo Passage” is a collection of essays about the healing and restorative powers of nature told through 13 vision quests Goodrich went on during a 20-year period, she says.
Vision quests are an ancient Indigenous ritual that traditionally focus on fasting, isolation and a desire to understand the world through spending time in nature. Vision quests are found across multiple Native cultures, something Goodrich and her guides are acutely aware of.
“The way my wilderness guides have explained it to me, no one owns the ceremony of the quest, but we honor Native people who have carried this forward so non-Native people may rediscover their long-ago indigenous roots and customs,” writes Goodrich in the introduction of her book.
“You separate from your day-to-day life, no distractions [and] no food, for four days and four nights with an intention and a prayer. And then you wait to see what's being offered for your vision,” Goodrich explains.
Questers may find answers through dreams or moments of clarity brought on by observing nature. “What's happening is within you, as mirrored by nature, so you make your own meaning of it,” Goodrich says.
“I mean, some people would see a bird fly by and go, ‘Nice bird.’ But someone else might say, ‘Oh, that feels like some kind of a gift that I should notice and pay attention to.’”
Originally designed as a legacy project for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Goodrich says “Solo Passage” quickly became its own entity, desperate to be written.
“I knew the minute it came to me to write the book, that I was going to have to do it,” Goodrich says.
Goodrich describes her book as, “Encouraging people to go out and find some of the answers to their nagging life questions, just by being alone in nature.”
Goodrich worked in HR for decades before she started her professional art practice 20 years ago. She is now an art doula, teaching others to embrace their creative practices.
“People often think that they're not creative or they're not talented. And we all are. Often we just need some support and encouragement,” says Goodrich.
Goodrich designs collages and decoupage boxes that she fills with treasures from her quests. One box, with an art piece called “The Kiss Withheld” features a black widow spider sitting at the edge of a woman’s mouth, inspired by one of her quests to the Modoc National Forest. The boxes may contain maps, feathers or even a heart-shaped rock found in the wilderness.
The question for that specific Modoc quest, her seventh, came as Goodrich was retiring and asking herself, “With only one-third of my life left to live, why wouldn’t I do my best to live it to the fullest?”
On the last day of her four-day quest, Goodrich writes that she was resigned to hike back to her group’s base camp without a story to tell. But as she woke up and got out of her bedroll, a black widow spider fell out of the very place she was sleeping, mere inches away from a possibly deadly bite.
Instead of squishing the spider, Goodrich gently scooped it up with her handkerchief and released it into a grassy area. After all, she writes, “This was her world. I was the intruder.”
The answer Goodrich gleaned from her seventh quest was, “Get busy living; death could come crawling out from under the mattress at any point.”
On another quest, Goodrich embraced her role as an “Earth Warrior Grandma.” Having grown up without grandparents, Goodrich says it’s important for her to have an active role in her family’s life and to share her knowledge and unconditional love with them.
“It's like the wounded healer or the wounded warrior, [that] goes out and helps heal their own wounds by offering what was lacking in their lives to others. If you've had trauma, you can use that experience of trauma to help others through theirs,” Goodrich says.
“To me, it feels like an active warrior act to show up with love and gratitude for what we have,” Goodrich continues.
During her very first quest, Goodrich voyaged to Death Valley and re-examined her relationship with her body as she asked herself, “What healing gifts would nature bring me if I opened myself up to the possibilities?”
Looking out at deep fissures and crevices, she saw land that had been marked by earthquakes, marks that resembled her own stretch marks from having two children years before. As she sat naked in the sun, Goodrich saw the beauty of the land reflected back on herself.
Glenda Goodrich’s debut book, “Solo Passage,” will be released on September 26. A book launch will be held at the Book Bin on October 1 at 5 p.m. “Solo Passage” is available through independent bookseller, Bookshop.org, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
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