Guide Seeks Resilience In Nature

Learn more about Scout Wilkins and the retreats she leads here.

TRANSCRIPT

VALERIE: I’m Valerie Shively, the assistant producer at 2 Lives,  and that’s me you just heard walking in the woods noticing all the trees.  Normally we feature personal stories, but this week we’re doing a bonus episode that has to do with something every single one of our storytellers has in common, resilience. 

There’s a little bit of science, a whole lot of insight, and if you’ve ever sought refuge in the woods, then this episode is for you.

SCOUT: I should turn my back to it so that you could be watching it. We've been watching whales all week. Whales and baby whales and porpoises and rays. It's been pretty nice down here.

VALERIE: It looks like heaven. I'm in a frozen tundra in New York. Beautiful in a different way, but I wish we were doing this in person in Mexico.

SCOUT: Well, my name is Scout Wilkins and I'm a naturalist, an explorer, a guide. 

VALERIE: This is a conversation with Scout Wilkins about trees specifically, and how she has found her own resiliency by being a part of the natural world. 

After studying forestry and environmental science, Scout worked in museums, including the Smithsonian, and then, trees became a big motif in her life; she was a forest fire lookout, a logger, a mill worker, a timber framer carpenter, even starting her own timber framing business.  A passionate animal lover, Scout worked as a ranch hand, running horse and mule adventures through the Idaho wilderness

Scout’s background as a naturalist has led her to work with the Biomimicry Organization, as a professor of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, but more than all of that, what Scout is known for the world over, is being a wilderness guide.  She has led all kinds of people through Zion National Park, and developed a system of real-world adventures specifically designed for women who want to feel alive again, get excited and find their voice.

So me walking in the snowy woods and having this epiphany about how the trees live amongst the dead trees and it's important as normal. I researched it, but I didn't talk to a wilderness expert. Was that accurate?

SCOUT: It needs all aspects of all generations to be healthy. It needs seeds, needs saplings, it needs young trees, it needs old trees, it needs diverse trees, it needs dead and dying trees. And that's just what the trees need because the trees also need the other species that are growing there, the other plants, right? The trees are not living there in a vacuum. There's understory and there's middle story and there's the duff from the leaves falling down. I mean, there's so much what you would call death. I mean, you see the standing snags, but think about what's under your feet. I mean, it's all, it's just a big cycle. It's just a big cycle. And the forest is turning itself inside out from the ground up. And so the trees are growing up out of it, they're falling back into it. The other diverse plants are adding the nutrients that go back into the ground that's supporting, being supported by the fungal network. And then you add all the critters, right? You add the worms and the tiny things underground and the rodents and the birds and the people walking through and, you know, we're all a part of it. You're a part of that forest you walk through.

VALERIE: Well, that leads perfectly into my next question is how do you, Scout Wilkins, define resiliency?

SCOUT: You know, I was thinking about that this morning because I believed you were going to ask me that question. So here's my definition of resiliency. If you're alive and breathing, you're resilient. Life. Being alive is resiliency.

And there are degrees of resiliency. There is a cycle of resiliency. There are ways to build and lose resiliency. 

Think about all the things that have happened, all the hardships, all the hard things, all the times you've face planted, all the times you didn't think you could go on, and the proof is in the pudding. You are still here.

You are massively resilient.

VALERIE: I love it. You just spread so much joy with that sentence.

You wrote an essay that originally was published for the Montana Natural History Museum in 2000, about how trees grow in rocks. And  I never really noticed it until I was older, like say in my thirties and I'd be hiking and I'd be like, how in the world is that tree growing out of the side of a cliff? Like, how is it even possible?

SCOUT: Don't you love those moments when there's that convergence between your mind getting quiet enough for you to wonder, whoa, how is that tree doing that, right? Instead of the normal walking by and not thinking about it.

But then I also love how thinking about something focuses attention and makes you see everything through that lens, right? I love those things too. So thank you for all of this. 

The basic idea is the seed needs a place to get a toehold. And so maybe a bird flies over and poops out a little seed, and there's just this little tiny space there.

And the seed gets just the right conditions to start to grow. And the little root goes in. And I think one of the most amazing things, especially if you see a pine tree or a conifer growing in a rocky sea, these massive roots, right? Holding onto the rock. It's like, god, is that root going all the way in? But it just isn't. The little, teeny tiniest root hairs find a little crack. Or sometimes even they have a secreted an enzyme that actually eats away at the stone. They use those nutrients. But also, at the tip of their root,

where they're secreting the enzyme, they're also sloughing off cells. And so they reabsorb those. it's kind of like, you know, it lubricates its way in and uses whatever is sloughed off, takes back into the system.

So the little root is working its way into the rock. Meanwhile, the trunk is beginning to grow up. And one of the things that trees that grow in extreme conditions, which living on a cliff face is extreme condition, clearly. they adapt to their locale. 

VALERIE:  One way Scout says that they adapt is that they stay small, so a tree growing out of rock that looks 2 or 3 years old, might actually be 20-30 years old

SCOUT: They grow very slowly. Everything slows down. But that also keeps them from being harmed by the wind, the strong winds that might go by. It protects them from other things, too. So they're extremely adaptive. 

there along the Speed River in Guelph where the bristlecones grow, The bristlecones are some of the oldest trees. They're thousands of years old. But there's an interesting story to that age is that those kinds of trees, actually have

a dedicated channel that goes from the root out to the trunk, out a limb, and out to a tiny little limb. And these channels can stay alive when the rest of the live layer dies. So the rest of the, what you'd call the bark, but the life that inside the tree, you've got the heartwood, is, it's not growing. And so you'll often see these old, old trees are really gnarly. And that's because the live wood is growing around the deadwood. 

The deadwood is no longer growing. It's holding completely still. But the livewood is growing around it. And so it twists and turns and gets really interesting shapes. And so when they talk about a tree being 4,000 years old, it may be that what is alive on this tree is one little strip of

life would. It's amazing. It's really amazing.

VALERIE: You also wrote that sometimes these trees that grow in extreme conditions like off a cliff face live longer than regular trees, like if they had been growing in regular soil in the forest. how does that work?

SCOUT: Yeah. If you think about somebody that grows up in really good conditions and they have all the best things and they grow to their greatest potential, they grow pretty quickly. They'll grow strong. They'll use their resources. It's like in my story, this is not science. How I imagine it is that they don't have to be as careful. They can be a little more…easier with their resources, a little more, maybe a little more generous is one way to think about it, but they don't have to shepherd things so carefully. And they get to a point where maybe they take a risk, they grew a little too tall, they get blown over,  careful, but they're more, maybe the trees that grow in extreme conditions are more methodical. They're more strategic.

VALERIE: Would you say they're more aware?

SCOUT: That's an interesting idea. It may be that it's an awareness. They have to be more aware, right? I mean, we're getting a little leaning into the meaning that we put on it is that, you know, it's like you walking through the woods and until you need the information about trees, you're not seeing the tree. When you need information about trees, you start seeing other things. And so it may be.

that this tree growing in extreme conditions is more attuned to the wind and more attuned to whatever it is. This is my big fascination in life is what is this thing that I believe we call consciousness that we more or less tune into at different times. But there's a lot of information there. And I think often the more extreme the conditions, the more we tune in and pay attention andmake decisions based on what we know. That tall tree growing in a forest of beautiful tall trees doesn't really have to know wind, right?

But the one growing on a cliff face has got to attune every bit of its being to the actuality of wind.

So yeah, I believe in some way consciousness does play in, awareness does play in. I not in the slightest begin to make any great proclamations about that, but that's an interesting conversation.

VALERIE: Like the ability to tune in to what's going on around you comes from...having been put in that, having to learn or adapt to growing in that hostile environment. 

SCOUT:  I love to think about the term right relation and the tree that's got all the resources it needs and is growing in a really protected place. It's in real in right relation to its environment. It would not be in right relation if it was looking around and ducking and chasing and trying to avoid wind because wind is not there, right? It's in it's in right relation to its environment. And the bristle cone growing on the cliff is in right relation to its environment.

VALERIE: And that extreme condition actually makes it possible for that tree to live longer.

SCOUT: Yeah, the extreme condition created the responses that the bristlecone came up with that turned it into a hugely long living tree, It's strong. It's, yeah. That tree in the rock is loaded with gifts for us. Loaded with gifts.

VALERIE: Right!

SCOUT: Right. We're being resilient, right? And so here is what I believe about my place on this earth as the human that I am and we humans. What I believe about us humans is that our superpower is our imagination and our ability to learn from everything we see.

VALERIE: One of the things that you said to me that I wrote down was when you were talking about resiliency in humans, different from nature, was you said, our resiliency as humans is in telling each other the story that works. And I wondered if you could talk a little bit about that.

SCOUT: You know, that's the key to everything. And so what I would say about, well, I guess the story that works for me is from when I went back to school as a non-traditional student at the University of Montana. And I talked my way into a senior level abstract art class because I wanted to learn about color, but the freshman level class on color was full. So the teacher let me in. And so he starts the class. And said, okay, so paint in class, paint out of class, but each class, we're going to do a critique. And here's how the critique is going to work. Everybody bring a painting, put it in the critique, and what we're going to do is talk about what works. And it really blew my mind because I really hadn't been in a place before where the absolute rule was talk about what works, don't nitpick each other.he said talk about what works, all of a sudden I felt the utter safety of putting my painting there because I knew it was not going to be torn apart. I was utterly safe. And so in relaxing into that,

I was able to watch what they were saying and I was able to apply that to my own painting and say, that's what I need. I need a focal point. I need some contrast. I need some movement. cool. I get to see. Yeah, I can put that here. So it put me into a place of complete curiosity about what I could do differently. And it took me out of the self-protection that would have had me not learning when you talk about what works, it creates conditions for learning.

VALERIE: What I'm hearing is it eliminates any potential for shame. Because when you take out the criticism, right, there's no judgment. We're all fine here and we're just gonna focus on what works and then you feel safe and then you can grow.

SCOUT: Totally. Yeah, The shame was not possible. 

VALERIE: This ability to feel safe makes it possible to really bounce up. Scout says she was raised in a teaching environment and even taught her first class on geology when she was in 7th grade to 1st through 3rd graders, but she was never formally taught to be a teacher the way people do when they get their teaching certificates and all that jazz.

SCOUT: But I've talked to a lot of people. And I ran a retreat one time where I was doing it with a woman who had been a teacher all her life. And she was trying to help me learn a few things about teaching. And she was really saying the same thing, catch people doing it right. And so I was taking her up the narrows. And I had showed her how to use the stick, how to use it to triangulate, and how to keep two points on the ground at all time. And we were going.

VALERIE: Scout, what are the Narrows?

SCOUT: I'm sorry, the Zion Narrows is a trail, you walk up the river in Zion National Park. It's a beautiful trail, but you're in the water on slippery round rocks, and so you carry a walk out stick. so you carry a stick with you and you use it when you're using it. Well, you have it, your body and you're keeping two points of contact with the ground so you plant the stick, move a foot, plant the stick. So I had showed her how to do that and we were going up and at one point I said, Marilyn I love the way you're using your stick and she looked at me said, there, there you go, that's teaching. 

she said, okay, you're doing something right. I'm catching you doing something right. You're catching me doing something right. And can you feel the upward spiral of that? When you are just enmeshed in this place where you're catching each other doing something right? That's a huge vortex of energy you're creating. It's amazing. Amazing.

VALERIE: So one last question is if you mind sharing a little of your own story of resilience and how you came to be a wilderness expert, a wilderness guide

SCOUT: I was incredibly lucky as a child to have parents that got me outdoors from an early age. We did a lot. We went to national parks. Every summer we'd take a couple of weeks and go to a park camping. We'd go to the beach. We were outside a lot. And when I was eight, my mom found me thisclass, called Raising Wild Pets. And she got me in that. And when she saw how lit up that made me, she kept an eye out, kind of like you keeping an eye out for trees, right? 

VALERIE:  When Scout was in 6th grade, her mom found the nature group again and they had grown in numbers and been given a building to  work out of, the old East Bay Municipal District Pump House, which was a big gray concrete two story building in Walnut Creek California.

SCOUT: And they were turning it into a nature center for kids. There was a junior museum network around the Bay Area. think there were seven or nine junior museums. This was one of them. And so I got to get in on literally the ground floor of turning this into a museum. And the director of this place had a gift with letting kids learn, Sam Smoker, who held the ethos that no matter what it is that's happening, it's an adventure. And no matter how badly you screw up, it's still an adventure. There was no shame. he created this amazing place.

And so I grew up as part of the tribe of young people. And it served me really well in particular because there was no genderfying. It didn't matter what it just did not matter. It was not part of the conversation. that set me on a really good, well, sometimes really hard.

when I bumped up against that actually being a thing. That was difficult. But so I had that, and I have that in my bones. And so that was one side of my life.

I have an interesting relationship with home because as fabulous as my parents were in some ways, they were highly traumatized people. My father, I mean, you think about what it was like for humans coming out of the two world wars and the depression and the.

I mean, at this point in my life, I can look back and just be in awe of my father's resiliency that he even managed to become who he became. And yet when I was young, all I could see was the control and the, you know, and The trauma was such that at home it was a minefield and there were bombs falling from everywhere. home was a place that was not safe. The museum was an outdoors. Nature is my safety. And working with wild animals, that's my family

But that's led me into a fascinating life. Fascinating life. 

I'm now I'm 70 years old I'm just hitting my stride I'm so happy in my life.

VALERIE: Did you just turn 70?

SCOUT: Well, will turn, I'm claiming 70 before I even get there because it feels so different than anything I ever.

VALERIE: Really? My mom just turned 70 like three days ago. She definitely wasn't claiming it early.

SCOUT: Oh, I'm claiming it. Just in case I don't make it, I want to own 70 because it's so good. It's so good. I'll be 70 in May. And it's my life has never been better. It keeps getting better. And I'm just I'm just in love with all of it. And the thing I guess that that I would say about resiliency is I will also say that 15 years ago, I could have checked out.

I was not in this place. But you cycle through and you hang on and things come in. And what I have learned is the best possible thing to do is to love each other, to tell stories about what works. And specifically, not just say, that works what you're doing, but to tell another person in the presence of the person that you want to help feel better, tell somebody else something true that you see about that person that you want to help. And watch magic.

VALERIE: There's something about the witnessing, isn't it?

SCOUT: It is. It is. 

It's how I keep myself in the game as a human right now, because it would be so easy to go into despair and say, my god, we have really screwed the boot here. But here's what I do instead, is I think of the mayfly.

The life cycle of the mayflies is that the adult female lands on the water, lays her eggs, they sink to the bottom and they get into the muck where they gestate and they turn into larvae. The larvae are swimming around in the water and then they pupate which they go into a harder shell.

Eventually, that pupa floats to the surface, and it splits open, and the adult mayfly climbs out, and it stands on the case, the pupa case, while its wings unfold. And it may take,15 minutes for the wings to fully develop and harden creature just lifts and flies away. And it's so amazing to think about this whole thing. And as far as we know, the mayfly is doing this without any thinking. It's just following the impulse. 

So here come humans. And I imagine us, if we were in some sort of a cycle like mayflies and we were evolving into a more mature version of ourselves,

What would that look like? Well, if it looked anything like mayflies, we would be coming out of the water, So here we are at the surface and there's a whole bunch of us, just like mayflies, there's a bunch of us all here at the surface. Some are happily swimming, some, you know.

But there are those that have reached the point that they're ready to fly, but they don't feel ready to fly. And they're looking at it. It's just scary, right? And so because of our imagination, it's harder for us to just follow the impulse and, okay, we're just, I jump in the air and these wings hold me. you serious right now? I don't think so. And so, right? You do it. You go first. So we push each other or it's like.

VALERIE: It's so scary.

SCOUT: I don't want to get out of this case, but I can help you." And we reach over and rip open somebody else's carapace and go, what the hell? And then we flop around and we're trying to knock these carapaces off our wings and we hit somebody else and they sue us for it. it's like this shit show on the surface of the water. And if I can remember just to get through this mess, it's messy right now, but more and more, of the creatures, my fellow creatures, are flying. They're learning to be kind. They're learning to be generous. They're learning, 

VALERIE:   Not only does Scout guide folks through the wilderness but she shares these stories of resilience from the natural world,if you were to go on one of her retreats, you might hear about the Mayfly while horseback riding in Montana.  She’s someone who uses her own bounce to help others.   And most recently Scout has developed a game, called WordTRails, it’s a game where you can’t win or lose, and is designed to help you uncover unconscious thinking patterns In a lot of ways Scout’s game is a game of resiliency, being able to choose new directions after noticing things about your thinking you’d like to change. 

SCOUT: This game creates a world where everything's back on the table. All the questions, all the options, all the actions you could take, And you can do whatever you like with only one rule. and that is explanations are not allowed. You may not explain and you will not be called on to explain. This is a world where explanation has been removed.

VALERIE: Well, that is extremely empowering just thinking about that possibility.

SCOUT: It's really interesting because it turns out that a lot of things leave the room when explanation leaves. Things like judgment, shame, blame, all those. This is really a game of flying.

This is a game of flying.

VALERIE: I had a lot of takeaways about what it means to be resilient from my time with Scout. Catch what’s right with each other and focus on what works instead of nitpicking, and you’ll feel safe enough to grow. And most importantly, if you take away anything from this episode, take away this: You are resilient because you are alive.