When you were young, what kinds of dreams did you dream? What kinds of fantasies did you cook up for play and adventure? I bet they were pretty wild. I work with kids every day, so I get to hear all about them.

While planning out some activities a while back, I started thinking about how important it was to support this imaginative play in children, how it builds our brain power and our ability to imagine greater and greater possibilities in life. And then I realized that I wasn’t actually doing it. The kids were always cooking up amazing stories and enacting imaginative roles and play, and I just encouraged it, but rarely joined, and never initiated.

I decided this wasn’t good enough. And that I was just being a boring adult. When I was a kid, I hated boring adults! Standing there all rigid and unable to pretend to be anything cool… UGH!

When we planned our camps this summer, we used this as motivation. It guided the creation of a camp rich with naturalist learning, adventure, and imagination… all motivated by characters and storylines. Here’s a story from camp as Amyann, one of our staff gives her story of the day:

“I’m dressed in black, in 35 degree Toronto weather. Charcoal has coloured the skin on my arms and legs. My face has been decorated in black face paint, with white accents. I wear a black cape, hood pulled low over my face. Its silver sparkles shiver in the sun.

Today I am Raven.

I crouch low to the side of a sizable bush. I’ve just come from helping “Wild Uncle Loki”, (another character in our camp storyline) set up a booby trap on the Southern team. I’m staking them out, waiting to hear their reactions when they trip the line that has been rendered invisible by the thick brush around it. Soon, I hear it. Shouts of shock and sheer delight. A camper trips the line. And then I hear more screams. Loki has worked his trickster magic and stalked up to a camper without him knowing. While everyone is occupied trying to figure out how a sleeping bag fell from the sky, his “paws” grab the camper’s legs from out of nowhere and everyone around yelps. “How did he do that?!” I leave soundlessly to visit other groups, as this crew is engaged and wild about learning how to move silently through the woods and become invisible.

The Eastern team is looking forward to visiting the witch in her lair down by the river.

They are waiting for me when I get there. I hear them surmising out loud where the witch could have gone. But they don’t see me. I am watching from the Manitoba Maple saplings, and the raspberry bushes. I quiet my energy and my breathing. I imagine that I am a shadow, the shadow of a tree; I imagine that I am invisible, that I am earth. Slowly, with greatest care, I inch forward. Toes first, knees parallel to the ground, body arched and low, hood down.

I get within a few feet of the group. They’re being distracted by Michael the photographer. He’s asking them to teach him about wild edibles. Suddenly one camper returns to the group from the water. He sees me, points, and states, wide-eyed, “What is that?” “Is it the Witch?”

“What are you doing there, Witch?”

“Spying on you,” I say in my most cryptic and mischievous voice.

“Boy, you don’t look like a witch today!”

“I’m in my Raven form. Sometimes I like to shapeshift into my favourite animals. The Raven is such a powerful magical figure, and I like flying.”

“We have been given a mission from Loki and we need your help! We have to fix Loki’s Axe. It needs a new handle. We’ve been given a white willow rod for a handle, but we need something to attach the stone to the stick. Steve helped us collect and prepared nettle stalks yesterday for cordage, but we need to learn how to make it.”

“I can definitely show you how to make cordage out of nettle!” And so while some campers learn to bend the willow stem and make it the right size for an axe handle, some join me and Steve to make nettle rope. We do it in teams of two. Take a few strands in one hand, a few strands in another. Tie them together. Begin twisting to the right. One person holds the left strands and twists, one holds the right strands and twists. And, sure enough, alchemy! The strands come together and form a strong rope (out of nettle stalk!). After 20 minutes we have over 10 feet of sturdy rope for hafting the axe together. As a group we figure out how to best fasten the stone axe head to its branch-handle. The finished product is gorgeous. Each kid wants to hold it and test out their handiwork.

 

And all of a sudden, Loki is in the midst of our group. “Where did you just come from, Loki?!” One kid shouts, “I saw him just jump 13 feet from that tree! How did he do that?!”

Uncle Loki inspects his repaired axe and congratulates the group. He has a new mission for them. They must meet him in a designated area, and he will test their speed, strength and stealth abilities-train them to be true coyote scouts, like himself. And then, with hardly a warning, he is off.

Later I am trailing Loki. I follow close behind him, emulating his body movements. Avoiding certain plant clusters with him, traipsing straight through others. Up onto a steep hillside, our animal-sense of balance and agility kicks into higher gear. I am learning by observing and mimicking. I listen when he listens. I hide when he hides. I get a text from Andrew (I haven’t given up the convenience of this modern technological magic-even as a Raven-Witch) His team is heading back to their home base. I could hide there and wait for them. I jump on the opportunity. I fight my way through nettle, refusing to take the easy path, the beaten, well-used trail. (Hoping the charcoal on my legs will shield against some of the sting.) My eyes are open for poison ivy, and for wild parsnip; I stick to the bush and make my way to their base. So many bird alarms. I can’t hide my raven presence from the birds. If any of the kids were in the fort, they’d be tipped off at once. But they are nowhere in sight (or in my range of hearing).

I look for a good place to wait and spy. They have a wickedly bent Manitoba Maple tree just on the fringe of their site, spreading from the earth at about 45 degrees (easy climbing!). I take off my moccasins, leaving them under the shelter as a sign, and use my bare feet to climb. It is exhilarating, climbing this tree, secretly, not knowing when they’ll be back. I explore the heights of it and finally settle on a cozy nook between two branches. And then I wait. I breathe deeply, taking in the day, taking in the bird sounds, feeling the coolness of bark on bare patches of skin.

Soon the birds sound again. I hear voices coming up the trail. They’re coming. My heart speeds up. I try to become a bird, a branch. Two come in, then three, four, five. They don’t see me, although I’m sure their leader’s honed eyes have spotted me already (they don’t let on though). Then, one camper comes through the tall grasses and looks up immediately. “Who is that? What are you doing here?”

“It’s the witch; it’s the witch!”

“That’s our lookout tree! How did you get up there?”

“I flew, of course!”

“Oh, yeah!”

“How come we didn’t see you there at first?”

“It’s because I can become invisible. You can learn to be invisible too! If you learn to look like nature around you, so that you blend in, and there is no difference between you and it. Loki can help you out with that!”

And then, one, two, three, four begin their own ascent into the tree. I move to make way for them when they reach me. I talk about why I like being a raven sometimes, the gifts ravens have. We talk about what animals each of the campers has inside them-which animals they would like to be able to shape-shift into. A black bear. A raccoon. A flying squirrel! No, a black bear, a cougar and a flying squirrel!

Then, relaxing in the branches, I begin telling a story. I have just the one for this occasion!

This is real magic.