Under a snowy shroud we walk through the woods of New Brunswick to enjoy a sacred kava ritual in the Canadian Winter. So far from the Pacific Islands of Hawaii, Fiji and Vanuatu but still all part of this magical planet that we share. In snow or in sand the kava moment can be rich and valuable and peaceful!
Normally, when you think of a kava ritual you think of palm trees and beaches and warm tropical breezes. When you live in New Brunswick you might have to make a few changes to the kava ritual itinerary that will include: snow banks, wind chill factors and lack of daylight.
We recently went through some major storms here that included being pounded by storm surges from the Atlantic Ocean, having floods and power outages in many areas of the Maritimes, and being pummeled with snow squalls and hurricane winds!
After all of that..my goodness…what we needed was a calming kava drink! But we wanted to do something different instead of just mixing up some root powder in the blender and snuggling beside the wood-stove near our tiki statue…we decided to mix up some Kona Kava and get bundled up and go for a walk on the Dobson Trail. The Dobson Trail is an awesome wooded trail that runs from near where we live to the Bay of Fundy which boasts some of the highest tides in the world.
We walked for an hour on what had become basically a snowshoe trail, with knee-deep snow and trees bent to the ground from the accumulation of snow. We walked for an hour, passed a beaver dam, white fields of frozen snow, and eventually came to the rest spot that folks used as a fire pit. There was no-one there…everything was buried in snow but there were actually some chairs left there…it was if they were waiting for us!
We sat down and shared some kava. We had mixed it up with pineapple juice and sipped it from a plastic bottle…defiantly not a traditional kava ceremony but as we sat there in the freezing cold with the blue sky above us and silence all around us we became very thankful this kava moment we were sharing!
We contemplated the sky above us and could feel a connection with the earth around us and had a connected sense of the curve of the planet. We wondered about life beyond our atmosphere and wondered if people were evolving to be giants…so many thoughts out there miles and miles from civilization, deep in the woods, with good friends sharing kava in the most unusual fashion!
The woods of New Brunswick might be far away from a traditional kava ceremony but there is something serene and strangely beautiful about enjoying kava in the winter while hiking to a secluded spot in New Brunswick. Kava in the outdoors is truly amazing!
Because the sun was setting we couldn’t sit in our snow chairs longer than 20 minutes and had to trek back home where the fire was waiting but it was a wonderful day!
One of the great things about kava is that we could enjoy a plant that came from so far away from such a tropical climate and even though we were knee deep in snow with our thick mittens and snow boots we could appreciate and enjoy the wonderful moment with kava.
