Back in 1997, a lifelong dream I had since I was a child finally came true. I visited Japan for the first time in my life. This was just the beginning of many treasured, lifelong relationships. At that time, I was still training in a traditional Japanese martial art and was the newly appointed Senior Instructor at a very well-known nature and wilderness skills school that I was a student of since I was 17 years old.

I grew up as a sickly child with chronic life-threatening asthma. A lot of my childhood was spent in and out of hospitals. One of my few solaces was nature. I loved going into the woods and wild areas anywhere near my house. I wandered creeks and trails and wondered about plants and trees and the animals that made the tracks that I came across.

That calling from nature eventually led me to looking for a school to learn and experience more. I found a nature skills school called the Tracker School in my home state of New Jersey. One of the many things I was also called to do was to help and support kids and families who also had the same calling. To learn and experience nature. Sometimes we all need a guide in life. When you find one, and you grow because of it, you are sometimes also called to continue that lineage and help and support others when they come looking for a guide. Are you that guide? Even if you are not, you can help in other ways.

Earthmanship has been one of those treasured, lifelong relationships I mentioned. We may be half a world away, but we are kindred, and there is no separation in our collective vision of helping and supporting kids and families with their relationships with nature.

Whenever I visit Japan, one of my many goals is to share that relationship with these friends. On one of my last trips, one of the members of Earthmanship took me to a giant park in Tokyo where I had never been before or heard of. I learned and experienced a lot there. She knew taking me there was something special and it was something that she knew we could share in our love of nature.

I’m a former emergency room nurse and now a very busy home infusion nurse. But I tried to take the time to take my then young son and daughter to experience a love for nature and to begin a relationship with it, usually in the form of fishing and a respect for the lives that live in nature. Today, I still help teach and train kids, families and adults in the old ways of making fire by rubbing sticks together. The joy on someone’s face when they get their first fire is priceless and never gets old.

Any time you spend with kids out in nature is never wasted time.

Are you now the adult that feels this way? What does the child you were then tell you about yourself now? Everyone at Earthmanship are there to continue to guide you and the next generations that share the calling.

Gambarimasho Yo!

Joseph Lau, RN