FEATURED DECEMBER 2009 GUEST: Maria Coffey

Adventure guide, outdoors journalist and award winning author of Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes.

But to gain a perfect view, one must go yet farther, over a curving brow to a slight shelf on the extreme brink.

- John Muir, The Yosemite

©Maria Coffey in Vietnam

Q: How did you become inspired to write Explorers of The Infinite?

A: During the research for my previous book, Where the Mountain Casts its Shadow. I interviewed a number of the world’s top mountaineers. In response to my question about what compelled them to repeatedly leave their loved ones for dangerous expeditions, they all spoke of feeling totally alive in the mountains - an intensity of feeling they could not reach in any other way. Some expressed it clearly as a spiritual experience; many others hinted at the same. I became interested in the idea that spiritual experience is one of the major drives for extreme adventurers; that they reach what I call the “transcendence zone” by pushing themselves to the limit in the wild world, just as the mystics of most spiritual traditions have done, for centuries past.

I explored these ideas in one chapter of Where the Mountain Casts its Shadow. But one chapter wasn’t enough – I realized this was a huge subject that I wanted to investigate further. Then my literary agent asked me if any of the mountaineers had told me about ghost encounters, and of course some of them had, as well as stories about telepathic communications, precognitive dreams, astral travel, and bouts of superhuman strength. I began to wonder if such phenomena were linked to the transcendence zone.

Extreme adventures go out into the wild world and take away the safety nets, and in order to survive they have to finely sharpen their senses and intuition; they become plugged into their environment in a way most of us rarely experience. Does this deep connection with the wild world open channels into levels of consciousness and powers that are not yet understood by science? This was just one of the questions I set off with when I started to research the Explorers of the Infinite – and it’s just as well I had no idea how long and challenging a journey it would be!

Q:  What is the greatest insight you gained from your interviews with the explorers, adventurers and climbers featured in the book?

A: I finally accepted there really are ‘mystery zones’ out there. I’d touched on them myself in the past – after I’d drowned and been resuscitated, when I had ‘visitations’ from my lover after his death on Everest, and while I was kayaking down the River Ganges - but I had always let my skeptical side win me over. I think it’s very likely that science will eventually find explanations for many of the phenomena reported in the book. My research taught me how much more science still has to discover about the brain, and the nature of human consciousness.

Q: Can you describe how that insight has influenced your own adventures and travels around the globe?

A: It allowed me to understand why my own spiritual impulse is so connected to the earth, to nature. When extreme adventurers go out into the wild world, taking away the safety nets and fine tuning their intuitions, they enter a state our ancient ancestors were in almost constantly, in a world where danger was ever present. Those hunter-gatherers sought to live in harmony with the unpredictable environment by worshipping the earth, its elements, its wild animals. Their life was shot through with a spirituality that was all about the earth. I think this has been hardwired into us, and helps to explain why most people find solace in natural places, why they go to nature for ‘re-creation’.

I’ve always been drawn to animistic traditions. When we were kayaking down India’s River Ganges I was deeply moved by the elemental rituals I saw enacted all along the way, such as pilgrims fashioning lingams from mud and scattering flowers over them, or scooping up river water and offering it in their palms to the rising sun. During our six week journey I began following the Hindu tradition of immersing myself three times in the river each day, to ask for the protection of the goddess believed to be embodied in its water. It was an instinctive act; afterwards I wondered if I’d gone a bit crazy, but my work on Explorers of the Infinite showed me that I had simply been realizing my deep connectedness to the earth, to the river I was traveling on. Oh, and by the way, I never once got sick on that expedition, despite all the immersions and drinking Ganges water on a number of occasions!

©Maria Coffey: Galapagos Islands with some new friends

Q: In your radio interview with Oprah you mention how mountaineers and other extreme adventurers seek out a "total immersion in nature" and how this can ignite and strengthen the inner intuition or sixth sense we all have yet typically remains dormant. For someone who is not inclined to be athletic or adventuresome in the outdoor world, how can one in their everyday life, discover and awaken this sixth sense?

A: Opening up that sixth sense at will isn’t easy. Originally it happened to me through things I didn’t choose – a near death experience, a bereavement – extreme experiences that literally cracked me apart and, I now realize, opened channels to other realms of consciousness. Later, when I chose to push my own limits during some of long kayaking expeditions, I touched on that sense again. The reason that it isn’t easy to access in everyday life is that we don’t need extreme intuition in the way that the extreme adventurers do, as they repeatedly put themselves in life or death situations. What is possible, though, is to feel a “deep immersion’ in nature - and for that you don’t have to throw yourself off a cliff. It can happen in your back yard or on your balcony: what could be more elemental than sowing a seed in soil, nurturing the growing plant, eating its fruits or enjoying its flowers?

The key is to be open to the miracle you have just participated in. And to pay attention. From your apartment window you can pay attention to the cycles of the moon, to what direction the wind is coming from, to how cloud changes presage a shift in the weather. You can stand in the middle of a city and think about how a tree grows up through concrete, and all the birds that take shelter in its branches. Or, simply, how amazing it is to be standing on a planet that is whirling through space!

Q: What have you found to be some of the biggest differences in character between someone who never ventures beyond the border of their home town and someone who lives a life filled with frequent travel to the far reaches of the world?

A: It's impossible for me to generalize. Exploration can take so many different forms. In a very poor village on the shores of Lake Malawi, Africa, we met a teenage boy who scratched out a map of the world in the sand, and proceeded to name a staggering number of capital cities. When I pointed to where we lived on the west coast of Canada, he thought for a moment then said, “Trees. Fish. Much rain.” He had an intense curiosity and thirst for knowledge; each night, like many other villagers, he secretly listened to the BBC World Service on the radio (an illegal act then, in the days of Hasting Banda’s dictatorship.), and later plied us with questions about a world that he would never physically reach, but could still travel to in his mind.

Q: For many people, life has become complicated or inundated with media stimulation, "to do" lists, technological conversations vs. personal connections. With your own busy travel and guiding schedule, presentations, and book writing, how do you keep things simple, authentic and grounded in your own life?

A: Leading people on our guided trips really grounds me. It always takes me back to the absolute magic of my first encounter with a special place. I’ll soon be heading to the far reaches Ha Long Bay, Vietnam, to lead a kayaking trip. It’s the most otherworldly landscape – paddling there is like stepping through the looking glass. We’ve been going there since 1994, yet seeing a group become enchanted and transformed during a week of kayaking among the maze of islets is so rewarding. It allows me to rediscover the enchantment - the schedules and book deadlines melt away, and I’m totally in the moment.

Q: What is the most important element you would like for readers to gain from reading Explorers of The Infinite?

A: An understanding of what drives extreme adventurers, and what lies on the ‘far side’ of human experience, for all of us.

©Maria Coffey

Q: You and your husband have created a successful travel company, Hidden Places, and spend a great deal of time guiding in places that support your passion for kayaking. You also in recent years launched the Elephant Earth Initiative. Can you tell us a little bit about this project and how others can get involved and make a difference in the lives of these amazing animals?

A: Since 2007 we’ve been doing research on elephants in India and Thailand, and Dag has worked as a voluntary veterinarian in elephant sanctuaries. Earlier this year we set up Elephant Earth Initiative, a not-for-profit branch of Hidden Places, which seeks to improve the lives of the world's largest land mammal by engaging with local people in areas where wild elephants live and where captive elephants are kept. I’m writing this in Thailand, where we have returned to do further research on elephants, and pinpoint projects that we will partner with or initiate. In the future we will be running fundraising elephant trips in SE Asia and Africa, and we will also be looking for people to work with us as volunteers on our various projects.

We’ll be posting information on our web site: www.elephantearth.org, and it’s a good idea to subscribe to our general newsletter, which you can do directly on www.hiddenplaces.net. Also, please become a friend of Dag Goering on Facebook, as he will be regularly posting news about our elephant work.

Q: I am deeply curious whether there has been a personal shift or conscious transformation between what you chose to experience in the past with a partner traveling for months at a time away on expeditions, and now intimately traveling the world with your husband? Even creating a travel company together and sharing that adventure with others through guiding, speaking, writing and presentations.

A: Joe drew clear lines between his mountaineering – which was central to him - and the rest of his life, including me. I found this hard - I would have liked to have been a much bigger part of his life, and to travel with him to the Himalayas, but this was something he wouldn’t even consider. It forced me to become ultra independent, and to develop a protective shell, qualities which stayed with me after his death.

When I first met Dag, he told me that he wanted a partner who was at the center of his life, with whom he could share all his adventures. I remember being really shocked – this was so different to my experience with Joe! It took me a while to peel away my hard shell and get used to such deep intimacy. Also, for a time, I suffered badly from separation anxiety – whenever I was apart from Dag, I feared that I would never see him again. It was as if I couldn’t trust happiness. But gradually I got over that, and I’ve long felt beyond lucky to be able to share so many incredible experiences with Dag, who is my best friend and soul mate, and to work with him so closely. Thinking about it, I now have the sort of life that deep down I’d longed for with Joe….. and that finally came my way, more fully realized than I could ever have imagined. *

©Stephanie Graham: Mt. Everest Mind Camp 2009