A few weeks ago, I walked into Larkspur Community Center with a mat rolled under my arm with the intention of joining a yoga class. Upon realizing that the next class was not starting for another hour, I went to the adjacent studio to see what I might find. The screen outside the door announced “Bliss Dance,” and it was about to begin. I didn’t hesitate, and I found a spot toward the back of the room. I scanned the unknown individuals around me and saw a wide range of ages. All the participants were women, except for one older man. Although I could barely keep up of with the fast-paced dance moves, I adored the vibrant class. I felt energized and shyly proud of doing something completely out of my comfort zone. Since then, I have taken half a dozen classes more, and I am admittedly s-l-o-w-l-y learning the choreographed dances.
Two days after that initial class, I interviewed environmentalist and longtime Bend resident Peter Geiser. Although we had spoken on the phone two weeks earlier, I was meeting him for the first time. While we settled in our chairs and adjusted the microphones, I then realized he was the same tall and lean man eagerly dancing in front of me during my first Bliss Dance class. (Peter later assured me that all this new rapid hand-eye-foot coordination does wonders for neural plasticity.)
Following are excerpts from the interview with Peter Geiser (quotes abridged for print):
Peter Geiser: My great my great-grandfather was a little boy, came out in a covered wagon in 1860 on the Oregon Trail. For our family living in Oregon it is almost a religious creed: nobody leaves Oregon. I grew up camping in the summers, swimming and picnicking on rivers. I grew up over in the Willamette Valley. I got my roots in the natural environment through my family and also a heritage of four generations in Oregon. Forest bathing is a term that was cult coined years ago. I kind of modify it in my own case to just plain nature bathing. Whether you’re walking on the desert, walking on the coast, walking in the high Cascades, it all comes down to a similar thing.
Adriana Mariño: What role would you say that the environment plays in your health and wellness?
PG: I’d say it’s still a primary anchor in our relationship because almost every day, we’re walking in the natural environment in one form or another. Walking, paddling, skiing. Visiting the natural environment almost daily is a hugely grounding experience for me. It’s influential. I don’t think about it. We have a quote next to our door when you leave our house. It’s a John Muir quote, who is one of the founders of the National Park System and a highly respected naturalist. The quote is: “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” And it may not always be the forest, but it’s some element of the natural environment. And so, it’s to me a very soulful practice that complements other intentional practices I expand on and more deeply engage in.
I’ve got what I call my six pillars of happiness. At the base level it’s my personal well-being, personal health. And then beyond that it’s relationships. Relationships are hugely valuable to me. I put them above just about everything else. Spiritual practice is my third one. The fourth one is service. I seem to have this internal need to contribute to social good. And the fifth one is simplicity, which is probably one of my more challenging pillars because I’m obsessively busy. Well, I’m not a student to simplicity. Are you kidding me? But the sixth one is fun and laughter. I’ve been very mindful of those six pillars for years. They keep coming back and I haven’t really changed them.
But when I was a financial advisor, I worked with this tool with many of my clients. I call it the wheel of life. Most of the time, I was interested in, well, making, helping clients become more financially secure was my core mission. But most of my time was spent in a relationship status with them. And we’d spend most of our time talking more about kind of things like you and I are talking about.
AM: As a health and wellness coach, I use that wheel of life, too.
PG: If you draw a circle, and you have the different spokes: relationships, money, stability, health, etc. You may be one of the few people I’ve ever talked to [familiar with the Wheel of Life]. What is balance to me? Well, it’s trying to achieve a round circle, not being overly weighted in any of these spokes.
AM: Beautiful.
PG: And at any point in time, I can stop and go back to that wheel and I go, I’m a little weak on that spoke. I need to shift my priorities, or I’m getting too whacked out. Probably my biggest challenge is to grow my wheel so I have more time for each.
AM: But your thirst for life and learning, I can tell is insatiable, Peter. You have such energy.
PG: Well, I feel blessed. I’m 75 years old.
AM: I think you might be my first guest who arrived on a bike.
PG: Well, I’m laying the foundation for the next quarter century, and I feel so blessed to be of mind and body to do it.
Listen to the complete interview here:
—Adriana Mariño is the producer and host of Bend into Balance. She is a board-certified functional medicine health & wellness coach and a graduate of the 200-hour yoga teacher training at Namaspa, and loves to swim, ski, hike, bike and travel. Adriana can be reached at adrimarino@hotmail.com.
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