An Ambassador's Exploration of the Elements of Injury

The most rewarding experiences come with risks. Whether a misstep or unforeseen circumstance, the biggest risks that adventurers and explorers take often lead to injury. In some cases it can be months or years before an explorer is recovered enough to return to their passion. Even small injuries can be life changing for the right sport. In this blog, Wintergreen Ambassador Bevie LaBrie recalls her recent experience with injury which put her out of her passions for snowboarding and climbing - for some time.

I’m a sun lover, heat absorber, emitter of vision, movement and growth.

I welcome fire in balance—the warmth and energetic emergence of passion to actualize visions of outdoor, international and creative exploration. I’m drawn to hour upon hour of enduring push in and out of seasons.

Ice on the other hand, although it holds other worldly beauty—embodies a cold, sharp, frozen, hard, loud, essence I admittedly resist.  

With the sudden pop of the hamstring or finger pulley; the diagnosis that stops you in your tracks; the 300 foot slide into a boulder field resulting in a life changing injury; a sudden slip on wet rock; the brake of the hand; the quiet diagnosis; the aching, chronic push.  “If only I had just…if only I knew what I know now when this first happened…how could I know?”  Life freezes in time; plans freeze, vision freezes. Ice essence surrounds.

And the path of patience becomes the slow melt through the unknown foggy ending.

Within the languid but steady unthawing season, exists tending—and a knowing that the flame of excitement still lives and breathes.  This season of presence becomes an unsolicited teacher; digesting grief, ego, values, and life trajectory through the slow melt.  Space emerges to lay new foundations while staying connected to parts that still work. The tendon loading teacher is at work, focusing on strengthening the healthy tendon to support all the damaged areas in their healing.

The flame of energetic fire simmers with subtleties of new knowledge, seeds of expansive ideas, found strengths and communal bonds toward expansion; not just of the body—but of our resilient mind and spirit. And yet, the pace is patience.

And so in our evolution of healing, we continue to live on the enduring edge of fire and ice.

Healing can be a difficult process. At Wintergreen, we're glad to see our Ambassadors planning well and taking the time they need to heal. We encourage any adventurers and explorers out there to take caution and carry any emergency aid you may need. Stay safe out there!