After joining Outward Bound Canada’s Women of Courage expedition in 2018, Maria Habanikova returned home with much more than memories of the wilderness. Inspired by her experience, she began writing what would eventually become her first children’s book, The Flying Whale, which recently won first place in the Canadian Book Library Awards.
In this reflection, Maria shares how one week in the backcountry helped her move from healing to creativity, and why the lessons she learned continue to guide her today:
From my diary: On the last day, out of blue tarp and some string, I built a fort, tying its corners to the sturdy branches of a magnificent arbutus tree. It flapped in the cold Pacific wind, but seemed steady enough. I looked up at the sky generously endowed with grey clouds and I could see blue peeking through. It was fairly chilly when the wind whizzed past and the ocean right below was everything but blue. I was feeling lonely, calm, excited, and cowardly, all at once. Part of me wanted to return to the base camp and proclaim silently “there is no way I will stay out here the whole night. What if I get cold? Won’t I be bored? What if I roll down this cliff? What if I get soaking wet?” I was living proof that one can easily disconnect from technology and modern distractions but hardly from their own mind.
The year was 2018, the setting was Curme Islands in Desolation Sound Provincial Park in beautiful British Columbia. Encouraged by a friend from university, I applied to participate in Outward Bound Canada’s Women of Courage (WOC) week-long ocean canoeing trip in June. One of their charitable programs at the time, WOC offered wilderness-based expeditions designed to build resilience and confidence in women who survived trauma and abuse.
Incredibly, eight years have passed since I wrote that diary entry. I am reminded of how much this one decision, that brave moment of saying yes to camping in the middle of the Pacific ocean with six complete strangers without a cell phone or any canoeing experience changed my life and transformed how I heal, create, and live.
A year before embarking on this unique adventure, I closed what is to date the darkest chapter of my life. I did not hide the fact that I, an intelligent, educated, well-raised, multilingual, accomplished young woman, found myself in the chokehold of an abusive relationship. I wrote a blog post, shared it on social media, answered any questions my friends and acquaintances had, and called it vulnerability. With time, I realized I wasn’t being vulnerable, I was raging – at the world, at him, at myself. WOC provided me a safe space to collapse into, six sounding boards to lean on, and an infinite amount of patience this thirty year old didn’t know she needed. I remember sitting in one of our daily end-of-day circles listening to the other women’s stories wishing myself away for I did not believe I belonged. Somehow, having been berated, threatened, yelled at, and manipulated did not sound as harmful in comparison; I could not have possibly been hurting enough to be worthy of this healing opportunity. Then, circle after circle, conversation after conversation, I was encouraged to open up and most importantly, I felt inspired to write, to create. To my surprise, I wasn’t writing about ‘him’ or ‘me with him’ or ‘me because of him’ or ‘me after him.’ Instead, I wrote about nature – about the night sky, ravens in the trees, seals on the shore, magnificent view from the outhouse, hum of the wind, and endless depth of the ocean. The women listened, every day.
I befriended a hummingbird; he hovered near my tarp on that last day during our 24-hour solo. I later learned that per Indigenous wisdom hummingbirds are messengers of joy and healing, symbols of seemingly impossible accomplishments teaching us “to find the miracle of joyful living from our own life circumstances.” (Ted Andrews, Nature Speak) Now, any time I see a hummingbird or its depiction, I take it as a sign from the Universe that I am on the right path, a positive nudge to keep going.
On the flight back to Ottawa, I watched the clouds wondering about whales we’d not been fortunate to see. I dreamily penned what I did not know would five years later be the opening lines of my first children’s book The Flying Whale: “I am a flying whale, I swim through the sky effortlessly. But whales don’t fly, they weigh too much. I am heavy with dreams lighter than air.” I dedicated the book to the six Women of Courage who let me move from rage to gentle understanding, from embarrassment to appreciation of my intuition, from skepticism to wholehearted trust in myself. This year, my book won first place in children’s book category of the Canadian Book Library awards.
Healing is a journey that is never complete. We find our true self, our highest calling, our potential on our brave way towards it. My dear flying whale is a materialization of all I learned from the WOC experience: I can carry the weight of my sorrows and still choose to feel light with joy; I am most creative when I dare to be courageous; I, too, can make the impossible possible.
As the summer – a time for adventures, new beginnings, and memorable trips – is upon us, know that you do not need to chase some version of Eat, Pray, Love to find meaning or yourself. You need only sit on a rock for a day, marvel at the starry sky for a night and:
in simplicity you’ll reveal beauty,
in solitude you’ll find companionship.
in scarcity you’ll discover abundance,
in the night you’ll see light,
and maybe, just maybe, in a hummingbird you’ll notice a friend.
