Joshua Tree National Park is a special place.

There is something playful about the rock piles, remnants of magma surges that bubbled up just beneath the earthy crust where they cooled and cracked to become what we see now. Coupled with the namesake Seussian trees, the landscape is unique for its hard whimsy. It’s a place of extremes, but also a wild playground of sorts where children are immediately called to scramble all over the sticky granite.

And it’s the place where the child within each of us can find immediate expression. That’s what we have found in our work with D&T Rise.

Originally staged in 2019 as an adventure for men affected by divorce, D&T Rise was envisioned as a metaphor for the horrifying recalibration required of men who suddenly found themselves estranged from their children and stripped of their income in high-conflict divorces. In addition we hosted men who had grown up as children in such divorces, seperated from their fathers and without the critical benefit of paternal mentorship. We saw the rocks as representative of these cold, hard realities, and the act of learning to climb them as our opportunity to work through our challenges in community.

Before you can successfully climb a rock, you need to mitigate the overwhelming fear that shows up as a primary defense against possible harm. The primal brain registers no value in inching oneself higher and higher up the face of a granite wall, further and further from the ground below. Only harm can come from this, and the further we climb, the more our bodies are flooded with chemicals, sensations, and impulses that warn us back down to safety.

In general, heeding such cues is a good idea. But what if you have no choice?

Among us were men left homeless by court rulings. Among us were men faced with the prospect of their children being relocated across the country. Among us were men that had been torn from the protection and guidance of their own fathers and had been paddling through life without a rudder. In every one of these scenarios, fear was predominate. We had no choice. We had to navigate homelessness and estrangement. These things weren’t going away, and in many cases our communities wrote us off as problematic men with issues.

We were alone and afraid.

It kind of feels like that tethered to a rock 40 feet off the ground.

You don’t get that high just believing in yourself.

You get that high learning how to trust your gear. You get that high learning to trust your climbing partner. You get that high learning to love an Almighty God that placed these rocks with such wisdom and care. You get that high by trying, over and over and over again.

The platform was wonderfully successful. We have found no activity better at eliciting the primal responses that threaten to derail us at every opportunity for growth. Being present is something that many of us struggle with, but not on the rocks. Clinging to the wall, you can’t think about anything else but what is happening in that very moment.

We began to see the value in the Rise experience for other communities and for recovery initiatives in general. Persons working through trauma, grief, addiction, or a loss of faith could all benefit from the model.

For this reason, we put D&T Rise on hold.

Understanding the trust that would be required to scale the initiative, a number of us here at Dust and Tribe, both men and women, made the commitment to pursue the rock-climbing certifications that would allow us to serve our community with the level of safety and professionalism it deserves.

We began that journey this past weekend with Cliffhanger Guides. We were partnered with Sarah and Andy, two amazing human beings who assessed our varying abilities and put together a program that met us where we were.

Andy shared something that I continue to think about. He said that the rocks are a mirror. On their own, they are benign geological features representing neither harm or benefit. But when we approach them with an intention, a relationship begins. The flavor of that relationship is entirely a reflection of who we are in that moment. Are we afraid? Excited? Depressed? The rock will reflect all of that back at us as we begin our climb.

And as we adjust ourselves, so too will the relationship begin to transform. Overwhelming fear becomes elation. Trust and doubt become confidence. Work becomes play.

And throughout the process is the welling up of awe, like liquid rock beneath a scarred crust, as we consider the Creator and Facilitator of it all.

You ever climb rocks? Tell us about it in the comments below.

We won’t be hosting D&T Rise for a little while, but check out our other Events and let’s get to know each other where it matters: outside.