Cover photo courtesy Lisa Laughlin
When my friend climbed into the fridge and shut the door, my instincts told me not to follow him. But we were at MEOW WOLF in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a larger-than-life immersive art exhibit known as “The House of Eternal Return,” and I was just learning how to bypass my brain’s presets.
If you have never heard of MEOW WOLF, it’s worth a google. In this riot of walk-through art that spans over 70 rooms, guests interact with a (mostly) normal-looking house in surprising ways: the fireplace is a tunnel, secret passages await in the closet, and the washing machine is a swirling, galactic slide into a glowing forest that connects manifestations from a glitch in the multiverse.
I’ll admit that I felt lost at first. There was no set path at MEOW WOLF. I had to shift my mentality to freely explore, and it felt as physical as any other muscle movement; we so rarely have permission to move about undirected in life. Soon, though, I became high on the thrill of discovering what was behind that door, and the next door, and the one after that. And inside the fridge.
It wasn’t until later I realized I had experienced that high of exploration somewhere else: the backcountry wilderness of the mountains. I can’t think of two more disparate places to compare, but something kept nagging at me that there was a similarity, and my experience in both places was dopamine-producing in a way I wanted to understand.
Two weeks before MEOW WOLF, I had been poking around the edge of an alpine lake in the Cascades (at 7,000-foot elevation, just like Santa Fe). When the trail had ended at the lake, I again had to make the mental switch from following to freely exploring. Then I scrambled up large boulders around the lake, picking my path freely and in a reactionary way. Each step brought a new perspective into view. And it was invigorating. I imagined the thrill of staying there weeks, of discovering what was over the next ridge, and the next, and the one after that.
In both the mountains and MEOW WOLF, I reached a mental state of flow paired with movement. “Flow” is when your action and consciousness melt together, when you’re fully immersed, absorbed, and enjoying the heck out of yourself. Flow is when we lose track of our sense of time.
My experience at MEOW WOLF made me realize that we have an incredible opportunity to find that headspace when we set foot in nature. Maybe it’s carving your own path down a ski run. Maybe it’s finding a Dark Sky preserve and losing sense of your body under all those stars. Maybe it’s ditching your Garmin or other wrist tech and focusing on each footfall, the terrain, your beating heart.
Flow is individualized. Give yourself permission to explore off the beaten path (safely and respectfully), and its likely you’ll feel your focus shift to the present movement. Part of the mission of this magazine is to break down access barriers by giving you the how-tos and where-to-gos, so you can get out there and create your own adventure.
The activities I mention (minus MEOW WOLF) appear in this issue, where we celebrate the late fall recreation opportunities in our region and look forward to the coming season of snow. Whether you’re picking your way through a basalt canyon, telemark skiing, or fat biking across Spokane’s South Hill through a snowy wonderland, I hope you’re able to switch your brain into true “exploration” mode. It’s a state of mind worth cultivating.
—Lisa Laughlin, Managing Editor
