We believe in directly doing things. We believe in experiencing things first hand, getting dirty, trying things out and seeing what works to solve a problem. The world we live in today works to minimize risk and reduce adversity in learning; we wonder how a person can grow if they don’t face a challenge with more than one outcome and take a chance on what they want. How can we learn if everyone around us is always providing the answers that we are supposed to give?
Our pillars are the best collection of what we at MOI hold dear and critical to a life well-lived. We use these pillars to help guide us in how we create, work and share together. We put these here so that you, as a potential member to our community, can understand clearly what we are all about. This is who we are.
The Pillars of Matanuska Outdoor Institute
Community
"For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack." Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
By working together with a community, by planning together, by moving together across the land we learn that problem solving is often group dependent, that complex challenges demand multiple inputs along with difficult negotiations and ultimately must be outcome driven.
Community is so important to us that it gets its own page HERE.
Resilience
"Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power," -Lao Tzu
Resilience is having and developing the emotional strength, mental fortitude and physical presence to face hardships and come back stronger. Sometimes referred to as grit and often characterized as an individual’s passionate willingness to persevere and overcome. We understand that resilience and grit can be practiced, honed and developed. It is an aspect of character that thrives through life’s hardships.
Wilderness
"To be be whole. To be Complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from." -Terry Tempest Williams
For us, wilderness is that place that is just beyond the straight lines of the human built environment. WE look to the wild places that haven’t been invaded by roads, buildings, and queues. These places exist despite the human tendency to expand and in that there are many things for us to experience that were not programmed or crafted specifically for us. We believe that in the wilderness, we are exposed to something that is critical to our humanity yet beyond human control. It is in this place that we can experience a new sense of self, a different sense of community and a sense of our humanity.
