While the East Fork Lewis River was noticeably rising on Monday, Dec. 8, at Daybreak Regional Park, a Battle Ground resident opted to take a plunge into the flooding waters for reasons of religion and tradition.
Shane Black, originally from Phoenix, Arizona, moved to Battle Ground just three months ago. While living in the Sierra Mountains of California, he began practicing cold water plunges in natural waters. For three years, Black has practiced cold water plunges from the mountains of California to the waters surrounding Eugene and Springfield, Oregon.
“That place got snow and blizzards, and I started to practice to start plunging in the water and how much benefits you can get by just relaxing and kind of taking control of your thoughts and your feelings,” Black said.
As Black is new to the north Clark County area, he has explored options to continue his practice of the cold water plunge.
“I get to know the areas before I go out,” Black said, adding that at Daybreak Park he knew roughly how far to go into the water based on being there a prior time. “You start to feel it and where the swirls of that river, that’s where I could go. It was pretty nice and slow right there.”
Black stepped into the East Fork Lewis River and fully submerged himself in the water as part of his plunge.
“I just sat there underwater, and I just started thinking, and I just started to feel what I was thinking and examine my mind and my heart,” he said. “You could feel the current just pulling underwater. But I’ve been there for a couple of times before the high rise and I knew there were some boulders there, and they had these metal rods that you could hold on to. I kind of stepped on one and I just grabbed on to one of those and just hanged on to one of those.”
Black, a member of the Navajo Nation, had a visible tattoo on his back while he entered the river that spelled “Diné,” meaning, “The People.” Black is proud of his Native American heritage, but he is also a newborn Christian, as he put it.
“I’m a newborn Christian, you know. I’ve been a Christian, believing in Jesus Christ for the last five years,” Black said. “I’ve been so deep with him, and being a Native American, just coming back to humbling myself, knowing who the creator was and what he has done in my life.”
Black is grateful for the north Clark County community for being so welcoming to him, especially at area churches and his job at Al and Ernie’s Bakery Cafe in Battle Ground.
“Everybody’s been a blessing with hospitality and just showing me places and having job opportunities to come up,” he added. “I just love the Lord, Jesus Christ, and just praise him for the rest of my life.”
