The WAGON in 5WiW is indeed a van. As you can imagine, it does more than bringing us from point A to B. In fact, the biggest contribution from the van is way beyond its transporting abilities. 

    Cocoon or Glass Bubble

    Perhaps most important: it provides us with a safe space. Protects against the elements, such as snow in the Arctic, or wind and rain here in Belgium. But there’s also the more mental type of protection, very much like the hoodie or noise cancelling headphones these days. The cocoon helps us to stay in our own bubble or “world”.

    My driving style

    Helps us stay in that world/bubble, or to get into it. To this day our daughter tends to fall asleep whenever I am driving at night. Very much like I used to fall asleep in my carseat easily when I was a baby. With a gentle driving style, the vibrations of the running engine have their own soothing effect.
    Mind you, falling asleep is not the goal during our 5WiW trips — although certainly fine when it happens. The point is that a soothing atmosphere is built at this level as well.

    Room with a view

    Invitation to relax and let go is also coming from the “outside”. We aim to roam around in the quieter, more beautiful and spacious green areas. Making it easier for our eyes and minds to relax and wander whenever they feel like it. In fact, there will also be times when the scenery is doing the talking. Silence can be golden. 

    Office

    The van is our own little office but one that is specifically designed to accommodate comfortable conversations: we are sitting alongside one another, hence no need for direct eye contact if that feels uncomfortable. In addition, we are facing the same view / horizon, subtly confirming the fact that we share the same goal, and perhaps also the fact that we are operating from an “equality” perspective, and not from a hierarchical “expert knows the truth” perspective. 
    And yet, the seats can be turned around, meaning we can also arrange a face to face set up if we want. During a stop, that is. Not while driving. 

    Want more details?

    Read here what the van had meant for me in the Arctic.

    And what it consequently could do for you as a guest in a 5WiW expedition. 

     

    Back in Sweden as I was traveling through the breath taking scenery, my van did more than bringing me from point A to B, or even more than letting me enjoy the beautiful scenery.

     

    It protected me. In a deeply profound way. The van was for me almost like what a Space Station is for astronauts; or better yet, what a deep-sea submarine cocoon would do to you if you were to explore the ocean floor multiple miles below the water surface.

    A deep-sea submarine protects against very strong outside pressure but at the same time it lets you see things you otherwise would simply not be able to pressure.

    In my case the hostile outdoor conditions were freezing temperatures. They could literally have been lethal if I would have gotten exposed to them for too long without protection. As if I had a protective shield around me in the shape of a cocoon or bubble.

     

    But there’s more to it than just protection from the elements. The metaphor of the underwater pressure is not a coincidence, I realised only afterwards. The deep underwater pressure can easily be taken for the actual external pressure from our current Western society on all of us in our daily lives. And that type of pressure is even more felt by individuals with a neurodivergent nervous systems.

    The cocoon of the 5WiW expeditions aims to protect against those types of pressure as well.