Feral, Failed, and Fabulous!

Regenerative & Transitional Technology Misc.
#59

Willem,
your story about the guy with the temper tantrums reminds me of something. You see I really like the work of herbalist Susun Weed. Her style is great because she uses common weeds and she encourages people to touch and taste the plants and disparages little pills and shipping little bottles around the world. In short she promotes the old style wise-woman ways. Well she lives in the catskills and so I went to a four day class at her house and I don’t know if I will ever go back because she is nuts. She insults her paying guests. She throws temper tantrums several times a day. She has these apprentices (a motley looking crew who are only allowed one shower a week, and are perpetually covered in poision ivy) and they pay thousands of dollars and travel thousands of miles to come study with her and many of them end up leaving during the first week, if not the first day and I’m not sure if they get a refund. She swears and screams at them. “You’re cutting the onions too big! Now you’re cutting them too small! What are you an idiot? Are you a baby? Do you need me to hold your hand?” She claims that she enjoys this scary reputation, that it means only the serious ones stay. She claims that she is always in control. That she knows exactly what she is doing and that this is part her shamanic training part of of breaking down the ego.

I can see how that could be true. A bit like an herbalist boot camp, but actually I think she is just delusional. For one she has work study days where people come to volunteer on her farm for one day a month and half of them end up leaving early too. They didn’t come for any shamanic training. They just wanted to learn how to milk goats and make a wild salad. In my short class one mother who was there left early because Susun screamed at her for using bug repellant containing essential oils around her baby. I just can’t see how treating people this way can be good. If someone is going to scream at me I’m going to make them pay for the opportunity, rather than the other way around.

I guess my question is, has anyone else ever encountered anything like this and what do you make of it? I think of it as the guru personality. Susun is a guru. She has the skills, she has the charisma, she has the charm and the fame to keep them coming. She has this way of saying things that make you believe nothing else could be true. In between tantrums it’s like nothing ever happened. She’s kind and loving, complimentary. Unfortunately that sounds exactly like the relationship between an abuser and an abusee.

#60

:o

Makes me think of a certain fictional somebody…

“What is your major malfunction, numbnuts???”

;D

I guess I’ve met a few folks that’ll snap and insult you when minorly displeased, but I can’t say I’ve encountered it in anyone from the primitive skills field, or anybody of “guru” status. I honestly don’t see how blurting antagonisms contributes to any primitive learning process, shamanic or otherwise. There’s enough to test your mettle in the natural world without having to watch out for supposed benefactors belittling you…

#61

Yeah, this is more than minor displeasure I saw. This is flying into a rage several times a day.

(ha, something in me thinks susun would like that description because she thinks of herself as a witch and witches fly.)

#62

Penny-

Too funny. Except I mean to say, highly unfunny. And this brings up the whole Elder vs. Mentor thing for me.

A looooooooooong time ago (well, maybe not THAT long ago), I had to learn first hand the difference between highly skilled crafts-people, and ‘elders’. In our culture, we tend to blur the two, for whatever reason. We call them “Gurus”. We can’t separate the highly skilled shaman from the wise elder. We think spiritual skills make you wise, when in fact they merely expand your capacity to do damage. Many real elders could give a fig about astral projection or whatever.

An Elder supports you and nourishes you, hands down. Sometimes their medicine hurts a little, but you quickly realize the benefits of it.

Childish but highly skilled mentors, a VERY COMMON animal, play a whole 'nother role. Essentially, if I want to learn from them, I figure out whether I can deal with their behavior. But I never mistake it for anything but childishness. I know their childishness stems partly from a lack of social skills, partly from the lunacy of the mad scientist (doing important work the sane would never attempt), partly from the rich inner worlds they’ve had to craft for themselves to master their skillset. But I never confuse it with a capacity to see me, a human being, in front of them, and the gifts I have to offer, and the things that I need to receive.

Elders do that. You identify them by noticing when someone does that for you.

I’d always rather learn a skill in the context of a loving relationship, so I’ll choose Elders everytime, over “gurus”. Some people take the risk of learning from the guru because they see the skillset as rare and worth the grief. As long as they give themselves informed consent, I support the risk, though I no longer take it myself. I’ve wasted enough time that way.

I’ve heard other things about Susun Weed in this direction, myself. I’ve also heard people challenged by their relationship with Tom Brown, and many other mentors who I highly respect. I approach all “teachers”, “gurus”, “mentors”, and “would-be elders” with great caution, and I respond to how they choose to relate to me. I confess I watch them like a hawk, not judgementally (or critically), but to better learn from them, and learn if I can learn from them at all.

Currently, I like my drama in small boring doses. This may change, but I remain dubious.

For this reason, we all need to help each other out, remind each other, of the dangers of choosing such a relationship. But if you choose it, you choose it.

#63

sounds like eustace conway

i don’t think he is maniacal, so much as just a perfectionist and control freak. but people keep flocking to his turtle island for the skills he has to offer.

i like what you said, willem. i like my drama in small boring doses, too. i’m too old for that crazy shit.

#64

ha ha. i read that book, rix. yeah. no comment. :slight_smile:

#65

Heyup everyone!

Penny - just read about your cache experiments. I have cached quite a bit in the past, the container of choice for food was always the waterproof screw lid buckets that emergency flares come in. Use a big rubber band cut from a car tyre inner tube as a seal.

Using a seal like that would make most buckets air and water tight but we always give our caches at least 50cm head room to help prevent animals smelling them and digging them up.

Finding them after a few years can be fun, at least 3 good compass bearings from obvious attack points should do it!

MB

#66

where do you get the buckets that emergency flares come in? Do you have to buy emergency flares?

#67

Unfortunately!

Canoe or boat people might be a source as they use the containers too. Otherwise it would have to be any relatively secure container in conjunction with the tyre tube seal.

#68

Which is what makes pickle buckets so attractive–the seal is built in. I’m tellin’ ya. Pickle buckets. Pickel buckets. Seriously. Pickle buckets.

;D

#69

i know yucca root has saponins in it. i’ve used it before. just pound the root in a dished out place in a rock with a little bit of water, and as you pound, the saponins froth up.[/quote]

You can also use the leaves. Just grab a handful and kind of shred or pound them up. It’s not as effective as the root, but a hell of a lot easier.

#70

[quote=“jhereg, post:69, topic:183”][quote author=WildeRix link=topic=169.msg1751#msg1751 date=1179171164]

i know yucca root has saponins in it. i’ve used it before. just pound the root in a dished out place in a rock with a little bit of water, and as you pound, the saponins froth up.
[/quote]

You can also use the leaves. Just grab a handful and kind of shred or pound them up. It’s not as effective as the root, but a hell of a lot easier.[/quote]

Nice. And you can use the left over fibers for making cordage.

#71

http://www.rewild.info/fieldguide/index.php?title=Project_Failure:_May_21-27

subjects: fishing, snails, camping, leaf bag, eyewear

#72

[quote=“Penny Scout, post:71, topic:183”]http://www.rewild.info/fieldguide/index.php?title=Project_Failure:_May_21-27

subjects: fishing, snails, camping, leaf bag, eyewear[/quote]

You put the rest of us to shame, y’know that? ;D

All I’ve done is increase my wild potted-plant collection and continue to plan an expedition for later in the year. Not exactly writable material.

#73

Penny, you scare me with your doingness. All I’ve done this week is go out finding plants (dogrose and elder … although don’t eat the dogroses in people’s gardens, they’re minging :-[ ) and looking at Stuff (cuckoo spit is out in abundance).

I’ve always heard that snails should be starved for a few days before you eat them too - not so much because of grit, as because you can’t vouch for what they’ve been eating. What I saw recommended was to keep them in a box for a few days with some nice fresh leaves to flush them of anything … and in case they drop dead from eating slug pellets in the meanwhile.

Hm, if you weren’t aiming to be mobile I’d suggest boiling up the fishheads and bones for stock. I wonder if that could be made to work in a camp scenario - boil the loose bits for an hour or two, throw in the meat of the fish and some roots and veg, and you might have a nice stew on your hands. Or it could be a disaster, 'course. :slight_smile:

And of course you aren’t lame for camping out of your car! Some of us aren’t even camping… I was really inspired by your portable sleeping bag, though. That sounds like an awesome idea.

Thinking about the problem with the leaves falling off you - could you sew lengthways down the bag so that it’s got lots of deep cavities, then stuff each one individually? That way you could keep the leaves from gravitating to the sides of the bag.

#74

Penny Scout:

Per the question on your most recent exploits, I say use the fish heads for soup! A glorious tradition the world over. Or ferment them! A not-so-glorious tradition the world over.

yrs,
w

#75

Fish head soup, okay.
Which reminds me, anyone else know this one?:

#76

If ya’ll don’t know already Urban Scout got me started with a real blog including the old feral failure articles from the wiki and I’ve been updating it frequently!
http://pennyscout.wordpress.com/

#77

Hi my name is Jay this is the first blog I have ever joined in on. You will have to forgive me but I couldn’t help notice the pump drill Penny was talking about. I was wondering if she ever got it working. If she did great, if she didn’t I have an observation I would like to shear. And also an observation about cooking on rocks. The first thing is that you have to be very selective about what rock you use. It obviously need to be dark in color to absorb the light. And second it needs to be a non porous rock. The best that I have gotten is lava rock form Idaho. The surface is amazingly smooth it is bout 12” / 12” and one and one half inches thick, it can hold a lot of heat. The texture, dimensions and color of the rock are all important. My uncle was the one that introduced me to lava rock.

A trick you can use to reduce the pitting on any rock is pine pitch is acts like a Teflon coating/Pam, It also gives a nice pine flavor.

Just like cooking at home, letting the egg sit and not moving it around is key. Its never going to be a light fluffy egg but if you let it sit on a 130 degree rock for 15 minutes it will be edible.

I hope this is insightful. If Penny hasn’t gotten her drill to make an ember I would love to help.
Exitjay@gmail.com

#78

I know this is old but I just wanted to add my voice to the fish head soup ideas.
Each year when we get our annual salmon catch we set the heads aside for soup stock.
You only want to boil them for a very short time. The meat will come off quickly. Fish heads have a lot of little bones. If you boil them to the point where they fall apart it will be very difficult to get all the bones picked out of the meat and stock.
We can the stock in quart jars and it’s great.

As Willem said fermenting or sun rendering salmon oil is an old practice.
The heads are often saved for this. I have a story about this.

I was at the BC Elders Gathering a couple of years ago. (3000 Native elders and their families from BC). I was camped near a group from central BC. I spent a lot of time talking with some of the Grandmas about hide tanning (a special interest of mine). These women barely spoke English. They live in a very remote area and live a fairly traditional lifestyle.
They were looking at some of my white buckskin and they kept turning and talking to each other in their language. They kept passing the hide around and holding it up to their faces.

Finally one woman asked me how come it didn’t stink. I said, “I don’t know, they just come out like that. I try not to let them get too funky while I’m working on them.”

More talking… Then she turns back and says, “What do you grease your hides with?” I said, “Deer brains”. Which started a whole new round of conversation that I couldn’t understand and more sniffing.

Finally she turns back to me and says we use fish oil. If we don’t smoke them after, they stink really bad. We can’t make white buckskins that don’t stink.

They had never even heard of using brains. She asked me how many brains it took. I said, “Two or three would easily do a hide and maybe two hides.” She was amazed.
They sun rendered the salmon heads to get oil for tanning hides. They live in the upper Fraser river area and net huge numbers of salmon each year. I asked how many salmon heads it took to get enough oil. She said probably 75 heads would make enough oil to tan a moose hide. They went and got one of their moose hides for me to look at and it was very nice. Smoked dark so that was the only smell lit had.