Forming Community

Jessica started a thread the other day about “Our Desired Way Of Life” that really got me considering this issue even more than I usually do (which is saying a lot because this is a topic that occupies much of my thought.) One of the things it caused me to realize is just how alone I feel. I’m betting a fair number of people on this site feel the same way. Yes, I have friends and family, but in my case none, not a single one, shares my enthusiasm (zeal you might even say) for rewilding and bringing down civilization (two concepts which I feel are distinct yet intertwined.) And that is why I feel alone because I feel that I know no one who I feel I could trust with my life. To me a real community would include at least a few people I would know I could trust with my life, and they could trust me with theirs. And, to be honest, I feel that in today’s civilized world, with the intense distrust and hatred of the wild and natural as prevalent as it is, we could all use at least a few friends we trust with our lives. This site is about the closest thing I’ve got to that these days. As the insanity of domestication and civilization grows (or maybe just my awareness of it) seemingly daily, this site has been a much needed reality check. Your words and your virtual friendships have meant surprisingly much to me. Even though I haven’t posted much myself, I’ve been reading the posts daily for months.

Here’s the thing. In contemplating my desired way of life, I realized that I feel alone, cut off from real friends and community. But what am I going to do about it? I’m wondering, are there others who feel the same way as me who are hoping and waiting to meet others to form a real world community? Note that I’m not saying that I am wanting to abandon this virtual community. Rather, I’m just wondering if this virtual community might be a place where some of us can meet to form community in the real world as well, in addition.

In many ways I live a blessed life. Gratefully I have the ability to make changes such as relocating. Are there others who are similarly willing and able to take real steps to form community where you know you have people around you who you can trust with your life? Here’s what I want. I want to live simply and as primitively as possible, I want to have community of like-minded people to do this with (note that community could be just a few people, at least to start,) and I want to have people (or at least one person) who I can trust with my life, people I can collaborate with to actively defend the wild, to actively halt the destruction of civilization, to halt its encroachment on the wild.

I recall a thread from a few weeks ago where Urban Scout made a comment about people who visit this site and make comments to the effect of “while you are all talking the talk I’m going to go walk the walk.” Urban Scout didn’t seem to have a favorable opinion of those comments. I know I run the risk of sounding like one of those people with this thread. That really isn’t my intent, though. I want to be clear. What I’m saying is not that I want to abandon my virtual community because I think I can do better. I’d just like to know if there are others in this virtual community who, like me, would like to form a real-world community as well.

I’d also like to recognize the efforts of Incendiary Dan for his community-building efforts in the New England area. I hope that those events continue, and I’m looking forward to some of the outdoors events/hikes/etc. What this thread is about, though, is to find out if there are others who want to join together in forging a community outside of the constructs of civilization.

I have no idea what sorts of responses I’ll get to this, nor do I know if anyone will respond. The only other thing I’ll say is that I’m quite serious and willing. And, I’m certainly not going to project any sort of artificial timeline or requirements on how this community might evolve. I don’t know where it might be or who it might be or any of that. And, please feel free to reply to this thread in any way you want. You can reply directly to what I’ve said, or you can advertise your own community building efforts or plans. Makes no difference to me. I’d really just like to get a conversation started about this. I feel that surely I can’t be the only one feeling this way.

I feel you. This is why I started Rewild.info; to leverage the internet to help create local communities of rewilding. I’ve tried to stress this as much as possible, but most people have yet to pick it up. The thing is, most people I don’t think understand how to attract people to an event. I’ve even written a post about this, and people still don’t quite get it. I’m working on generating a better post of exactly how to leverage the internet for some good in creating a local community of rewilding. In fact, this whole site is about to shift gears majorly in that fashion. Look forward to some serious changes in the future, geared to that end. My problem with those people was because they were running away to the wilderness and trying to create something 100% primitive, which is impossible and they will learn the hard way. To build a community of rewilding we must reach out to our family and friends and strangers alike. We need to create a new economy that interfaces with the civilized economy for the time being. We must create cultures that can interface with civilization because at some point people will abandon civilization, and if we are interfaced with them, we can leverage their crumbling systems for the benefit of rewilding; i.e. rewilding laws, city/state/federal funding going into tearing up streets to replant, etc. The problem with collapse is that if people don’t have another story to be in, they’ll try to repeat the story they have. So I spend most of my time trying to create a story that can interface with the civilized economy rather than walk away entirely.

I feel that way as well! In fact, your whole post mirrors my thoughts. I’d like to ask, do you have a landbase you feel a connection to? Or would you say you still are searching for a place where you would like to “root”? I just had the thought that this represents one of the main determining factors for myself in joining with others to create a rewilding community - my connection to the land in a certain area.

Scout, you guessed it right - I still haven’t yet figured out how to make my dreams of a community a reality. In fact, it feels like blindly groping my way across a chasm in the dark. This forum helps me more than anything in this regard.

I do see the need to maintain a balance, an interface, between the rewilding community and modern society. I have to admit, though, that I have more selfish reasons driving me than creating an alternative story for others (currently non-rewilding people) to look to during/after the collapse - although I like that goal a lot. Personally, my current unhappiness/intolerance with living a modern way of life, alone and isolated from other rewilding people, constitutes my primary motivation for creating a rewilding community to live with.

While I don’t want to run away into the wilderness 100%, I feel that psychologically I need to run away a certain extent. As an analogy, if my body could escape the trap, I would feel happy to keep a hand in it. But the thought of my body staying trapped with only my hand sticking out, fills me with panic.

I also liken it to establishing roots. Currently, like just about everyone else trapped in civilization, I do not have any roots to the land or a community (and I never have, really). I feel the pain of uprootedness intensely, and the desire to have roots goes really deep, underlying all my efforts at rewilding. Once I have established those roots, living in a rewilding community in a relationship with the land, then I feel I could actually accomplish positive things in civilized society.

But back to the discussion about making connections with people, I had the idea to put up a flyer on the local bulletin boards in town (I live in a rural area with a small population), putting a shout out for anyone who would like to get together with others to practice primitive/nature skills (like identifying plants, tracking, etc). I have virtually no such skills, but I want to learn - I just don’t want to learn them & practice them alone. In addition to my selfish reasons, I thought it might make a good opportunity to get to know others around me with similar interests.

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice to share about this? I would appreciate any input. Also, Scout, could you tell me which post you referred to, about attracting people to an event? I’d like to read everything you have to share.

Thanks!

Same here, no community of likeminded, no community of rewilders. And I’m really no good at reaching out to people either. Nonetheless, I’ll do what I can. I just have no idea how the hell to do that. I’ve thought, a bit like you bereal, to organize activities such as for example: traditional archery, drumming, learning about plants, and animals, and so on. But before I do that, I feel I must know how I can adress rewilding with people who are seemingly light years from it. I’m not even sure it’s possible. I don’t know. Perhaps some of you have more experience in adressing these things with ‘non-initiates’, ha!

I’m not completely alone cause I can talk about everything with my partner/wife, and my nine year old son is open to all this. Although, I hate to see the constant onslaughts of this zombivilization on my son and feel almost powerless. There’s no community for him. I can’t replace a sane community just by myself. And there is another rewilder I know - so far only thru internet and phone - but he lives about three hours from here so…

It’s a good thing I’m pretty much immune to despair and depression now cause it’d be hell. I mean, I still get my darker moments when - like now - I have no fuckin clue as to what to do next. And even if I did, I’m not even sure I’d be able to do it. And I am so close to despair that I can feel it. But giving up wouldn’t help my son nor any of the countless wild, factory farm, and vivisection lab animals, trees, lakes, and so on who can’t really fight back. I can’t let them down. That’s probably the only reason I’m still here. So, I GROWL - litteraly sometimes, ha! - and keep looking for the ennemies’ weaknesses so I can rip them to pieces, so we can shred them. And I try to turn my hot rage into a cold calculating one, and also use all this energy to help put together those tribes, communities of true humans we need so much.

Urban Scout, I think that your future post on, ‘attracting people to an event’, and ‘creating a local community’ will be a very good thing.

It’s so funny for me to be in a position where I must reach out, find people, and so on because I am naturally, much more of a loner than anything else. I’m really not very sociable. I don’t have much conversation or anything like that. Not a party animal, ha! Just plain animal. I mean I love wolves, wolf packs, and so on, but I’ve always felt more like the lone panther, lone wolf. And I still do. But nonetheless, I know, with certainty, that we need to find the likeminded, find those we have affinity with, and organize and all.

I hope I didn’t bring anyone down with this.

As much as it’s always a bit morose to read things like this, because people are bemoaning how hard it is to get the communities together (I usually whine and moan quite a bit), I’m always a bit happy. Why? Because other people are just as desperate for community as I am! When we can all agree we crave this sort of community, that we need this sort of connection with each other, I know we’ll get it together.

And hey, if you have any ideas for events, make sure to post them on Yahoo! (and here?). Even small stuff you feel like throwing together. I’m trying to get some neat spring foraging stuff together. Every time we get together will strengthen the community. I think this is especially true where food is involved, whether eating it or gathering it.

Oh, I’m also working on few ideas for propaganda advertising to post up around the area. Tonight I hope to finally finish that rewilding feminism poster thing I started awhile ago. I’ve found, generally, that success increases a bit if you have catchy and clever advertising.

Thank you to everyone for all of the thoughtful responses thus far. I have a few comments to make, mostly for clarification of my own thoughts/desires. I want to be clear that I really appreciate what everyone has contributed thus far. My responses are just my responses, just my own opinions and ideas, and I don’t necessarily believe they are universally true. I invite any differing perspectives.

Urban Scout, thank you. I am looking forward to seeing the new direction for the site. You have done a great deal to form the beginnings of a cohesive rewilding culture among the domesticated, and I am always interested in hearing what insights you have. I would like to clarify something I believe in response to something you said. If I misunderstood then forgive me, but it seemed that you were stating that your opinion is that the most important thing that you can do is to act as a bridge, an emissary to a rewilding culture, forming a “new economy” that helps people within domestication to transition to rewilding. I think that is wonderful. I fully support that. I would also like to point out that in my opinion we each have unique gifts, talents, interests, and abilities, and that the transition to a truly sustainable and natural way of life will need all of those abilities (and interests and talents and gifts.) I think that the emissaries are important. So too are the permaculturists who dedicate their lives to re-establishing natural eco-systems are quickly as possible. So too are the shamans. So too are the hunters. So too are the warriors. Etc. We each have a calling. I recall from Endgame where Derrick describes how the Cheyenne had different clans, each attending to different important aspects of the health of the community. Without that diversity we lose much.

Derrick also says something in Endgame that strikes me as very true. He makes the point that the perspective within a culture that is itself part of the natural world is very different from the perspective from within civilization. Though some among us may have primitive skills, though some may be more attuned to the natural world, few (or perhaps none) of us are more fully part of the natural world than we are the civilized world. I think that it is important for some of us (and again, I’m not saying that this should be true for all of us) need to be more fully in the uncivilized mode if that is our calling. We can only know for ourselves what is right.

I also want to clarify something in response to the notion of a post-crash society. I imagine that most people participating in this online community are hopeful that civilization will crash and soon. I have that hope. But hope isn’t enough for me personally any more. I see far too much destruction. I have to consider the lives of my cousins the trees, the fungi, the birds, the rivers. They have always been speaking to me, but only recently have I had ears to hear. I’m reminded of the Roald Dahl story in which the boy invents a machine that allows him to hear the trees, and he can hear them screaming in pain when he hurts them. I know most of us feel this way. We hear the screams of our cousins. For me I have recently resolved that waiting for a crash doesn’t make sense, personally. I feel called to take deliberate action to hasten the fall of civilization in order to try and protect as much of the natural world as I can. And this is a big part of my desire for community…community that consists of at least a few people I know I can trust with my life.

There’s more, though. For myself I feel as though the glitter of civilization has worn off entirely. No matter how much I shine and polish all I get are shinier prison bars. We all know this. We participate in this online community because we know that civilization is prison. Worse. It is a machine that enslaves us. But for me personally, I just cannot continue living as a slave. It is killing me. Worse. I am undead. I walk and talk, but my spirit is dead. I need to revive my spirit, and I feel I have exhausted everything civilization has to offer. No amount of power or fame or so-called wealth or comforts will satisfy this desire for life. I want to be clear here. I’m not looking merely to escape. I’m not looking to go run into the woods and live as a hermit. I want community in order to rediscover what it means to be truly a wild human. And I’m not shunning interfacing with civilization. I’m just saying that I feel a calling to heal, both myself and my relationship with the natural world. And I feel a calling to act on the behalf of my cousins, on behalf of the land after having listened carefully to their requests. I also believe that if and when the infrastructure of civilization collapses then established and healthy wild communities will be essential to survival for many, and I see forming such a community as a good thing.

Jessica, your questions are good ones. I would have to say that at this point the land itself speaks to me wherever I go. Though, to be honest, as I said previously, I feel the need to heal from domestication, and frankly (and I’m not proud to admit this) there are some places where the land has been too decimated. Although those are places where the land perhaps needs the most help, those are also the places where I feel least able to heal. Therefore, I do feel most connected to places with some trees still standing, places where not everything has been paved over, places not covered in toxic chemicals. I can tell you of a few of the places that have really spoken to me. The Blue Ridge Mountains. The Green Mountains. Western Colorado. Kings Canyon/Sequoia. I guess it would seem I have an affinity with mountainous regions. :stuck_out_tongue: I’ve never been to the Pacific Northwest, though, and I imagine it is a magical place. To answer your second question, though, I do feel that the land welcomes friends wherever they may be (though I think it wise to root oneself somewhere with water, etc. instead of the desert.) Sadly, what seems far more difficult to find these days is real human community. I personally feel I would be willing to consider relocating for the right human community. Obviously there are other factors to consider. I suppose if the right human community was in the middle of Death Valley I might have serious concerns about that.

Misko, your comments about the onslaught of civilization on your child reinforces my conviction that stepping outside of civilization is a good thing. Thank you.

Dan, I’m looking forward to the spring foraging event(s).

Again, thank you for all the great responses.

I just moved to a new place and after a little while, my friend and I got to feeling like we needed to meet new people. We have no ideas how to do this – meet like-hearted people in this new area. Traditional 21st century civilized avenues – bars, clubs, etc. – don’t really offer up the space for the kind of people we’d like to meet in the way we’d like to meet them. I feel we’re in a similar boat with many like-hearted people. We don’t have much in the way of “skills,” but we have desire for togetherness of a local community. If a whole bunch of people feel the same way but don’t have the technics to bring it to reality, why not just meet anyway? Why not a “rewilding” gathering without any primitive skills, but just a circle and some open talking. Maybe just post flyers around town with a time and place, advertising not necessarily “rewilding” per se, as the term has yet to come into common parlance, but seeking adventurers, anarchists, back-to-nature types, gardeners, dreamers, and the like. Maybe the poster goes something like this:


Do you dream of…
living in a community of people who respect and care for you?
getting “back to nature”?
living simply?
gardening with others?
eating wholesome food?
a world without governments and boundaries?
a world where you can look up at the night sky and see the milky way?
meeting like-hearted people who tire of the ways things are and wish for a different way of living?
going radically against the grain?

Then come to … at this time… or call ### for more information. Not a cult. Not a religious organization. Just some people looking for like-hearted people to dream and discuss things together.


Who knows, maybe it’d hook some folks and it could go somewhere…

I’ve tacked up a handful of fliers that were similar in message to that. I got some response, but mostly just from people I approached myself. The key, I’ve found, is just to hit places where you think sympathetic people tend to go. Also, alter the message depending on the audience. I’m getting quite good at, when describing rewilding, being able to focus on the aspect(s) that my particular audience will respond the best to (like when talking to elderly conservatives, mentioning self-reliance and family values).

Feralphilosopher, I feel you. It’s like your speaking to my heart and soul.

Best of wishes, Roy.

Thanks, Roy. It’s too bad we’re on opposite sides of an ocean or we could join forces.

It definitely is hard (for me anyway), at this time, because there are, we are seemingly so few…but!, who the hell’s gonna do what needs to be done if not us. By us, of course I mean those who deeply feel the need for tribes/extended families/bands/communities to emerge.

We seem to be scattered all over the planet. I’m feeling and thinking that there are probably very good reasons for this. It would be great to be together, all of us who know what the fuck is really going on…but then, there are so few like us in the world right now that if we “physically” concentrated in the same area, on the same land, how long, if ever, would it take for other such people to emerge in each of our present landbases…

I have this feeling that we have now reached a “stage” where there are more people who are “ready”, who at the very least will feel that there is something to this.

I feel it is possible to reach some people. Perhaps It’s just a matter of how.

Me, I’m in the process of…well…processing :slight_smile: the various ideas, experiences, tips that have been shared on this very thread for building community, how to attract people to events, meet-ups, and all. It’s all helpful, thanks alot everyone!

Me too! I feel excited about the upcoming rebirth of this site, for exactly this reason. We all want, NEED, the same thing: a rewilding community, a tribe to belong to. Now we all need to figure out how to make that happen!

Misko, you said before you wondered how best to explain rewilding to people you meet. It helps me to think of it not as convincing or converting, but just putting it out there, to find and connect with whoever may be traveling down the same (rewilding) path.

I do that just by acting true to myself, expressing my own path of rewilding. Many won’t really get it - oh, well - but the occasional person will. And I trust spirit and my intuition (following my path) to lead me to the people I need to connect with.

However, I still need to create the opportunities for those connections to happen. In order to find what I need to find on my journey, I have to begin to travel! But once I do that, I’ve found that things just start to fall into place on their own. Synchronicities. :smiley:

We can join forces no matter physical location bro;)

Yeah seems like our kind is bubbeling out of the Logos everywhere, and since I don’t belive in coincidences this makes me smile:-)

Its been like three or four years since I thought of rewilding and I still have only my brother and a couple of increasingly occupied with jobs, etc friends who I consider family. Its hard to find people! Even those with similar views might not want to see you as the same tribe/family/etc. :-\