Foundational Visions

When it comes to laying out a vision for rewilding in our own communities I’ve found a few visions inspiring.

This one is by Jon Young and Wilderness Awareness School*:

Our vision is to reach out with our teachings until there's a related nature awareness school in every region, a mentor in every neighborhood, a naturalist in every family and compassion for each other and the earth in every heart.

This is one is by The College of Mythic Cartography in an essay titled: Breaking the Spell IV: The Village Philosopher*:

I read a book not too long ago called the Village Herbalist, which advocated the renewal of old traditions of herbalism, having an herbalist in each home who could deal with day-to-day needs, one in each village who could deal with the rarer and more acute medical needs, and one in each region who dealt with the most rare and most subtle of medical dilemmas. None of the different herbalists had more “expertise” than another, they in fact simply had different needs that they served.

I’d like to encourage the same with animist inquiry. We have to relearn how to think, relearn how to observe. We have to rewild our philosophies. We have to take back authority over our bodyminds away from our domineering culture, in order that we can build lives (and a new culture) that actually works well for us. A Village Philosopher could act as a cheerleader, an inspiration for such a difficult and (let’s face it) intimidating act. Sometimes people just need a role-model to accelerate positive change in their own lives.

In the next post, I’d like to talk about an underdeveloped skill, in modern days, that a village philosopher would need to revive.

And of course the vision The New Tribal Revolution* that was layed out by Daniel Quinn in My Ishmael:

1. The revolution won't take place all at once. It's not going to be any sort of coup d'état like the French or Russian revolutions.
  1. It will be achieved incrementally, by people working off each other’s ideas. This is the great driving innovation of the Industrial Revolution.

  2. It will be led by no one. Like the Industrial Revolution, it will need no shepherd, no organizer, no spearhead, no pacesetter, no mastermind at the top; it will be too much for anyone to lead.

  3. It will not be the initiative of any political, governmental, or religious body - again, like the Industrial Revolution. Some will doubtless want to claim to be its supporters and protectors; there are always leaders ready to step forward once others have shown the way.

  4. It has no targeted end point. Why should it have an end point?

  5. It will proceed according to no plan. How on earth could there be a plan?

  6. It will reward those who further the revolution with the coin of the revolution. In the Industrial Revolution, those who contributed much in the way of product wealth received much in the way of product wealth; in the New Tribal Revolution, those who contribute much in the way of support will receive much in the way of support.

*1.http://www.wildernessawareness.org/about_wilderness_awareness_school.html

*2. http://www.mythic-cartography.org/2007/03/07/breaking-the-spell-iv-the-village-philosopher/

*3. http://appalachian.pbwiki.com/New%20Tribal%20Revolution

Take care,

Curt

When it comes to rewilding in your own communities are there any that you find inspiring?

Curt

Just do it.
Snowflower

Haha. Hey Snowflower, did you get that from my blog entitled Just Do It?

The Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy represents to me some of the most inspirational ideas for change.

Though saddled by an “elected” tribal government, the 6 Nation Confederacy continues to run the traditional government, in an unbroken line for the last thousand years.

The oldest continuing democracy on the planet.

The more we can learn from them, the better. Wilderness Awareness School bases some of their programs on the peace principles.

www.treeofpeace.org
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/index.html
www.sixnations.org

interview with Oren Lyons, iroquois extraordinaire – http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/OL070391.html

whoah…look at the trippy website i just found: http://www.indigenouspeople.net/

Looks interesting, Willem.

You know, WordPress won’t let me sign on with the password and username you gave me. I’m really beginning to hate WordPress.

Curt

Sigh. Tell me about it. Let me see what i can do.

When it comes to rewilding in [sup]your own communities are there any that you find inspiring?[/sup]

Yeah. I like to watch animals in their natural environment. They don’t need to rewild.

A vingette, from a book I recently reread for the first time since age 9 - Elo the Eagle and Other Stories, by Floyd Baker

... There was a crow roost in the white oak timber a few miles from the eagles' nest, and one day a troop of marauding crows discovered the old eagle perched in the top of a tree. Emboldened by their numbers, they began flying around him, to his great disgust, cawing and picking at him. It so happened that my father was in the woods near by, and hearing the din made by the crows, crept up and watched the following take place. He says that as the eagle bore their ill-chosen attentions in solemn silence, they grew bolder and yet bolder and some even ventured to alight near him. Finally he made one swift move, and caught a crow which had ventured too near. Then, holding his prisoner fast in his talons, he deliberately plucked it, feather by feather, the terrified bird squalling meanwhile at the top of its voice. This proceeding lasted for probably an hour, and the crows flocked to the roost by hundreds, cawing and flying angrily about, till the woods was [sic] hideous with their cries, but he paid not the slightest attention to them. When his victim had not so much as a feather left, Elo let him free; then, stretching up to his full height, deliberately spread his wings, paused a moment, and flew away in utter contempt of his whilom tormentors, not one of which dared follow him. The cowards did, however, set upon the naked, helpless victim and peck it to death.

Quite the terrifying scene. An act of grim grisly violence, one might even call it torture, perpetrated by a magnificent and sovereign creature - a golden eagle wihch lived ~75 years and sported a wingspan of over 8 feet.

What could we learn from this? If one fosters a certain kind of awareness they can find lessons everywhere - and how better* to find inspiration for coaxing our conciousness back to the majestic realms of the wild ways than by steeping our senses in wild things?

Look around. There’s a school waiting for you - it’s easy to find, it never shuts up, and it’s totally free!

  • [after thinking about this, i cannot think of any other way - not sure why i wrote how better… hope i dinna bore you with something so plain and obvious]

Christ. Thanks for sharing that excerpt, stricken. Whoah. That’ll stick in my head for a while.

& thank you.

everyone here from now on can just know that i’m thankful for every typed word.

Yeah, what a great excerpt. Holy shit… big fucking eagles. What a site that would have been!

Holy shit... big fucking eagles.

Yeah… back before eagles were only eagle sized. Them was the days.