Our Desired Way of Life

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance
#1

Hello everyone, I thought I’d start a new thread, taking the direction of this section of the forum more along the lines of its new name, the Rewild Frontier. Specifically, I would like to ask everyone to share your personal vision for the ideal lifestyle you would like to live. Like, what would happen in a typical day in the life that you’d most like to live - whether you already live it, or are working on achieving it.

This exactly represents the puzzle that my rewilding journey pieces together. So far I have only figured out bits and pieces of it, so I can’t currently give a good description of how I would like to live in a rewilding community.

Of course, everyone else in the community, along with the land itself, would determine most of how the community lives as a whole - whether it tends towards hunting & gathering or gardening & permaculture, or blends both. And since I do not belong to any rewilding community just yet, I’ll have to wait and see what happens. I personally feel far more interested in hunting/gathering/tending the forest than gardening/permaculture, although I support anything that also supports the wider community.

I recently had a revelation about one thing that I would LOVE to do, and devote a big part of my life to. Basically, I would trek through and get to know all the land around my home. I would go as far as I desired to, and as far as I could without entering “civilization” or other people’s homes (although I certainly wouldn’t respect “private property” in general - f*ck that). So, this would require living in a forest large enough and “unowned” enough to travel freely.

On my travels I would gather, hunt, and tend the forest (once I learn how :-[ ;D), developing a relationship with those I gathered and hunted and all who lived on the land, along with the land itself.

Along with whatever friends cared to join me, we would also patrol the land where we lived, keeping an eye out for any destructive human activities harming the forest, like logging and land clearing, and doing whatever possible to defend the land.

Aside from that, I think I’d spend my time sharing projects or household tasks with others, socializing, and sleeping & journeying inward (more things I love to do). I can’t see the specifics any more clearly than that right now, though.

So… now share your desired way of life! (Please ;))

Jessica

#2

The life I hope to create for myself, my family, and my friends, will probably look a lot like some sort of Transition Town type thing, though likely small. It would be preferable to someday build a small village of a few dozen people, constructing buildings from earthbag and similar types of building methods. Nothing fancy, just some nice warm buildings with earthen walls and turf roofs, and enough space to gather inside during our harsh New England winters. Maybe single family huts/cabins, maybe something like three or four family longhouses. The point will be intelligent designs that will be appropriate to New England weather and won’t require too many unnatural materials (hopefully just some polypropylene bags for the walls and roofs, maybe something like plexiglass for windows).

I plan to make use of as many subsistence techniques as I can. Depending on various peoples’ affinities, I hope to incorporate horticulture, permaculture, foraging, trapping, fishing, and hunting all into some sort of cohesive system, obviously dictated by the seasons.

I garden, as do a few of my friends, so I expect at least some level of horticulture will be practiced. Probably a lot of it. We’ve been working lately on learning more about companion planting to both increase yields and keep the soil ecosystems healthy. Hopefully we can grow a wide enough variety of things, like the Three Sisters, various fruits and vegetables, sunflowers, and if we can get some seeds for it, hemp. Composting and humanure will also play a part in this.

Forest and orchard tending will be practiced as much as possible too, especially encouraging fruit and nut bearing trees and bushes. I’ve already had some minor success planting cuttings from wild blueberries, wild grapes grow regularly, and autumn-olives are found in big groups in lots of disturbed areas around here. To increase the foraging in the future, some of us are planning to start spreading wildflower seeds now.

Part of my plans, as it’s probably become apparent, depends on settling in a good area. Luckily, there’s a handful of good areas around here. One of the requirements I hope to meet, on top of being close to a decent sized forest and areas with fruit (which we’ll encourage ourselves), is to be near a decent body of fresh water. I learned years ago how to set up a good weir and fish traps, and hope to get the chance to test them in fish-rich waters. This trapping, combined with game trapping on land, will probably provide much of the tribe’s meat, supplemented by hunting (likely with guns, though maybe with bows more as time goes on).

If the spot ends up being close to the shore (within a couple days walk or ride on bike), many of the beaches in this region are rich in shellfish, like the iconic Quahog of RI and tons of mussels. Seems worth a summer trip to come gather a ton and smoke them.

Aside from these things, we’ll likely rig up some simple machines from old car and bike parts, like a windmill or three for pumping water and grinding acorns and such. As you can see, I don’t plan to do the typical primitive thing, or at least not as most people would envision it. I have no issues using/recycling the wastes of civilization and industrial economy, so long as I can use them for reinforcing a healthy culture and healthy ecosystem.

If anyone sees any holes there, feel free to poke them. ;D

#3

I wanna be in close relation with my tribe and surroundings. I want to end a story and live a new creation myth. I want to hear the animals speak, the sky scream and the earth dream. I want to hear silence. I want to play amongst the healing land. I want to die in the presence of my loved ones, and i want to witness birth of new live in my tribe.

#4

My vision is very similar to Dan’s.

Though, I don’t have any plans or anything concrete like that. The first thing that comes to mind when someone asks me is just a community. Something of just a subsistence level. No working for money to buy the things you need, you just go out into your landbase and grab what you need. Or the things that will enable you to get what you need.

Simplicity. Freedom. Just notions like that are what come to my mind. Don’t know what they are, but I’d know if it I saw it.

#5

[quote=“A pipe for peace, post:4, topic:1346”]My vision is very similar to Dan’s.

Though, I don’t have any plans or anything concrete like that. The first thing that comes to mind when someone asks me is just a community. Something of just a subsistence level. No working for money to buy the things you need, you just go out into your landbase and grab what you need. Or the things that will enable you to get what you need.

Simplicity. Freedom. Just notions like that are what come to my mind. Don’t know what they are, but I’d know if it I saw it.[/quote]

this

#6

I read the original post for this thread just minutes after it was written, and I thought to myself that I wanted to reply. But the funny thing is that while I have a strong feeling in my heart for what I want, putting that into words has proven challenging. This is not typically a challenge I have. I am usually good at translating my feelings and wants and visions to words. But I think that this difficulty has only shown me the many ways in which I still haven’t really committed to my own vision, to the truth I know in my heart. There is still subtle avoidance based on fear of change. With that said, here is my best attempt as of now.

My vision is one in which I live naturally, integrated into the whole as are all others on this earth. To me that requires, more than anything else, a fundamental shift in self-concept, away from creator and master, as has been taught to me and many of us for as long as we can remember. I used to dream of living in an “eco-house”. But many of my dreams of those days have since been shattered. Many of those dreams still required that I fundamentally view myself as apart from and master of nature. I have since seen how foolish that view is. Together with this shift in self-concept I see myself living closely with a tribe of fellow humans, close to the earth, giving as much as we take. It is difficult to know exactly what that looks like until actually taking the steps and living that life since much of the specifics are determined by circumstance and situation. For example, will we live in tipi-like structures or wikiups or something entirely different? I don’t know. But I do know that for my vision it is important that we listen to the land where we live and do what is right for the land. Unless and until civilization crashes thoroughly in North America it seems likely that we would be more or less confined to a particular plot of land, which would probably dictate certain aspects of lifestyle. For example, it would probably make us more apt to practice horticulture and raise animals than to live a purely hunter-gatherer lifestyle. However, I would hope that our stories and myths would pass along wisdom to future generations to live always as the land would wish to the best of their abilities given the circumstances in which they live. That’s my vision as best I can put it in words at the moment.

#7

[quote=“feralphilosopher, post:6, topic:1346”]I read the original post for this thread just minutes after it was written, and I thought to myself that I wanted to reply. But the funny thing is that while I have a strong feeling in my heart for what I want, putting that into words has proven challenging. This is not typically a challenge I have. I am usually good at translating my feelings and wants and visions to words. But I think that this difficulty has only shown me the many ways in which I still haven’t really committed to my own vision, to the truth I know in my heart. There is still subtle avoidance based on fear of change. With that said, here is my best attempt as of now.

My vision is one in which I live naturally, integrated into the whole as are all others on this earth. To me that requires, more than anything else, a fundamental shift in self-concept, away from creator and master, as has been taught to me and many of us for as long as we can remember. I used to dream of living in an “eco-house”. But many of my dreams of those days have since been shattered. Many of those dreams still required that I fundamentally view myself as apart from and master of nature. I have since seen how foolish that view is. Together with this shift in self-concept I see myself living closely with a tribe of fellow humans, close to the earth, giving as much as we take. It is difficult to know exactly what that looks like until actually taking the steps and living that life since much of the specifics are determined by circumstance and situation. For example, will we live in tipi-like structures or wikiups or something entirely different? I don’t know. But I do know that for my vision it is important that we listen to the land where we live and do what is right for the land. Unless and until civilization crashes thoroughly in North America it seems likely that we would be more or less confined to a particular plot of land, which would probably dictate certain aspects of lifestyle. For example, it would probably make us more apt to practice horticulture and raise animals than to live a purely hunter-gatherer lifestyle. However, I would hope that our stories and myths would pass along wisdom to future generations to live always as the land would wish to the best of their abilities given the circumstances in which they live. That’s my vision as best I can put it in words at the moment.[/quote]
Wow. Minus the phase of wanting to live-a-“green”-lifestyle-but-still-master-over-nature thing, this is exactly what ai might have written.

#8

I would ideally live in a small, non heirarchical community/village of people dedicated to communicating openly and working through conflict gracefully. What i mean by small I am not quite sure - from experience i think that a group of less than 10 is likely too small to meet the social needs of alot of the people involved… a full spectrum of ages would be nice, too.
there would either be one large communal space and many smaller dwellings where people could have their own space, or, more likely, one large longhouse with seperate rooms within for people’s personal space. I say this because without gas or chainsaws (to cut firewood fast) I dont think everyone heating their own structures would be too feasable. buildings would mostly be made of cedar planks, logs, or scavenged materials. This community would support and be supported by other rewilding communities nearby.
As far as subsistence, i think hunting and gathering is funnest, and makes sense, but have seen how fast a few people can eat a deer if that is the majority of their diet… i’d be into gardening lots of roots, nuts, greens, and apples for the deer!! but mostly somewhat feral plant gardens that do not require watering digging etc. Daily fare might range from slugs, mice, and cattail in lean times to deer pemmican, dried salmon, oysters, bear grease, hazelnuts, jerusalem artichokes and fermented vegetables and a bazillion other plants/animals/insects. Clothing would be from deerskins and cedar, for the most part.
O, and we would do this all on land that either someone gave to us, had given us permission to live on, or had been forgotten by it’s “owners”.
Of primary importance would be the ability of everyone to work through conflicts within the group.
And, of course, we would live by a river.

#9

This is a great topic and I feel the urge to reply, though I still have not read all the 30 articles as I was told to in my membership agreement :wink:

What I noticed in my life is that my visions are shifting, so I think this will also be true in the future. For that, any vision I can put up is a temporary one and more importantly, I think I need to incorporate that flexibility into it.

So the basics I currently desire are these: A community of up to 50 people living close together in a clan/tribe. A landbase that is as natural as possible in an area that is not too close to civilization, ideally next to a nature reserve or protected forest. Forest areas, some grassland and a river or creek, possibly hilly terrain. Houses built from natural materials. Maybe community houses (Longhouses or a Star house concept I started to develop) as places to spend time with each other or as living houses to conserve energy. Self sufficiency as far as possible. Main food sources would be fishing (partly in ponds that are created) permaculture gardening, small scale, easy to keep animals (chicken and sheep) and hunting. I envision a development - from still using a number of technologies like medical equipment, a little of solar/hydroelectricity, internet access, scavenged glass and metal for food dryers and a little greenhouse, some means of transportation (a simple truck or a ultralight plane) for emergencies and trade (hopefully with other communities like ours) - towards an increasing independence on these means. Maybe experiment on this by formation of temporary camps away from the village. The background of this development is to become more independent by learning new ways as time goes by and the situation within civilization gets worse with possibilities to trade diminishing and be able to make a shift towards completely sustainably living in a more distant future.
I want to be close to the people and live in a non hierarchical group that respects the individual and the individual respects the group. I want to care about fellow people if they are ill and be cared for if I fall ill or grow old. If I die, I want to die in a natural setting with people around me. I want to see kids grow up in the middle of this, learning the new ways from the beginning as we never can, keeping the message, the rememberance on what dread the developments have brought so they do not repeat this insanity.
That is my personal vision. If I can make it work and find enough people who share this vision I dont know. I met some people online and we are planning and researching, it is my hope that this will be a start into realizing it. Also sadly we have only begun to elucidate where we could find such a landbase or how it should be payed for and how to make sure the government, immigration and tax office do not interfere too much.

Greetings
Aurora

#10

I wanna live well, in a natural lifestyle. I don’t want to wage-slave the rest of my life away. I want to pick up, go to a new place if I feel fit, set down. I want my community to come with me. I want to get everything I need off the land.

I want to learn to brew my own beer so that when I hunker down for the winter I don’t have to go without celebration. I don’t want to be bored carving bones and weaving baskets and tillering bows for four months straight. That stuff is fun, but four months of it?

I want to trust that if my kids are off playing in the woods they’ll come home if they see signs of predators, but I won’t have to worry about them getting themselves stuffed into the back of a van by a predator of a different type.

I want to be able to run until I’m too old. I want to be able to grab some jerky and gnaw on it when I’m hungry until my teeth fall out. I want to be able to dip my hand into a stream if I’m thirsty.

I want to sleep in when I feel like it. I want to go to bed early if I feel like it. I want to grab my pole, some bait, and go fishing at the drop of a hat - any hat.

I want to eat well and sleep well and love well and smile well.

Basically, I want to experience what it is to be human and throw off what it is to be a robot.

#11

I’m glad Geo brought this back up and to life. I’m willing to share a typical day in the perfect life. This typical day is geared twoards winter. Some things may change with the seasons.

I would wake up as the sky becomes light. My wife would be curled up next me in our warm bed. I would kiss her on the forehead before carefully gettign out of bed so not wo wake her. Then I would cuss slightly about the cold floor as I go an stir up the coals in the rocket stove mass heater. The cob would still be warm but I also would know that my wife likes our little home warmer when she gets up. Plus I would use that to make breakfast. Some stored vegetables and meat. Probably some of the left over bread my wife made the day before.

The smell of cooking breakfast, would likely wake our children up, and they would come in and we would eat breakfast together, then bundle up and go outside for morning chores/play. Knowing the friends that I have and who would come with us up in the mountains where I would be living, there would likely be a HUGE snowman in the middle of our compound. (My wife would correct me and tell me it’s an estate not compound but she’s still asleep) I would put our littlest one on the snowman’s head and she would jump down for me to catch her. We would throw snowballs at the snow man until we tired of that.

Then we would go exploring with our bows or firearms. Gathering edibles that are available, tracking animals, studying their movements, and of course checking our trap lines. We would study the little birds, rodents, and other animals and plants and see how one affects the other, and how we fit into the large whole that is nature.

Finally, we would finish this and return to our little compound. Where I would see that my wife is awake then it would magically turn to an estate. She would be preparing lunch with some of our other community members, and wondering how our snowman developed boils. (Remember we had just pelted it with snowballs that morning.) She would give me a welcome home hug and our friends would gather together to compare hauls. The wild edibles would be added to lunch and dinner plans. Any extra would be prepared for storage. The animals we caught would be gutted, skinned and the meat would be eaten for lunch or dinner or prepared for storage.

Lunch would be a community affair. With telling stories. (Some might even be accurate, but most are likely to be exaggerated at least.) We might discuss some issues that are facing our community. (Grandma has been a bit under the weather and we need to make sure she’s taken care of.) Or make plans if we need to trade some of our suplus with the town.

Once it is over afternoon chores/play begins. Most of this is preparing the hides we have harvested, and making sure the wood supply where we need it. Never know when we could get caught in a blizzard and no one wants to be hunting for wood in the blizzard.

This is also the time that a lot of teaching gets done. Not just skills needed to survive, but also philosophy, and other more academic skills. Time one on one with my children to explain why we live the way we live, and what the other options are.

Finally dinner time comes as the sun is getting low in the sky. We start a large fire and all of us gather around it. Wecome together as a community again this time no concerns need to be brought up. That was for lunch time. We just eat and chat and enjoy each others company. I’ll spend my time after dinner sitting with my back to a log my wife in my arms staring into the fire. Content that I have my family, I have my friends, I have my freedom, I am living my dream. What a great day.

#12

Interesting, I’ll bite!

We move silently; there are four of us. Two of us, myself and a younger one, creep up the middle while the other two spread out and approach the herd from the sides.

We’re tattooed with leaf and vine patterns to help break up our outlines when we hunt. We know it confines us to certain parts of the world where we blend in, but the one we’re tattooed to is our home, and it’s here that we were born, where we live, and where we expect to die. The tattoos don’t just break up our outline, they do it in a way that keeps us from having to tie leaves and twigs to ourselves for camouflage. This way, we can still move silently and not have to worry about our “brush” brushing up against the “brush” and give the deer movement that they can easily spot. We stay downwind whenever we can, though we eat only locally-gathered plants and animals and thus smell like we belong in this forest. The mud we’ve caked on doesn’t hurt, either.

The two who have fanned out have selected a doe from the herd and signalled it to us. The deer don’t see the signal, but we’ve been watching. They creep up closer to separate her from the rest, forming a double-sided pincer. After a silent, tense moment, they burst from the bush, spears ready. The herd scatters; they were far closer than any of the deer could have known. They appear behind her and she leaps away from the rest - straight toward us. We couldn’t have asked for a cleaner shot. She’s close, and bounding closer by the second. We stand, and she suddenly sees us and tries to change course to veer away from us. It’s too late. We’ve both been ready, but it’;s my turn to take the first shot. If I miss, he’s ready. I loose my arrow. I’m on my mark, and it takes her square in the chest. She dives just as she tries to turn, and forms a trough in the dirt, driving my arrow further in. She’s down. We’ve done good today. Wish they would all go as well.

#13

my desired life is the one im living right now. i only wish more people could say that. i sort of live a real hunter/gatherer lifestyle…sort of.
a friend and i spent most of last yr. living in the woodz of MA. and it was great. painting in the forest , finding and crafting cool stuff , learning to know all the plants&animals. just living with nature. but most of our gathering was done in trader joe’s , dunkin donuts , & family dollar dumpsters. as for hunting…im vegetarian/vegan(back&forth). although i did start fishing but i still feel bad about it.
we migrated seperate ways when winter came. i no longer looked for caves and rock overhangs , now it was the abandoned buildings of philadelphia. one in particular. an old home thats always been there in the cold months , greeting me with warm space heaters in every room and no electric bill in yrs.
now with all the baskets woven ovr winter my friends and i can gather wild edible outside the city , and i cant wait to test out the dogbane & bamboo fishing rod i made. the deer antler hooks i hand carved from flint i collected by the river came out pretty good too.
we still make our late night trips to gather from the dumpster , but also have a vacant lot with an awesome garden. soon we’ll actucally be eating from it!!
theres a million other amazing things going on too , just to much to write.
speaking for myself , the future doesnt exist yet. only now…and maybe tomorrow. the point is , i dont wanna post about what i wish i could be doing. i wanna be out there doing what i can RIGHT NOW , today. it might be something other people wanna start trying too. theres a lot of good ideas on this site but its scary for most ppl to really live a different lifestyle. i know , i was there once too. my only advice would be stop using money as much as you can , get off the internet , and go for it

#14

Amen, Kenneth. You’re so far on your way that it’s almost zen.

Don’t feel bad for the fish that you catch. Instead, be thankful that a free, wild creature gave you its life. Know that it’s lived free of cages and restraint and that it’s far healthier and far happier than anything an animal farm could produce. Treat it with respect and gratitude and know that you will eventually give back everything you’ve received. Also remember that you had to work for it! Can’t get that kind of reward in a grocery store!

That kind of story makes me wish it were easier to sever the ties that bind me to wage slavery.

#15

to GC.

escaping wage slavery is easier than one might think. although , living in western society , in the u.s , capitalism is something that would prove difficult to fully abandon.

for younger folks i’d suggest reading Evasion.
for older folks with kids , ourtipilife.wordpress.com is very inspiring.

#16

[quote=“Kenneth Pawelski, post:15, topic:1346”]to GC.

escaping wage slavery is easier than one might think[/quote]

It’s not the wage slavery that’s difficult to escape, that’s as simple as dropping and going and never looking back. It’s the expectations of those around us that depend on us that exert the most pressure. I’ve been very tempted on several occasions to pack up the most gas-efficient car I can get and drive until I run out of money. Can’t do that so easily until others we surround ourselves with realize that our choices are about to become very limited, and so free us to make the decisions we think best for ourselves and our families.

Which reminds me… I need to get to the causeway and nab some o’ this fossilized coral we have in the neighborhood… :wink:

#17

It’s a bit more short-term then what most of you are discussing, but I’d love to live in a non-hierarchical village of no more then 200 people in the ruins of Seattle, now growing over with plants with all the pavement and concrete vanishing more and more every day.

We’d build houses of scavenged materials and the basic resources of the land. I’d grow permaculture with native plants and scavenge for food and fish at the pond. I’d wander barefoot through what once were the roads and if I can’t get home in time I’ll just squat an abandoned building.

We’d have gardens where there used to be lawns. We’d have medicine instead of Western parochialism and a thousand little pills, food instead of poison, and abundant life instead of slow and toxic death.

#18

The way of life I have been dreaming with for the last years is more or less a nomadic hunting gathering inside of a tribe, moving with the seasons. Living in a peaceful way, worrying only about the ones in my tribe and our basic needs. As time passes i can only realize this is an impossible dream, at least until some centuries after the collapse.
As i read in one of the 30 theses: civilization can not allow another way of living to exist. I fully agree with this. Where i was grown, and in most of this continent, sleeping out of the city is illegal, hunting out of the city is illegal, in some places even gathering is illegal. With “out of the city” i mean without relations with the city. One kind of relation is asking for permission. Anyway, why should we ask for permission for what is natural.
So, the way of life i would like to live is the only one i can think of feasible out of the civilization: Getting completely out of civilization, not even letting them know. If we are not allowed to live the kind of life we evolved to live, then we can only do it without letting them know. I’m thinking about hiding. I think we can only do what is natural for us if we don’t let the civilization see it.

I’ve been living in different cities, renting a flat or squatting, i’ve been paying for industrial food, gardening, farming, dumpster diving. I’ve been living in an illegal “primitive” camp next to a lake in the middle of a “forest”… and all of this helped me realize that living really out of civilization is only possible if ALL relationships with civilization are broken. If you happen to have enough money to buy some land, you will need to pay taxes as long as you own it. So you need an income, you need to keep a monetary link while in your rewilding process. And if you want to eat from what you hunt and gather, you must make sure this land you own is close to some abundant forest. I think these are the main problems of living linked to a single piece of earth. Some say we are now in a period of crisis, mostly economical, and as money rules everything on this nasty society, the worse the situation becomes, the worse repression will be. I think soon a rise of the taxes will look like a common expectable thing, just for example. Then, my idea is learning how to live from the forest and hide in it before repression becomes unbearable.
I think any link you keep with civilization, helps keeping you one step farther from living in a primitive way. When i was living in the forest camp, most of what we ate came from dumpster diving, and everybody in the camp was using a mobile phone (me included) ; this was dis-encouraging us to find the way to fulfill our needs in the forest. I mean, living completely out of civilization is the way you can push yourself to learn how to fulfill all your needs from the forest.

On the other side, as well as i think hiding from the system is now the best way to live completely out of it, i think during and after the collapse, hiding will be the more safe way of living.
I think of a bunch of small hunter-gatherer tribes hiding and traveling as much as needed in a not cultivated forest, learning more every day until the amount of gear needed to carry is reduced to very simple tools.
Each tribe would be compound by very few people. A small number of people leaves less tracks and is easier to hide; moreover, as living in this way would probably be quite difficult and uncomfortable at the beginning, less people could have more tight relationships and get to agreement quicker. Traveling would be more often than just seasonly; it would depend on concealment of the position as well as distance to resources. So in easy weather it could be once a month ore more, but in winter maybe would be better to have alternative shelters in different locations, in case moving would be needed. There are some not cultivated forests in every continent, in which resources are plentiful and regular people don’t care about “tourists” hanging around. I think this kind of forests are a good place to learn all the skills needed to live in a common cultivated forest, which is easier to find everywhere.

Of course, this way of living would be uncomfortable and difficult, at least at the beginning, because primitive people were taught since the cradle by experts. Every aspect of life would be evolving as the life of every individual naturally does, so everything would slowly become easier and part of a habit. Some skill would be needed to go in the forest for the first long period, as the need to move so much involves carrying very little gear. Like for example starting by building shelters out of poles and individual ponchos, instead of carrying tents. At some point this kind of gear would be unnecessary and everything needed would be done without tools, but still some tools would be carried as emergency kit (i.e., knives, pots…) So there would be no need to keep tools generation after generation or travel to spots where flint stones are easy to find.
Slowly, the ability to move quickly would be improved with the knowledge of the land, the keeping of some concealed storage spots, concealed signaling of resources…

The contacts with civilization would be reduced at maximum, by taking extreme care of health and good planning. So no visits to the hospital would be needed (for example) because of some T.B.E. contracted by inappropriate clothing. On the other hand, as in the Teaching Drum, some visits to internet might be needed for research.

Instead of been a big tribe, i think it would be more desirable to be several small tribes, in different parts of the same forest, keeping the same concealed signaling (about times and directions of moving, for example), some periodic contact, working together when needed, sheltering another tribe when needed…

When the skills of the tribe, as a whole (*), would be enough to live and move in a more or less comfortable, safe way, the spare time could be used to restore barren forests (like the PFAF people did http://pfaf.org/user/cmspage.aspx?pageid=9), fight the industrial system, … or just favor the growth of useful plants.
*I hate the specialization of people, but although everyone in the tribe should be able to do everything, every individual person is better in different skills.

The process of initial training could be carried in some place close to the forest where the pay of a rent is not required, and the “spare” time can be big enough to practice different skills, like an eco-village.

Sorry if it is a bit confusing, it is much easier to think about it than to write it down.