This seems like the same thing as “why I’m here”, but it’s not. What I mean is way back when how did you come to be interested in rewilding, how have things evolved since then? I’m always curious to know this about people. Was it one major turning point, a series of events, a bizarre coincidence?
When I was 13 I had a dream about a calamity that had happened. In the dream, I had acquired a horse someplace and was going into houses looking for children who had survived and their parents had died. Long story short, I found three children and brought them to this mountain. During the next 20 years, I had continous dreams about various aspects of “the calamity.” That caused me to learn more about disasters whenever I came across any information.
I’ve read everything about Edgar Cayce, studied religious and native prophecies, studied the various psychic predictions such as the “I am America” maps, Gordon Michael Scallion, and a few others. I participated in the Y2K fiasco and then learned about the Nibiru scare in 2003, which I did not really participate in, but did pay attention to.
Four years ago, I started learning about Peak Oil, followed by learning about all kinds of resource depletion - agricultural woes, climate changes, pandemic potential, political corruption, and the tipping edge of economic disaster. I read Daniel Quinn and finally got a reason for the chaos. Then I read Derrick Jensen and found more reasons for the horrors of our mother culture.
The difference with my outlook today compared to years of studying prophecies is that I am no longer looking at psychic predictions, I’m staring physical, undeniable reality square in the face. The resource depletion in this world is such that it is not possible that a calamity will NOT happen.
I’ve also been studying ancient history books written by Zacharia Sitchen and learned that modern historians have started with the wrong premise. They assume that ancient civilizations were not as advanced as we are. From Dr. Sitchen’s point of view, those ancient people were in the collapsing stage from a civilization far in advance of anything we know. They had a higher grasp of astronomical science for one thing, and knew quite accurately how to judge future events based, not on psychic predictions, but on measurements and science. From this perspective, the Mayan calendar end in 2012 with the statement that it is the “end of time” takes on ominous meaning.
According to Dr. Sitchen’s history, there is another planet in our solar system named Nibiru, which makes a pass back around the sun every 3600 years and comes close enough to the earth to shake up our orbit. He contends that the previous civilization crashed directly due to Nibiru. There’s a possibility that the Mayans had enough astronomical knowledge to figure out when the next pass would be - precisely - and recorded it in their calendars.
My attitude about the whole question is that I don’t know what’s going to happen first and I simply need to prepare for survival come what may. We are due for civilization crash based on resource depletion. We’re due for another pass by the 12th planet. We’re due for a massive economic crash due to political manueverings. Whatever it is, the only thing we can do as individuals is become skilled enough in survival skills to ride the wave of whichever crisis hits first and then keep on riding the wave.
We have two choices about how to look forward - with despair or with a sense of adventure. I choose to focus on the adventure of being part of building a new world, and helping my descendants stay alive, learn and become strong leaders in the new world. I choose to focus on being determined to help the children not forget what is good to remember about this old world, and go forward without becoming ignorant savages.
That’s how I got here. One step at a time.
Snowflower
I was lucky enough to be raised by parents who wished they were born in the 18th century. My mom is one of those “back to basics” types, who taught me to sew, can food, and most importantly, be self-reliant and willing to take risks. My dad taught me to shoot, hunt, skin, and prepare food. Lots of camping and running about in the woods. Many many nights of “camping” with no gear, making primitive shelters, starting fires, etc, before I even knew there was a skill set for that sort of thing.
It wasn’t really a stretch for me. When I first read Quinn, it wasn’t a surprise, it was a validation for me. Everything else just progressed naturally from there.
R
What brought me here? My parents had sex. 9 months later…
Haha. No seriously, several books; Tom Browns, Daniel Quinns, Derrick Jensens, Martin Prechtels, Joseph Campbells… etc etc.
But really my hatred for this culture has always driven me to make the world a better place. I constantly examine what I think will best serve the planet. These incessant reevaluations make me come up with ideas like this site.
hmmm… i spent a few years travelling internationally and never got into hanging in the cities and hostels. ended up climbing a lot and seeking out indigenous peoples. not sure if it was a plan or not but thats where i ended up a lot. got to learn some basic skills but it never seemed like something i’d practice here in the states. rewind back to college wher ei studied philosophy and didn’t learn to type. always felt a severe dissatifaction with the state of things and still an urge to at least try to bring some more smiles around. got really wrapped up in the idea of the conditioned person.
6 months ago got offered a job at a wilderness therapy/primitive skills program in moab, ut. kinda dove in. superexcited to find a large community of…uh…what are we?
It worked something like this:
1)1982: born to nature living parents in rural area developed appreciation for outdoors
2)1994-2000: liked science, took classes in high school including AP bio, wildlife biology, environmental science, and outdoor ed. (we had to do things like make a list of what kind of guns were best for shooting what kinds of animals. I live in a place where you get off school first day of deer season). Most interested in ecovillage/cohousing type ideas in Envsci textbook.
3)1999: Took SATs. In section where you get to checkmark potential majors, checked environmental science on a whim. became my default answer when relatives asked what I wanted to study in college.
4)2000: ended up environmental science major at Univeristy of Vermont (UVM)
5)very depressing stuff, also unable to cope with college life, new surroundings. Mental breakdown followed by
6)phsyical breakdown
7)2001: withdrew before failing out second year
8 ) 2002: recovered (sort-of, still not really) back home, months of laying on couch followed by months of long walks, became best friends with dog, antidepressants, anti anxiety meds, researched alternative medicine
9)took summer ethnobotany class at UVM, latent interest in plants blossomed (pun intended)
10) returned to school full-time, went on raw food diet. raw foodist literature definitely has primtiive leanings. Reading other technology-skeptical but not quite anti-civ excerpts for classes like Ecopsychology and Ecological painting. Picked up a book called “against the machine” about the Luddite movement and other tech resisters. Also into crimethinc stuff.
11)2003: Alternative health, and environmental studies coming together, leading me to draw anti-civ conclusions. (You would think I would have gotten there long before but I was heavily involved in the sustainability/ green technology thing at UVM.)
12)first true anti-civ reading I remember doing was Zerzan. Jumped right in didn’t I? How I got his name I don’t recall.
13)Boyfriend in Brooklyn in the know about these sorts of things and what sort of stuff I was getting into clued me in to a green anarchist gathering in Central Pa. that summer.
14)Kidnapped my sister and drove to the gathering telling our parents we were going “camping.” Picked up a lot of Green Anarchy papers and a cool t-shirt. Sister later wrote an essay about the experience that got her into Ivy Leauge school.
15) Didn’t go back to college. Read Quinn, Jensen that fall.
16) 2004-2005: “the lost years”, got into abusive relationship. Read lots of sprititual bullshit books that helped me learn to COPE with my situation remarkably well but didn’t help me GET OUT of it.
19) started reading tom brown jr. (also on the spiritual bullshit shelf) got into primitive skills (always interested even as a kid). went to tracker school.
20) ended relationship. started commuting to closest college to my parent’s house. University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, an hour away. First class I took was field botany, but turned out I knew more than the teacher (she will tell you so herself).
21) December 26th 2005. Was introduced to this newfangled myspace thing by little sis. Created a myspace account. Found Urban Scout right away via a Tom Brown group. The rest is history.
grew up in the boy scouts.
saw the obvious pagan background of Catholicism. dropped out mentally when I was 12 or 13… after reading certain parts of the encyclopedia my mom encouraged me not to read…
became a man at the age of 15, when after two failed attempts, I became a Firecrafter.
read ishmael, have been back and forth… trying to save the world.
gave up on saving the world, came back to forming relationships and finding new ways of being in new stories…
Started IshCon, was the dissenting, and eventually drowned-out voice.
Still trying to walk away from seven years of trying to walk in both worlds, now punging deep, head-in into the re-re-wilding…
Grew up near Denver with a dad and uncles that always went hunting. Went camping a lot. Visited relatives in Arkansas. Was always outside as a kid.
Picked up little tidbits of information that stuck in my brain: “dandelions are edible”, “queen anne’s lace is a wild carrot”, “you can cook and eat poke if you’re careful”.
Wanted to be a boyscout, but didn’t have any troops close enough to join, so I just poured over the manual, drinking in everything I could.
Found myself getting interested in the people that were here before: The Cherokee on both sides of my family. The Choctaw that lived in the valley beneath the lake where I grew up in Arkansas. The Caddo that named the river that named the school where I went to college–Ouachita. The Lenape that hunted in the forests of Manhattan.
Read Jean Auel and got impressed with skills: slings and atlatls and the ability to make everything you need with the things that are already around you.
Bought my first field guide and finally figured out how to eat dandelions and queen anne’s lace and poke. Discovered that mulberries are more than just song lyrics. Got to the root of rootbeer.
Lived in New York City. Seemingly the last place a person would rewild. But I got introduced to Quinn by a friend at work. Then I discovered Wildman Steve Brill who would show me what I could eat and where I could find it in the city parks. Worked for an old guy harvesting wildflowers in New Jersey. Got into kayaking. Discovered that not even the crossroads of civilization can destroy the mother. Learned more new species and what to do with them that I had at any point previous in my life.
Had a son and moved back to Arkansas. Trying to rewild myself and drag a few friends along with me. Discovered Anthropik via a search on Daniel Quinn. Followed links that led me to Urban Scout. Decided to start my own blog to chart my rewilding.
My older blood brother handed me Daniel Quinn’s book Ishmael to read when I was 18 years old. After finishing the Story of B another DQ book my brother came to me and handed me Tom Brown Jr’s book The Tracker and after reading that book I’ve been on my own ever since. Thanks bro. After The Tracker I knew where to go on my own from there, I bought The Search and read other books by DQ and TBJ. & years after Ishmael (TODAY) I’ve finished all of DQ’s books and still have a pile of tom brown books waiting to be read or used in a group for a field guide course experience! One of my cuz’ns last year helped me get connected to Myspace where I found Urban Scout for the first time even though I’d heard of him in the past. His myspace profile lead me to a whole new network of local people who have similar educational backgrounds, dreams, experiences, wants and desires My story actually starts before I even came into the picture, well honestly I’ve always been in the picture just out of focus most of the time of existence…blurred and smudged…until 7 six years ago right? Anyway, my brother got sick and tired of his friends speaking about DQ’s books and new ideas when he didn’t understand the terminology or their dialogue premises. The two friends mostly spoke back and forth so it wasn’t like they were trying to teach my brother anyway. They were practice themselves by just talking it’s like my bro. got caught up in the middle of some sport without knowing the rules but that was ok because the instructions sat right in front of him next to his friends leg! But really sat next to his friends leg was the book Ishmael and any second he could reach out and begin reading it to start understanding his friends communication for real, but that didn’t occur to him until day’s later. He figured out after several day’s of being partially involved in a dialog between his trwo friends about new ideas that he’d never experienced personally before. He knew his friends were engaging in a dialogue or talk and that a lot of what he was hearing from them sounded good to him but bad too, he also knew they were talking about something to do with DQ’s books and work, what he didn’t know was DQ’s point of view. So he finally understood that they weren’t going to being able to explain DQ’s ideas and work as well as he wanted it explained to him, they couldn’t have anyway for his standards. What was once deep down inside him had surfaced, he simply didn’t want anymore secondhand stories anymore about DQ’s work from people who’ve read his book, so he went to the source, the truth, the reality…by seeking out the first copy of Ishmael he could get his hands on and reading it for himself. After reading it he wanted to read some of the other books by DQ and he become more involved in the talks with his two friends. After that I’m pretty sure he’s read all but one of DQ’s books, and some he has read several times and references. I don’t know the first experiences his two friends received from DQ. While hiking, I believe, my brother met a guy named, Flea, who passed my brother a TBJ book after my brother sounded interested in what the man was up too. This was my brother first encounter of anything by TBJ. Flea had a water proof wickiup burch bark shingled shelter that day with him setup close off the trail where my brother hiked. The shelter had a door facing toward the morning east-sunrise and dried grasses created a mat to insulate flea and guests from the cool and damn rainforest floor. Flea invented my brother to take a look at the wickup. My brother ask flee what got you into this and basically flea said “Daniel Quinn first and soon after Tom Brown jr.” I don’t know Flea’s first experience with DQ’s or Tom’s which is a good thing for me because I’m trying to make this a short story. Thanks P. Scout for asking:
Like a true natures child, you were born to re wiiiiiiiiilldd!
I like smokin’ lightnight too.
Nice to have you here and hear your story, Green Man. YOUR way sounds great!!! Nice to meet ya.
lightnight?
Haha. I can’t spell.
Lightning. As in the Judas Priest song “Born to be wild,” changed to, “born to rewild.”
I’ll stop now.
“Born to be Wild” was Steppenwolf not Judas Priest.
I think it was really seeded for me in various trips to far flung wilderness locations over recent years. Before that I’d known nothing more than the semi-agricultural and military-industrial towns of my childhood. Every time I went somewhere vaguely wild it “got into” me (I’m sure you know what I mean) Then I got into nature conservation work almost by accident, figured out how a lot of this pretty stuff worked, and about a year later stumbled on various primitivist web sources through some link or other.
It’s odd to think that as recently as 2 years ago I was a committed demagogue for the virtues of civilisation. I didn’t know anything else. Now the genie’s out of the bottle, primitivism isn’t something I feel I can go back on… because it’s not just an idea like other things. It’s a working system with over a million years of grounding. It just can’t be argued with.