Dealing with non-believers

Regenerative Culture Relationships, Partnerships & Sexuality
#81

Fragrant plants mostly. Mints are good choices. Citronella actually comes from a mint (point that out to Joe Random next time). The trick is you have to have the scent on all of your skin to repel them, otherwise they’ll just go to the unexposed parts. Eucalyptus is a good plant, peppermint, wintergreen, spearmint, lemon balm, etc. All good insect repellents and tasty teas. Drink enough of the tea (should be strong) and your skin will being to put off the scent itself. Your sweat will actually repel bugs! And in the mean time the tea has its own benefits.

  • Benjamin Shender
#82

Ascetic virtue: I can dig it. I think it can expand your knowledge of self quite a bit. It helps you see what you can go without and define your limits. It helps you to develop qualities of patience and endurance that can prove useful in certain situations.

However, if you don’t set asceticism against the virtues of simply living in a world of experiences (in other words, if you do nothing else but abstain, like a monk), then it loses that value pretty quickly.

This comes from the perspective of someone who retreats to ascetic behavior (a “comfort-zone” of non-action) way more often than she would like to admit.

I went on a really fantastic date today for lunch, so today I’ve felt an increasingly strong pull away from the ascetic life. You know…? (Oh dear… sorry if that got too personal.)

#83

in the last week, we (as in the people i live with) processed 2 deer in 2 days. this was actually a huge amount of work; first gutting, then skinning and butchering, then slicing up meat for hours to hang above the woodstove for drying, fleshing hides and preparing them for tanning, bashing skulls to get brains out. it was all very beautiful and connecting to the land we live on and the deers, but we were exhausted. where we live we dont have to pay rent - and we also dont have to pay for food because there are tons of dumpsters nearby. so in my life, the motivation to eat wild food like deer and dandelion comes from a desire to connect with the land, and not atall because it is easier - because it aint! when the industrial economy collapses it will be an easy way of life comparatively - but right now it is alot more work to hunt and gather that just getting food from the supermarkets, dumpstered, bought or otherwise.
more beautiful, yes - easier? not yet.

#84

I could be wrong, and I admit it freely so don’t jump down my throat if I am, but it seems that when people talk of how hard work will be, they are talking about the work as in themselves or a small number of people doing it.
When we talk of an easier life with work not being that hard, we aren’t talking about 1, 2, or even 5 people sharing it. We are talking dozens. A whole community of people sharing the work load. Processing a deer is a lot work, yes. But add a large group into the equation? Not that hard.
Hunting for enough food adequate for dinner could take all day for one, if they manage to catch anything at all. Send a hunting party and your odds of a feast go up.
It can take all day for one person to build a temporary shelter. It can take only hours for a group to build a semi-permanent one.

#85

Miranda,

Reminds me a bit of how in the south they used to have big get-togethers around harvest time for processing and preserving garden foods. Imagine rooms full of chatty women snapping pole beans. Work and play intermixed. This definitely speaks to the benefits of the group in rewilding, not the lone survivalist…

~wildeyes

#86

miranda,
i am dafinetely aware that traditionally indigenous people would not be doing this stuff in small groups of say 5 people - i am rewilding now though - right now, with a small group of people that i hope will get larger as time passes. i see that probably alot of us that choose this type of path won’t start off with a fully intact community to share work/play. in theory, it would be ideal to have a fully intact community and a thriving landbase as a hunter gatherer. in the reality of my life, though, the land has been reduced to almost a desert, the people scattered and lost. i was talking about my experience right now - not theoretical rewilding in the future.

#87

Congrats on your rewilding venture for the here and now, but I wasn’t really talking about the rewilding of here and now. Yes, it is hard to start, but many people think before they ever try that things will automatically be hard forever. Many people will never start a rewilding venture because of the preconceived notion that life this way is difficult. Or, they will start and then stop because they did not have enough man power.
I hope your group increases in size over time!

#88

This one is easy… the economic downfall we are currently living is turning large portions of the population homeless… . and homelessness is a major awakening to many. people that once coveted their BMWs now wish they had a garden and a good dry place to sleep. we dont have to try to educate others… the world will do the educating …

#89

I’ve never spoken to my family about it, though I don’t try to keep it a secret either. I do, however, have a history of getting with boys who have no interest or maybe are afraid of the idea. One absolutely loved civilisation and littering and I promptly ended that!
The issue now is the one I’m sure I will marry is very wary of the idea though he loves to go out and be “feral” with me; maybe I can persuade him yet. ;D