Yes! Read (or maybe listened) to Omnivore’s Dilemma many years ago. It was very formative for me in thinking about our relationship to our food.
I’m currently living in Bolivia so probably not going to find local MovNat classes, but I do a lot of walking in normal life here. I’ve been enjoying the rabbit hole for quite a while. I find it just keeps going and there’s more tunnels to explore.
Hi everyone!
I found this forum awhile ago, but never posted, so here goes.
My name is Adeline, and I am a teenager living in a rural Ohio town. My favorite hobbies are archery and dog training, I am currently taking college classes while I am still in high school, and I hope to major in psychology. I love observing how humans and animals react to various things.
I do not play sports, but I love walking/running with or without my dogs. I have been eagerly researching ancient ways of life, and I have found it fascinating. It was interesting enough that now I have several pairs of barefoot shoes and I try to walk everywhere I can. (That can be challenging when you’re about 20 miles from the closest grocery store.)
Someday, I would love to live off-grid and own a decent plot of land, making no footprint in my environment, and being at one with my natural environment.
I am looking forward to learning more about rewilding!
Greetings everyone, I am Mikela 'Kles.
I have floated around here for some time and posted a very short intro about a year ago, but since removed it because I wanted to introduce myself in depth.
I have been loosely rewilding since about 2014 but was always a child of the wildlands until my twenties when I explored many other directions. In the end, as my 30s dawned I returned to the wildlands as a rewilder.
I am in training to become an herbalist and a wilderness emt. My husband is working towards becoming trained as a hunting/fishing guide before we move to the West (location pending). He is a mountain man, I am a rewilder, but we balance each other and made it work.
We are saving for a large piece of land to “wildstead” - live and rewild on (reintroducing native edible plants and trees, using native and non-native animals free-range grazing to aid the meadows basically rewilding with what we have as some creatures are not in the area anymore).
We are currently dwelling in the Blackened Forest of KY for aiding family and training but dwelt around the Cibola Forest/Anasazi Desert areas for nearly 10 years. We will head west when we leave here, to a location best suited for our journey.
That is my story to date.
March 2019 Update: We have decided to not leave the Blackened Forest of Appalachia (Kentucky/Tenessee).
My husband’s clan has dwelt in this area for nearly 225 years.
Casey here.
I could actually feel my pupils dilate when I found this website. I don’t feel at home in a city, in society, yet I live in Las Vegas. I don’t think ‘live’ is the right word; I feel kind of stuck here, playing the game that society set up that says I have to do certain things, be a certain way, and be surrounded by noisy inconsiderate people who have been spoiled by the convenience of modern inventions to the point of having forgotten that we’re animals too. I’ve never lived in the wild, but thinking about it makes me feel strangely homesick. Cities don’t sound right, smell right, or feel right. I feel like an animal in a giant zoo enclosure, being watched by other animals who don’t realize they’re also in the zoo.
There are things that I do enjoy about technology… First and foremost, it keeps me in touch with my child (who lives in another state) so that I can continue to have a place in his life, because mine kind of revolves around his. It has helped me find this website, so that I might put myself out there and connect with people who understand and feel some of the things I feel. A tribe. My tribe. And I do appreciate that my Amazon Prime account and my Kindle make it possible for me to be a reader and a minimalist.
But there is something so powerful about the idea of living in harmony with our environment, rather than destroying the very thing(?) that keeps us alive. Not just giving us a space to live, but keeping us ALIVE. My fondest memories of times when I felt alive are of camping, hiking, fishing, and exploring in wilderness during camping trips that my family took when I was a kid. Even though I had chores around the camp and school work (I was home-schooled for a long time), I felt a profound sense of freedom. I felt like I belonged out there, wherever we happened to be.
I am grateful for what I have and proud that I’ve been able to provide for myself in this place, but I want that feeling of freedom and belonging to be part of my daily life, not just a rare and fleeting reprieve.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life lamenting being too terrified to leave this cage just because it’s all I’ve ever known. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to find my tribe, even if it happens in bits and pieces, because I’m worried that I’m going to come off like a crackpot. I don’t want living a life in connection with nature to just be a pipe dream.
Well… That was a bit longer and deeper than I’d intended my intro to be, so thank you for reading. I’m really hoping to connect with folks here, beyond the online (no offense toward anyone or the site). It would be incredible to meet some open-minded people who are inclined to put some serious consideration into starting up a wildstead/homestead, as well as people who are generous with their knowledge and experience. 
Hi there. I just joined the forums.
A few years ago I read Enrico Manicardi’s book “Free From Civilization.” And all of a sudden, everything began to make sense. All those years of taking mood stabilizers that I didn’t need made sense. The creeping sense of dread made sense.
I currently live and work in the Silicon Valley, about the most pro-civilization, pro-technology place on the planet. I am a mom who is the sole breadwinner for my family. I am currently trying to make/save enough to get us out of debt and on to a piece of land.
I am joining this forum to find like-minded individuals. Because even in anarchist spaces, pro-wild folks are often derided or a sub-culture of the sub-culture. I am hoping that by the time I have the money to move, I will also have some more insights and information through the sharing of ideas, experiments, and practice.
Hi; I go by SmokeyQuartzWoman. I’m in my mid-30s and really feel the pull to leave civilization or lead a non-traditional life in some way. I’ve read some people here feel trapped by civilization and their life; and I feel that way as well. I feel like most of my adult life has been spent trying to get to the next “thing”/“accomplishment” and I haven’t ever enjoyed any of my experiences in college or ever since. It’s like I’ve only been existing and not living for a really long time. I escape through reading about people surviving in nature and similar things.
It was my upbringing that you get educated, then get a job, then pay bills - until you die. That’s it. I’m already dying, it feels like.
What is keeping me from living like how I would like to? I suppose because I really wouldn’t know how to support myself except through a job. I don’t know if I would have the physical stamina for total self-sufficiency/living off of the land (due to a chronic illness). I also have parents that I feel obligated to care for as an only child; I don’t resent this at all because of our close relationship, but I do see that I won’t be able to live as I please while still needing to take care of family in the near future.
I’m taking small steps to learn how to be more self-sufficient; I plan on getting a fishing license, soon, and I already have some fishing equipment purchased. I also would like to grow a vegetable garden.
But I really feel stuck in the “job” mentality; I finished an MBA program last year, which was sponsored by my employer. The “accomplishment” was really anti-climactic and I could only feel relief that it was over, and no joy at all in the process or completion of it. Despite the MBA, I have had no luck in advancing my career since that time and it doesn’t look like I will be chosen by anyone for an MBA-type job (even entry level!) because of lack of experience. So, I am still in a dead-end job.
Sorry for the long post; there really isn’t anyone else in real life who can relate to my struggles/longings. If I would confide in anyone, I’m sure I would probably be laughed at.
I guess I’m hoping that by posting to this forum, I can find support for the small changes I’d like to make to become more self-sufficient, and also offer support to those who can’t go “all-in” for one reason or another.
Friends,
I’ve lived in many places in the north western parts of the US for my entire 32 years, from the northern-most part of the mid-west, the plains, the Rocky Mountains and the pacific northwest.
I first became familiar with the term “rewilding” from listing to an interview with Daniel Vitalis, which led me to Arthur Haines’ work. Arthur’s book, A New Path, was life changing for me. Some of my other favorite books related to the topic:
-Shakti Woman-Vicki Noble
-Women Who Run With Wolves
-Herbal Recipes-Rosemary Gladstar
I grew up in a hunting-based community, although I wasn’t particularly interested in it at the time. I’ve done some basic foraging, but haven’t hunted yet. I’m more of a forager and craftswoman.
Other interests/hobbies of mine: hiking, weight lifting, neuroplasticity, nutrigenomics, taoism, meditation and behavioral neuroscience.
I’ve felt deeply connected to nature since I was very small, and have found the more time I spend outside, the better I function.
I look forward to connecting with you all!
Hi there, my name is Johannes and i am joining in from rural franconia in germany. I love hiking and taking long walks barefooted. Some times, i enjoy sleeping in the woods. At the moment i am responsible for two websites with topics on bioregionalism, ritual work, plant magic and underground music. I love to create!
Hello, I’m Patrick. I have what is becoming a non-gas or electric homestead that adjoins a very large federally owned temperate deciduous forest in southern Indiana.
I have always been drawn to the outdoors-- and at the same time very frustrated by my lack of an adequate rapport with nature. As a remedy, I joined the Army infantry at a young age, but the experience exacerbated the problem.
It is only within the last five years that I’ve began to understand the root cause; I am the genetic and cultural product of a very long-term project in human domestication.
In these initial stages, the plan is to take on a few changes at a time.
At present, I am;
(1). actively replacing my Abrahamic worldview for one more similar to pre-Christian European animist traditions
(2). taking steps to eliminate the products of modern agriculture from my diet through permaculture/plant foraging/hunting-trapping-fishing
(3). intentionally forgoing many of the so called benefits of modern civilization
I found out about this site in the comment section of a Youtube video by Toby Hemenway on the Hopewell Indians.
I am here to find out if there is anyone in my area (about 12 miles south of Bloomington) who would like to work on some of the projects listed above or run other experiments in rewilding.
Thanks and I hope everyone’s summer is off to a good start.
Hi, I’m Sophie, 54, from Sussex in England… thank you for the thought on playing. My whole being feels dried out and cracking - I have lost my soulskin . I know that finding my wild self is the way back… thoughts on ‘how’ others have or are doing this most welcome. I spend as much time as possible in nature, but I am looking to make bigger, more fundamental changes. Not wilding round the edges but from my core.
Greetings and welcome to all you new arrivals!
Hi im Joe, im 32. I live in Dublin, Ireland in an urban area. I only started to get into rewilding a few months ago but I’v been Intrested in permaculture and foraging for little longer. Iv always been into outdoorsy stuff, fishing, hiking, etc since i was a child. The main aspect to rewilding I focus on would be a mix of permacutltre, foraging and wild tending. I’m learning myself about the different types of native planets, their uses, the conditions they like to grow, etc. Iv started to collect native plant seeds and i will plant the seeds in areas such as waste ground and vacant property and then forage the plants to use. I do live close to mountains with little patchs of woodland doted around (most of the land here is used fir agriculture). A long term plan for me that I’d love to do is to try help expand some of the wood land by planting native trees and other plants such as berry bushs guerrilla garden style so people could forage and to help create habitat for wild life, basically rewild the land while rewilding myself and family.
I came across this site searching the internet after i read the book rewild or die. I really like what I see. I think rewilding is something that is needed in these dark times!
Hello,
I found this site bc I searched for “graduates of Bolad’s Kitchen” on Google. I was looking for more specific and personal info about the school, as I seem to be headed there. I have never heard of this re-wilding. The more I read of this site, the more it seems to be describing the alternate life I’ve lived for years in my imagination, which, though I’ve caught glimpses of a few people managing to live it in physical reality, I’ve felt stumped as to how to shift my own life into this alternate reality. And here are all these people on this site, apparently full of ideas and experiences of doing just that. Cool.
I am a 54 yr old mom of 6 grown children. Over 20 yrs ago, I followed my husband’s work trail from pastoral Northern Idaho to urban New England, where we still live. Ironically, I grew up in the Alaskan bush, in a subsistence lifestyle, and New England was only the stuff of stories to me. Literally. I read lots of books, and many of my faves were historic tales of the European colonization and settlement periods of NewEngland. The consolation “prize” for having to live in a place where my patch of ground is actually the size of a patch, was being in the midst of all this history and story.
I did not know I would put down such deep roots to the land itself, or fall so deeply in love with its plants, water, and bones. I have no desire to ever leave here, but I very much want to live more simply, with more rhythmic connection to the land itself, and less pavement, gasoline, and hustle.
I practice a form of healing the soul, which some might call “indigenous”, though I’m not at all sure I understand all the ways that word is used. I wish to remain accessible to as many needy, lost, and hungry souls as is best, to offer the medicine of the beautiful and noble “weeds” that grow in our vacant lots, neglected bits of dirt, or out of cracks in the concrete skin of urbanity, to all who feel the call to it. If I tuck myself too comfortably out of the way, as I might like to do, those who most need what the plants so generously offer, might never find it. So I’m looking for a way to be here, and not here, I suppose. I’m deeply interested in the experiences, questions, and knowledge the people here have to share.
I’m Oliver I live in Missouri, which Kevin Tucker called a “shithole” in his podcast. I believe Missouri is beautiful. My past formal education is in advanced heterodox economics and according again to Kevin Tucker’s podcast with Pete, all economists are sociopaths. Even though I feel I have a lot to offer and have been a practicing anarcho primitivist for over 12 years, I’m not sure I feel those who put themselves at the apex of A/P (primal anarchy) are in favor of being inclusive.
Howdy, Oliver. Welcome to the camp. I’m sure if Kevin & Peter suspected a friendly economist was listening, they’d have chosen better words. To be fair ‘though, it’s an interesting & seemingly paradoxical combination (heterodox economist & anarcho-primitivist I mean).
I wouldn’t call economists sociopaths, but the vast majority of them do tend to have very skewed perceptions of the world that, frequently, lead their good intentions to have disastrous results. The holy grail of conventional economics, perpetual growth, for instance, is a physical impossibility only acknowledged in obscure subsets like ecological economics.
But, of course, economies have existed since way before the Austrian school or even currency. And I’m all for any info that’ll help the tribe prevail in this peculiar, money-hungry Rube Goldberg machine we find ourselves in. I think you’ll find we’re a pretty receptive bunch 
Oh, & I haven’t been to Missouri (yet), but I hear it’s great!
Heterodox economists are almost always anti capitalist, but at least half or more follow commune style economic old marxist type use value theories, and the other are radical across the board and even include anarchist economics. Thorstein Veblen is America’s only great economist (from America), and his “institutional economic theory” is essentially that institutions have power for better or worse of society and ultimately they control markets not prices. To which he is mostly correct, even now his theories are proven by current behavioral economists. I suggest you just look into Veblen’s “Conspicuous Consumption” - just check out a synopsis of the book and it should be enlightening.
Aaaaaah, my mistake. I somehow read heterodox as “orthodox”. That makes much more sense. Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll check it out.
Hello Iam Dale. Im a 49 year old woman living off grid in east central Illinois. I am still learning and when I came across rewild I was so thrilled to finally find like-minded folks. Hi Scout I am always glad to meet other females that are strong .
Desperate Days - 7/27/2020
My name is Daniel, a young aspiring woodsman learning more and more over the past years, of the different ways in which people have sought to get back to better times. I first learned of prepping / survival (where I began in my teens), then nomadic hitchhiking across the US (which I did for a time after high school), homesteading (which I hope to achieve one day), and now primal living / rewilding (which I aim to live in the near future).
I have as much as possible acclimated myself to wilderness living and skills on weekends when work allowed. I learned how to set up a camp far off the trails around a small fire with a hammock and rain fly; alternatively sleeping on the ground over debris.
I have sterilized my water from the brown and amber Florida swamps, and almost caught snakes a few times, trying to determine if they really do taste like chicken. Not too bad for a lone city slicker, I think.
I'm only 20, and have been on this learning journey since 2017. I have not had much opportunity to learn uninterrupted over the span of weeks, much less months, and no one to teach me beside books and Dave Canterbury (books / YouTube) .
On the way to detaching myself from the system, I became a car - dweller mid way through 2019, sleeping in my 4-door sedan in front of Planet Fitness while in the city, or in a camp of my making when in the disturbed and heavily logged woods I had to drive an hour away to reach. All closer locations were smaller, heavily visited, and heavily regulated, not to mention paid entry or paid camping.
Given the Covid-19 onset, I have been gracefully invited to stay with family until further notice, given that until recently gyms had been closed for months. I've spend my time in this fancy paper mache box thinking what it is I want to do with my life. Being in the city, and with family, I can eat to my hearts content to the extent of kings, have all manner of entertainment at my fingertips, and never have to drip a drop of sweat in this air conditioned, sterile place. Yet I am miserable. I long for the cold nights I spent in the swamps near the Florida - Georgia border in december. I miss the smoke in my eyes, the flies in my ears, the spiders on my gear, the strange sounds in the middle of the night while tending my fire. I miss the weight of my pack, walking through the brush in the rain, beneath the walmart tarp I used both as a rain fly and a poncho. I reminisce of boots failing me, and filling with water; of my car getting stuck, and asking kind country folk to help pull my car out of the mud (a great failure and memorable lesson). I miss all the suffering, and loathe my present comforts. Would to God I knew one other soul mad or perhaps same enough to venture off into the woods! Then again, being as solitary as life has shaped me to be, where do I find such a person? How do I trust them, or prove myself to them that I can be trusted and relied upon?
Just wish I could disappear into the mountains, perhaps Tennessee, and live in some form of debris shelter, learning to hunt and survive self-sufficiently, perhaps working at a day labor place two weeks out of the month to supplement my food with rice and beans, as well as saving to buy land. There seems to be some invisible wall, separating me from that dream. Is it my own doubts and insecurities? Is it the life long domestication? I don't know. I only know that I certainly hate the way I feel in society, and I lovingly recall my days in lost ignorant, yet blissful learning, in the wild.
May that night sky beneath the stars, beside my fire, that I dream of and have before seen, come quickly again.I’m Kelly, 38, from California and now living in the PNW. I’ve been rewilding in one form or another for about 10 years. I work in IT, professional data privacy nerd running a holistic healthcare cybersecurity company. (Side note: This site definitely has some security issues, but not sure how much of a priority that is for admins.) I spend most of my free time enjoying the outdoors and studying plant medicine. I’m psychic, into spirituality and tarot and enjoy conversing with my ancestors.