International Rewilding Discussion Forum

I spent all last winter digging holes in my unused garden beds and inserting my compost directly into them. Now when I want to use them and turn them over, there are rich black pockets of compost that get mixed into the whole bed. I'm hoping it's enough to feed the plants. It was much easier than hauling compost from a pile.

Doesn't it also make sense that in our wild state, we might have a few teeth rot out as we age, so the wisdom teeth would have that space to grow into? That's how I always figured it was meant to work.

Hope it comes out alright for you!

There's a really good French movie called "The Sorceress" (La Sorciere). It's set in the 1500's, I believe, and it's about a monk working for the Inquisition coming to a small town and giving the local herbalist a bunch of crap about being a heretic. I feel like it speaks to the issue of rewilding because it's like the origin of when we began to be officially disconnected, or afraid to be connected because we'd get "in trouble." The herbalist is completely in tune with nature, the seasons, the people's needs, etc., and the monk is operating purely on doctrine and religious law, which means he's completely out of touch with reality. They have some fascinating discussions, and some really eye opening things happen. For example, this one guy gets in trouble with royalty and is imprisoned. His wife comes to see him, bringing their infant child along. The guy is being starved to death for his punishment, so the guards check the wife to make sure she's not smuggling food in. When she gets in there, she takes his weakened head into her lap and breastfeeds him. To me, it's the most in your face, awesome scene of making use of whatever resources you have in a survival situation, and also fooling people who are too out of touch to realize what's going on, because obviously she had an infant with her, so of course she "has food"... Anyway, worth watching, for sure.

What scares me about it is that people keep believing the "experts!" I could tell someone that I have co-slept with my kids for what amounts to 15 years (about 3 years per kid) and NONE OF THEM DIED and that wouldn't mean squat. I could tell them that no one I know who has co-slept (which is pretty much all the friends-who-are-parents I know) has ever had a child die from co-sleeping, and that doesn't matter. People will believe an essentially anonymous source such as "the government" or "scientists" or "the health department" before they will accept anecdotal evidence from people THEY KNOW.

I think that if people could step back and realize that living in civilization requires that you accept the word of complete strangers (called "experts" and/or "authorities") instead of your own experience or the word of a real live person standing in front of you, maybe they could see how absurd (and dangerous) it is to be "civilized" instead of connected to reality.

Also, I said, it clears things up in my eye if I actually view the land as being literally our mother. We all have mothers that we call "ours", but that doesn't mean they're ours to own and exploit. Civilization is inherently colonial, thus it operates on a frame of mind that views natural life as something to dominate and capitalize on, not something to enter into a relationship with.

I love this. What a way to see not only land but all "possessions." If we are to live in a harmonious way with nature (which seems the best way to survive longterm in the wild), we truly have to enter into a relationship with every "thing," in that we must know how to find it, build it or otherwise obtain it, how to maintain it, how to reuse it if it breaks or wears out or how to compost it. How different that is from our disposable society in which we buy some piece of crap from the big box and then throw it out after one use!

And it seems to be territorial with something that you have a relationship with would seem to be different than something you "possess." Relationships are fluid and you could conceive of bartering, sharing, or gifting under certain circumstances. Whereas possession seems concrete, it's MINE, I've branded my name on it, part of my value as an individual is my possession of certain things. 

Also, if I have a relationship to Mother Earth, and someone else comes along, well, they might have a relationship as well, and so I would take that into account. Whereas if it's MY piece of land, then there's no room for anyone else, and another person would just be an intruder/invader.

I wonder if there's a point where we can talk about individual prejudice and discrimination and de-emphasize the group thing. Because here's what it looks like to me: people are not supposed to use race as a factor in their judgment of another person (and face it, we all have to judge people all day long, whether as a potential threat, potential friend, potential employee, or whatever), and yet the message is that "blacks" are discriminated against by "whites" in terrible ways constantly. While this is true, and I'm not suggesting a coverup of the truth, does it not, as a final definition of the situation, perpetuate a division based on group identity?

This is how I feel about feminism as well. If feminists in one corner continually berate the "bad boys" in the other corner for treating them badly, then isn't the male/female divide just going to get deeper? What if there were a group of people, male and female, black and white, who insisted that people be judged individually? Because seriously, does every single black person consider the entire population of blacks as their people? I, being female, certainly do not consider the entire population of females as my people. I, being white, feel far more connection to and affiliation with my neighbors, black, white and Hmong, than I do with people on the other side of town of any race or ethnicity.  If you picked out a random white female in the world and one of my black male neighbors and said, "We're going to give $1,000 to one of these people, which one?" I'd definitely pick my neighbor. I am completely judging them based on the fact that they are part of my community, and the other person is not. So what if the focus is on building connections and community, instead of standing on a side of the fence that has been built based on skin color, heritage, genitalia, height, class, or any other box that can be checked on an employment application?

In my ideal world, people could certainly talk about how those details of their person affect their experience, and of course join together with anyone they wished to get their story out, but in the end there would be some kind of acknowledgment that a person's integrity, words and actions are what truly matters, above and beyond the personal details they cannot control.  I envision some kind of larger belonging, to a rational and loving humanity, that preserves the identity of whatever smaller affiliations have coalesced, supports their smaller group objectives and welcomes the strength of their perspective, but also ultimately affirms the rights of individuals beyond any particular characteristics.

Post-civ, I think this might be easier, because if we were small tribes focused on survival, encountering other groups with a similar goal, we would certainly have an immediate common ground to stand on, and all other details would end up in the background. Whereas now, the artificial structure of civilization affords us the alienating luxury of inflating the importance of particular details that might otherwise take a back seat to genuine needs and connections.

For me, the impulse to rewild is about having a real connection to the Earth. Even if the petroleum supply were infinite, there is still a middleman who could cut me off any second. When I was a cyclist, it was the best feeling to go whizzing by a gas station with the wind blowing through my hair, pondering which restaurant I might eat at to "fill my tank." That feeling of independence and control was addicting. A few years into my cycling lifestyle change, I realized that if I were wealthy, I would much prefer to walk everywhere, because then I would be free from the need to find replacement parts, etc. for my bike.

Gathering and eating wild food gives me the same feeling - no store can keep me from eating because I have no money, am not wearing shoes, or whatever. I enjoy nursing directly off Mama Gaia's teat, in other words, because she doesn't judge me or make me jump through artificial hoops beforehand. And her milk tastes so much sweeter than the formula in a bottle we are told is civilized progress! Cars and packaged food and cable tv. Compared with walking and eating fresh berries and enjoying stories around the fire!

I guess my rewilding is based largely and selfishly on pleasure. Does that make it less legit?