Rewild or Die! Finally, the edited collection of my blogs is out.

A few weeks back I took the Grover Cleveland High School NW Ecology class on a hike through the Gifford Pinchot. I hadn’t worked with a group that large (25 or so people) in quite some time, and since I didn’t have much time I did what we call the “drag and brag” in that, I dragged them down the path and bragged about how much I know about Northwest Ecology. This hopefully inspires students to understand how much knowledge is out there and maybe even to get a few of them to come to the rewild camp. I had a great time and forgot how much I enjoy doing environmental education. If only it paid more than television production!

I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations about the mysterious package I received. I’ve learned a lot, become aware of a lot of things I didn’t know about and thought deeply about my reactions and how I will deal with this kind of thing in the future. I’ve made mistakes in the last few weeks that resulted in a situation I didn’t know how to deal with, and so I made a few mistakes in dealing with the situation.

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Hey yall, if you live in the Portland/Salem area here is a great way to pass some time in the winter days and learn some cool skillz at a super cheap rate:

This year, Echoes in Time host’s Dale Coleman, Goode Jones and Leland Gilsen will be offering a taste of primitive skills over the weekend of December 11, 12 and 13. This is a very limited class size of 10 students and 4-5 instructors, therefore the instructor to student ratio high. Lunch will be provided and the diet is Opportunivore, if you required something special, bring it. We will be able to sleep in Goode’s shop next to the woodstove, so bring sleeping bags, and personal care items. Cold running water and restroom facilities are available in the shop. There are hotels/motels close if you prefer. We usually go out to eat in the evenings. Cost for this weekend is $75.00. Please contact Dale Coleman (echoesintime [at] aol [dot] com) and send registration fee early to reserve your spot.

 

Raccoon season starts next week. I finally made time to prep my traps in the way my trappers education booklet told me. I boiled the conibears to get the factory grease off and then mixed in a handful of black walnut to see what would happen.

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Seriously, topics like this bore the shit out of me and I shouldn’t even have to write about this. But because it happens so frequently, I thought I should. The other day some asshole posted a few comments on my blog calling me a hypocrite (among other things) for watching television. I deleted their comments. A little later they started posting comments about how I had “censored” them.

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Everyone talks shit on English Ivy; its invasive behavior has given it a bad rap. A while ago I started to feel empathy for the plant and wonder what kind of relationship I could begin to have with the plant, other than pulling it off of native trees and letting it rot in an ugly pile on the side of a trail.

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Hey there Scout,
I am just wondering that, while you are honing your skills to be able to create new out of the aftermath of civilization while nature is still intact, what are your thoughts about what to gather from this world (i.e ropes, tarps, rations, guns) to facilitate survival during whatever happens whenever it happens. haha the future is so wonderfully vague but extremely heavy if you have the proper amount of imagination and paranoia! also do you have a place to escape to, do you think this is necessary? a plan on how to get there undetected, other people to join? i am working on all of these problems right now but my energy and focus rise and fall like the sun and that quickly and if its a nice day outside you can guarantee i am not focusing on the warm weather clothing and wool blankets i will need stowed, mostly working working on my tan(vitamin d), muscles and ability to become nature as to remain undetectable. but i know there are things that are extremely important that will insure that the people with the right intentions for nature and the universe can prevail and that we should have these at the ready just in case anything happens. its funny because i have gone to some “survival” website with lists about what have, they will list “at least a half gallon of water per day per individual, which does not provide water for hygiene, so be sure to take breath mints and STRONG DEODORANT” seriously these people are worried about “hygiene” and its the Apocalypse?!?!? i guess if they weren’t intending to survive on MRES, which are sure to putrefy their systems, they wouldn’t smell so foul but come on, if you even wear deodorant right now i am pretty sure you have a special comet with your name on it hurling towards the earth this second..
I don’t know how well to say thanks but keep exploring and sharing,
Jessica

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When I walked into the Derrick Jensen talk at the Econvergence this year, one of the organizers asked me to sit on a panel the next day at PSU for the Econvergence discussion on “Radical Sustainability”. It seems that another speaker who was to talk about primitivism didn’t work out and they needed someone. Of course, I engage in rewilding, not primitivism and I don’t consider primitivism and rewilding to be synonyms for each other, since rewilding is a much more modern, better understood and culturally sensitive approach to indigenous living. Therefore, I don’t consider myself a primitivist. However, they knew of my differences and we’re still enthusiastic about having me aboard to talk about rewilding, so I said yes.

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Today I finally gathered some Black Walnuts. I’ve been watching them for weeks now, ever since I got my traps. I never really thought I would get into dyeing things but then when I got my traps, I read online that I should dye them first, with Black Walnut husk.

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I went out the other day with Willem and harvested a whole bunch more fireweed as well as nettles for this next year. I’m going to process even more for my own projects but I want to save a bunch and do another cordage skill share at Echoes in Time next summer. I’m going to save some nettle for that too. I generally cut the stalk as close to the ground as possible and then strip the leaves off by running the stalk along my hand, either with a bandanna or wearing gloves. I do this with both nettles and fireweed. Once they dry I will put more pictures up on how to process them into fiber that you can spin into cord.

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A couple months ago, while traveling to a friends property in the early morning, I came across two roadkill raccoons within a few hundred yards of each other. One female with a light tan color, the other a male with a darker grayish tint. Each one small and juvenile, and not even a shred of a winter coat. Poor little creatures most likely died instantly since they both lay in the middle of the road. I picked them up and took them to my friends where we skinned them and ate their meat. Raccoon legs taste amazing, if you ever get the chance, seriously try it. I don’t quite know what to do with organ meats yet, so we left the rest of the carcasses for the coyotes or other scavengers.

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I remember learning the figure-four dead fall and a simple snare close to a decade ago. When I learned them, I simultaneously learned that the law does not allow them unless you stumble into a real survival situation. This really put me off from ever trying them out or experimenting with them. So the art of trapping fell by the wayside to edible plants and other ancestral skills.

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Dear Scout,Who gave you the authority to define rewilding for everyone, everywhere? Just because you keep a blog and prance around in a loincloth doesn’t give you the right to tell us what rewilding means! Go fuck yourself!

I didn’t really define rewilding. I took the definition I found on the internet.

But for the sake of it, let’s do some word play here. Rewilding, the slang for re-wilding. An obvious premise sits in this word: giving something back its wildness. Of course, “wildness” means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But let’s go with Dictionary.com’s definition of re-:

a prefix, occurring originally in loanwords from Latin, used with the meaning “again” or “again and again” to indicate repetition, or with the meaning “back” or “backward” to indicate withdrawal or backward motion: regenerate; refurbish; retype; retrace; revert.

and wild;

1. living in a state of nature; not tamed or domesticated: a wild animal; wild geese.
2. growing or produced without cultivation or the care of humans, as plants, flowers, fruit, or honey: wild cherries.
3. uncultivated, uninhabited, or waste: wild country.
4. uncivilized or barbarous: wild tribes.

If we look at the first definition list above, the subtext of the definition of rewilding that I found online “to return to a more natural state; the process of undoing domestication” makes practical sense as the definition of rewilding.

Why do definitions matter? People must have a shared reality in order to work together in that reality. I once got into the most insane arguments with a man who refused to share reality with me, claiming that “nothing is real” and that “there are no such thing as facts”. These arguments looked like little more than philosophical masturbation to me, than practical thinking for taking actions to create a sustainable planet. While I agreed in the philosophical sense with him, it didn’t help anyone to make choices in the real world. While I don’t believe in the concept of “facts” I do believe that we need to have shared observations of reality. We can observe that agriculture destroys the soil. If we can’t have that shared reality, we can’t work together to change our subsistence strategy to one that builds soil. Similarly, if we can’t have a shared reality of what it means to rewild, the word might as well mean nothing at all. The more we clearly define an idea, the easier time we will have using it for practical purposes.

In a sense, I will claim ownership of the term rewilding, in that my life’s work centers around caretaking the idea of what it means to return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, in its wholeness. I don’t think of rewilding as some new buzzword or some small scene of people or a wildlife conservation tactic. I see it as a complex lens through which I view the world helps me to make decisions about how I want to live my life.

Now, some contention may lie in that I strongly advocate against running away to the wilderness. While I strongly advocate against it, I still see it as part of rewilding. Because my focus lies in fostering as much rewilding as possible, running away to the wilderness doesn’t effect much change. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own merit, it certainly does! I also advocate for creating “rewilding havens”; land where people can work together to rewild. This differs from running away into the wilderness because people still focus on creating an interface with civilization to draw out its members, rather than shunning all of it and living as a hermit (which I believe also has its own merit).

When it comes down to it though, I don’t see one “right way” to rewild. Everyone has their own limits and passions. I will continue to do what I can to build a cultural momentum of rewilding, using the fullest extent and articulation of the practical, shared definition.

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A couple of weeks ago I helped a group of people dismantle an asphalt blacktop at a school, using crowbars and sledge hammers. It felt fantastic! No, we didn’t do it during the middle of the night and no the cops did not stop us. Depave works to (legally) free the soil and replant it with community gardens. Click the pic and read more about it at their website:

Culture Change recently published a cool article about primitive skills:

http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=511&Itemid=1

I have to say, for the record, I don’t think of myself as an anarcho-primtivist. Nor do I practice Rewilding as a “political statement.” Nor do I think that primitive skills offer a sustainable model. I do think they work as *part* of a sustainable model though! Which shows why I go to gatherings like Echoes in Time and other skill-shares. I believe that the sustainable model of hunter-gatherers lies in their land management routines and social (non-hierarchical) family structured organization. The first empires and civilizations used primitive tools. So the tools of hunter-gatherers don’t point to sustainability, but the lack of creating empire and civilizations (which inherently destroy the planet) do. You can have primitive tools without sustainability, you can’t have sustainability without primitive tools.

Several different journalists, over the past couple of months, have asked me to sum up rewilding in a couple paragraphs. I open my mouth only to spit and stutter. For years I’ve used the following definition:

Rewild, v; To return to a more natural or wild state; the process of undoing domestication.

The more I talk with people and the more I read and write about rewilding, the more I’ve found that the above definition appears over-simplified for your average member of civilization. Most people have preconceived notions of the words wild, natural and domesticated that stem from civilizations mythology which means the definitions serve the purpose of convincing people to believe in civilization.  This means that when an average person reads or hears the above definition they will not understand what rewilding actually means to someone who has redefined those concepts (outside of civilizations propaganda). Therefore definition above obscures more then it reveals unless we simultaneously redefine several of the other concepts.

Now you see why I get a headache trying to explain rewilding in a couple of paragraphs. The definition begs a more complex analysis such as, what does a wild state actually look like (compared to what civilized mythology tells us)? How do we define natural and unnatural? How do we define domestic? What causes domestication to begin with? Why would we want to rewild? Why would you want to undo domestication? What stands in the way of undoing domestication? How do we surpass these obstacles that prevent us from rewilding? Without fully understanding the answers to these questions, the term “rewilding” looks to most civilized people I’ve encountered like it simply means “getting back to nature” or “primitive living.” Because of all this, I haven’t sat down and really thought about how to define rewilding in a long while. But it seems, the time has come.

The term rewilding refers to the action of participating in the social and economical renaissance of humans who use the preexisting social and economic models of our hunter-gatherer-gardener ancestors to recreate the sustainable relationship that humans had with their ecosystems for millions of years before the recent advent of agriculture, empire and civilization. This critique emerged from modern ecological and anthropological studies which show how civilization, agriculture and empire inherently destroy the land base for which we depend for our livelihood. Rather then trying to fix a model built on unstable ground, rewilding creates a new culture using an ancient recipe.

Rewilders recognize that as long as empire exists, it will force people into domestication and prevent rewilding from taking place. In order for rewilding to occur, empire must not exist. This reveals one of the complexities of rewilding in comparison with say, the idea of “simple living” or  “getting back to nature”. The removal of empire stands as a pivotal topic in rewilding and the basis of many conversations that revolve around what to do about empire and how to dismantle it so that rewilding can occur.

In order to accomplish rewilding, “rewilders” practice a multitude of skills such as innovative team building skills, storytelling skills, martial arts and ancient hand crafts like brain-tanning deer skins into buckskins and making tools from stone, bone and wood. In order to create a holistic culture empathetic to the land and our other-than-human neighbors, an emphasis is placed on storytelling and sensory exercises that provide experiences in animism. Animism, which lies at the heart of rewilding, refers to a way of seeing and experiencing the world and its other-than-human members as persons who demand respect and not inanimate objects put here for humans to exploit.

Creating and maintaining wild or feral cultures marks the goal of rewilding. Although, rewilding does not denote an end point but rather a continuing cultural process of learning how to relate to the land, people and other-than-humans in a sustainable way. Even wild or feral cultures practice the art of rewilding.

After all this time, I’ve finally come up with a (rather mechanistic) definition that I think will at least explain a lot more to the average person, and perhaps peak their interest and let them see rewilding through a more complex lens then the previous definition.

Rewild, v; to foster and maintain a sustainable way of life through hunter-gatherer-gardener social and economical systems; including, but not limited to, the encouragement of social, physical, spiritual, mental and environmental biodiversity and the prevention and undoing of social, physical, spiritual, mental and environmental domestication and enslavement.

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Hey peeps. I’m fucking bored. Gimme some topics to rant about.

My friend Miles has a cool rewilding blog started that you should check out:

Going Feral

Up and running. Want to run a rewild camp or open space in your place? This is the site for you!

www.rewild.info

This is a video about Echoes in Time, the gathering I volunteer at. See my previous post for more info on the next gathering.

[youtube t473l-Nz0ps]

www.echoes-in-time.com

“Join us for our 10th annual gathering! Workshops include early living skills and primitive crafts from the stone age era through the pioneer era. The workshops are meant to appeal to people with historical and sustainable interests – mountain men, outdoorsmen, rewilders, permaculturalists, families, boy scouts, homeschoolers and abos. However, anyone is invited to register. No previous knowledge or experience is required. In fact, if you have a particular field of interest not mentioned, let us know when registering and we’ll do our best to accommodate your curiosity. Plan to register early as space is limited. Come prepared to learn amid a circle of enthusiasm and new friends. We look forward to one and all” – Echoes Staff

Hosted by Dale Coleman, Goode Jones, Leland Gilson
Monday, July 20, 2009 – Friday, July 24, 2009 at 5:00pm
Location: Willamette Mission State Park (Exit 263 of I-5 just north of Salem, Oregon)
Phone: 503.873.4055
Email: echoesintime@aol.com
Cost: $175 before June 30th 2009
Single Day Rate: $40 per person
Fees include park camping, insurance and instruction.

To register to go www.echoes-in-time.com

Some Courses offered:
• Fire by friction, flint & steel
• Flintknapping
• Stone tools & bowls
• Bone & antler tools
• Bows & arrows
• Atlatls
• Braintanning hides
• Rawhide containers
• Moccasins
• Hafting
• Cordage
• Plant walks
• Gourd work
• Soap making
• Felting
• Dying & weaving
• Fiber crafts
• Drop spindle
• Quill work
• Scrimshaaw
• Beading
• Blacksmithing
• Sustainable living

Part memoir, nutritional primer, and political manifesto, this controversial examination exposes the destructive history of agriculture—caused the devastation of prairies and forests, driven countless species extinct, altered the climate, and destroyed the topsoil—and asserts that, in order to save the planet, food must come from within living communities. In order for this to happen, the argument champions eating locally and sustainably and encourages those with the resources to grow their own food. Further examining the question of what to eat from the perspective of both human and environmental health, the account goes beyond health choices and discusses potential moral issues from eating—or not eating—animals. Through the deeply personal narrative of someone who practiced veganism for 20 years, this unique exploration also discusses alternatives to industrial farming, reveals the risks of a vegan diet, and explains why animals belong on ecologically sound farms.

http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804

If you’ve ever seen my 2004 film short, The Adventures of Urban Scout, you know that in the film I had an imaginary arch-enemy by the name “Suburban Scout.” He was trying to appear like me, Urban Scout, but only for the aesthetic and not the rewilding angle. The other day I picked up the Portland Tribune and turned to the “Sustainable Life” section (which I do from time to time for a good laugh or to get myself pissed at what they pass as sustainability) and saw a hilarious article on the front page entitled “Suburban Tepee” with the laugh-out-loud, ludicrous subtitle; “Commodities Broker Longs for Life Close to the Earth.” This guy looks like an honest to god, real life, Suburban Scout!

Of course, the article was boring and stupid and had nothing to do with sustainability what-so-ever. In fact, it had nothing to do with anything interesting, except to say that some rich douche in the upper crust suburb Lake Oswego sleeps in a tipi in his parents backyard at night, and by day works as a commodities broker at daddies company and spent his richie rich childhood traveling to exotic places (he even has a hippopotamus skin!).

“He says he’s no radical and isn’t trying to send a political message. He’s just trying to live nearer to nature.” What the fuck? They put him on the cover of the sustainability section and he has nothing to say about sustainability. Dude, what the fuck does “close to nature” even mean anyway? I can only assume it means living more sustainably, since he’s on the cover of the sustainable life section. How is sleeping in a synthetic tipi (what is that, carpet on the ground???) with chemically tanned hides of animals from a different continent getting you closer to nature or making you more sustainable? Living close to nature, living more sustainably, doesn’t mean standing or sitting or sleeping outside or close to plants or mimicing superficial indigenous customs from a completely different bioregion. Sleeping in a tipi has absolutely nothing to do with sustainability. NOTHING. Unless you’re a plains Indian living 300 years ago and even then the tipi is a bi-product of their sustainable land management practices. Hey Portland Tribune, my buddy Willem slept outside in his backyard for a year. Why isn’t he on the cover of the “sustainable” section? Fucking HOMELESS people sleep outside, in tents all year, all the time. Why aren’t THEY on the cover of the sustainable section? If sleeping in a tent is so fucking sustainable… I mean really. Oh right. They’re not rich assholes who continue the status quo of destruction.

Indigenous people live “close to nature” not because some of them sleep in tipis or wear the skins of animal or practice spiritual customs. They live sustainably because they manage the land in a sustainable way. Everything else about their culture is a bi-product of that. Want to live “close to nature?” You should read about how indigenous peoples of this region live and connect with nature in real-life ways, and then replicate their land management practices. It makes me wonder how and why this article was even in the paper? I mean… Did Paulson Commodities pay the tribune or something? Could it be that the author is a friend of the Paulsons and was bored? It has to be one of those two things… if not, just fucking shoot me. We’re fucked.

I can’t claim that I’m more pure than he is; anyone who works in the civilized economy is fucking up the planet somehow. But at least I’m saying something and challenging the status quo of destruction and exploitation. At least I’m working to dismantle civilization in the ways that I know how. And while I’m still very much dependent on the grocery store for food, at least I’m working to create a different world and making it clear that this culture is fucked up. The fact that there is abso-fucking-lutely nothing sustainable or interesting about some rich dude sleeping in a tipi, and that he’s on the cover of the sustainable section continues to blow my mind. Fuck the Portland Tribune and fuck “sustainability.” What really gets me about him is his hodgepodge, world-collection of indigenous artifacts and customs, this smorgasbord of cultural appropriation; an African animal skin, mid-western Indian shelter, and a white mans alleged version of southwestern Indian spirituality (the whole Tom Brown Jr. “Lipan Apache Shamanism” thing). Without a political message about sustainability, he is just another rich eccentric with a fetish for native peoples belongings and customs. A commodities broker who collects the commodities of broken indigenous cultures… How unique. And sustainable. Let’s put him on the cover!

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When I got back from L.A. last week, my yard was exploding with life and new growth. Everything I planted last year survived and is now waking up from its winter slumber. I looked back at my blog from a year ago, and another from a month later to see what progress I can make this year. But first, here is a photo update on the plants from last year!

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What can I say? I love L.A. Yes, it’s a tumorous growth on the flesh of the mother. Yes, it’s a cesspool of everything I hate. Yes, “the only way to fix it is to flush it all away.” And yet… There is so much I love about Los Angeles and I’m not just talking about the champagne parties that take place in roof top hot tubs (which are fucking awesome by the way)!

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Once again the retarded citizens of Portland are all up in arms over the giant, “historic” neon sign that sits on the west side of the river over the Burnside bridge. Around 10 years ago everyone freaked out and shit themselves when it was changed from saying “White Stag” (an old outdoor clothing company) to say “Made in Oregon” (a company that sells things only made in the state). Now the University of Oregon owns it and wants to change it to say “University of Oregon.”

Honestly, why the fuck are we even talking about an ugly neon sign? I hate to use the old “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic” saying but come on people. The salmon are rapidly going extinct right in front of us. Street names? Neon Signs? Really? This is what you’re spending your time talking about while land that gives us life withers under the destructive, imperialistic agricultural regime? This is what you’re choosing to emotionally invest in while dams, logging, commercial fishing and pollution are wrecking havoc the innocent lives of plants and animals with which we depend?

Oh wait, I’m sorry. No, let’s sit around and debate what we should name a street. Grand Avenue or Cesar Chavez Ave? Oh and if you say Grand you’re a fucking racist! If we are looking towards quality of life, I see no way in which a neon sign adds more quality to my life. I see that sign every once and a while and it leaves no impression on me, anymore than any other grotesque Clear Channel billboard, only it’s a vintage advertisement so it’s like, totally cool or something. What the fuck is wrong with you people? You know what leaves an impression on me? Stands of Black Cottonwood that stood 200 feet tall with a width of 7 feet, lining the shores of the Willamette river. Camas fields so dense that the valley looked like a great sea of purple. Land that was so rich from indigenous, sustainable land management that it baffled the agrarian fundamentalists who first encountered it.

While my family does not belong to the Native American populations who tended the lands here for 8,000 years, we have lived here longer than Grand Avenue, longer than that disgusting neon sign. As a fourth generation Portlander, and a recovering agrarian fundamentalist, I can tell you that I would rather have that funding go to life-giving historic monuments, like say, salmon runs so thick you can’t wade through the river than old energy consuming advertisements. As the climate crisis heats up, as economic collapse melts our society down, we need to restore the local, sustainable food systems that humans had in place here for thousands and thousands of years.

Shame on you Multnomah county, with your so-called “green technology” and “sustainable development.” You’re supposed to be the most liberal, environmentally conscious, eco-forward county in this country and yet you quibble over the most meaningless bullshit, spending tons of money, time and energy, distracting yourselves from doing something sincere for the future generations. Here is an idea, let’s just change the sign to say “Fuck the Planet.” That way you’ll be able to clearly remember every time you look at the sign where your priorities lie. Either way, it will be very clear to the generations of people that come after us, that the people of this land cared more about pretty little bright lights than rewilding our ravaged lands.

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(sound) magazine, a Seattle-based NW music magazine gave me a soap box. If you live in Seattle, pick up a copy! If not, read the digital version here:

http://openpub.realread.com/rrserver/browser?title=/MIP/SS4-09-1024

Special thanks to Paige Richmond, Mark Baumgarten & Kristen Truax! It is such an honor to be in a magazine with The Thermals (probably my favorite Portland band) and the creator of www.icanhascheezburger.com (my favorite website!).

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What up scout! A while ago I think I saw on your website that you were recommending some sort of all-encompassing, 9 month post-apocalyptic survival school based in the Portland area? If I recall, you were featured as an occasional instructor. I’m pretty sure I didn’t hallucinate this, but I can’t find any evidence of the website, the course, or the blog you made about it.I am desperately in need of something like that as I don’t feel really confident in learning about things like edible plants outside of such an immersive environment, and would really like a 9 month vacation from my real life, besides.Is this school still available? If not, is there any other program or collection of programs you might recommend that might eventually instill in me the confidence and skills to live indefinitely and sustainably in wilderness and semi-wilderness areas? Thanks!- Nachie

Hey Nachie,

You’re not hallucinating! I was going to be involved with a program that taught some of that stuff. Unfortunately the dude in charge stole the show and decided to go in a different direction than rewilding and I did not want to be a part of that. Which brings me to a very important topic on the subject of educational programs; rhetoric. Many of these programs have flashier and flashier marketing with enticing prose and inspiring photographs that are designed to excite you, the consumer, into taking their programs. In the end though, the classes are empty of culture and real content and are often taught by beginners, fresh out of a different year long program, with little to no real world experience or knowledge, who basically parrot what they were taught by other parrots in their first year. This creates a culture of a lot of know-it-all’s who actually have no fluency in skills other than crafting a few hand-made tools or in running “nature awareness” games (which is what they spend most of their time doing). I know this, because I was one of these parrots and still find myself parroting shit! I don’t recommend schools because none of them actually teach rewilding. Rewilding is about creating and maintaining culture, not a few primitive parlor tricks. These schools are either focused on primitive tools or permaculture or some non cohesive jumble of the two. If that’s your bag, then by all means. I’m sure you can find them using google. But tools won’t get you living sustainably in the wilds; culture does that.

The only educational program I ever recommend is Martin Prechtel’s “Bolad’s Kitchen.” It is actually based on re-creating a holistic indigenous culture, taught by someone who lived in, and played a role in, multiple indigenous cultures for most of his life. His school has almost nothing to do with hand-made tools and everything to do with culture.

But mostly I recommend starting a community in your own place: see my chapter “Schooling Vs. Rewilding”

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Years ago I created and facilitated an open-mic style video screening in Portland called Broadcast. It ran almost monthly for about 5 years. I stopped it almost 5 years ago now, and for the last couple of weeks I have felt the need to revive it. I love the art of filmmaking, and while I work in and enjoy the field of film production, it’s hardly the same thing to me. Maybe because I work mostly in advertisement, but feature films are not really what I think of as the art of filmmaking. Maybe to the director or writer, but to me the field of production is about working to produce something that someone else wants. The art of filmmaking to me, has always been about producing something that I want to give to other people.

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I never understood the difference between ones “dreams” and ones “vision.” I remember hearing Tom Brown Jr. exclaim at one of his classes that his dream was to go live with his family away in the woods and never talk to people again, but that his vision, to write and teach people made him stay in contact with culture. He said it made him sad he couldn’t live his dream. I remember thinking, what the hell is the difference? I think I know now.

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So you want to live like a hunter-gatherer, huh? In order to do that we need to remove the barriers civilization has in place to stop us from rewilding. If we wish to remove these barriers that prevent us from easily rewilding, we must first identify them. The following list shows many of the barriers I have come in contact with. The list feels incomplete, but it covers much of the basics. It also reflects the “pure” end of the rewilding spectrum; those who live so far from civilization (culturally) that they no longer use any industrial-made tools or interact with the civilized economy at all. The most basic survival course covers your immediate needs; shelter, water, fire and food. We’ll start with how survivalists acquire these skills vs. how the hunter-gatherers of the Northwest Coast acquired them.

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A lot of things have changed since the last time I posted an inconsequential blog, so here goes; I’m broke, single and living back with my parents in Molalla. I haven’t written in a while because I feel like I have nothing to say at the moment, but I know I have lots. For the last couple of months I’ve been crossing my fingers hoping to get on a reality tv show that I auditioned for. I didn’t get on it, for better or worse. I’d like to give you a daily snippet, but I don’t really have a typical day. So here is a mosaic of my days blended together.
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I keep hearing people say we’ve got an energy crisis. This carries a few bullshit premises. The most obvious premise here: that we need “energy.” Why do we need energy? What does it do that’s so fucking important? Humans lived for millions of years without electricity. Indigenous hunter-gatherers had no need to create it. It requires an entire industrial economy that inherently destroys the land in order to create it. It does not make humans lives easier; it simply gives the rich more power and more destructive tools. How many people in the world even have electricity? We don’t need “energy.” At least not in the way they mean it. The energy crisis, as well as the economic crisis, really means that rich people continue to lose power, and they have so brain-washed us that we believe we need to do our part to keep the pyramid strong, our slavery in place. Civilization uses energy to take even more than we could without it. The less energy civilization has, the more limits it has to grow. That seems pretty fucking fantastic to me.
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Can everyone shut the fuck up about “hipsters” already? I’m so fucking sick of that word. The whole subject seriously bores the shit out of me and yet I constantly have to defend myself from people who call me that word as though it suddenly makes everything I have done to further rewilding insincere or fake. I usually shrug it off but i recently surfed to the Adbusters website only to see an entire “feature” article from last summer where they just talk all kinds of shit about hipsters, and now I feel I need to say something.
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My friend Josh tipped me off today that the latest issue of Adbusters has an excerpt from the Positive Living Magazine issue that featured me in an article.

I’m organizing 4 different rewild camps in the NW; Seattle, Olympia, Portland and Eugene. I’d love to come to Vancouver and make it 5 camps, pending on travel/gas time. (sorry Californians! Hopefully the year after next!)
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Surfing through all the Lolcats this morning I just couldn’t help but feel compelled to make one:

Read the full story here.

I try to avoid the newspapers as much as I can but I saw this photo on a paper tossed in a paper rack at my favorite taco joint and had to pick it up. It made me so fucking angry, as papers do, which shows you why I don’t read them, that I had to rewrite the article here for you to see, along with my commentary.

Take a look at this headline (in the “Sustainable Life” section):

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[youtube SkIsDRyq0DM]

Penny and I moved back to Portland. It’s funny because she gave me so much shit for wanting to live in Portland, and I gave her shit about living in the country. Now the roles are reversed. I didn’t want to move back for the same reasons she wanted to leave, and she wanted to move back for the same reasons I wanted to stay.
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People have been barking up my tree over this whole economic collapse thing. You know what? I don’t give a shit! We’ve seen economic collapses before. In fact, they are a normal function of civilization; like clockwork they merely end with the creation of a worse slave system than before. One world currency, one world culture. America has amassed a lot of fake wealth (and weapons and technology). But why go to the third world for labor when you can bring the third world to you? I don’t see economic collapse as the end of civilization, but a reorganizing of the wealth that will end with a steeper pyramid; more people on the bottom and less people on the top. Like Global Warming, the economic collapse has not triggered anyone to actually stop civilization, walk away or rewild. Rather, it appears that it will simply mean more people working longer hours for less money in shittier jobs than before. The only plus side is that it will hopefully push many people over the edge and encourage more people to seek alternatives like rewilding. Personally, I’m ignoring the whole thing, the same way I am ignoring the presidential election. Fuck it. Fuck them all. Fuck this noise. Know what I’m sayin?

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Fuck you.

Positive Living Magazine did a write up about me in their latest issue.

Hey Friends,

My friend Patrick is organizing a rewild camp tour starting at the end of February 2009. I’m going to help him with this process by utilizing the rewild.info site and corresponding with regional organizers. My own attendance is rather ambiguous as my freelance job doesn’t give me any idea of what time/money I will have.

Here is a list of the cities he’s looking at right now:

• Tucson
• San Diego
• Los Angeles
• Santa Barbara
• Santa Cruz
• San Francisco
• Berkeley
• Arcata
• Ashland
• Eugene
• Portland
• Olympia
• Tacoma
• Seattle

Here is his letter:

Hello everyone,

Alright, so it’s my most ambitious project yet, but I’m hoping to pull together a big rewild tour up the west coast for next spring. It’s going to involve 1-3 day camps in a bunch of cities up the west coast. These camps will cover the basic premises of living wild, bringing together ancestral skills, martial arts, myth, movement, discussions, magic, wild food potlucks,  campfires with music etc, and maybe do a walkabout in each place, walking somewhere wild that is special to the place. Also, I’m interested in getting the tour to network different autonomous groups (i.e. getting food provided by food not bombs, talking to regional environmental groups about it, etc).

To be able to pull this off I’m going to need a lot of help, I need to have a regional organizer in each location that would be dedicated to making it happen, we also need folks who would be willing to travel and teach, or just to teach/share at the nearest location. We also need a veggie oil vehicle(?).

Please let me know if y’all have any ideas or want to help…

Patrick

hodaki7@hotmail.com