First step in rewilding

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance
#33

eriol, welcome to the forums.

my problem with heyvictor’s offering about books was not that he suggested to put them aside for a while, but that he said not to read any more books. period.

as he just expressed, his post came from a point of agenda. i think he was reacting against a lot of the attitudes he sees here and wanted to push folks in the direction he favors. i replied in regards to the direction that i favor as a way of pushing back against his pushing.

we all have different ideas about how reach the concept of freedom from civilization. some folks will value certain things that other folks don’t really care about and vice versa. i like the fact that we have different ideas and perspectives and can even cope with the fact that we might get a little pushy sometimes when present our ideas because it means that we’re getting more ideas into the mix.

in the end, only you can decide on your path. it’s kind of like when i asked my doctor about the best exercise routine, and he said “the best one is whatever one you will actually do.” find among our words and arguments whatever resonates with you. embrace whatever ideas will lead you to more ideas, whatever actions will lead you to more actions.

and by the way, i thought scout came down a little hard on you for not posting an introduction first. if we already had a “before you post” thread going, the situation would look different, but as it stands, he held you up to a standard you couldn’t have known about yet.

#34

i think the following experiences have really drawn me into “rewilding”:
-sitting on the porch around a fire with a good friend for hours of silence
-skinny dipping with friends in the ocean under the milky way in her full glory. there was some kind of algae (?) that sparkled green in the water and made us all beautiful, green-sparkling naked bodies.
-sleeping with a friend outside in the open, without tent, and waking to a thunderstorm rolling in
-getting involved in a physical relationship after bottling up my sexuality because of religious teaching
-becoming a vegetarian. not necessarily because of the “not-eating-meat” thing, but because it forced me into trying new vegetables and fruits and really tasting the food!

#35

Folks have had a lot to say on this topic, but I keep coming back to those first couple of things –

Take it barefoot. Yeah. My bare feet on the earth, in the water, pine needles, moss, rocks, sand, even cool hot smooth rough insides of buildings, whatever, really rocks my world. The more ways I try it the more I love it. A really weird little story from years ago popped into my head today. My college town had a completely crazy, drug-soaked, super creative wild interesting Halloween celebration, people came from neighboring states just to see the crazy shit going on. A giant, costumed human mass hallucination gathered in the pedestrian-only zone downtown and slowly swayed and gawked and freaked into a crescendo throughout the night. One year, in the midst of all that loud, raucous craziness, I don’t even remember what kind of costume I had put together, but somehow I ended up barefoot in some squishy mud under one of those city street trees with a neat square of bare dirt around it. In my altered state, no one could tear me away. All I wanted to do was dance and squish in that mud for hours. I felt so deeply amazed and happy. I laugh as I type this.

The other thing–unfrenzy. To me, that represents the undoing of the things civilization has done to me in one word. Thanks for the suggestion Neighbor Scout–let me know if you get to your story of how to do it! :-*

#36

My first few steps I have taken to rewild lately are as follows:

-sleeping with my window open (although I have a screen to keep pesky mosquitoes at bay). It’s nice to feel the cold night air and stare at the silver moon.

-going barefoot everywhere except in stores and when driving. Can you build up a sort of pseudo-immunity to the pain or discomfort from stepping on small, hard objects like rocks or sticks?

-drinking loads more water than I used to and laying off most if not all soft drinks. I felt like looking at some ingredients on drinks in the gas station today: Dasani water puts sodium in their water! Thats where the soapy taste probably comes from! And Minute Maid Lemonade says on the front: ‘made with real lemons’ but the ingredients say, "less than 0.05% real lemon’ or something of the like. That’s practically false advertising and I’m ashamed that companies like this would exploit people’s desire to have seemingly healthy drinks but they load it full of sugar (just about the same amount found in coke.)

-getting rid of meaningless hobbies. For instance, I sold every single one of my Vgames as well as systems; deleted all my online games I play, and I’m getting rid of magazines because none of that stuff seems to appeal to me anymore. Why do people play ‘realistic’ videogames when they can experience all of that in real life?

-telling most of my friends my plans to relocate to the wild in the near future. I haven’t told my family and don’t know if I will, and if I do, I have no clue how because I know they’d sent the gov’t and police after me to ‘rescue’ me, haha, from the evil wilderness -_-;

-losing my desire for money. This probably is one of the best and most joyful breakthroughs I’ve experienced in my 19 years of living so far!! This society teaches us that ‘money makes the world go round’ and that ‘money buys happiness’ and that you should depend on money (and technology, science, religion, ect) for your needs and wants. It feels so refreshing, rewilders, to look into my wallet and see 2 or 3 dollars sleepin in there, and not even care if it were hundreds instead of ones. I have 99% eradicated all desire for currency (the 1% being on buying gas and books). Once you are in this kind of mindframe, you’ll start to see how much greed and corruption everyday people in your life have hiding under their skin in regards to money. It’s sickening sometimes…

Well I apologize if this post was too long, although I don’t remember coming across any rules for posting length ???
Anyway, those are the first few steps I’ve went through lately for rewilding.

#37
Why do people play 'realistic' videogames when they can experience all of that in real life?
Because I'm not allowed to shoot people IRL :P

First step in rewilding: Go somewhere wild and listen…

I just love that feeling that the sound of leaves rustling a stream trickling and all the crickets and birds in the distance makes.

#38

[quote author=anti_ link=topic=326.msg12388#msg12388 date=1221810228]

First step in rewilding: Go somewhere wild and listen...

I just love that feeling that the sound of leaves rustling a stream trickling and all the crickets and birds in the distance makes.

Exactly

#39

Actually an addition I would like to add is:

Walk bare feet.

I went for a walk around the whole city yesterday with my girlfriend (want to buy rewild way of putting that), we were gone for almost half of the day and our feet didn’t get sore as with shoes !

(trying to write in a more colorful descriptive fashion there :P)

#40

Naa, post as long as you want! :wink:

#41

I can’t really remember what my first steps into rewilding were. It’s been my life for as long as I can remember. Just the other day I was thinking that when I cut school as a little kid, what I would do was go down to the river and play. I’d build forts, put rocks in the water to try and make a bridge, make stick ‘knives’ and so on. When I was a teenager, I would often ditch school to go to the forest and hike around, find berries, identify trees, etc. But I didn’t really look at it as ‘rewilding’. It was just a hobby. Something to do to counter the brainwashing that school tried to instil in me.

But after my re-education from college I got more into it and put a name on it. Some of the first things I started doing:

-Taking my bike places, walking, walking barefoot around.

-horticulture in my backyard, making compost, organic gardening, growing herbs, finding wild herbs, identifying wild foods/mushrooms/medicines.

-sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean and feeling the wind through my hair (my personal favourite).

-getting AWAY from civilisation where I can’t hear the cars on the highway, the planes coming in the airport, the people yelling at each other and getting lost in the sounds of the wild and remembering I’m a wild person.

-Reading and re-education in the stuff I wanted to know, but no one ever taught me in school. Like, why did I have to go to school? Why do I have to work a job I hate for 45 years? (This is a big one and that continues daily)

-learning about cob, strawbale, yurts, tipis, etc in the effort to house myself and avoid a mortgage.

-cooking more at home and from local foods.

-getting away from the cash economy. Learning to dumpster dive, steal and shoplift.

But I really think the most important “first step” one could take is to realise that’s it’s necessary and to look at where your skill set lies. I wouldn’t make a very good hunter, so I’m not out hunting or even trying. It also depends on your landbase too and what part of civilisation you live in. (Small town, large metropolis, etc) How are you going to dismantle?

#42

I guess you could say my first step was talking and interacting with animals when I was younger. Before High School I was doing things like swimming with seals and talking with dolphins and such, I also listened to nature a lot more. I was very in touch with things then. However, as I grew older and entered society more, went to a competitive college prep high school, began suffering from severe anxiety and depression, became stressed about things like “success” and my future…I forgot my connection.

It wasn’t until I met Fenris that I woke up again and got back in touch with nature and my true essence. What really struck me when I met him was that he is the complete embodiment of a childhood imaginary friend of sorts, or a character that I would use in my stories. He was the wolf spirit that I always thought about when I was playing alone in the woods. Finding him was the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and now I’m proud to say I’ve rediscovered the person I was before I got drowned by society, and I am the person I will always be.

For me the first step since my re-awakening with Fen was going out to Rooster Rock with him and Janna (yarrow-dreamer). It was a special place for me since it was where I had my first seal encounter, and also the first time Fen and I were out in nature together. That was the day our relationship began. Meeting him was a very life changing experience and together we are making our dreams become reality and striving towards a lifestyle that makes our hearts, minds and bodies happy.

So in short, my first step was finding my mate. Without him, I wouldn’t even know what Rewilding is.

#43

One of my big steps in rewilding occurred a year or so ago when I really thought about what people ate (it started off by thinking, if people had to eat only one plant or animal to survive, what ones would let us live the healthiest…)
from this I consequently found the Paleo diet/low carb/protein fat diets, which actually helped me a lot with my chronic always feeling hungry and needing to constantly snack (also to keep a feeling of low blood sugar away, ironically from eating too much carbs/sugar - who woulda thought?). This then lead to the whole, well if people before agriculture were a lot more healthy then… wtf??

So hence, looking for healthy and enjoyable ways to live in all aspects has taken a huge step in rewilding for me.

#44

Realize you like the wild better than the city, and recognize all that “go get a nice job and be happy” crap for the crap that it is, and that it may get you riches but it won’t get you (the) Wild.

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#45

We don’t need anything to read about rewilding. It’s quite likely human activity influenced the prairies farther back than 1000 years. The prairies seem to have developed in concert with the activities of humans and bison. Some people might consider the activity of bison to be “natural” and the activity of humans to be “unnatural” but it’s probably more helpful, in my opinion, to see if specific human activity is beneficial or harmful to overall life. The actions of the prairie humans working with bison seemed to have created one of the most productive ecosystems on the planet, which european humans subsequently diminished. Certainly in my region, which used to be prairie, the activity of european humans has diminished the productivity enormously though the land is now densely forested with oak and juniper. I don’t know how we could bring back the bison, but it might be possible to use cattle to emulate bison behavior, though this would require more cooperation between large numbers of landowners than seems likely in this age of selfish behavior.

#46

That’s a good point. The hardest part of rewilding is getting cooperation from one’s neighbors. It feels so frustrating to me. Living a cooperative instead of individualistic lifestyle is a sign of poverty and people want to keep up appearances for as long as possible.

Also, don’t they have bison ranches in the prairie? I’m not sure what the cost difference is between a herd of cattle and a herd of bison…

#47

People may become more cooperative once they start to feel the squeeze from Peak Oil.

#48

Maybe, but I am not sure about trusting someone who cooperates only out of necessity. You hear stories about families in the 1930s. They were poor, but happy. They didn’t have much, but they had each other. Then the prosperity of the 1950s came and they gave it all up to live the dream of a nuclear, male breadwinner/female homemaker family.

#49

As someone who has followed, on and off, the Rewilding community and the forum, despite my intention to withdraw at times due to my personal struggles, I have concluded that one important thing necessary is building a community. Not an online community, but an in-person community. Like what Rewild Portland and Rewild Pittsburgh are doing. I do not live in those areas, and have never attended any of their events, but I admire what they are doing. They are building an in-person community where people, face to face, are living their dream of rewilding and getting what they need. Many people have concluded that human beings evolved as social beings, and we need in-person communities.

There’s a beautiful scene in a TV show named “Arthur” for kids, where the kids visit an Amish community, and one of the kids, Buster, wants to try to live like an Amish person. He fails to do so, however, because he is not part of an Amish community.

Good luck with all of your efforts to rewild, and thank you for allowing me to periodically post on this forum and learn from everyone!

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#50

I stopped washing my hair and it doesn’t really get greasy. I let my hair grow too ofcourse :stuck_out_tongue: I only wear two levi’s pants and I don’t wash my clothes very often (I don’t know if that’s unhealthy, I’ve read somewhere that if you don’t change your pyjamas every week or so that’s bad for your skin, how true is that?) I also started walking everyday, learned drumming and take a cold shower everyday instead of a hot one. You spend less time in the shower that way, use less water and elektricity and it makes you feel good. When I take a hot shower now I feel kind of dead and it’s a good preperation for bathing in the wild I guess

#52

To me the first step is to simply get outside, the next being finding some sort of community of rewilding or folks who at least practice earth-based skills or permaculture, etc. While I feel like I have spent too much time reading books about different aspects of rewilding or nature connection, I think I have gained a lot of good knowledge about the less-physical side of rewilding, such as how to build real community or tend the land rather than primitive skills. In terms of connecting to the land I have tried to simply get outside, even when it is raining and cold and I don’t feel like it. And I’m always glad I did once I get out there and see giant trees or a waterfall or a bird of prey or whatever. It helps attune the senses to more subtle details and clears the mind.

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#53

relaxing … I notice so many people mediating & taking anti - something or others just to get through situations they hated that they could change (like a stressful job) but as easy as that sounds; I think this is why alot people go physically somewhere like camping or back packing. Theres no expectation to wear or wash or eat anything you dont feel like, you can be quiet or loud, sleep in or out of whatever you want. Just go outside