Hunting and Gathering Perspectives part 2

Destroying Angel wrote:

(D) - thank you very much for your excellent elucidation of some of your difficulties with TD (Teaching Drum). I’ve never been, but have thought much about attending. I hope to start the 1st FREE primitive-living and skills school, and part of the school will be a residential primitive camp, something like what I see at TD. I would love to talk more with you about how to make this a “success” if I could.One thing you wrote that I wonder about is’ “I believe that a practice that punishes someone for seeking to meet their human need of comfort and safety amplifies the potential for danger and imbalance among the students of the yearlong.” When is a person’s perceived “human need of comfort and safety” no longer acceptable. It seems to me that much of the present systemic collapse has a lot to do with anthropocentric self-entitlement and justification for useless plastic chachkas and snicker bars. Do you think the school and its students would be better served by being given total freedom? Don’t we engage in certain endeavors because we are aware that without the pressure from teachers, peers, or whatever, that we won’t do what we’ve determined we need to do?Having been to the tracker school a number of times it’s interesting to noe that you can’t really leave, as you’re in the middle of a freakin maze and your car is god knows where, but they do give you access to all the yummie candy bars you want for about 2 hours a day. And you get to retreat to the privacy of your own tent every night….and it’s only for a week or two. But I also wonder about the lasting “value” of what most take from that place. Many, I’m sure, return to pretty wasteful and sadly normal lives with little more than a cool story to tell their cool friends when they get back to their human comforts and safeties. And that is dangerous…Not meant as an attack - I agree with much of what you say, and don’t disagree, but wonder, about the rest.
Best wishes,
Joe
Friday, February 6, 2009

(D) wrote:
When is a person’s perceived “human need of comfort and safety” no longer acceptable.
That’s an excellent question, and I don’t know how to answer it definitively.
I think that at the foundation of any of this type of experience is a profound ambivalence. On the one hand, an ordinary civilized person would not choose to go even on a weekend primitive skills seminar or camping trip if a part of them didn’t relish the challenge of stretching themselves. On the other hand, if they were truly totally comfortable in the woods, they’d already be living there. It’s a careful line to walk, one that varies according to the individual and one that can shift quickly.
I think about a swimming analogy. Different people have different relationships with water. Some have to be dragged to the water’s edge while others can’t live away from it.
With the right combination of challenge and encouragement, even someone afraid of the water might learn to swim. Even then, the details of their long-term learning and motivation will depend on the type of challenge and encouragement offered. Are they forced to swim by an oppressive authority? Then they’ll learn but hate it. Or do they start out being taught to enjoy just being in the water for short periods? Then they might grow to love it on their own. But that also runs the risk that they might not.
I think the Wilderness Guide Program is like dropping a beginning swimmer into the deep end of a pool. For some, it’s exactly the type of challenge they need. For others, it’s way too overwhelming and potentially traumatic, and they don’t make it. This approach is a natural selection of those who are already hard-core. It’s one-size-fits-all, and unsurprisingly there are numerous dropouts every year. Not stating that as a plus or minus, just an observation; some people would consider that a plus (think Marine Corps training).
How can you tell whether a beginner needs to be pushed or needs to be allowed to take their time? I don’t know. I imagine only experience could teach you.
But it is my opinion that a culture that allows a relatively relaxed exploration of that boundary — between water and land or between primitive and civilized — while still challenging people to explore that boundary, would yield less neurosis and more enjoyment, even though it might also select a group of individuals that are not as hard-core.
I guess it just depends on which direction you want to go.
If you talk to other Teaching Drum folks, some of them feel really good about their experience, so don’t take my word as the final answer. But, it didn’t work that well for me. And, I’ll bet you that even those folks had food addiction issues, which should tell you something.
But I also wonder about the lasting “value” of what most take from [the Tracker school].
Well, I think you have to look at goals. I think the Tracker School is about imparting its skills and philosophy to the broadest segment of the population possible while still retaining a sense of its core values. The Teaching Drum is quite different in its focus on small quantity and great depth. I imagine yours would be different from either but in any case I think it would be a good idea to define goals and objectives clearly. As I noted in my essay, I think Teaching Drum confuses me because the goal of the program is not entirely clear, and/or the goal and the actual outcomes do not always meet.
It’s hard to tell if you’re successful at something unless you have a goal to measure yourself by. Kinda left-brained, but true.
Anyway, these are fascinating and thoughtful questions. I wouldn’t mind hearing a little something about your experiences too.
Friday, February 6, 2009

Destroying Angel wrote:
(D),
Thanks for your timely response - like holy shit, that was fast! hahaha
The thing that I’ve run into strongly with the tracker school and every other primitive skills educator that extolls the virtues of “getting back to nature” is, why aren’t they living it? Why does even TD offer only a 1 year immersion? Why does TBJ or other teacher not create an environment, aka “village” , where the deeper lessons of community, extended family, the voices of nature, etc are facilitated? What example are they really setting for those of us who desire a life more like our ancestors lived? (Certainly not just like our ancestors lived, because that might take a long time to return to, if we even decided that was desirable or necessary, but somewhere between here and there.) It seems that all they’re providing an example of is how to run classes of very limited duration that create a good deal of conflict in a good deal of the participants. But if these teachers were the elders at the core of an ongoing tribal “experiment” wouldn’t we all then have a chance to be part of a badly needed, living, counter culture? I bet you’ll want to say that there IS a living counter culture, and you’re right, but it’s nowhere near as vibrant and tenacious as the dominant culture, and probably never will be, if our focus remains on individual growth and prosperity. It seems everyone just wants to find a way to integrate the skills into a personally meaningful and hopefully lucrative lifestyle, which is barely different than wanting to build a bigger skyscraper or some other equally noxious pursuit. What TBJ does teach is that no purpose is empowered unless it is a purpose beyond the self, which I agree with, but don’t see anyone living, except people who are just determined to feed the hungry masses, which mostly just keeps people alive long enough to earn and spend money. Don’t get me wrong, I think that purpose can and should include the self, but it must go beyond as well, and I’d go so far as to agree with the notion that self should and must come second to the tribe. We’re living with the aweful consequences of a culture that has somehow convinced itself that the individual’s need supercedes the need of the tribe. at those times when the two prove to be mutually exclusive.
I look forward to your insights,
Joe
Friday, February 6, 2009

(R) wrote:
To me, this is the critical jist of the matter:
You wrote: “The thing that I’ve run into strongly with the tracker school and every other primitive skills educator that extolls the virtues of “getting back to nature” is, why aren’t they living it? Why does even TD offer only a 1 year immersion? Why does TBJ or other teacher not create an environment, aka “village” , where the deeper lessons of community, extended family, the voices of nature, etc are facilitated? What example are they really setting for those of us who desire a life more like our ancestors lived?”
I heard it said once, that “what we practice is how we perform”. And I’ve noticed this at TD myself. No matter how strong the emphasis on practice there is, the situation created during the year long is artificial and the guides are not really living what they are attempting to guide others in. Tamarack and Chris and Lety are as honest and sincere a group of people as I’ve ever met, yet they live in houses and get the majority of their food from the money the school earns. They are not living an example before the seekers, they are putting seekers in an intense (and disorientating) artificial situation and then going out and teaching, encouraging and sometimes cajoling seekers to perform in that (still essentially) socially constructed environment. The seekers often get overwhelmed, and (quite naturally) feel victimized by the situation, so a struggle of wills inevitably results between the seekers and the guides. Then victim behavior is “flagged” and dismissed on the individual level, without acknowledging the overall relational dynamic which gives rise to it (just like happens in modern american civilization). It’s more of the same (of what we get in civilized life), and a whole lot of dysfuntion stems from it that then has to be moderated or compensated for. The food doesn’t come directly from Mother Earth, it comes from Mother Earth via town in the form of “food drops” dispensed and controlled by the guides. Then the guides (well fed and comfortable themselves) deney the situational appropriateness of the fact that hungry struggling seekers complain to them about food rather than take responsibility for their own lives in relation to Mother Earth.
Post-year-long, I’ve watched as former seekers attempt to set up similar situations for themselves after the year-long, including getting “food drops” from friends or whomever. I’ve also watched former seekers continually get down on themselves for “victim” psychology (a catch-22, if ever there was one) and continue on with huge internal struggles leading out of the yearlong experience.
I’ve come to the conclusion (since finishing my own year-long and two years of working at the school as volunteer staff) that what is needed is not any more schools or set-up situations. What is needed now is people who live and struggle and learn, and lead by example in the process of living and learning with those who follow their example (sharing all hardships and struggles equally, as would an old-way clan) and with no pretense toward establishing a school and/or being teachers (or “guides”). The folks at TD do make serious and well-intentioned efforts toward escaping these counterproductive and unhealthy dynamics, but still generate lots of intense psychological struggle and exhaustion, because the essential realities pointed out here (both in my post and in David’s article) are not fully acknowledged and dealt with.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Destroying Angel wrote:
Thanks (R), I agree entirely with your assessment of what is needed. I’ve been trying to find a group of like-hearted folks to embark on just such a journey. This search has been frustrating to say the least! Recently, however, I was fortunate to find a friend in Ontarion who’s planning a rewilding excursion called Reinvent09. You can find it in facebook groups and there’s a blog, too. http://reinvent09.blogspot.com/ Anyway, right now we’re planning on heading to a 550 acre parcel in far northern NY, called Many Oaks, in May 09. It’s a privately owned non-profit land trust that my friend Medicine Bear started years ago. I am part owner, and we would therefore not run into any issues with building structures on public lands and such. I would like few things better than to see this evolve into the first ever FREE tracking and skills school that would be modelled after the ideas mentioned in this email, i.e. a place where the skills are kept alive by living them, day in and day out. It would be a residential community where people would be free to come and go as they pleased, but would be kept pretty primitive while there. All details, of course, would be decided by consensus, i.e. true democracy.
I will include other emails on the Reinvent blog (look for the “Hunitng and Gathering Other Perspectives” label) that I’ve been trading with teachers and participants of other schools, as I feel these exchanges are very relevant to what we’re talking about here, and reiterating all would be real tedious!
Best wishes, and I pray to hear more from you,
Joe
Tuesday, February 10, 2009