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Going
Native: Illusion and Reality
Recently someone in the
Teaching Drum e-group asked, “How long does it take from knowing
nothing about the wilderness to going off and living in it, and when
do you know when you are ready?” Following is my reply:
“This is a profound
question, and hardly a day goes by that someone does not ask me the
same thing or something closely related, such as, “What are the top
skills I need to know?” “Learning the Old Ways should be free,
like it used to be; why do I have to pay money?” “Where can I
find an elder to teach me?” “Is it even possible anymore, with
all the hunting and fishing regulations?” “All the land is
private or restricted, and I can't afford to buy any, is there
anywhere can I go to live primitively?” “I want to learn on my
own, what steps should I take?” “Can I learn from books?”
“I'm going to give
you all some straight talk, in hopes that it will help to steer you
on to a track that might get you somewhere. The reality of the
situation is that I have not met, or heard of, a single person in the
past 40 years who has used the approaches that we have been talking
about, who has been able to return to primitive living. This includes
the authors of the popular books. Yeah, they might talk a good talk,
but look at what they've actually done--a month in the mountains, a
solo year in the woods, some time in Alaska--is that really living
the Old Way? Where is the clan? Where are the elders? The children?
Where is the example and clan memories to learn from?
“Why didn't it work
for them, and why won't it work for you? Because they carried
civilization with them into the wilderness, and you likely will as
well. You can learn all the skills you want, and The Mother will spit
you back out just about as fast as you went in. The more stubborn
individuals will last a few months or maybe a year, but rest assured,
they'll be back.
“Why? Because they
didn't do their work. We come from a technological society, so we
naturally think that substituting primitive technology for civilized
technology is our doorway. The only problem is that Native people are
not into technology. They spend only a couple hours a day providing
for their simple needs, and they mostly use simple means. Look at
their tools – few and crude, and their craftwork--basic and
utilitarian. What a Native person excels at is what I call
qualitative skills--how to sit in a circle with your clan mates and
speak your truth, how to find your special talent so that you can
develop it to serve your people, how to use your intuition, the ways
of honor and respect, how to live in balance with elders and women
and children, how to speak in the language beyond words, how to
befriend fear and live love. Without these skills, you will surely
die. Or else you'll go back to the life that shuns these skills.
“Will a book teach
you these qualitative skills? Will a class or a workshop? Is learning
firemaking or edible plants going to give them to you? They actually
take you further away from what you need to know, because focusing on
them reinforces the technological approach, and that 95% of your
brain which you don't use, shrivels up even more. We become what we
surround ourselves with; the way to learn Truthspeaking is to share
with other truthspeakers, the way to bring life back to our dormant
brain is to immerse ourselves in the full spectrum of life in which
our brain evolved, the way to elder wisdom is to be with wise elders.
There are patterns to break--crippling, blinding patterns that take
continual, unrelenting attention if we are ever going to see, hear,
smell, and feel as fully as we are intended. That takes guidance, a
supportive environment, and example. Otherwise, it's just another
exercise, another class, another walk in the woods, and then it's
back to life as usual, with no end in sight.
“Roughly 80% of what
a Native person eats is not affected by hunting and fishing
regulations. There are vast tracts of public and unregulated private
land that are available to a hunter-gatherer, with virtually no human
competition. If you think there are a lot of people at your favorite
state park or national forest, just step a few paces off the trail,
and they all disappear. Very few people really go "out" in
the woods anymore. I know a dozen ways to live legally on or adjacent
to foraging lands without having to pay big bucks. I can grow fat by
living primitively in a farmer's woodlot or city park. It doesn't
take Alaska or the Grand Tetons. It takes shaking off the old
preconceptions of what primitive living is and rebecoming the Native
person you already are.
“It simply can't be
done alone. We evolved as social beings, and we literally start going
crazy when we spend too much time without company of our fellow
creatures. Learning skills alone, buying land alone, is feeding a
pipe dream, a romantic fantasy, that will likely only lead to
frustration and disillusionment. Virtually everyone I know who has
tried it for any period of time, has given up and bought back into
the system. Try to look up some of the older people who once had
dreams as you do now. You'll see--they now have mortgages and jobs
with benefits they can't let go of, and kids' educations they have to
worry about. Yeah, they might still be talking about their dreams,
and they might practice their skills and head out in the woods now
and then, but realistically, when is that dream ever going to become
reality?
“And then there's the
cost of your rewilding. Yes, I said cost, because nothing is free.
Money is the least of what you are going to be asked to give. There
is a world of difference between something for free and something
that is freely given. On a stay with one of my elders in Canada, I
built her a cabin. 15 years ago another elder asked me to literally
lay my life on the line for him. I would gladly give my last dollar,
and much more, for the privilege of walking in my ancestor's
footsteps.
“The alternative? Sit
in the city, whining about how things used to be and ought to be. Or
look at the cost of NOT rewilding, and come to realize that one has
to give before they can receive. Then you'll be ready to throw away
your books, turn your back on the "experts," and turn your
face to the wind. You'll start hearing voices that help you walk
rather than give you sweet talk. There waiting to greet you will be
your clan, your teachers, and your real self. You'll leave survival
behind and walk into the Beauty Way.”
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