Passion and Commitment

Most of you who are reading this blog are committed in many ways to learning earth skills, to getting closer to nature, to finding your vision and walking a strong path. I would bet that all of you are passionate about learning and growing, too.

At Hawk Circle, I haven't really pushed the whole 'Passion and Commitment' thing, because I think it can be overused. I think people can beat themselves up over going out to dinner rather than staying home and making acorns. I have seen students become almost immobilized by their worry that they aren't passionate enough. Or committed. Have you seen this?

I guess the bottom line is, for me, anyway, that I don't want someone to feel bad about themselves. I don't think that is the way we are going to really learn our skills. Or atleast, it shouldn't be that way. Because it just doesn't feel good. And if you start to associate not feeling good with wilderness skills, or getting outside, then it is a bad trend.

Guilt trips don't really work. Boot camp doesn't really work, long term. What I have seen work is being inspired. Connecting with that spark that comes from sweet discovery of a new track, or finding an awesome new berry, or making a superb bow. Hearing a story about how native people lived can be inspiring. Hearing stories about one of your friend's camping trips, or newly learned skills, definitely is inspiring!

When I am feeling low, or flat, and I don't feel like I am all that passionate, I do a couple of things. I go visit people I know who are passionate. Like Michael McCarthy, the artist/blacksmith/gardener...(the list goes on and on) and just being around him gets me excited to work on something, anything, again. Or hanging around with Barry Keegan, making any number of crafts. Or just hanging out in the barn with our students, who are always working on a ton of different things.

If no one is around, I will pull a book down that particularly spoke to me, like Barry Lopez's "River Notes" or Ed Abbey's "Desert Solitaire". Rereading certain passages definitely lights a fire under me, and gets me in the right mindset or mood. It just takes a little 'shot' and off I go....

Commitment is just a larger part of this. It says, "Don't give up!" even after I have just blown off a weekend to have down time with the kids. With commitment, it helps to have a long range view rather than looking at every little bump in the road, and to just give yourself a break.

As Carey Odes once said "It's not like the earth got screwed up in a day, or a week or a year. It has been happening for generations, even hundreds of years. We aren't going to say, 'Hey, the earth will all be perfect on Friday. Now what are we going to do next week?'. It just isn't going to happen like that. So everyone just settle down!"

Carey is pretty funny, but he does make a good point. We all need to settle down, and just be committed for the long haul. Recognize that it takes all of us a long time to make effective, real change, and that we will get there sooner by being inspired and loving ourselves, rather than beating ourselves up or feeling guilty.

Okay, I wish that I could magically wave a stick and everyone would change and be passionate instantly, but in the long run, we need to take care of ourselves, and do our best and take it day by day.

Another bit of good advice is something John Stokes, of the Tracking Project, in New Mexico once told me when I was learning my own skills. He said "Just try to practice one thing, a small thing, each day, and you will find that knowledge growing larger and larger, rather than pushing to do everything all at once. It just takes one or two small things to add up fast."

I listened to his words and I started to make a fire with a bow drill, every day. Just one fire, and in six months, I was starting to learn something about fire! I made fire with cedar, with sycamore, with milkweed bowstrings, with cottonwood, willow, alder and elderberry. It was an awesome time and I learned a lot.

That advice is definitely something I am happy to pass on.

Let me know if this helps!

Falling Leaves, Bow Season and Preparing for Earth Skills Training....

Bow Hunting Season just started here in New York, for deer. I have been spending just a little time out there so far, but the season just gets better and better as it goes along! I am enjoying being outside, away from the computer and all of the details of running Hawk Circle and just feeling the woods, smelling the leaves and listening to the sound of geese winging overhead.... I love this time of year! About seventy percent of the leaves have fallen, and winter is coming. Now is the time to get out in the woods!

First of all, we are just wrapping up our Earth Skills Fall Semester here at Hawk Circle, and it has been a great course. The students have made amazing bows, primitive pottery, ash splint pack baskets, beautiful buckskin, and lots more crafts and skills. Today I taught them how to make rawhide lanterns using willows, rawhide and bark, to light their shelters or path through the woods... Good times.

The main thing I wanted to say in this post is that you should make an effort to get out to your shelter and spruce it up for the colder weather. If you get a good awning, a reflector wall, some cattails and dried grasses set up for your shelter and backrest, you should be able to stow some firewood and be ready for camping out even in the coldest weather.

Tip: Bring about 15-20 feet of strong cord that you can use to tie up bundles of grass or firewood lengths, to make them easier to carry. If you use a strong stick (throwing stick?) and tie the bundle to this, you can carry the whole thing over the shoulder, holding on to the stick and not just a bit of string. It lets you walk and see in front of you, so you don't trip, and you can even drag the bundle behind you if it is large and heavy. Safe, easier and smart!

Another thing you can do is to collect moss, dried ferns or even leaves, and stuff them in between the logs in your reflector to keep the wind out. It is not as cold as trying to make survival cement with mud/clay/grass mixtures! Believe me, the time for that type of construction is really behind us. Of course, you can use any unseasonably warm weather is fine if you get it..... and the mud/grass combo is definitely superior to just leaves.

Another tip: Don't leave containers of food in your shelter, if you want to keep mice from chewing it all up looking for a good meal. You can dig a storage pit in the ground near your shelter, covered with a large rock, if you really want to store food and gear out there, but in your shelter, you are just asking for trouble, either from small rodents, bears or even kids crawling in there to check it out.

Okay, that's it for now, but get your shelters done, people, and work on your tree journals, too! Those are always good to get done and they go fast if you just sit down and crank them out after getting your field journals going....

Take care and see you in the woods!

Ricardo

Time has come to work on your shelter for Fall!

The goldenrod is bright yellow, and chokecherries are ripe. The leaves are starting to dry and curl slightly, though they are mostly still green. The forest is preparing for fall.

Now is the time to make your plans for the fall and the winter, in working through your course curriculum. It is a good time to look over your goals, and set measurable, clear objectives that will help you move forward in your skills and your knowledge and experience. Clarity will bring results! Instead of saying "I really need to get out and work on my skills this fall-that's a goal of mine...." say "This fall, I will sleep in my shelter five times, and complete eight tree or plant journals." (Or whatever course work you are working on.)

You will be surprised at how different your approach will be just by changing your language. The bottom line is: You want to grow. You want to make a difference, and be a role model. You want to find healing and awakening in the immersion of nature. You want new skills.

Whatever your goal or mission, you have to focus on them, and not let your e-mail, or your blog (he he he!) or your favorite distraction get in the way.

The first thing I try to do in preparing for the cold nights of fall and winter is to take note of where cattails, grasses and other insulation is growing in abundance. I pick a dry day and begin the gathering process, making sure to bind the materials loosely and let it dry fully before bundling it tightly for traveling.

I will also look at my firewood resources for the winter, to be sure I have enough to make my campfires for cooking. I build an awesome shelter awning, too, with a comfortable grass mat and backrest, so I can sit, warm and relaxed as I enjoy the evening and cook or work on crafts.

A reflector wall is a must, and if you can pick a warm day, go out and make some survival cement, a mixture of clay, dirt and grasses that, once dry, will seal up the openings in your log or rock wall. You can make your campfire ring awesome too, and you can get your camp fully ready for your campouts and adventures.

Doing these things will get you psyched to head out to the woods whenever you get the chance, because you will know you are going to a place where you will be comfortable, warm and have a positive experience. It really helps when you are working towards your goals!

You are still going to add leaves and materials to your shelter once the leaves actually fall, but getting ready now will get you in the mood for the days to come.

It is an awesome feeling to come out of your warm shelter to a world covered in frost, cold and damp, and have a nice bed of coals to coax into a fire, make a cup of tea and enjoy the way the sunlight turns the frost into trails of mist all around you. You will enjoy knowing that your slept warm and secure, despite the low temperatures, too!

Get ready to enjoy your fall and move into winter, with lots of skills and goals nicely tucked into your journal!

Journaling, Taking Pictures. More Valuable than Gold, with a little Time.....

One thing you will notice about my blog, or the website or my Facebook page about Hawk Circle is this: I have a lot of pictures. Okay, they aren't all magazine quality, but they tell a story in way that shows very quickly, what Hawk Circle is all about, the flavor of our place, the colors of the land, the way the sunlight shines on the beams of the new cabins, etc...... They help a lot.

Story: When I first started studying wilderness skills in earnest, it was 1984, and I was a young pup, with a composition notebook and a thirst to learn. I had a camera that I reluctantly took pictures with, being short on cash for film and developing, and a traveling lifestyle that wasn't compatible with having lots of boxes for storing photo albums and so forth. It was a pain not having a good flash on my old Minolta X-700, so my woods pictures always came out blurry and dark, but I did try. However, I had something in the back of my mind that always seemed to make me even more reluctant to pull out the camera. It was the words of many different native peoples, who seemed to resent people taking their pictures, because in some cases 'their spirit would be captured' or 'it takes a person away from the moment, removes them from experiencing life first hand'. I can relate to that, because in the summer of 1984, I was in Sequoia National Park as part of a BackCountry Trails Program, working for the California Conservation Corps. We were camped in the Big Arroyo, about 20 miles into the heart of the backcountry, building the trail on Kaweah Gap. Our weekdays were filled with rolling stones, building water bars, switchbacks and laying riprap, but our weekends were a time to head for the peaks, or find a lake where we might catch the fabled 'Golden Trout' the region was famous for. One day my friend and I climbed a small, un-named peak, just to get the lay of the land, and when we arrived at the top, we just rested and enjoyed the view. All of a sudden, a gust of wind hit me in the face and a huge golden eagle drifted in the updraft from below us to our eye level. I was staring face to face with a soaring, floating, golden eagle, not fifteen feet from my face. My friend dove into his daypack, trying to find his camera, pull off the lens cap and turn it on, so he could get a picture. I knew he was moving around slowly behind me but I couldn't take my eyes off of the bronze bird still in front of me. Her eyes seemed to pierce right through me, and gave me a strange sensation in my whole body. By the time my friend got his camera ready, the bird dropped and flew away, instantly a hundred yards away, a speck against the granite boulders, cliffs and bristlecone pines. He had missed the magic of the whole scene.

I never took a lot of stock in taking pictures after that, for some time. It just seemed to steal the magic of the moment for me, and I didn't bother as much as I should have, looking back now.

However, I wish I had taken a picture of me with my first shelter, or my first coal burned spoon (it was made from sassafrass, and it was awesome!) or my first class at the Tracker School with all of the instructors (Bear, Frank and Karen Sherwood, John Stokes, Rick and Ruthie, Kurt Folsom and of course, Tom). Having a photo of those days would be so nice right now, to show students of the early days of learning skills and how young we all were as we were learning and teaching, etc.

Your photos are not neccessarily for you, but for your students. For those who will follow in your footsteps, and who will learn and be inspired by the risks and adventures you have. That's why it is important for you to document things, through journaling, too, where you can write down your thoughts of what it was like to track shrews through the Crucible, or swim in the Medicine Waters, or gather milkweed in Indian Valley. Many years from now, you will appreciate your own words in ways that right now, you might barely understand. As a mentor, you will thank me, and I would be remiss if I didn't beg, nag, bother and demand that you do it! In this day of inexpensive digital photography, you just need to do it. And don't go crazy, but find a way to get some good pics, (of you!) and get action shots, or posed shots, whatever you have to do, with close-ups, too.

Journal the date, the time, the weather and the location, and then write from the heart. What was it like to do whatever it was. How did you feel doing it? What did you learn from it, at the time, in the moment? What do you think you learned now, looking back? What would you do differently, if you had to do it again? All of this and more can help you write great entries that are both illuminating and powerful to read, even years later. Your stories will inspire others, believe it or not. Having them documented is very powerful, too. It anchors them, for you as well as your students.

In addition to my lack of photos, I lost a box of about ten journals of nearly ten years of study in one flooded basement. Always store your journals in a safe place, and if you can make copies of them, do it! Don't rely on computers to save the data forever, either!

Anyway, I hope I have made my point, and inspired you in some ways to get started again on your journals and picture taking!

By the way, there is still, like, two spaces left in the awesome wild foods program with Sam Thayer called "Becoming a Gatherer" happening at Hawk Circle September 22-26. Check it out!

Summer Update

Hey all!

Summer is finally winding down here at Hawk Circle, and we are getting ready to head into fall. The goldenrod is starting to turn yellow, a few maples are starting to show color and it won't be long before the apples sweeten and the elderberries are ripe for picking.

The past few months have been busy here, with many campers, guests, great staff and a ton of projects that are slowly transforming our land step by step. We raised two cabins and are in the process of enclosing them and building bunks and beds for everyone to sleep on, and the list of other accomplishments is too long to list. But all were worthwhile and make either the participant, or staff experience more rich and rewarding.

Skills-wise, I have done some flint knapping, carving, some wood craft and lots of tool sharpening among other things. I have also been teaching quite a bit at times, from quick sapling bows to drying meat over the coals of a fire.

I haven't been able to work on my book or get a lot of personal projects done, but that is what the fall and winter are for! And if you are interested in learning more about wild edible plants, as staples for gathering real food sources, check out the workshops we are having here at Hawk Circle with Sam Thayer: Becoming a Gatherer. It's coming up in a little more than a month, in September. Or, if making super soft, strong and luxurious buckskin is more your thing, or you want to tan your next deer hide, check out the Art of Braintanning Buckskin Intensive at the end of September!

Barry is running an intensive too, called The Art of Ash Splint Packbaskets, in mid October, so you chould check that out if you want to go traditional and make a beautiful, strong and amazing pack basket. Barry is the best and you won't be disappointed!

I will have to post some more things here, just to keep this flow going, but until then, I hope you are all enjoying the summer and working on your earth skills!