The Adventures of Urban Scout

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

Going Feral