I moved back to Portland some time ago now. I don’t really like living in Portland, but all of my friends live here, and all the cultural rewilding opportunities happen here, blah blah blah you’ve heard it all before. Lately, I really feel the weight of toxicity in the city (perhaps all those wi-fi signals have finally got to my brain!?) and don’t want to stay here much longer. I keep telling myself, “just a little longer”. I plan to eventually move back to Molalla, or at least out to the woods somewhere near Portland. I want to find land out there to live on or perhaps just travel around the cascades in a gypsy wagon. But alas, for now I must work and toil in the confines of urban civilization.
This year I’ve really felt inspired to work on baskets. The key to building fluency with any skill starts with a good “setup”. Aside from having the materials to make a basket, you need a soaking pool to make them soft and moveable again after drying. Since I don’t live near a natural body of water, I built this soaking-pool in my backyard with old pallets that I pulled apart, a few screws, my screw gun/drill and a big tarp. It doubles as a mosquito incubation chamber. Fun!
After a year long experiment with a new rewild.info, I have decided to bring back the old rewild.info with a few new changes that you probably won’t notice. I did a little reorganizing and changed the banner. That’s pretty much it. It feels kind of weird, like finding an old favorite article of clothing that you forgot you had. Does it still fit? Am I still the same person? Can I integrate it back into my life? Can we move forward in a new way? I sure hope so. Thanks to all who had the patience to try out the new forum. And thanks for all the voices who pushed the old one to make its comeback. Check it out here:
The Starfish and the Spider feels like an anecdotal book about decentralization. Written for stupid corporate fat cats, the book can feel rather sluggish and boring at times; talking about making profits and technology. But overall the idea of decentralization comes across pretty well, even if it leaves you feeling unsatisfied in terms of its practical use in the real world. How does one translate the idea into a reality? That’s not really the purpose of this book. It sort of peters out towards the end as it more or less tries to explain how to create hybrid organizations out of classic corporate models (BARF!!!). I really enjoyed the parts about the Apache and the ALF, and I recommend checking it out for those parts alone!
The original Ishmael by Daniel Quinn contained a vague chapter on resistance, but the publishing company would not allow it, instead they made him focus solely on “changing minds”. Here is what Ishmael really thought about this!
The Molalla High School Green Team (environmental club) is throwing their yearly, Earth day music festival and they’ve invited me to come and teach some rewilding skillz throughout the event. It’s going to be awesome. Plus, it’s a fundraiser for their club. And it only costs $2! Come support the Molalla High School Green Team and see the beauty of the Molalla River.
Date: Saturday, April 24, 2010
Time: 11:00am - 9:15pm
Location: Clark Park, Molalla OR (http://tinyurl.com/ycxgan9)
Cost: $2
Music Line-up:
Methods of Silence (12:00-12:15)
My Robotic Mother (12:35-1:00)
Arion B / Peter Horace(1:15-1:30)
The Routine (1:50-2:20)
Diezel P (2:40-3:10)
The Hugs (3:30-4:00)
Nathan Vieira (4:20-4:50)
Boy Eats Drum Machine (5:10-5:55)
Youthbitch (6:15-6:45)
A Blinding Silence (7:05-7:35)
Midnight Callers (7:55-8:25)
Kendálin (8:45-9:15)
I don’t usually share some of my more personal stuff here, but what the hell. I’m pretty excited about the banjo, so why not throw this up here to see how I improve over time? This is a tune I learned a month or so ago from my banjo buddy. It’s called Sandy River Belle. If you know the lyrics, please post them!
The mentality of colonization runs deep in our culture, particularly deep in those who benefit the most from the colonization. While I like to think of myself as a non-racist, I still have the mindset of the colonizer that prevents me from seeing my own racism and prejudice. For a while now I’ve grappled with this. I think one of the first steps in de-colonizing my mind involved recognizing that I live on stolen land. This scared the hell out of me. Continue reading ‘Colonization Vs. Rewilding’
Hello readers. Guess what? April 1st will mark the third official year of my blog! Crazy, huh? After 3 years I’ve finally published my collection of rewilding articles. I’ve begun to move away from general rewilding philosophy and gotten much more into specifics of creating rewilding culture. I’ve also got a much more keen idea of rewild camps and how to get others inspired to run their own. Over the next year my personal focus will rest on four major topics. Boxing, banjo, basketry and Chinuk Wawa. I’ve worked on these four things for a while now, and you haven’t heard much about it here because I keep the more personal stuff, well, more personal. So you probably won’t hear much more about it, but I’d just like to share what I work on in my “own time”. Aside from that, I think I will put some more general passions down here to work on over the next year on this blog and over at www.rewild.info:
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!
I have a lot of friends and family. The great majority of them know nothing about rewilding. Many consider themselves Christians, Mormons, Atheists, Democrats, Republicans, etc. I want to make the point here that I don’t base my relationships on whether or not someone has an interest in rewilding or even understands anything about it. Obviously I lean towards rewilding friends, but I don’t require it. Why do I remain friends with these people? Because I don’t act like an insane fundamentalist asshole.
A few weeks back I went to a anarchist curated fundraiser for an anti-civilization film. In lieu of my recent “fan mail” and the overall attacks I get from green anarchists, I’m very apprehensive about going to these kinds of events, but I wanted to show my support for the film and meet the filmmaker. I didn’t stay long. Why, in a room full of people who generally agree more or less with me about civilization, did I feel like I stood in the lions den? On my drive home I realized that the activist (and particularly anarchist) community that I have known and experienced has felt like a hate culture.
Head up to the Washington Park archery range today for rewild camp. Bring bows, arrows, knives and some food to throw on the grill! Noon-5pm 2010/08/22
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