Re-Wilding the Self, First.

In the most recent issue of "The Backwoodsman", a magazine I indulge in whenever I happen across a new issue, there is a request for articles pertaining to Re-Wilding your land and the plants to begin the process. The magazine content usually revolves around skills and stories of bushcraft, not delving so much into the concepts of anti-civ or post civ thought, so the request for articles surrounding wildness is exciting, even if it is a short-end view of the possibilities. The land we live on certainly could use our assistance in ridding it of the confines of agriculture and domestication, but the real threat to the land is not limited to the crab grass the neighborhood association planted. The real threat is the neighborhood association itself. If anything can be learned from civilization, it is that no matter how "wild"the land is, if encroached upon by those with a directive of ownership and control, the appanages of destruction are readily present. 

 The term "re-wilding" is heard with more frequency as of late, and I attribute this to multiple reasons, but the overarching cause, I believe, is the growing interest in pre-civilized life or the ever growing DIS-interest in civilization, whichever way you choose to view it. Either way you go, it piques my affections along with a few innocent suspicions. It is not that I could ever see "re-wilding" as a bad thing, a deed done to the misfortune of domestication is a good deed, indeed. No, the suspicions I have is of the depth of the roots. If we are concerned only with making superficial changes, i.e. to land, to government, to diet, etc., and do not begin to re-establish our connections, we are doomed to suffer the cycles of HIStory.

A quick side-rant: I participate as often as I can in re-learning "primitive" technologies. This, of course, includes knapping stone tools. There is a small but very dedicated group of people, outside of the hunter/gatherer peoples of today,  who have taken in this obsession and thus there are enumerable articles written by both academics and crafters alike surrounding archeological finds of knapped stone. There are flakes and cores found dating back around 2.5 million years and hunter/gatherer populations still using possibly exact skills today to obtain hunting tools. This shows that for well over 2 million years humans have used this technology, with no obsolescence.  In many of the articles concerning the how-to aspect of knapping, it is followed by a request to mark and date your blades, arrowheads, etc. in order to "protect the archeological record." I understand that our culture is so far removed from our roots that we actually see ourselves as separate from our ancestors. I get that. But I have to ask why. What separates, or impregnates the value of a stone tool that was made 1 million years ago from that of one that fed a tribe yesterday? To continue to place these levels of segregation of ourselves to our ancestors, is to propagate the lie of civilization itself. That you are not wild. Bah, I say, and BAH! again. Protecting the archeological record would be better achieved by closing the gap of our existence today and our birthplace. The thought that we have gone too far, usually worded "come too far", to return to our ancestral way of life is one I hear touted quite often by techno-apologists, and I must point only to their own "science" to see that this is a fallacy.

Studies of feral populations of animals, that is: animals who broke out of the confines of domestication to strike out and become sufficient without the controls of humans, show that it is of no significance the amount of time spent domesticated to become feral. Goats are one of the longest domesticated animals aside from humans, and will go feral readily. In fact, a side effect of feral goats encountering domesticated goats is the creation of more feral goats! I am not sure who wrote the article on wikipedia for "feral", but after reading this line: "Accidental crossbreeding by feral animals may result in harm to breeding programs of pedigreed animals; their presence may also excite domestic animals and push them to escape." I'd like to make them dinner! How exciting, really. Damn the archeological record, up the connections!

Okay, back to the topic. I was tempted to write an article for the Backwoodsman outlining some of these ideas, but I am not sure how helpful I could possibly be. I mean, how can you have a how-to on discovering who you are? I am not fully aware of who I am most times, or to what extent I have completely swallowed the pills of civilization. It is much easier to go into the lawn and pull out ivy than it is to unlearn a lifetime of gender binary and control imperative, of this I am sure. But I suppose there is a starting place. I suppose, much like a suburban lawn, we can be dug up and have seeds planted. What are ideas if not seeds of tomorrow's action? Of course, I can not go into a book and necessarily find what values my ancestral tribes held that gave them fluid commune with one another and land, but I can seek out which ideas are helpful to me and which are not. It is easier spoken at times than done, but often, that is where it starts. Speaking to one another. Opening our communication, verbally, physically, and spiritually is as beneficial or more than all the books on native species we can find. Of course, we have to get wrong answers to find the right questions, but there can be no how-to guide on how we do that. Many of our failures come from following procedures over allowing for processes. The magic of control begins superficially, doing little more than redefining what we already know, so as to masque it's true nature and by proxy, our own nature. We are not meant to control, which is showcased not only by ideals but by the outcomes of control. Anxiety is so much sewn to the fabric of society that many social scientists now put forth that certain levels of anxiety are necessary  for our health, postulating that it is anxiety and fear that have led to our evolution as a species. Such garbage! A base study of biology shows us that defensive instincts help us to escape or evade dangerous interactions but also stifle our ability to grow. The periods when we grow are in rest and relaxation, when we can stretch our proverbial wings and take in the day. An animal in constant fear is an animal that is most easily controlled, this is also true. Fear and love are two base emotions from which most other emotions stem. Both are measurable in the frequencies they emit and can therefore be studied by modern magic to find what ancient magic already knew. That beings who emit love are more centered and relaxed, and over time found to be generally happier (duh) and healthier (tada!). Beings who emit more fear are more likely to lash out in violent fits and suffer from heart problems (remember, the heart is truly our center and life force, giving our body the electromagnetic waves that create and sustain life). Fear also does some other interesting things, such as not allow your body to fire on all points. This means that you have a more honed sense of physical strength but a weakened sense of empathetic capabilities. Now, take all this in and consider the larger picture of mass society and what it's goals are. Of the two base emotions that create and sustain life, love and fear, which emotions create an easier environment for control? You cannot force someone to love you, but you certainly can force fear. Fear is the emotion that can be used against your better will, to maintain and control your responses. Fear is the hallmark of domestication and the battery of civilization. To "re-wild", is to abandon fear. Do not fear the wildness that you are from, but embrace it.

In biblical terms, which I am not prone to citing, but find it to be just as good a source as any other fucking book, the mono-theistic god of the Israelite people warned them of fear. In Exodus we see a period of great significance to the battle of wildness and civilization. The people of Israel are led away from captivity in Egypt (foundation of civilization as we know it) and out in to the the wilderness where they knew freedom existed. There they feared for having no food, as they were no longer in civilized life and their god showed them the benefits of hunting and gathering. Quail to hunt the night and "manna" in the mornings. This "manna" could have very well been acorns, as they were in the great forests of the fertile crescent that are now barren deserts thanks to civilized life and bread was made from what they gathered on the ground. This hunter gatherer life sustained them and helped them to create a culture of their own, with music, dance, and stories that were uniquely theirs. The moment they re-entered settled, civilized life, the "manna" was no more. This is a great tale of a re-wilding of a people, only to return to civilization and lose all that wildness had brought them.  The bible does not go into much detail of the quality of life of the people of Israel in this time, but we can see how "progress" and kingship, chiefdom and civilized life affected them in later chapters. We see the wars without end, the class divisions, the patriarchy and the /master/slave mentality sprouting up without pause. It is a shame that most Christians do not take these stories with much meaning. Our friends who work on In The Land Of the Living certainly delve into this and many other interesting aspects of spirituality as resistance to civilization, and their work deserves much consideration.

The point of most of this is to ask the question of limits. What limits do we place on ourselves? What limits are placed on us by civilized thought? And finally, how far are we willing to go to understand our true nature? I, for one, am on a constant search for the roots of our being, and in that search have learned much about who I am, and who I want to become. Who do you want to become?