Primitive Skills as foundational to Permaculture

Primitive Skills-The foundation for Permaculture

Go to the window and look at your landscape. Can you identify each plant, shrub, and tree along with their edible, medicinal, and utilitarian uses? Can you name each bird and animal, their behaviors relationships and current location? Are you aware, based on the evidence provided by plant species and conditions, animal tracks and sign, elevation, and drainage, of the soil quality and characteristics? If this sounds too far fetched, it’s because you’ve been raised in an artificial landscape superimposed on the real and natural one. Our ancestors knew all of these things as a matter of survival. More so, their diet was healthier, their craniums larger, and their concern for the environment based on a direct correlation and relationship with the health of their community. At a glance our “primitive” ancestors could predict the weather, locate water, read the tracks and sign of insects, and animals, interpret the language of the birds, and read the forested landscape to determine what plants, medicine, cordage, dyes, and tools could be gathered. They could also tell the health of the ecology of the area. Can you?

Imagine you did know the answers to the above questions. How would that change your behaviors? Would you eradicate all of the mint for one year of tea? Would you harvest all the sweet fern in a rush to stock up on diarrhea medication? Of course not! Saving seeds, drying herbs, and cultivated the land for more diversity has been going on since long before the bronze age. The “care taker attitude” has been expressed and well documented in the history of this land and every continent by it’s indigenous cultures.

This in depth “native” knowledge of the landscape has had important historical ramifications for our success as a species. Arguably, whether you are a “back to the lander”, “prepper”, in to “nature education”, or just want to get in touch with something real and important, there is nothing as effective at addressing the foundational skill sets to all of these approaches as primitive skills.

Our ancestors refined their relationship with the landscape over countless generations. Motivated to be efficient and successful by their own mortality, hunter-gatherer nomadic tribes were a far cry from the club toting dolts portrayed in cartoons and insurance commercials.

So, lets get to the nitty-gritty details. How does this look? What are the ways that would make our landscape a biodiverse wild “garden” that would sustain multiple layers of life for generations to come?

First, start with the people. We use the “Thanksgiving Address” as a structure to build awareness and community from. Caretaking your landscape is no exception. What talent can you tap in to in your community? What would they feel motivated to do and how would they feel most valued? Our programs rely heavily on work-study and apprenticeships so that the people are learning as they share their skills and hard work. The key to make sure they are valued, because all hands are certainly needed.

The soil, our unspoken wealth, needs to be addressed next. Test your soils in different locations and map out what you need to do. In most cases it makes sense to adjust what you grow than to adjust the soil. Exceptions include things like high bush blueberries or other high yield or important species that you just can’t do without.

Map the understory, but include the tracks and sign as well as the important herbaceous plants. Garden pests equal meat on the table. Finding the balance will help you optimize populations of plants to attract mammals as well as provide your community with food and medicine.

Pay special attention to shade loving plants and their relatives. A healthy tree that is allowed to grow increases in value over time. Be sure to make the most out of the trees you do have to remove. Milling or using raw timbers to make out buildings, raised beds, fire wood, charcoal for your forge, ash for soap making. Like the natural world and our native ancestors, the key is maximizing a return on energy investment.

Weather, the sun, the moon and our intuition also play a role. Just like the “thanksgiving Address” we expand our awareness across the landscape with the intent to create bounty and leave more for the future generations than we found.

Trailing with Track and Sign

Just added three more courses to the 2011 calendar...

Primitive Cooking

16 July 2011 (rain date: 17 July)

Humans have been cooking food for a long time, possibly 200,000 years or more. Aboriginal people learned to use the heat of cooking to detoxify food, break down molecules our bodies can't digest, and increase the pleasure of eating by enhancing flavors. Primitive cooks around the world created hearty, nutritious meals without the use of metal pots and pans, stove tops, ovens, crock pots, and the like. They had many different methods of cooking food that maximized nutrition while, when necessary, reducing toxins and antinutrients that may be present in the food. This day-long class will examine several methods of cooking that do not require modern kitchenware, including the aboriginal equivalents of the crock pot, grill, boiling pot, and baking pan. This class is a perfect companion to any wild food classes you may have participated in and furthers your "bushcraft" skills. A lot of organic, wildcrafted, and/or free-range foods will be consumed as part of the class and the day will culminate with dinner cooked entirely with aboriginal technology. Given the need to make and tend fires throughout the day for this workshop, a rain date needs to be kept open (the following day) for inclement weather. Price is $125.00 (which includes the price of food) and class is limited to 10 students. Class begins at 9:00 am and ends at 6:00 pm or whenever the evening meal is completed. If you are interested in enrolling for this class, please contact the Maine Primitive Skills School (207-623-7298) or visit http://www.primitiveskills.com/registration00.html.

Healing with Plants, Fungi, and Lichens

29‒31 July 2011

Coping with and recovering from illness, injury, and debility has always been part of being human. And for these complaints, plants have served as the major source of medicine. This class will examine the use of wild plants, fungi, and lichens for healing injury and supporting the body. Students will learn a suite of species that grow in New England that can be used for many common ailments, such as colds, infections, gastrointestinal upset, headaches, dermatitis, insomnia, etc. Methods of collecting will be discussed, as well as directions for making infusions, decoctions, poultices, salves, tinctures, and smoking mixtures. Throughout the weekend, various stories and examples will be shared demonstrating how plant-based medicines have preserved life and influenced aboriginal and contemporary people. Healing with plants provides people and families with another avenue of self-sufficiency and furthers connection to the landscape. The class will be taught by Arthur Haines (who personally uses plants, fungi, and lichens for all medicinal needs). Class will be offered at the Delta Institute of Natural History in Bowdoin, ME (click here if you need directions). Price is $180.00 and class is limited to 10 students. Class begins at 7:00 pm on Friday and ends at 12:00 pm on Sunday. If you are interested in enrolling for this class, please contact the Maine Primitive Skills School (207-623-7298) or visit http://www.primitiveskills.com/registration00.html.

Fall Foraging

30 September to 2 October 2011

This hands-on class is designed for those with with an interest in self-sufficiency, human health, and a deeper relationship with plants. Foraging provides many avenues of connection with nature and fosters a greater appreciation of the many things that local landscapes can provide for us. It has become increasingly clear through many independent studies that diets rich in wild foods promote health and defend the body from many of the debilitating ailments that plague modern societies (e.g., obesity, diabetes, arthritis, coronary disease, periodontal disease). Students should expect to spend much of the weekend outside identifying, collecting, and preparing wild plants for food (so be prepared for weather and uneven terrain). Class will focus on gathering plant foods and medicines that are appropriate for the season (nuts, legumes, fall roots and tubers, and wild rice--as available). Throughout the class, simple tools will be used and reference will be made to primitive and contemporary methods of processing plants. As well, wildcrafted medicine and utilitarian plants will be discussed to provide a more holistic understanding of how plants can positively affect our lives. Wild nutrition is both a link to the past and a gateway to a sustainable future. This class will be taught by Arthur Haines and will be offered at the Delta Institute of Natural History in Bowdoin, ME (click here if you need directions). Some locations will be visited off site so please be prepared to carpool short distances from the property. Price is $180.00 and class is limited to 10

Foraging for Food, Medicine, & Survival Tools Pt. 3-Resources

Foraging for Food Medicine, & Survival Tools Part 2-Medicine & Foraging ...

Foraging for Food, Medicine, & Long Term Survival Tools Pt. 1-Food

Survival

(Part 1 of 6 "Developing a Survival Attitude")

Survival. The very idea of being placed in a survival situation evokes deep feelings. The reaction it stirs in you indicates a great deal about how you would react to an unexpected situation where lives may be on the line. Could you accurately assess your ability to survive in a real survival situation? Do you have “What it takes”? And what is, “what it takes” anyway?

Biologically, or genetically, there is little more we can do beyond physical training and learning in a contrived environment. Worse, we could “read up” on survival skills and theory and give ourselves the illusion of understanding. This would allow us the dangerous assumption that, because we read it in a book, or saw a few videos on the internet, we have “what it takes”. This elusive internal quality has little to do with book learning. Even folks trained in survival skills perish in the same conditions that untrained individuals find themselves surviving. So, where are you in this spectrum?

Beyond our genetics we become who we are based on only two variables. The first is the environment we immerse ourselves in. The second is what we choose to focus on in that environment. Here are two examples to illustrate how profound these two simple components can be in creating different results for members of the same species.

Since he was young, Brad was an avid outdoorsman. His father and Uncles would take him fishing and hunting. His family was involved in Scouting. When Brad shot his first deer at thirteen, the community rallied in celebration. As a young man, Brad took up Rock Climbing, Hiking, Backpacking, and Snow Shoeing. He loved knives, rifles, archery, and camouflage. Brad learned gardening from his grandparents. As a middle aged man, Brad often reflects on his exploits, especially those times where he had to spend a few unplanned days and nights in the forest due to poor judgment, weather, or unforeseen circumstances. These memories came to him with a sense of fondness. All of this gives Brad little comfort now, at 2am. Strange groups of people stare as he walks by. Towering apartment buildings and confusing, dark streets make him feel like an alien as he tries to locate the building he was supposed to meet a friend at. They all look the same to him. Brad struggles to keep the welling panic at bay as he realizes the enormity of South Philly.

Mark, a product of Chicago, would have felt more at ease in this neighborhood. He yearns for the familiar hum and rhythm of the city. A steam shrouded sidewalk grate would indicate warmth. A church steeple might mean a shelter near by. A fast food joint would almost guarantee a dumpster full of food. Marks’ sense of order, his ability to read street signs as well as subtle body language cues, all of his finely honed urban survival strategies are failing to serve him in this alien northern woodland environment.

Brad, with all of his woodsman skills is just as lost in the city as streetwise Mark is in the natural world.

Provided they are not injured and can breath, both men require five basic elements to ensure their survival. Four of these are physical needs. The fifth, the most important element, determines how they and, more importantly, you would react in a similar situation. The first four priorities are a need to find shelter from the elements, drinking water, a source of light and heat (fire), and last on the list; food.

The fifth element; that which will compel them in to action or cripple them into complacency, is “Attitude”. Attitude is nothing less than how you view yourself in the context of your “reality”. How you view your commute, your job, your relationships, even the power and the will you believe you have to change a situation…or not. It is the reason some walk away from an event while others perish, frozen in their uncertainty and fear. It is the amount of ignorance and fear that we focus on that is our greatest undoing in the end. It is the opportunities and actions we seize that is our saving grace as well.

None of this takes place without the initial choice. In fact, it could be said that choice is one of the two “Parents” of a healthy survival attitude. But lets explore this concept within the context of your own reality. In the second paragraph of this article there was a statement, “Beyond YOUR genetics you become who you are based on the environment you immerse yourself in and what you choose to focus on in that environment.

With that in mind, lets first focus on your environment and how it shapes you. How much of your effort, intellect, and problem solving skills go directly in to providing you with adequate and safe shelter against the elements as well as protecting you from the threats in your environment? Does your landscape demand that your awareness is developed around these things, or is having a roof, climate control, and a warm bed an assumed component of your reality?

At the Maine Primitive Skills School we have a saying, “Convenience kills”. In the environment you find yourself in, if you are not actively problem solving to address your survival needs you will lack the ability to do so in a real situation. Since most of us lack the means or the will to modify our surroundings, we are left with the second component of what shapes us; what we choose to focus on in that environment. This piece makes increasing your survivability easy and fun.

During your daily routine, envision different “call to action” scenarios where you have to come up wit your own shelter, water, fire, and food. On the commute, where would you acquire these things if you were snowed in, or you were stranded on a specific section of roadway with no help available? At work, you are hit with a natural disaster the knocks out power and isolates your people from the rest of the world. What materials would you utilize and how long would they last? How would you plug in different personalities to create an optimal chance for all to make it through? Developing these questions as part of your overall routine shifts you from being the victim of someone else’s story to becoming the hero of your own journey.

Arthur Haines introduction

Survival Fire Making : Friction Fire with Bow Drill

Survival Fire Making : Friction Fire with Strap Drill

Track Aging Techniques

Track Interpretation Skills

Track Identification Skills

Introduction to the Six Disciplines of Tracking

Wilderness Survival-Power Snare

Rolling Pencil Snare

Greased String Dead Fall

Broken Stick Dead Fall Trap

Split Stick Deadfall

Split Stick Deadfall

For more information, instructional videos, details about our staff, school, or courses, please visit http://www.primitiveskills.com

Breaking the Cycle

There is an idea that a simplistic, happy life is ignorance. At first I thought it was steeped in racism, but then it occurred to me that it was more a lack of awareness when a certain paradigm came in contact with sustainable communities of equal intellect who consciously chose to live within the parameters of their landscape. In the last article if you got the idea that we are raising our kids like we raise our foods, a vast monoculture of standardized minds conditioned to respond to stimulus rather than initiate creative and intrinsic problem solving skills, than you'd be right. The institutions, born out of the industrial revolution and based in getting as many folks through the program as possible, are self perpetuating. The teacher is a product of the system that he or she facilitates. The obvious results are unquestioned, even embraced. The answer isn't change, it's catch phrases extracted from research done by fellow educators, and documentation to cover ones butt in case a "radical" challenges the idea that real learning happens in an artificial, sedentary environment where there is no intrinsic reward, emotional investment, or cultivation of natural curiosity. We see this institution take bright eyed, eager college graduates who have a passion for life and, in the same amount of time it takes an elementary school to subdue childlike curiosity and produce a glassy eyed disinterested middle schoolers, that same teacher has moved from the center of the room interacting with each student at their own level to a position behind a desk in the back of the room. We blame development for this, but again, culturally, this has been shown to be inconsistent. Well adjusted, very curious, and socially responsible adolescents abound in nomadic cultures around the globs. The impossible task of developing whole human beings in a classroom with a twenty student to one adult ratio degrades in to a cosmetic shell game. Each "seasoned teacher" knows they have about 185 days to cover the material the state requires, the district requires, the Principal requires, the parents, IEP, RTI, and standardized testing requires. Factor in grading and what's left is designated time for mentoring, challenging, and eeking out the innate curiosity about the world. Actually, what's left is a frazzled shell who fails to give up until retirement, and too often dies within the first five years after that. So how to we break free of this relatively young model of cultivating minds to conform and perform in a post industrial society? Do we really want to? School was not started with Plato and Socrates, as is normally touted. These folks had students wander the landscape and share from their direct experience. The model we work with today first manifested in Germany about 500 years ago in an effort to train members of agrarian cultures for jobs in the city. Dewey and Ford refined the process. To this day we rate our workers with grades. Grade A or "Meets the Standard" means you can perform the task well. You may be suitable for management. Grade F, and your the guy they send into the mine to see if the canary is still alive. It made sense 500 years ago. We didn't understand the many ways a person learns, or how the brain makes neural connections. Besides, the way we did it before, the invisible school, was compassion based members of our extended family allowing us to experience hardship, failure, and success in a supportive community of active and aware learners. How does one measure that? So, if your interested in breaking the cycle, for your kids, your self, your class room, your community, it's pretty easy. It's also supported by the latest in brain research and thousands of years of evolutionary processes. The latent, sometimes atrophied parts of your brain designed to utilize childlike curiosity are still in there! How many of you used to make forts as a kid, pretend to be an animal, make a bow and arrow or spear, have adventures? This genetic predisposition is nothing less than the whole bodies programming to interface with a multidimensional and dynamic organic landscape. In many educational institutions, if these traits can not be subdued by behavior modification through parental and teacher pressures, even peer pressure, than the child is medicated. Outside, these children flourish. They tend to have quicker responses, higher awareness, and an insatiable curiosity compared to the sedate industrialized minds that have "surrendered to the game". After all, the convenience of the game is what makes it alluring. Jump through the hoops, do what your told, write neatly and be on time, quiet, and respectful, and you will be handsomely rewarded. If not, hmmmmm. Sadly, the 10% who flourish in the contrived cells of the public school environment are rarely fully challenged themselves. They "do the work", but yearn for something more engaging. In fact, most students would rather be outside, or participate with more of their senses in meaningful interactions with their environment. We know this, and have known it with increasing realization since the early eighties. Most of the efforts to bring real learning in to public schools falls flat as a fad, again, due to brain patterning on the old way and convenience. "Convenience kills" doesn't only refer to a sedentary life, but a sedentary routine, mindset, awareness level, perspective, passion, body, and being. Movement, joy, pain and the sense that one is the hero of an amazing story instead of the victim of (fill in the blank). As a mentor, I would rather have a sneering, "How do you know" over a "Why do we have to learn this" any day. The first is based in inquisitiveness, the latter is based in a sense of futility. How does this all relate to "Breaking the Cycle of Empires"? By focusing on our species' true source of wealth, the health and well being of our children (collectively and as a community) and the environments they're raised in, we change the paradigm. The world of talented mechanics, engineers, farmers, midwives, herbalists, naturalists, and so on becomes an endless resource of mentoring talent. There is a LOT more though. We have to reclaim some of the wisdom we threw out with our pre-industrial ancestry. Cultural tools that bring awareness to a point of compassion, connection, and empathy, grief recognition and resolution technologies that strengthen the community, and whole person experiences designed to increase understanding of the world and ones role in it that are based on first hand interpretation are just a few of these elements. The rest are coming in the next article. Until then, push buttons, take people out of their comfort zone, and have at least one adventure each day that is not only worth writing about, but worth reading. For more information, instructional videos, details about our staff, school, or courses, please visit http://www.primitiveskills.com

Cycle of Empires

Every great civilization follows a pattern. It is a redundancy that is lost to the generations who have yet to live it because it spans multiple generations. It is a cycle that provides important clues to our Nations development and the development and end result of a "Global Economic Community". The Great Gardens of Babylon, The Empire of Egypt, the Heart of Greece, Rome, and so many others, once nestled in fertile river valleys, were able to expand their power and influence far and wide. Each time, the success of the people was attributed to technology, the mind, the government...but never the lush habitat's that supported the raw material, the food, the leisure time to think these great thoughts. We see this on a micro scale in our cities. Young and vibrant at first, the city attracts the artists, the business folk, the entrepreneur. A young city is exiting, vibrant, full of story rife with opportunity...Newark, Watts, South Philly...these places are not what they used to be. Any elder not shut in to their own apartment behind five dead bolts can tell you, things were different. The cycle is inevitable when following a certain perspective. It comes when we forget our interconnection with the landscape. The environment is a reflection of our own health and stability. When we are out of balance, our physical reality reflects this in the way we deal with it. Currently, there are children who fear the woods, are told to never go outside without shoes, have never walked under a star lit sky looking for the big dipper. We expect 30 acres worth of biomass to appear in a bag in a drive through in less than a minute without a thought. Our standard of living and our numbers are so out of synch with the amount of energy consumed by other apex species, that many of them are already gone, and many more are on their way out. Wolves, Tigers, Lions, Leopards, Jaguars, Cougars...they are lessons to the limits of carrying capacity on the landscape and what happens when the capacity is exceeded. Sadly, their demise may do little to stop what seems to be a runaway train. Folks seem helpless, just smart enough to realize the futility of "going green" or to frightened to explore the history and science of what happens to any species that overspecializes, overpopulates, or exhausts it's "resources". In the surviving oral tradition of cultures on every continent the "caretaker" attitude was ingrained in the young through the wisdom of the elders. The idea of living with the awareness that our actions effect the unborn future generations is evidenced in story, song, and legend. Yet, we pattern on things that replace the hunt and the gather. We see no value in the ones who have gone before, they can't even set the clock on the DVD player. We have turned our wisdom keepers in to cute and cuddly grandparent's at the very best, and folks to be marginalized at the other end of the spectrum. Today it is hard to find a true Elder. We see a lot of folks at the end of their life, bitter that they worked so hard to "make a living" that they realize only at the end the gift of truly being alive and present. As a result, what was already hard to hear in the innocents and arrogance of youth, is impossibly drowned out by the technology we plug in to. We hear endless stories of tragedy and disaster on the news and then are told during each commercial break that we would only feel better if we bought "this" product. Look around, people are in debt and still buying the next item that will surely make them happy, fill the void, provide the distraction from that certain annoying nagging on their conscience. Rare is the individual who is secure enough in their own identity to be able to sit alone without distraction, without T.V., music, or the Internet, and just quietly enjoy being present. Instead, we shop and work, not for our families directly, but for a person or people who have often conflicting motivations and a less than intrinsic rewarding goals. We come home too tired to a family to distracted by after school, extra meetings, the television, whatever, to sit and share stories around the table (modern version of the campfire) and just be present with each other. Our communities are dependent on distant communication rather than face to face exchanges. The results are institutionalized minds that perceive more out of fear, grief, or hopelessness rather than the heroes journey so common in our ancestral traditions. This is all part of the cycle of nations. It has a predictable ending, but only if the perceptions that perpetuate it continue. We know the consequences, we know the base existence of the survivors of these "decrescendos". So why don't we, the most intelligent (and humble) species to grace the Earth do something to prevent this formula from playing it again on an unprecedented scale? It's not greed, or laziness. It's brain patterning. We expect doors to be a certain with, burgers to taste a certain way, time to be at a certain pace and meter, routines to be regular and interuptions to be few and addressed quickly. Whenthese things don't happen, we feel uncomfortable. When the car doesn't start, or the power goes out, or the cook gets our order wrong, we feel slighted, uncomfortable, wronged. We have become shackled to our convieniences. Without need, time, or familiarity, many have lost the hunger and skills to gather food from the landscape, and with that, the connection that lanscape provided. A sense of purpose, belonging, and deep rooted community is becoming a rare commodity. And we continue to attempt to fill the void with "stuff". But don't be sad, there is a way out....a way to break the cycle(and no this is not a sales or religious pitch). And, it's free, it's personal and it's something you can share or keep to yourself. In fact, it starts with developing your own awareness and making a choice to commit to unplugging from "the Matrix" and reconnecting with what is real and important in your own life..It's hard, but it's always worth it. Remember, convienience kills. This will help as we explore some options in the next article.

Primitive Skills at Common Ground Fair '10

Maine Primitive Gathering 2010

Click to Play

Wilderness Survival and Primitive Skills Instructors from all over the Northeast converge to share skills with the public. http://www.primitiveskills.com

Birch Basics - Wilderness Survival Uses

Training Master Survivalist & Trackers in the "Old Way" pt.1 "Frog Asking"

Two Person Bow Drill

Scout 2 : Mobile Survival , Escape , and Evasion

Outdoor Education

No Child left Inside....it's actually a movement! Have we devolved so quickly from the fabric that supports us to become aliens to the basics? I've heard a story told by the Wampanoag about someone who surrounded themselves with tools and ceremonies designed to ward off the imperfect things of the Universe. In this effort, he lived in constant fear and condemned the folks in the village who had the ignorance to believe the Universe was made perfectly. He ended up bringing those things upon him that he feared the most. It is a powerful story of how ones focus determines their reality. The Maine Primitive Skills School shares tools of empowerment in the guise of a survival school, a tracking school, a community, a place to be with "like minded" people...whatever that means. Truth be told, it is a vehicle to unlock, awaken, gently slap the back of the head of all of the gifts that lay dormant from years of childhood chastizement. Don't play in the mud! Don't stick your fingers in things! We don't have time for that! Well meaning and overstressed adults actually believed that a whole human being developed from sitting for hours and learning out of a book....when we know unequivocally that the whole being has to be engaged in experiences with some emotional investment in order to really learn. I know many public educators who are left with no other response to, "Why do we have to learn this", than to say, "You'll need it for next year". Many even respond with disciplinary actions instead of really searching for ways to design experiences that alow these kids to truly be with how the skills they are learning apply to them. One of our elders, Ingwe, once said, "the wilderness holds all truth and knowledge". No matter how hard we train, how many degrees we earn, or how much dirt time we have with our students, we can never hold all truth and wisdom. We are the doorway. Rather, that is what we are supposed to be, but in not truly knowing what this means, we close the door and pull the shades on our youth, opting for the laptop, the standardized test, and the brilliant images of nature on the electronic screen at the expense of the back yard. So many folks have been condtioned by years of tools and ceremonies designed to keep them "safe" from the out of doors that, like the man in the Wampanoag story, they have found themselves in a "reality" of fear and dis-ease. In the face of irrifutable data showing how healthy wild edibles, direct sunlight, and outside air are, we wrap ourselves in climate control and cower in the fear of catching poison ivy, lymes disease, west nile, swine flue, rabies, and so many other threats just waiting to snuff us out lest we venture from our dimly lit, stale air filled abodes in to the beauty and lesson filled real and natural world.

There is another way.

Environmental Education

Emily wanted chicken nuggets for dinner. I had just given her a head lamp to "explore" the darkened house (and buy me some time in preparing the food around the oven). Just as I attempted to tear the foil from the box, the serrated edge detached, creating a jagged piece of foil too small for the sheet pan. Suddenly, Emily peered in to the kitchen, head lamp ablaze. Without a second thought, I put the tattered foil on her headed and molded it to her cranium. I told her it was a helmet used to prevent aliens from reading her mind. I gave her instructions in it's use and how important it was to keep the shiny side out in order to reflect the alien mind control rays. Without missing a beat, she continued the story about how it also made her invisible. With that, she was off battling aliens in the darkened house. Armed with a foil helmet and a head lamp.

Invoking a deep imaginative state is a primary learning tool. It comes as standard equipment upon our arrival in to this world. I believe we are supposed to keep it active and challenged, or it may atrophy. This could lead to adults who lack the joy, spontaneity, and curiosity they had as children. I find this deep imaginative state in a modern context in some unique places. Actors, dancers, artists, musicians, and story tellers all seem to possess this ability to "shape shift" in to another state of being. This is what it is to "learn fully". It is by "becoming" not by rote memorization that we acquire experiences that lead to wisdom. Learning is done through experience. Memorization is done through reading. Not until we plug our bodies in to an experience and emotionally invest ourselves do we truly learn. While books are a great start, they are only just that. We have let our definition of learning lapse because it is easier, less costly, and easier to manage twenty sitting children than to challenge twenty dynamic personalities in an ever changing series of circumstances. A nasty secret of the dominant model is that the brightest are either bored or drugged. Those who "learn the game" are only challenged by the slight tweaking of their delivery of the norms and morays of the game as each new teacher presents a slightly different variation of the expectations. "Failure" is considered a dead end option, instead of a gateway to wisdom in this construct. Failure is also easier to "blame on" than to grow from. The student feels that they have "failed" if they do not obtain the "grade", the parent feels they have failed their child, the teacher...well, the parent usually projects the pain they see in their child to add to the teachers own sense of "failure". The blame is cast on the weakest link in this vicious cycle...let's leave it at that.

Environmental Education has a different approach. It goes much farther and deeper than "Take all children outside". It is a series f adventures, where the student is ageless, the lessons are timeless and easily apply to daily life. More importantly, "failure"is an opportunity to listen, learn, adjust, and grow. Failure is not a dead end wrought with blame, it is a clarion call, and a challenge. It asks, "Here is the situation your in, know what are you going to do about it". There is no static linear equation, no standardized test, no one to blame. It is a multi-dimensional deep ecological approach to problem solving that stimulates growth and messages new neural pathways through all of the senses. Immersion in nature, coupled with native learning technologies produces superlative beings. It moves people of all ages through emotional, cognitive, and even spiritual boundaries.

The results are analogous to comparing a mass produced industrial chicken to a wild raven. One being responds to bells in order to move from one holding cell to another with only a small portion of their mind being intentionally addressed. The other has to problem solve daily to provide for themselves. While the entity at the industrial chicken farm mindlessly shuffles to external stimuli in a conditioned and predictable daily regimen, their feral counterparts are plugging in to their environment with their entire being and exercising everything from their brain, to their five senses as they interface with the landscape, the weather, and the other animate beings for such relevant items as shelter, water, and food.

So, Emily, age seven, has cleared the house of aliens. As I left the keyboard to check on her nuggets, I found her "helmet" at the top of the stairs, and she cuddled and asleep with her loyal dog Bo. I'm not sure how that will come out on standardized testing, but as far as becoming a well rounded human being, I see "honor roll".