Coyotes Guide Chapter 3

8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3

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(Chapter 3)

Core Routines o NatureConnection

Remembering Original Instructions

Some etymology:

Instruct In + Struare = to pile inEducate Ex + Ducere = to lead outCultivate From Colere = to dwell in, cherish

The Core Routines o Nature Connections are things people

do to learn natures ways. They arent lessons. They arentknowledge. They are learning habits.

Luckily or us as nature guides, shiting our mental habits

into these Core Routines o Nature Connection comes as

second nature to all human beings. This way o knowing

was not born a ew hundred years ago, or even with the rise

o civilization thousands o years ago. Rather than inorming,our teaching job educates ourselves and those we mentor todiscover what the Haudenosaunee people call our original

instructions. Humans evolved with original instructionsdesigned or dynamic awareness o nature. I we can inspire

practice o these Core Routines, remembering our original

instructions will happen on its own.

Decades o experimentation and wide-ranging research with

people in the orests and elds, deserts and coasts, as well as

dialogue with elders rom many traditions, have culminated

in the list o Core Routines ound here. They belong to no

culture in particular, but are universal, belonging to all who

live on the Earth.

These routines are the underlying practices we inspire and

acilitate people into doing whenever they go outdoors. They

rest beneath all structured and seemingly unstructured lessons

or activities, whether we engage one-on-one or students

cruise the trails by themselves. Routines will work magically

with reedom to come and go as they please like the tides

and the seasons. Some routines will jump to the oreront,

begging to be practiced, while others ade in emphasis. Each

human being comes into this world with an ancient blueprint

Secret Spot Prose, written byEarth Arts youth, Ithaca, NY

The Song o Nature

Most people do not

hear the song o nature,

but, i you sit in a special place,

and notice everything

around you,

sometimes you hear it.Its not like hearing a bird

sing, or bees buzz,

Its rather a song o

understanding,

warmth, and eeling, and

not o notes and words

So, have you heard the

song o nature?

Addy Davido, age 8


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This Tree

This tree has been livingor one hundred years,

through snowstorms, stand-

ing so broad and old.

I you listen you will hear

her words o long ago

and hear about the children

that played under her

when she was only a sapling

and she will also tell you about

the little amily o doves

that lived in her or

so many years

and how one o her

branches ell o

when she was playing tag

with her riend the wind.

I you sit there long

enough, shell also

tell you about her story.

Sierra Helmann, age 7

It seems those days all youhad was the seat o your

pants. Thats how they like to

tell it anyway . You didnt

just open a book and teach.

You by god were the book,

outront in all ways, blunt and

dogeared and coverless.

Paul Hunter, oreword to Headmasteron a Bulldozer, Building a School

rom the Ground Up, by Ellen Haas

or connecting with the natural world that has its own

timetable or learning. Let it fow.

SOME Core Routines o Nature Connection

On the remaining pages we describe thirteen Core Routines.

Our list is not THE denitive Core Routines o Nature

Connection. Up until now, many aliated organizations

and teachers have shared Core Routines as part o a liquid,

ever-changing body o oral tradition. We picked thirteen we

all agree will be the most helpul or readers o this book.

This chapter transmits the spirit o these routines, what they

are and why they are important. Further on in the book,

youll see these routines reerred to, especially in the Book

o Nature. In the Activities section called Introducing Core

Routines, youll nd specic ways to start up these practices.But or now, sit back, relax, and let the unique moods and

favors o these Core Routines o Nature Connection wash

over you and into you.

As you read, see i you can nd versions o these routines

within your own childhood or adult lie, or in the stories o

your riends, amily, or heroes. You might be surprised. Ater

all, these are the heritage o all us human-olk.

Sit Spot

Sit Spot in a Nutshell:

Find one place in your natural world that you visit all

the time and get to know it as your best riend. Let this

be a place where you learn to sit stillalone, oten, and

quietlybeore you playully explore beyond. This will

become your place o intimate connection with nature.

The Magic Pill

Our core o the Core Routines begins with the Sit Spot,

the heart o this mentoring model. Its the magic pill i ever

there was one. Because weve seen it, time and time again,

to be so vital and enchanting to the lie o both young and

old children, well take a ew more words here than with the

other routines, to make sure we pass on the soul o the Sit

Spot routine.

The idea is simple: guide people to nd a special place in


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nature and then become comortable with just being there,

still and quiet. In this place, the lessons o nature will seep

in. Sit Spot will become personal because it eels private and

intimate; the place where they meet their curiosity; the place

where they eel wonder; the place where they get eye-to-eye

with a diversity o lie-orms and weather-patterns; the place

where they ace their earso bugs, o being alone, o the

darkand grow through them; and the place where theymeet nature as their home.

The Sit Spot routine was the heart o Jon Youngs early men-

toring by tracker Tom Brown Jr. With Tom coaching rom a

distance, questioning and inspiring. Jon visited one spot by

himsel nearly every day or seven years. Jon says today that

his Sit Spot in the orest near his New Jersey home had more

to do with his development as a human being, not to mention

as a naturalist, than anything else. The place will orever be a

part o him. His relationship with that place was the pebblethrown in the pond that started Wilderness Awareness School

and all its concentric rings.

The Essential Attitude o Sit Spot

The essential attitude o this routine grows to know one place

really wellone biome, one community o soils and plants

and animals and trees and birds and weather systemsat

all times o day and night, and in every season and weather.In other words, the place becomes your nesting niche, your

study site, your tracking playground, and your retreat and

renewal center. The Spot itsel becomes the home base rom

which you explore outwardwhere you leave your upright

human sel behind and get down and crawl on hands and

knees, raccoon style, to sni and eel around.

While it is very important to have ones own ot-visited Sit

Spot, we can apply the attitude o Sit Spot to any place

with similar ecological eatures, not just our own specialplace. The place eels o amiliarity, relationship, and

in-depth knowledge, and when you go to it your attitude

overfows with childlike curiosity, discovery, and uninhibited

playulness.

Sitting Still

The other part to this routine is about sitting, about stillness.

On the simplest level, to sit silent and still or a long periodo time will slip open the door o a world that most humans

As time went by, Irealized that

the particular place I had chosen

was less important than the actthat I had chosen a place and

ocused my lie around it... What

makes a particular place special

is the way it buries itsel inside

the heart, not whether its fat or

rugged, rich or austere, wet or

arid, gentle or harsh, warm or

old, wild or tame. Every place,

like every person, is elevated

by the love and respect shown

toward it, and by the way in

which its bounty is received.

Richard K Nelson,

The Island Within

Dont Kill The Sit Spot!

We have seen parents become

militant about their childrens Sit

Spot time: You cant eat your

desert unless youve been to your

Sit Spot! Please do not do this!

The Sit Spot works becauseo magic. As soon as it be-

comes a chore or a punish-

ment, the magic dies. Use

cleverness to get them there,

not the crack o a whip.


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never know: the private world o wild animals and the language o the birds. Sunrise

and Sunset are especially magical times, when wildlie actively pulses with lie. Once

you sit quietly long enough, the birds sort o shrug you o and accept the act that

youre there, and there or good. As they return to their daily tasks, a previously hid-

den dimension o your landscape opens up.

Wild animalsweasels, raccoons, bobcats, owls, or exampleknow the patterns o

human activity and move out to its edge to go unseen. Sitting still initiates you intotheir undomesticated realm, a wild place that plays by dierent rules than the human

world. By being a quiet, unobtrusive guest, you will come to know the Jungle Law,

and learn to make yoursel welcome again, as an accepted member o the natural

community.

Sneaking into Sit Spot time

We never want to orce people into going to their Sit Spot as i it were an assignment.

Instead, we subtly guide them there by wisely playing games that build up their com-ort level, telling inspiring Sit Spot stories, and asking questions about the activities

o squirrels and birds and dandelions. I you, the mentor, also spend time in your own

Sit Spot and tell resh stories about what happened earlier this very morning, then o

course your stories provide an invaluable role modeling tool.

Many o the activities here are games that will help us lead people into the Sit Spot

routine in a roundabout, unconscious way. Hiding or sneaking games require stillness

or long periods while crouching in a bush, or lying silently on the ground. With the

adrenaline o a game rushing through, students hardly noticed the bugs crawling over

their skin and soon a new comort level in nature emerges.

Finding the Right Spot

We recommend you nd a good spot near water, shelter, and ood or wildlie, that

you can get to easily and oten without doing damage to a ragile landscape, with

little danger o predators or other hazards.

But this can be ound almost anywhere. Our editor, Ellen Haas, has an elderly mother

who takes endless delight in observing the birds eed, the ducks breed, the butterfies

emerge, and the bees pollinate rom her spot on her patio o a Dallas retirement

community. City dwellers can nd vacant lots, ditches o the local baseball elds, or

sidewalk gardens that, i invested with quiet attention, brim with wild lie. Folks who

live in wild landscapes ull o ticks or bears or snakes can nd sae paths and shelters

rom which to bathe in their wilderness. And or young children, help them nd little

places in the back yard where they can be sae and still and alert and enchanted. Its

not about the quality o the spot; its about the quality o attention within it.

Our our-year Kamana Naturalist Training Program is predicated on visiting a Sit Spot

daily, so thousands o our riends have established regular Sit Spot routines. We couldgo on or pages with their powerully appreciative testimony. It is amazing, however,

what terrible wailing and lamentation go on in the beginning as each individual tries


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to nd the perect spot. In the end, i all our kinder guidance ails, we advise, I you

cant be with the one you love, love the one youre with.

Hitting Cruise Control

I we can get people going to a Sit Spot near their home on a regular basis then the

learning journey takes on a lie o its own. Weve hit cruise control at that point, then

we simply and eagerly listen to their stories, ask questions about subtleties, and send

them on errands that deepen the complexity o the Sit.

I remember one o my seven-year-old students, Mira: her parents told me that she

hardly ever spent time outdoors, and then only when accompanied by her parents.

For a ew months, we played a lot o those comort-enhancing games, and then Miras

parents came to me with a new story rom home.

Whenever Mira gets home now, she doesnt say a word, she just puts her stu down

and runs outside to the back yard and into the trees. She stays out there or hours

all by hersel. We see her sometimes: she sits or a while, she climbs trees, she goes

around looking at things. Beore she wouldnt go out alonenow its hard to get her

to come inside!

Even my own mother, whom you would denitely not consider the outdoorsy type,

conded in me a couple o years ago: I had a Sit Spot, too, when I was a child. There

was an oak tree in our back yard, and everyday I would get home rom school and run

out to sit under that tree. Sometimes I would read a book, other times I would just sit,

thinking, taking in the world around me.

Wheres Your Sit Spot?

Think back through your lie and, ultimately to your childhood, and see i you have

or have ever had a Sit Spot routine. You might be surprised. Children seem, without

ever being told, to instinctively nd a place o their own that they gravitate to and

make their outside home. As a kid, a gnarled old tree in my neighbors yard that

was easy to climb, secluded and sheltered, and served to give me a view o the land

around me. Many adults keep up a similar practice all through their lives. It may be

the window by their bird eeder, the bench behind the tool shed, or the place where

they take their break rom work. Wheres yours?

Story o the Day

Story o the Day in a Nutshell

Ater spending time in nature, tell the story o your day. Tell your story verbally

with others, or by writing or drawing in a journal.

Well say it one more time, so you cant say we didnt hammer it home: the Sit Spot

routine is essential. But equally important to the development o sensory awareness


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and knowledge o place, the Story o the Day assists as its

complementary twin, its primary dance partner. Every human

already understands and practices this core routine.

The Custom o Storytelling

Growing up, I remember routinely telling stories with my

amily. We would sit around the dinner table at the end o the

day and share what happened at work or school. My parents

would question me or more details about what I had learned,

and Id question them, too. Our stories varied: they could be

somber, exciting, or sometimes get us laughing so hard wed

choke on our peas. Here, we emphasize the dierence as a

Core Routine by telling experiences with nature.

A staple practice o hunters and gatherers around the world,

storytelling knit the society together. The men would go outor a day o tracking and hunting, while grandmothers and

children might harvest berries, root vegetables, or bark to

make thread and cloth. Around the re at night they would

gather and report the stories o their days. This exchange o

stories seems to be very important to humans. For millennia,

survival depended on inormation gained about ood sources

and other patterns in the landscape.

Story o the Day In GroupsA classic orm o Story o the Day breaks everyone into

small groups. You go out or adventures or a while and then

reconvene to exchange the stories o each groups discoveries.

These stories move our emotions, entertain us, and can easily

turn a wet, cold, hungry experience into a memorable drama.

To invite children to tell their stories to one another, we

share many old tricks. You will learn them as you go. Circling

up, quieting down, listening to each other, passing a talkingstick, loosening stuck tongues, tightening loose tongues,

drawing stories on a collective map: all these will come with

practice and amiliarity.

You can invite adults to tell their stories in a great variety o

ways, some using art, some using computers, on-line orums,

list-serve groups, graphic arts, songs, skits and just plain

storytelling. Grownup storytelling produces great energy.

People laugh hard, they cry, they sing, and then they sleep

well at night with smiles on their aces. We always getinsightul eedback rom their story-o-the-day sessions.

Natural history writers are

storytellers. Scientists are

storytellers. Scientists live anddie by their ability to depart

rom the tribe and go out into

an unknown terrain and bring

back, like a carcass newly

speared, some discovery or new

act or theoretical insight and

lay it in ront o the tribe; and

then they all gather and dance

around it. Symposia are held

in the National Academy oSciences and prizes are given.

There is undamentally no

dierence rom a Paleolithic

campsite celebration.

E.O. Wilson, in Writing

Natural History, Dialogues WithAuthors, by Edward Lueders

Language clothes Nature,

as the air clothes the earth,

taking the exact orm and

pressure o every object.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

My grandmother laid theoundation or rog-catching

and shing. Grandma knew

her role. Her role was to

catch my stories. With a

grandmother to come home

to, there were a lot o things

to see and learn and gather.

JY


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Then, the very next day they go out on the trail vigorously

gathering more stories to tell.

Sharing stories with others builds a collective knowledge

much greater than the isolated experience o one person. We

can gain a storehouse o inormation rom others stories: one

saw rogs by the pond with bright red legs; one made rope

out o old dead cedar bark; one snuck up on coyotes andaplodontias living in the woods near the pond. Storytelling

layers knowledge slowly built up over time, as a living oral

library.

Sharing our personal stories inspires us on urther. Group

sharing arms everyones amazing experiences in nature can

be accessible to all. I Danny can catch a rog or Samantha

can touch a deer, well then, why cant I? Curiosity, our great-est resource or learning, becomes contagious. I you listen to

someone tell about catching the rog by the most beautiulpond just down the street, you just might want to go there

soon. Or maybe you wonder, now that weve mentioned it,

who ever heard o an aplodontia?

This constant pouring o individual experience and knowl-

edge into a collective pot or the community unveils one

o the great advantages to group learning. Many people

recognize the value o and crave such a learning community.

As participants begin to trust that there will be a constant

rhythm to this routine, that they will get many chances totell their stories, the momentum builds into a palpable group

zeal at storytelling time. Age matters not. All people respond

to this cycle o learning and sharing in a magical way.

Story o the DayFor One

I not in a group setting, stories can be told to a journal. With

young children this might be done through drawing or art, or

dictating to you, the writer. Again, we share many tricks orthis which may depend on your skills and the skills objectives

o your program.

Older youth can journal tracks they nd in the eld, or

write about Sit Spot experiences, keeping weekly Field

Inventories, as students do in the Kamana Naturalist Training

Program. I you like to inspire sketching and drawing, let

it be in the spirit o expressing a story rather than coloring

inside the lines. I you love how words clothe experience,

you can guide people into nding strong and vivid words andways to unold all the sensory input o their moment in time.

The Pipes o Pan sound early

beore the sense o wonder is

dulled, while the world is

wet with dew and still resh

as the morning . The

look o wide-eyed delight in

the eyes o a child is proo

enough o its presence.

I heard (the Pipes o Pan) in

many places as a child, but

one o the best was an alder

thicket where I used to hide, a

veritable jungle that had never

been cleared. The swamp began

just beyond the garden ence

and I went there oten, bur-

rowing my way through the

maze into its very center.There I had ashioned a nest on

a dry little shel. It was cozy

and warm, and like any hidden

creature I lay there listening

and watching. Rabbit run-

ways ran through it and birds

sang in the branches around

me . The alder swamp was

my reuge and no one came

there but me. Only Motherknew, and she understood it

was mine and mine alone.

What I heard there were the

Pipes, and what I sensed, I

know now, was the result o

a million years o listening

and being aware, the accumu-

lated experience o the race

itsel and o ages when man

was more a part o his ancientenvironment than now .

Sigurd Olson,

Open Horizons, The Pipes o Pan


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Writing and drawing can end up back in the story circle as Show-and-Tell. Something

about knowing their writing will be perormed or published, or their drawing

displayed or mounted, res up attention to their work . . . as i a predator might be

watching! For some, this enhances their experience, or others it can block them with

ear. Again, use this response as an opportunity to guide their paths with the intent o

empowering them to nd their own storytelling gits.

How Stories Reveal Edges

Story o the Day encourages sel-expression and sel-condence in the validity o

each persons personal experiences. With many people, you might see a progres-

sion rom trembling shyness to charismatic power. At rst, some may demonstrate a

collapsed, drawn inward body language. With no eye contact, the timid oer only

a low and mumbled speech. Ater many opportunities to listen to others and share

their stories, even the shyest gradually transorms into a bright voice, a lited chest,

sparkling eyes that pour out excitement, and unerring sel-assurance.

Whenever you listen to a persons story, you have a golden opportunity to discern

their edges and inspire them with tting questions. As a routine, careul listening to

Story o the Day gives you, the Coyote Mentor, leisure time to hear what captures

the attention, what your students notice and dont notice, what they eel proud or

awkward to talk about, and what words they choose to express themselves. The

chapter ahead called Questioning and Answering will be a very helpul guide to place

questions right at the edge o their stories. Good questions, aptly chosen and well

timed, will get your people curious and push them to bring back even better stories.

The Big Two Routines

These two routines, Sit Spot and Story o the Day, eed each other constantly,

like a call and response. The other eleven Core Routines that ollow can be ound

contained within these two, as specic techniques to enhance time spent outside and

daily refection on it.

The antidote to Nature Decit Disorder may be this simple: get people to spend time

in nature, and when they return, be there to catch their stories.

Expanding Our Senses

Expanding Our Senses in a nutshell:

Use and expand all your senses as ully as you can. Pay attention! Look Alert!

Stretch Out! Use all the senses, one at a time, and together.

Pay attention!For nature connection, we use only one golden rule: notice everything. Get down


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in the dirt and eel it. Widen to Owl Eyes (a name we like

to give to peripheral vision) and detect movement. Hear

the ar-o cry o the hawk and the wind in the trees. Smell

the scent carried in the warm breeze. Feel the direction o

sun. Taste the sae wild edibles. At every opportunity, alert

your students to expand their senses until doing so becomes

routine, a practice, a habit, a discipline, and nally, a brain

pattern.

Remember the context o Expanding Our Senses. People

who lived o the land, taught this skill rst: pay attention at

all times to everything. E. O. Wilson describes the intensity

o the state by calling it the naturalists trance, the hunters

tranceby which biologists locate more elusive organisms.

They had the alertness o predator and prey. This continual

state o being directly caused much o the awareness and

naturalist knowledge learned without schooling.

I you hunt or watch birds, then you already know the drill.

Perhaps youve been a photographer, or had a job watching

or res rom a tower, or detecting potential avalanches at a

ski slope, or maybe youve raised a toddler in a cityscape ull

o hazards, all o these require close attention.

As a Coyote Mentor take every opportunity to stretch

everyones sensory awareness, including your own. Your

actions, however subtle, lead to alerting, discovering, invok-

ing, evoking, reviving, appreciating, encouraging, inspiring,questioning, expanding, widening, stretching, exercising, and

ocusing sensory awareness. The introductory exercise on

Expanding our Senses in the Activities section will give you

some helpul approaches.

Forging a Dierent Set o Brain Patterns

The routine o Expanding Our Senses wakes us up to more

ully using our amazing innate capacity or seeing, hearing,smelling, tasting, and touching. In terms o brain patterning

theory, this routine excites and ocuses conscious attention

on our sensory neurology until reaching out with our eyes,

ears, nostrils, taste buds, and skin suraces becomes a mental

habit. Throughout our lives then, well absorb sensory

inormation with increasing subtlety.

Ater all, our senses never turn o. Our brain patterns only

lter what we pay attention to. Simply, this routine breaks us

out o habitual brain patterns and wakes us up to capacitieswe would normally ignore. Through conscious use o our

Lets go pick berries.

Do you like berries?

I love berries, I like

sweet things.

Lets go pick berries.

And while youre picking berries,

youre asking questions. How

come this berry is dierent

rom that one and these are

red and those are white? Each

time we add another meaning-

ul awareness component, we

stretch them urther and urther.

I you could attach little strings

o awareness to them, theyd

look like a daisy with many

petals, a three dimensional

fower, a clover bloom, with

many, many rays o awareness

going out in all directions.

JY


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What is spiritual? The more

o our brain that we engage,

the more o our antennaethat we tune, the stronger our

sensitivity to the vibrations

o the lie orce around us.

JY, Seeing Through Native Eyesaudiotape, What is spiritual?

Slots between the trunks up

ahead shiver with blue where a

muskeg opens. I angle toward it,eeling no need to hurry, picking

every ootstep careully, stop-

ping oten to stare into the diz-

zying crannies, listening or any

splinter o sound, keeping my

senses tight and concentrated.

I listen as closely as possible

but hear nothing. I work my

eyes into every dark crevice

and slot among the snowybranches, but see nothing. I

stand perectly still and wait.

Then I see it.

Richard K. Nelson,

The Island Within

There is an intimate reciprocity

to the senses; as we touch thebark o a tree, we eel the tree

touching us; as we lend our ears

to the local sounds and ally our

nose to the seasonal scents, the

terrain gradually tunes us in turn.

David Abram, The Spell o theSensuous: Preception and Language

in a More-than Human World

senses, we can actually strengthen them, and give them ull

range o motion, just as you might strengthen muscles by

exercising at a gym. For whole-brain learning, we want to

exercise all the senses in the ever-changing, many-textured

playground o nature.

Humans Dominant SenseEach animal has a dominant sense that determines its

liestyle, how it interacts with the world. The long nose o

dogs makes or a world organized by smells, while the huge

satellite-dish ears o deer mean a world ull o important

sounds. Humans, a lot like cats with large eyes mounted on

the ront o a fat ace, possess the ideal set-up or a visual-

based lie.

Human eyes operate as acute instruments that guide ourliestyle as biped animals with dexterous orelimbs. However,

this can become a double-edged sword, both a git and a

limiting actor. Whenever we allow one sense to be over-

emphasized, it is possible or the other senses, and thus other

parts o our brains, to be under-developed. Try this great

practice or stealing away our dominant sense so as to awaken

the othersuse blindolds. I you would like a taste o this

suggestion, prepare yoursel a meal at home, and then sit

down and eat it blindolded. The world shows up very dier-

ent without eyes. (We also recommend reading Read HelenKellers biography, or the rather terrible picture o sudden

epidemic blindness in Blindness by Jose Saramango.)

However, we also want to use our git o sight ully. Our

cultural infuences now narrow our vision into a small range

to use books, TVs, computers, and handheld electronics. I

you watch a new-born baby, youll see its huge eyes take in

everything. Catching the movement o a fy or bird outside

the window, they will suddenly turn with wonder to look.

This peripheral vision, the ability to see out o the cornero the eye, allows us to detect subtle movements, such as

animals slinking into the bushes as we arrive near their ter-

ritory. It also provides excellent vision at night. A ew o my

students who wear glasses have changed their prescriptions:

ater a ew months o routinely expanding their vision, their

eyes actually changed as a result o this natural way o seeing.

We do need tunnel vision, that especially narrow ocus, to

execute certain tasksbut there we can also stretch the edge

o our ocus to take in more rom peripheral vision.


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The Five, Sixth, and More Senses

Expanding Our Senses on a routine basis extends the unc-

tional use o our brain well beyond the norm in our modern

society. We highly recommend reading Diane Ackermans

lively research on each o the ve human senses in her book

A Natural History o the Senses. Our sidebar lists additional

senses abridged rom a list o ty-three that Richard Cohenidenties in his book, Field Guide to Connecting with

Nature, Creating Moments that Let Earth Teach. These give

just a hint o what our biology is capable o.

Consider the possibility that what is oten reerred to as our

sixth sense combines the ull use and coordination o our

ve senses. What may seem mystical to some, might be plain

biology when the brain is used optimally. I anything could

be called strange, it would have to be that so many humans

settle or using only a tiny portion o the brains capacity orperception.

Questioning and Tracking

Questioning and Tracking in a Nutshell:

Become a detective and track everything as a clue to a

mystery to be solved. Ask questions about everything,

and push your questions until they yield answers.

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

Like peering through a window into wildlie, tracking animals

can be endlessly ascinating. By capturing imagination and

empathy, it demands whole-brain intelligence and concentra-

tion. Getting down on all ours and staring at the ootprints

o animals oers a particular abundance o opportunity or

imprinting search images. Like reading, studying the sign and

ollowing the trails o animals, develops powers o pattern

recognition that stay with you or the rest o your lie.

I you nd a our-toed track with claw-marks, you might use a

eld guide to identiy it, and you might use a ruler to measure

and determine the type o gait the animal used. The gait

pattern then may tell you more about the animals behavior,

even about its mood. Trying to gure out when the animal

made the track also draws you in to notice the weather. And

youll also start to notice how that our-toed track relates to

the nearby rodent tunnels, and how those tunnels relate to

Let us ollow, said Mowgli,

The jungle is wet enough

to hold the lightest mark.

Bagheera the Panther, trot-

ting with his head low said,

It is single-oot (he meant

there was only one man),

and the weight o the thinghe carries has pressed his

heel ar into the ground.

Ha! This is as clear as sum-

mer lightning, Mowgli an-

swered; and they ell into the

quick, choppy trail-trot in and

out through the checkers o

the moonlight, ollowing the

marks o those two bare eet.

Now he runs switly, said

Mowgli. The toes are spread

apart. They went on over

some wet ground. Now why

does he turn aside here?

Wait! said Bagheera, and fung

himsel orward with one superb

bound as ar as ever he could.

The rst thing to do when a

trail ceases to explain itsel is

to cast orward without leav-

ing your own conusing oot-

marks on the ground. Bagheera

turned as he landed, and aced

Mowgli, crying, Here comes

another trail to meet him. It is

a smaller oot, this second trail

and the toes turn inward.

Then Mowgli ran up and

looked. It is the oot o aGond hunter, he said. Look!

Here he dragged his bow on

the grass. That is why the rst

trail turned aside so quickly.

Big Foot hid rom Little Foot.

Rudyard Kipling, The JungleBook, The Kings Ankus


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35

Cohen lists 53 natural survival

senses that connect and bal-

ance Nature within to Naturewithout. They include:

Sense o time

Appetite and hunger

Sense o temperature and

temperature change

Sense o season, includ-

ing the ability to insulate,hibernate and winter sleep

Humidity sense, includ-

ing the acumen to nd

water or evade a food

Hearing, including resonance,

vibrations, sonar requencies

Sense o awareness o ones

own visibility and conse-

quent camoufaging

Sense o proximity

Sense o ear

Sense o play

Sense o excessive stress

Sense o emotional place,

o community belonging

Psychic capacity, such as ore-

knowledge, and animal instinctSpiritual sense, including

conscience, capacity or

sublime love, sense o sor-

row, and sacrice.

Michael J Cohen,

Reconnecting with Nature

the surrounding grasses, and how those grasses link to the

topography. Like snowfakes or words, no two tracks, no

two trails, are ever exactly the same. So tracking is the art

that develops, and then innitely complexies, your image-

vocabulary or reading the book o nature.

Tracking as Scientifc InquiryTracking wildlie by looking at ootprints and other sign

denitely oers a ertile opportunity or developing knowl-

edge o place, but we want to extend the metaphor. We mean

tracking in the broadest sense. The discipline o tracking

nurtures quality observation, observation guided by intense

curiosity, question ater question. So tracking, like scientic

inquiry, always begins with a question. Then it includes gath-

ering evidence and reasoning deductively; dening, rening

and proving hypotheses. Tracking, like playing the detectiveor the scientist whose discoveries are goaded on by a burning

desire, leads you to nd answers.

Tom Brown Jr. likes to ask, When are we NOT tracking?and o course, the answer is When we are asleep or dead!Humans track. It is the most natural thing or us to do.

We track with our eyes, ears, nose, touch, taste, emotions,

minds and bodies. Anyone can track anything. Herbalists

and gardeners constantly track: through years o inquisitive

observation they deepen their knowledge o plants. Whatplant is this? Why does this plant grow so well here and notthere? How do the dierent seasons aect the medicinalpotency o this plants leaves, fowers, and roots? The techni-cians in the back room xing our computers track electronic

pathways. Parents track the development o their children.

Youth track adults to mimic their liestyle strategies. I your

attitude is inquiring and your method is scientic, youre a

tracker.

Tom has another aphorism: We want to put the quest backin question and the search back in research. The core

routine o Questioning and Tracking instills a mental habit o

intense inquiry. When people relax, their naturally curiosity

asks amazingly good questions. As mentors we empower that

curiosity to keep their questioning alive. Role-model this

enthusiastic inquisitiveness in your own lie to lure them rom

edge to edge.

In our Seeing Through Native Eyes audio series, Jon Young

introduces the art o tracking with as good a picture as we

can give o how a person might use the classic interrogatives,


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Who, What, When, Where and Why, with animal tracks.

He calls these the ve arts o tracking. This excerpt rom

Tape 2 shows how these questions can guide your inquiry:

Jon Young on Awakening Inquiry

Lets Look at Tracks.

On your way to your sit spot, theres that little road that you

walk along, and theres that little mud puddle there. Can you

picture it? You can see the raindrops like little dots all around

the tracks. And in it as you look closer, you see a set o oot-

prints. You can recognize that there are some toes there, and

some claws, and you can recognize some heel pads. And you

can kind o get a sense o the direction that the animal went

in. And you can almost see its size; can see how big it may

be. You can tell how heavy it is by pushing on the groundand saying, Wow, this ground is pretty rm; but notice, these

tracks went in pretty deep. This animal is pretty heavy.

Your rst question you might ask is WHO? Who let thistrack? The identication o signs, hairs that you nd stuckon a thorn, droppings that you nd along the edge o a

eld, chews on the edge o a piece o bark: these are all

signs. Holes in the ground. Who lives there? Whose trailis that? What animal is most likely to use that trail? These

are all questions that are related to the rst art o tracking,identifcation.

The second question you might come up with is WHAT? Iknow what kind o animal it is, but Im really curious to know

what its doing. Is it running? Is it walking? Is it looking letor right, up or down? Is it scared? Could you tell rom thistrack? Is that really possible? I you had a long stretch osand in order to understand the ull length o the stories, you

could do it, and thats the art o interpretation.

Back to your mud puddle. Youve got an idea o who it is, and

what its doing. What you want to know now is, WHEN was

it here? Thats the third art o tracking, the art o aging. Whendid this animal go by? Ask yoursel this, Are those raindropsI see in the mud all around that track, also in the track itsel?What does that mean? That animal came by beore the rain.So i I could only gure out when it last rained, I have an

idea o how old these tracks must be. Maybe the ranger who

works at this park can tell me.

The next thing is, Hey, I dont care who made those tracks,

I dont really care what that animal was doing, and I dont

d tracks in hard sand.

on tracks on the beach.


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37

even care what time it was here. What I want to know is WHERE it is right now?Can I ollow it? Can I take up this track right here as i it was the end o a string andollow it to its source? A good tracker can do that. Thats something the Apacheswere known or. Thats something the Aborigines in Australia are known or, and the

Bushmen o the Kalahari. They can ollow a string o ootprints and lead you right to

the animal. The art o trailing is very dicult. But you can learn that too.

So you have the Who, What, When and Where o tracking. The next one is WHY?Why does this animal come by here every day between 8:30 and 10:00? Why does itgo down this mud road? Why is it moving at this speed and not another speed? Whydoes it always seem to be in the same kind o energy fow? It doesnt seem to be goinganywhere except in a straight line, why is that? And why are there always humantracks next to it that seem to be rom the same time? We call this art ecological tracking.

The question Why always comes rom the bigger picture; youll never get the answer

right rom the ootprint itsel. Knowing what berries are ripe will tell you where the

bear is going. Knowing what sh are running in the rivers will teach you about otters

and about mink. Knowing about the acorns that are alling will teach you about thedeer and the grouse, the turkeys, the bear. All o these things are related. And the

more you know about nature, the better you will be at tracking, because youll be able

to put the whole picture together.

Animal Forms

Animal Forms in a Nutshell:

Physically, mentally, and emotionally imitate any and all animals in their move-

ments, behaviors, and personalities.

A Long Tradition o Imitation

This potent routine might seem a bit dierent rom the others, more akin to dance

than mental gymnastics. What we call Animal Forms simply imitates the physical

and mental actions o animals, birds, and to some extent even grass, wind and water.

This kind o practice can be ound in cultures across the globe. For instance, think o

the many martial arts rom Asia based on imitation o animals, such as crane, tiger, or

turtle. Also, many indigenous cultures conducted imitative dances and dramas, oten

with accompanying masks and costumes. The Hawaiian Hula, an ancient and modern

dance orm, brilliantly demonstrates such animal and nature dances. Cave paintings

in Europe and old European stories indicate that the ancestors o Europeans did the

same.

In the Activities section ahead, well teach you some basic perceptual strategies,

movements, or ootprints o common North American animals: owl, deer, ox, cat,

dog, raccoon, and rabbit. Also, well suggest games that call or imitation, pretending

or play-acting how animals sneak, hide, climb, stalk, pounce, and eat. Over time, your

own experiences with will teach you many more.


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Bodily Learning

We can learn by eel the anatomy behind animal move-

ments. How do two-leggeds walk, how do our-leggeds?

How do blind moles navigate? The practice o imitating

animal movement, which includes its mood and strategy,

creates a meaningul relationship with the animal. Combined

with eld guides and journaling, practicing animal orms willimprint search imagesmulti-dimensional, dynamic models

o character and ormin both mind and body, into our

very being. Learning by heart could mean this: developing

a stronger sense o instinct and intuition, and growing in

empathy with what we imitate.

O course, without ever being told, people, especially

children, naturally mimic Animal Forms. Think back to your

childhood: did you ever pretend to be an animal? Did you

ever have a avorite stued animal that you brought to liewith play-acting? Which animals did you love to be? Whatdoes your body remember today about the animals move-

ment? I you ever get among native olks such as the SanBushmen, you will notice that adults routinely imitate things

too. They get a great deal o humor out o it as well.

Physical Education

Why encourage the practice o animal orms? Animal Formspresents a positive channel or physical development. Many

o the orms we teach have some concrete, physical applica-

tion, such as Raccoon Form or crawling through thickets o

brush, Deer Bounding Form or jumping over logs, or Cougar

Form or sneaking through low cover. Thereore, Animal

Forms oten make up the Physical Education sections o

our days. The diversity o animals in the world provides a

spectrum o movements that can develop all areas o our

students bodies, rom stretching to climbing to running to

lying fat and still.

Animals as Teachers

Animal Forms also establishes animals as teachers, as beings

whose liestyles oer valuable lessons or our lives. Not only

physical movements, but mental attitudes can be learned

rom animals. For instance, watching a squirrel relentlessly

harvest nuts in the all reveals the mentality o hard work and

getting it done when you really need to. The long-rangevision o a hawk or eagle can teach us about seeing the big


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Wandering

Wandering in a Nutshell:

Wander through the landscape without time, destination,

agenda, or uture purpose; be present in the moment; and

go o-trail wherever curiosity leads.

Hmmm an educational activity without purpose? A walk in

nature without a destination or intent? Are we serious?

Unstructured Time

Yes, we eel so serious about this routine, that most o our

programs have a built-in wander or walkabout or about

hal o our time out in the eld. We call this The 50-50

Principle. We plan our whole day to ollow a structure, but

count on ty-percent o the time in the excitement o themoment, involving timeless, unstructured Wandering. There

is nothing to accomplish, nowhere to go. By just being pres-

ent in the moment, curiosity gently leads us wherever we go.

Why would we spend so much o our time wandering

aimlessly?

In the modern world, we call a lot o things priorities: our

agenda, our calendar, our jobs, our bills, our children, our

parents, the gear we need or recreation. They push us thisway and that in a direction that fows away rom nature.

Having an agenda or expected plan o action closes our

minds to what else may be happening at any given moment.

Wandering without aim opens us to what nature wants

to teach. In terms o brain patterning, Wandering is the

quintessential Coyote routine, a habit to break habits, and an

essential skill or allowing each person to connect with nature

according to their own special gits.

The literature o naturalists overfows with tributes to the

downright spiritualand politicalvalue o slowing down,

o living in unstructured time. A ew choice tidbits describe

that value I mentioned:

Wendell Berry, a Kentucky armer, and conservation poet and

essayist, writes inAn Entrance to the Woods,

The aster one goes, the more strain there is on the

senses, the more they ail to take in, the more conusion

they must tolerate or gloss overand the longer it takesto bring the mind to a stop in the presence o anything.

The Fity-Fity Principle

Use the 50/50 principle butplan 100% o the time, with

perhaps 50% o the activi-

ties being core activities such

as sitting, mapping, students

mentoring students, etc. For

the other 50% o the time,

prepare or the unexpected.

Pick rom a repertoire o activi-

ties or dierent situations, so

i an unexpected event hap-

pens, you have an appropri-

ate lesson at your ngertips.

Maybe aim or one with an

inspirational hit, one with an

adrenaline rush, one introduc-

ing a wholly new area, some

library research, and a variety o

other activities that you could

change at a moments notice.

David Forthoer, Kamana Student


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41

Kingshers: they make a hel-

lacious noise, blast and rattle

beore them, so the whole worldknows theyre coming. Rest on

a branch over water with their

big bills, suddenly dive. Hit

the water and shoot their wings

back to propel themselves that

extra jolt orward. Tom would

say, Lets go be kingshers.

Wed climb on the rock and

dive straight down and try to

catch a sh with our aces.

JY

Sigurd Olson, canoe guide and activist who worked to save

the Quetico-Boundary Waters Wilderness, writes in his

biography, Open Horizons,

Something grew on me during those years o roaming

This was the sense o timelessness, a way o looking at

lie that truly had the power o slowing speed. In town

there were always deadlines, a host o things to do, butas soon as the canoes were in the water and heading out,

the tempo changed. The coming o day and night,

the eternal watching o the skies, sunrises and sunsets,

the telltale story o winds in the maneuvering o clouds,

the interwoven pattern o rain and mist, cycles o cold

and warmth, even the changing vegetation, all these

ltered intothe comprehension o time being endless

and relative with all lie fowing into its stream

Barry Lopez, in a powerul essay inPatriotism and the AmericanLand, commissioned ater September 11, 2001, calls on moreo us to become true naturalists, writing,

Firsthand knowledge is enormously time consuming

to acquire; with its dallying and lack o end points, it

is also out o phase with the short-term demands o

modern lie. It teaches humility and allibility, and so

represents an antithesis to progress. It makes a stance o

awe in the witness o natural process seem appropriate,

and attempts at summary knowledge nave Firsthandknowledge o a countrys ecosystems, a rapidly diminish-

ing pool o expertise and awareness, lies at the radical

edge o any countrys political thought.

Letting Curiosity Lead the Way

Wandering through a landscape being led solely by curios-

ity and open eyes is the ertile ground or true discovery.

Wandering allows us to get in touch with what excites us.When were not pushing a learning-agenda, curiosity comes

to the oreront and guides the learning process. As mentors,

we all into the role o ellow discoverer, ellow questioner.

We wait or true desire to learn about something naturally

surace as we wander, and then we plant whatever seeds o

meaningul knowledge we have to share. And then we ask

another question.

In his book Free Play, Steven Nachmanovich agrees:

Such a walk is totally dierent rom random driting.

Leaving your eyes and ears wide open, you allow your


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43

Mapping

Mapping in a Nutshell:

Orient to the compass directions, and perceive the landscape rom a birds eye

view. Draw maps to locate eatures o the landscape or tell stories that map your

explorations.

A natural routine amiliar to anyone whos ever driven in a big city, mapping orients

us and shows us the gaps in what we notice. It creates a need or people to know what

bird that was by the swamp, or where that creek goes. It also brings the landscape to

lie as the diversity o natural signposts emerges through the connections between

birds and berry bushes, between coyote scat and vole-lled meadows, between bodies

o water and the daily movements o animals.

Drawing Maps

For older youth and adults, this routine comes easy. Draw maps all the time. Sketchyour Sit Spot and the trails and signicant eatures radiating out rom it. Sketch your

own house and yard and where it ts in your larger sphere o living. Draw the route

you took on a wander.

Ater a day o exploring, gather under the whiteboard and draw a collective map o

where you went and what you saw. First, using the sun, stars, or a compass as a reer-

ence, identiy the directions o North, South, East, and West. Then ll in your big

landmarks, your trails, and the sites o the events that caught your attention.

Also, we encourage more ocused groups to keep personal map-journals. They mightbegin with a blank slate or a store-bought contour map and ll it in with the locations

o prevailing winds, ecological zones, wetlands, sunny spots, places never touched

by sun, birds glimpsed, animal tracks and trails, ood sources, or shelter trees. We

encourage putting down everything on hand-drawn maps.

About Process, Not Product

The point is not to produce perect maps. Rather, mapping engages in a process

innitely benecial to human development. Let the process evolve, and guide it withyour questions. Dont get hung up on maps that arent right.

That said, as you practice the routine over time you will notice a marked dierence

in the accuracy o mapping. Every year when a new group o olks shows up at a

teaching location we regularly use, they divide into groups and explore then draw a

map o the small pond with a wiggly shape. Ater doing so, they show it to the rest

o the group. Every map turns out dierentone like a jelly bean, another like a

long-necked goose.

Over the year, this process grows more precious to watch: every participant, includ-ing the acilitators, gradually begins to check the image in their mind with the

actual reality o the pond they walk around, discussing and arguing with others, and


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45

Traditional cultures created Songlines about their places with legends and songs:

that mountain over there identies where a leader went up and prayed and cried or

his people, and those drainage veins o snow coming down show streams o his tears;

or that tree by the river with the two huge branches represents an old woman whose

great arms watch over and take care o the river and its sh. In The Practice o the

Wild, Gary Snyder tells o traveling by truck in Australia with a Pintubi elder who

recites the traditional Songline at truck speed. He reports, I realized ater about hal

an hour o this that these were tales to be told while walking, and that I was experi-encing a speeded-up version o what might be leisurely told over several days o oot

travel.

Take it slowly in the places you visit. Story your place as a means o navigating

through it. Your adventures will lead to Songlines all across the landscape. O course,

name the places you go. Try naming them things you will remember, names that play

o emotions o kids and adults: Death Crossing, Booger Hill, Funky Chicken Lake,

Sneaking Cougar Trail.

In essence, we take the mapping mentality to story the landscape into one hugeinter-connected place that holds meaning or all o us. Whether through drawing

simple maps, communicating rom a birds eye view, or paying attention to the our

directions, the routine o Mapping practices, like the old saying, getting to know a

place like the back o your hand.

Exploring Field Guides

Exploring Field Guides in a Nutshell:Browse through feld guides as treasure-chests o knowledge that fll up the

vacuum o your curiosity about nature.

When people want scientic inormation, how can we help them nd it or them-

selves? Teaching them to Explore Field Guides makes them lie-long, sel-sucient

citizen-scientists o the natural world.

Field Guides as Elders

Field Guides express the amalgamation o many peoples lie work. As treasure chests

o hard-earned knowledge passed on and built upon, they symbolize the modern

equivalent o the knowledge o an elder rom a traditional culture: they hold the

collective experience o many generations.

Elders rom indigenous cultures have shared with us how their grandparents or aunts

and uncles passed on their intricate understanding o the environment through stories

or by showing them things. Their descriptions o how this happened suggest that

the elders only taught things when the students showed up ready or the lesson. The

same is true with eld guides. These wonderul books can be exciting to sit with,


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25/37

47

and letting search images develop subconsciously. Over

years, this unconscious le-cabinet o images becomes huge.

We have seen this with people o all ages, rom very young

to quite elderly. However you do it, take a hint rom Jons

grandmother, Nanny Cecil, in the sidebar. Make the explora-

tion into these treasure chests a journey o magical discovery.

Journaling

Journaling in a Nutshell:

Keep a regular record, in drawings and in words, o your

experience outdoors. Keep dated sketches, captions,

and comments that describe your landscape. Keep it up

through all the seasons until it becomes a habit you cant

live without.

By journaling, we do mean carrying around paper and

pencil or laying open a sketchbook at the nature desk inside,

next to the bookshel stacked with eld guides. Here we have

the rst core routine that involves tools. Assemble a sturdypad o paper, a pencil or an ink pen, something to add color,

and an eraser or a good beginners toolbox.

Stretching the Imagination

Routine Journaling stretches and etches all the details a little

urther into the brain. Its the Sit Spot and Expanding Our

Senses, Story o the Day, Questioning and Tracking, and

Mapping all recorded in line and color and words on a page.

Look at something and then drawit, then look back to checkon the things you werent sure o how that ear comes o

the head, or how that lea attaches to the stem. Can you eel

your visual imagination wake up? Coloring a tree green, then

looking twice, and shading the green and adding brown,activates a furry o synaptic connections. The sketcher enters

a lively image-questioning sequence with the thing observed.

Because it res up the brains visual imagination, drawingimprints images in the minds eye library.

O course putting what you see or how you eel into wordswakes up the linguistic brain. A ve year old can learn six

words or green and use them with delight all the rest o

her lie. Journaling means nding words that name plants andanimals and birds, learning adjectives or color, inventing

metaphors or smell, and growing a versatile vocabulary or

Golden Guides

My rog-catching wasdriven by my dads mother,

Nanny Cecil and my childhood

years until I was ten were Nanny

Cecil years. She took care o

my sister and me when both my

parents were working and some-

times wed go stay with her in

her little apartment on the sixth

foor in the city o Asbury Park.

She had grandmother magic

and knew how to work it with

us kids. She understood that

children have these passions that

she could tease them along with.

What did Nanny Cecil do

that was so impressive? This

shows you how her mind works.

She would tell me and my sister,

You can go anywhere you want

in my apartment, but whateveryou do, dont go in the bottom

middle drawer o my dresser.

And then shed turn, Im going

to wash dishes. Shed sit there

and wash the same two dishes

over and over again or the lon-

gest time -- and sing--, and that

would give Kim and me enough

time to kind o slide up along

the wall. One o us would watch

or the other while we crawled

on our bellies up to that middle

bottom drawer and looked in.

Nanny had Golden Guides

in there! The Golden Guide

to Reptiles and Amphibians

had drawings and maps and a

picture o how rogs use their

eyes. It was unbelievable

treasure. And it was orbid-den! Think about that.


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movement. So much in nature is new or people that the

words they nd to record their experience oten involve

creative metaphor and little stories. So journaling, whether

written or dictated, connects the language parts o the brain

to sensory experiences rom nature, and both bring each

other alive.

Journaling as Paying Attention

The real purpose o the core routine o journaling trains the

mind to pay attention. Its important to keep a journal regularly.You want to end up with a thick book. To do that, you need

to exercise some discipline. Its the discipline that all good

writers and artists and wildlie personnel practice relentlessly.

Youll nd their journals throughout the bookstores telling

how journal-keeping taught them to pay attention.

The consistency o a nature journal lies in its dating system.

At the top o every page write the date, the season, the time

o day, a marker pointing north, and a note on the weather.

So the very act o writing the heading calls or orienting,

or settling down and looking around. Then enter whatever

captures your attention in the moment o journaling, in

words or drawing, or both. Kept up consistently, a ve-day

journal tells a story, and a year-long journal records an era ull

o seasonal change.

Best o all, the patient and disciplined journaler instills a

mental habit o paying attention to all the nuances the ve

senses can perceive. Consistent journaling leads straight to a

career as a naturalist!

Journaling as a Means o Finding Ones Git

Many people eel rustrated with the paraphernalia and

change o attention needed or journaling. So let some othem o the hook. I you can, try to catch your students in a

buttery-fy like net lled with tips and allowances about how

to make the journal part o their personal journey. I they

produce a nished book, honor it with ceremony. Once they

nd a style that makes them happy, theyll demand journaling

time.

So guide them to nd their own special git, their personal

journaling style. As many dierent orms o journal-keeping

exist as the multitude o people and snowfakes. Our KamanaNaturalist Training Program calls or journals to be submit-

ted on a regular basis, until they turn into portolios kept

What that did or me and

my sister. Id be looking at

the pictures in the book, Oh

my Gosh, look at that!

My sister would be on guard

and shed say, Hurry up, hurry

up, Nannys coming! So Id

close the book and the drawer,and shed say, Just kidding. My

turn to look and yours to watch.

Every once in a while, Nanny

would catch me. Oh, you saw

it, shed say. Well, well just

have to read rom it. And I sat

on her lap and learned to read

rom these Golden Guides.

Every one o the pictures in the

Golden Guides is burned in mymemory. Theyre not dead bird

pictures; theyre living images.

My grandmothers role rom

her kitchen in the city was to

send me on errands and chan-

nel my stories into eld guides

when I came home at the end

o the day. Have you ever

caught this one? Well, you

should try to catch me one othose. Id like to see one. And

when I came home, she wanted

to know the whole story: what

did I catch, name it, use these

books to nd out what they eat,

and go catch stu they eat.

Little by little, the guides

migrated over to my house.

There was probably a rite o

passage where we were allowed

to look in the bottom drawer.

Field Guides were my elders

growing up and Nanny Cecil

was the mentor who drove me

to them with her questions.

JY


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49

in our back oce. When the assignments come in they

are amazingly dierent. Some people do little firty move-

ment sketches in pencil with mussy handwriting and arrows

pointing here and there. Some send in beautiul colored

art that weve borrowed and published here! One drew a

range map on every page, then developed it into a thematic

cartoon. Some use the grid paper enclosed with the program;

others combine words and sketches to the outer margins otheir sketchbook; while still others tap out their words on a

computer with headings and bullets and even scan in their

sketches.

For every dierent style o keeping a journal comes a choice

o equipment. Consider the options: the pencil and portable

memo pad in a zip lock bag; the sketchpad in a leather

cover; the desktop journal in a library o reerences; the piles

o single sheets stued into pockets; the laptop les; the

CyberTracker GPS system.

For younger children, do not burden them with equipment,

but do encourage them to carry a pad and pencil and stop

once in a while to record something in their journal. Just get

them to top their page with a little heading, then jot down

whatever they want. I the younger ones need help, you can

take dictation. Remember as a mentor, be like Coyote, gently

luring them into journaling, noticing the edges o their

resistance and enthusiasm. Help them discover their gits! Let

their journals go every which-way until each child discovers

his or her own journaling style.

Bottom line: nd a way to introduce journaling and make it a

habit that those you mentor cant live without.

Survival Living

Survival Living in a nutshell:

Interact with the natural world around you as i your

entire subsistence depended on it, including all the

basic human needs: shelter, water, re, ood, tools, and

clothing.

The Original Landscape o Nature Connection

You and I wouldnt be alive i our ancestors had not practiced

this Core Routine o Survival Living or all those hundreds

o thousands o years beore agriculture and civilization. All


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subsistence cultures have in common the necessity to survive

in a wilderness environment, where the slopes o land and

orces o climate shape their brain patterns, where, according

to Stalking Wol, the animal is an instrument played by the

landscape. Indigenous culture all share the raw experience o

surging adrenaline, the ght or fee response. They have in

common a deeply elt sense o kinship with all the elements

o their natural world, a recognition that humans play onlyone tune among many.

The practice o survival accumulates in our bones and blood.

It could be said that todays people are still hunters and

gatherers, but the landscape gives us dierent eedback .

We learn early what to click and turn, when to stop and go,

how to pay attention to domestic and man made things that

matter to us. But our modern systems eliminate the need to

survive in direct, unmediated relationship with natures raw

elements. The mental habits that result rom Survival Livinghave dimmed: ingenuity, sel-reliance, and improvisation,

and, as John Burroughs advised, taking nature by the right

handle.

Practicing Survival

Nothing gives us more meaningul relationships with nature

than really putting ourselves out in the elements and living

o the land. It creates the ultimate need to learn.

One o our students, Emily, went on a guided survival trip

with a ew other students. During their trip, they spent the

night in a shelter they made out o branches rom the hem-

lock tree. They made a sleeping-mat foor inside their shelter

rom the springy green hemlock boughs, and they also made

tea rom the vitamin C-rich hemlock needles.

A day or two ater her trip ended, back on our land, I

watched her rom a distance as she walked up the hilltowards the outdoor gathering space. Midway up the trail,

she suddenly looked up, staring at something: two hemlock

trees standing by the door to the shelter. When she saw

them, she suddenly halted. Immediately transported back in

her mind to her shelter, she could eel the sot comort o the

green hemlock boughs on her body. As she told me all about

her experience, she said she could still taste the citrus-tinged

hemlock tea. She remembered how easily the dead twigs o

the hemlock lit up when everyone shivered in the cold, strug-

gling to make a re. Standing there, seeing these hemlocks

she had passed so many times beore without noticing, she

Go nd a piece o paper; it

doesnt matter what type or size.

Find any pencil, marker, or draw-

ing tool. Now gather up your

eyes, take a deep breath, and ask

yoursel: What is happening

outdoors, this particular season,

this time o day, and in this

particular place where I live?

Clare Walker Leslie,

Keeping a Nature Journal

Haiku

Writing a poem

O seventeen syllables

Is very di

From a Student Assignment


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51

cried. Emily created a meaningul relationship with the

hemlock tree. From now on, whenever she sees a hemlock

tree, she remembers it with grateulness.

I you can, nd a way to interact with nature in the raw.

Stretch peoples comort zones by staying outside in dicult

weather. Our gear lists or expeditions begins with this head-

ing, There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropri-ate clothing! Use wood to make res. Use plants or ood

and medicine. Make leather rom animal skins or clothes

and drums. You might even learn how to grow your own

ood, and learn to hunt and sh. With just a little training

and practice, you can help others cultivate vegetable or herb

gardens to build shelters or survival orts with sticks and

leaves, and start res in the old way, with riction methods o

bow-drill or hand-drill.

Simulate a Genuine Need to Learn

These skills are valuable, ultimately, not because we need

them or daily livingalthough they may indeed save

someones liebut or the way they help us develop connec-

tion to place, and teach us to relate to nature in the oldest,

most undamental way. We learn the most when we have an

intense need to learn, and nothing creates need like survival.

But i your situation wont allow actual survival learning,then try to make Knowledge o Place genuinely important

to learn. Take people there through imagination: tell stories

and play games based on tracking and stalking, hiding and

ambushing, collecting and dissecting, nding ood and mak-

ing shelter. Stories o heroic deeds or survival are absolute

avorites, just as they seem to be or todays audiences o the

TV survival reality shows. Stories abound in the Activities

section to re up the imagination o what it would be like to

survive in the wild. Many o the games simulate the routines

o Survival Living rom deep in our DNA.

Minds Eye Imagining

Minds Eye Imagining in a Nutshell:

Use and strengthen your imagination as much as pos-

sible, imprinting images in your mind to gather rom the

experience o all ve senses.

Without weariness there can

be no real appreciation o rest,

without hunger no enjoyment

o ood; without the ancient re-

sponses to the harsh simplicities

o the kind o environment that

shaped mankind, a man cannot

know the urges within him.

Sigurd Olson, Open Horizons


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Developing the Imagination

This routine develops our imagination and our ability to

re-experience events with our eyes closed. To teach nature

literacy, then see with the Minds Eye, we must go one step

beyond plain reading into reading with the intent to learn

by heart. Not only visual images, but also smells, favors,

sounds, and textures imprint in magnicent detail in peoples

brain patterns when they rely on their nature literacy or

survival. Routinely imagining with our Minds Eye allows our

sensory experiences to really sink in. This skill provides us

with the dynamic memory required or eld biology and bird

watching and is the evidence o a well-developed naturalist

intelligence.

The Minds Eye Imagining Technique

When you come across a track while on a walk, look at it

closely or a minute, then close your eyes and picture it in

your minds eye. This simple sequence intensely ocuses your

mind on the shapes o that track. Your mind strains to see it

in ull detail, preparing to re-tell the wondrous story about its

every detail. When you open your eyes again, you see some

things you didnt notice the rst time, and when you closeyour eyes again, the picture in your Minds Eye grows clearer

and more vivid. Birdwatchers use this technique as they de-

velop their eye to spot birds fight patterns, their movement

in the trees, and the slight dierences in coloration among all

those Little Brown Jobbies.

The students in our Kamana Naturalist Training Program

learn to use the Minds Eye technique to make sketches in

their eld journals. First, they look closely at the pictures

perhaps a Northern River Otterin the eld guides. Then,without looking at the pictures, they sketch the animal. In

the act o sketching, they will notice they hadnt registered

the length o tail, or the spacing o eyes or how the otter

stands up on its hind legs. Looking back at the pictures, they

take note and ll the gaps in their original memory. Thus the

sketch-image o the otter greatly improves, not only on paper

but, more importantly, in the Minds Eye Imagination o the

artist.

I certainly have ound good

in everything: -- in all natural

processes and products, notthe good o Sunday school

books, but the good o law and

order, the good o that system o

things out o which we came and

which is the source o our health

and strength. It is good

that re should burn, even i it

consumes your house; it is good

that orce should crush, even i it

crushes you; it is good that rainshould all, even i it destroys

your crops or foods your land.

Plagues and pestilences attest the

constancy o natural law. They

set us to cleaning our streets and

houses and to readjusting our

relations to outward nature.

Yes, good in everything,

because law in everything, truth

in everything, the sequence ocause and eect in everything,

and it may all be good to me i,

on the right principles, I relate

my lie to it. I can make the

heat and the cold serve me, the

winds and the foods, gravity and

all the chemical and dynamical

orces, serve me, i I take hold

o them by the right handle.

The bad in things arises romour abuse or misuse o them

or rom our wrong relations

to them ... . Our well being

consists in learning the law

and adjusting our lives to it

John Burroughs,

The Gospel o Nature


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53

Storytelling with the Minds Eye

The Minds Eye Imagining routine develops a ling cabinet

o single images or identiying what you see in nature and it

oers a potent technique or telling the Story o the Day.

Beore I incorporated the use o my imagination into my

nature studies as an adult, I remember how scientic reportsand descriptive passages in literature bored me. I saw just a

bunch o words with little behind them. Ater a ew months

o using my Minds Eye technique to draw plants and animals,

suddenly those words opened doorways into a vast landscape

o images in my imagination. I was foored!

The more I used my minds eye to remember lea shapes and

bark patterns, the more I enjoyed it when other people talked

to me about these things or I read about them. It was as i

suddenly I could see the movie behind the lines in a book.

Turning this aroundadding all other senses and memories

to the mixI began to write and tell stories with my mind

ocused on the rich sensory wholeness o the experience.

Since then, Ive become a student o the great storytellers and

speech-givers and I have discovered they all use the power

o their imagination, their Minds Eye Imagining, to entrance

their audience. We are image-based, sensory creatures at

heart.

As people tell the stories o their day, help them ground

themselves in the moment o their experience. Help them use

all their senses to remember the precise angle o the harriers

tipped wings, the smell o damp earth or spring fowers, the

squishy warm eeling o wet socks, the rst touch o sun on

their cheeks on a cold morning. Children, always so present

to their experiences, are all born storytellers. But they will

only truly know this about themselves when they practice

using their Minds Eye Imagining and tell their tales rom a

place o bright, detailed imagination.

Listening or Bird Language

Listening or Bird Language in a Nutshell:

Be still and listen. Quiet down and crane your ears and

eyes to notice the vocal signals and body language o

birds and other animals, including humans. What mes-sage do you hear in their voice?

Power Outage Overnight

When our son was in ourth

grade he had a teacher who

was game to try an idea I had

or classroom environmental

education. We organized a

Power Outage Overnight or

thirty-seven ourth graders.

Ater school, in the all, we

traveled rom the school yard

down a hal-mile service road

into the Denny Creek val-

ley. We set o noisily as the

sun lowered; and then as it

darkened and things became

odd and unamiliar, we listened

or owls and heard the creek.

Then we crept back to the

blacked-out school gymnasium,

ate our Earthquake Kit ood,

told stories huddled around

fashlights, and slept in our

bags on the foor. Lots o

parents came or the overnight

and there were little fashlight

res all around the gym.

The Power Outage Overnightwas a raving success and the

third graders who are now six

eet tall and halway through

college still remember it

and tell me their memory o

it in astonishing detail.

EH


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The Language o Birds

You know how you can talk to your best riends on the phone

and just tell, by how their voices sound, they eel upset? Or

surely youve seen the ast street-walk o people in business

suits that says, Dont bother me...Im in a hurry! Listening

or Bird Language reveals itsel through subtle movements

and careul interpretation o slight signals translated intoclear, meaning-lled communication. We call it Listening or

Bird Language but we extend the metaphor to include keep-

ing our own presence quiet, and then listening, watching, and

eeling all the nonverbal signals that sing and futter about us

all the time.

Much o the evolution o birds has been invested in the

development o their complex vocal language. By learning

how to tune into that language, within any landscape humans

and other animals can be part o the constant many-speciesconversations that oer rich inormation about lie. Lots

o other animalssquirrels, dogs, crickets, and rogs or

instanceuse complex vocalizations to communicate, too.

All o it together, creates a language in which a panoramic

range o hidden meaning can be understood, i we pay

attention.

Luckily, interpreting Bird Language does not require intimate

knowledge o each individual birds song or each rogs

call. Basic patterns are easy to recognize; we develop thesepatterns in more detail in The Book o Nature chapter under

Birds: The Messengers o the Forest. For starters, you do

need to know, baseline and alarm. Happy and comortable

birds use baseline songs and calls as they go about their dailybusiness. Their songs deliver the overall eeling o peace and

relaxed well-being. The alarm calls are the sudden piercingcries that tell you somethings up. A predator has come into

the neighborhood! Cat below! Hawk above! Owl roosting

too near our nest! Children abroad! These easily recognizablealarms are terric or inspiring olks to pay attention.

Learning to Listen

As I rst heard Tom Brown say, every time an animal moves

in the orest, it is like dropping a pebble into the clear

surace o the pond: concentric rings go out, announcing the

disturbance to everything the ring touches.

Once people see the communication possible by reading bird

language, they will observe or themselves the more sophisti-

Universal Language o Birds

Learning the Language o

Birds is not about you being

a master birder or the Audu-

bon Society and participating

on bird counts and knowing

every bird on your lie list. Its

about simple common sense.

And the beauty o it is that

the same teachings that I

learned rom Tom Brown rom

the Apache way, I heard rom

Ingwe rom the Akamba in

Kenya. When I looked into the

Bushmen o the Kalahari, they

had similar teachings. When

I read Jim Corbetts books

about the Himalayas in India,

the oothills where the tigers

roamed, he described the exact

same principles in action.

All o these were armations

or me that bird language was

truly universal. So learning it is

was not about knowing all o the

birds o your area. It was about

understanding patterns o voiceand movement and recognizing

disturbance in those patterns.

JY

Cat Calls

How do you think the alarm or

a cat is going to move? First,cats always seem to be up to no

good, and their body language

broadcasts a sneaky intent.

Second, cats move in little bursts

and stand still and move in little

bursts and stand still. So, the

alarms are going to move in little

bursts and stand still and move

in little bursts and stand still.

JY


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55

cated nuances, the concentric rings o alarm that vary with the type o predator, the

time o day, the time o year, and the length o time they can sit quietly without being

the source o the disturbance.

Thereore, the routine practice o Listening or Bird Language begins with not

creating your own disturbance. Listening or Bird Language can inspire people to

walk quietly through the landscape so they dont create a bird plow, a swath o wake

beore and behind them that silences or alarms all natural talk. Even the very youngcan be inspired to hold still a long time until they blend into the landscape and hear

birds come alive again with their daily baseline twittering.

Over time, we learn to move through a orest without disturbing so many birds; we

learn to blend into the landscape and relax our body language to put birds at ease.

Ater learning how to move through the alarm systems o birds without setting them

o, we eventually come upon surprised wildlie, whose eyes give us a quick amazed

look o surprise that a human could see them rst.

Sel-Knowledge

Observing and understanding meaning in subtle patterns o sound and behavior can

be applied more broadly to the rest o human lie. As people learn to be still and

listen to the tones that refect the moods o sensitive wild things, an awareness grows,

or each person, o the disturbances that they and others cause. People will eventu-

ally realize that their moodsears or angers, impulsiveness or hesitanciessend o

concentric rings o disturbance, both in the natural and human worlds.

Think o when you walk outside each morning to the mailbox, your car, or to get the

paper. The birds in your ront yard watch you and come to expect the body language

and moods you demonstrate. They react accordingly. Your bird neighbors watch you

so careully rom your ront and back yard that they probably know youin some

waysbetter than you know yoursel.

I we dont move gently through the orest, the birds and the rest o nature give us

immediate eedback. Here is the deeper lesson to the routine o Listening or Bird

Language: the attitudes and body language we carry aect the world around us.

Listening or Bird Language as a routine shows us that we can choose the impact we

create as we move through the world.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in a Nutshell:

Find in yoursel a grateul heart and express gratitude or any and all aspects o

nature and lie. Begin every episode with thanksgiving and give nods o thanks as

you go about your day.


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Thanksgiving as a Routine

How is Thanksgiving a routine or na

Coyotes Guide Chapter 3

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