Rites of Passage Into Nature
I often hear things like 'society is breaking down,' 'young people are out of control,' and 'we need national service.' Then I wonder how many of the adults calling for this have gone through national service? If they are Generation X, like me, none of them. But we have all gone through Rites Of Passage, even if we don't realise it.
Turning 16, 18, 21?
First kiss?
First sex?
First time Getting Drunk, stoned, or tripping?
Turning 16, 18, 21?
First kiss?
First sex?
First time Getting Drunk, stoned, or tripping?
That Ayahuasca tour you went on?
Getting a driver's license?
Death of a parent?
Getting a driver's license?
Death of a parent?
Surviving Trauma?
But these are not real Rites Of Passage. A Rite of Passage is a transformative process. Apart from the last, there is an expectation that every child of industrialised countries will go through these with minimal input from their elders. Yet in indigenous cultures, the Elders are central to the transformative process of a Rite of Passage.
If we are to inherit Rites of Passage from our ancestors, let's not sanitise them so we can get public liability insurance. But more importantly, let's not sell it on the need to make a living out of it.
Vision Quests
"The unimportant things fall away, and your emptiness invites the vision of the work that must be done. In your solitude, you wander through the precincts of death, where vision lies waiting."
This quote is taken from one of the many Vision Quest vendors. How can you wander through the precincts of death when public liability insurance means your vision quest has been risk-assessed?
Some practitioners like to over-jargonise what they are doing in Bushcraft and Vision Quest. The addition of layers and frameworking a structure with jargon is confusing for students.
2 things are being taught. Introduction to survival skills and Vision Quest.
Wild claims about teaching long-term outdoors survival in 10 days, including 3 days of fasting and using those skills, is a fantasy liable to leave students overconfident about their skills and underequipped for difficult situations.
"The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation — initiation — return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth."
DON'T TRUST THE PRACTITIONER WHO IS TEACHING YOU OVER ZOOM! Heroes.
But these are not real Rites Of Passage. A Rite of Passage is a transformative process. Apart from the last, there is an expectation that every child of industrialised countries will go through these with minimal input from their elders. Yet in indigenous cultures, the Elders are central to the transformative process of a Rite of Passage.
If we are to inherit Rites of Passage from our ancestors, let's not sanitise them so we can get public liability insurance. But more importantly, let's not sell it on the need to make a living out of it.
Vision Quests
"The unimportant things fall away, and your emptiness invites the vision of the work that must be done. In your solitude, you wander through the precincts of death, where vision lies waiting."
This quote is taken from one of the many Vision Quest vendors. How can you wander through the precincts of death when public liability insurance means your vision quest has been risk-assessed?
Immediately the relationship between a transactional exchange and expectation is laid out in a sales pitch. The nature of capitalism is that when we pay for things we expect results.
What if during your Vision Quest, the rain is relentless, your fire goes out, and the basic bushcraft skills you were taught a few days before are woefully inadequate?
What if during your Vision Quest, the rain is relentless, your fire goes out, and the basic bushcraft skills you were taught a few days before are woefully inadequate?
You are wet, cold, starving, and miserable. You are being humbled by nature, but do you even understand how or why? The idea of a refund will probably cross your mind. But what nature is telling you is that your skills are inadequate.
The question is, will you ask for a refund, and will the facilitators acknowledge inadequate skills as a contributing factor and accept responsibility?
"Re-Awaken your Potential – Modern Vision Quest for All – This is a guided, personal development process for everyone, for re-awakening life, purpose, direction, decisions and work. It takes place over a week or two weeks.."
For insurance purposes, they have to allow you to take water. 3 days fasting, if you need to eat for medical reasons, that's allowed too.
The Dunning Kruger Effect is as true in Bushcraft & survival skills as it is in Shamanic Rites Of Passage.
What therapists who sell sanitised Vision Quests and other nature-based Rites requiring survival skills fail to grasp about wilderness survival is the knowledge they don't have. This is the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
We forget that in hunter-gatherer cultures, by the time a child is 10, they are expert at bushcraft, and they have relationships with 100s of plants. They have been taught by the Elders of the community. In some communities, the Elders may have been Dog Soldiers, Scouts or Medicine Men. They will have taught them the most extreme survival skills and repeatedly tested them.
A few days of survival skills training is inadequate preparation for a Vision Quest. A Vision Quest done with zero survival training is something else- I'm not sure what to call it.
Over Jargonisation of Bushcraft & a Nature-Based Spiritual Path.
The question is, will you ask for a refund, and will the facilitators acknowledge inadequate skills as a contributing factor and accept responsibility?
"Re-Awaken your Potential – Modern Vision Quest for All – This is a guided, personal development process for everyone, for re-awakening life, purpose, direction, decisions and work. It takes place over a week or two weeks.."
For insurance purposes, they have to allow you to take water. 3 days fasting, if you need to eat for medical reasons, that's allowed too.
The Dunning Kruger Effect is as true in Bushcraft & survival skills as it is in Shamanic Rites Of Passage.
What therapists who sell sanitised Vision Quests and other nature-based Rites requiring survival skills fail to grasp about wilderness survival is the knowledge they don't have. This is the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
We forget that in hunter-gatherer cultures, by the time a child is 10, they are expert at bushcraft, and they have relationships with 100s of plants. They have been taught by the Elders of the community. In some communities, the Elders may have been Dog Soldiers, Scouts or Medicine Men. They will have taught them the most extreme survival skills and repeatedly tested them.
A few days of survival skills training is inadequate preparation for a Vision Quest. A Vision Quest done with zero survival training is something else- I'm not sure what to call it.
Over Jargonisation of Bushcraft & a Nature-Based Spiritual Path.
Some practitioners like to over-jargonise what they are doing in Bushcraft and Vision Quest. The addition of layers and frameworking a structure with jargon is confusing for students.
2 things are being taught. Introduction to survival skills and Vision Quest.
Wild claims about teaching long-term outdoors survival in 10 days, including 3 days of fasting and using those skills, is a fantasy liable to leave students overconfident about their skills and underequipped for difficult situations.
The world of Vision Quest is often touted as the "Best team building event you will attend this year"
A Hero's Journey: Your Time Alone In The Woods
A "Hero's Journey" often includes a period of solitude in the wilderness, symbolising a descent into the unknown and a confrontation with one's inner self. This "time alone in the woods" is a crucial stage where the hero grapples with challenges, tests, and ultimately transforms before returning to the ordinary world.
"The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation — initiation — return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth."
Source
The Hero With A Thousand Faces 23
Is the prepper solo wild stealth camp a parody of the Hero's Journey? Are we programmed for this ritual? That unconsciously preppers are doing solo bugout dry runs to test their skill, nerve and stealth? Maybe.
Perhaps it's also just plain narcissistic nonsense. 50 year old men dressed in full cammo camping in the woods and showing a bit ot nature with new age woo music in the background. If the Hero's Journey is a learning process, what is being learned?
Online Nature Spirituality Courses
Deep Connection To Nature Is A Skill and Philosophy.
Deep nature connection brings us into communion with creation
Nature and wilderness skills are not exclusive. As an asian, mixed-race man, I am unusual in the countryside, and yet it is where I am most at home, especially in my secret wilderness lairs, and they are diverse environments. Damp woodland, wetlands, ancient derelict coppice, in-riration coppice, and everything in between including the urban jungle.
The instincts developed through bushcraft, survival skills, connection to nature, and the complementary philosophy of the land also help navigate the Urban Jungle. You wouldn't enter water with crocodiles, even if you know they are there, but can't see them. These are the skills we hone through understanding our environment by connecting with it. We connect by understanding how to work with the plants that are there or take the opportunity to forage as we move. I'm not talking about foraging for food. There is a wide variety of plants which have uses beyond food, though some are superfoods with other uses. Understanding the wide variety of plants that can successfully be used as tinder, how to process them and above all their propagation. Our true Paleo Indigenous Ancestors were great conservationists. When coppicing was introduced, possibly by the 1st Neolithic farmers, though it may have been earlier, the wildwood was preserved by becoming productive and domesticated. It provided fuel, food and a vast variety of products for the building industry.
Our Paleo Indigenous Ancestors were more concerned with the preservation of their food sources, so they planted back instead of constant depletion. The Nature Connection courses I teach are not about helping you slow down so you can be more productive at work. They are not about "wellness", they are about understanding that simply sitting under trees is not a connection, it's only a consumptive attitude to nature. We connect with the land by understanding how to be on the land, and how we have been connected in the past. The skills and knowledge are the connection process.
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