XReadiness Has All The Potential Of Teaching The Skills Of Nature Connection
A deeper connection with nature can be achieved through learning wilderness survival skills from skilled practitioners.
But I actually only need these items, most of the time, it depends on the conditions and how long I am out.
Stripped down basic kit. Swiss army knife, ferro-rod, birch bark card & fatwood.
XReadiness document recommends learning to become adept at making fire. I agree, but I am surprised at the lack of detail, in this short paragraph.
In the 1st instance, I don't have a tumble dryer, so there is no dryer lint.
In building my survival skillset, I have developed a method for processing plants to see if they meet the standards for being used as tinder for a flint and steel or ferro-rod. If plant material can accept high and low-grade sparks, then it can be lit with a lighter.
"FiRE-MAKiNG & ALTERNATiVE HEATiNG METHODS
Knowing how to make fire safely and efficiently is critical for heat, cooking, and morale. Learn at least two fire-starting techniques: matches, lighters, flint and steel, ferro rods, or solar
magnification. Carry tinder (cotton, birch bark, dryer lint) and kindling in your emergency bag; dry materials are often hard to find during crises."
This approach to survival and fire-making is inadequate.
"Learn at least two fire-starting techniques: matches, lighters, flint and steel, ferro rods, or solar
magnification."
Becoming adept at making fires with a variety of tools, from the modern ferro-rod to the ancient flint and steel, flint and pyrite, or friction, is the starting point, with only plant-based tinders that you collect and process. DO NOT use cotton wool. The more adept you become with plant & fungus-based tinders, the more expert you become at making fire. By only working with what is in your environment, your plant knowledge expands and your connection to nature deepens.
Learn at least to be an expert with the ferro rod & either flint and steel or friction. With friction fire it stll makes sense to make tinder to catch your coal and keep it burning or even extend the coal into the tinder.
"Carry tinder (cotton, birch bark, dryer lint) and kindling in your emergency bag; dry materials are often hard to find during crises."
Make a Tinder Box these used to be so common. My 1st Tinder box was in a Stepsil Tin, 30 years ago. My current Tinder box is made from Tinder
Carrying kindling is a fool's heavy work errand. The countryside is full of dry wood if you know where to look.
"Dry materials are often hard to find during crises"
This statement is more of an indication of poor knowledge than an actual fact.
I test my knowledge and skills regularly choosing the wettest, coldest snowy conditions under which to try to find dry materials.
The deeper your connection to nature, the more adept you are at finding what you need.
Fire Videos
Tiktok
Demonstrating shaved fatwood as a fure lighter
Thats correct NETTLE fibre tinder! A survival instructor once said to me that hed never been in a wood without birches. I spend a lot of time in damp willow woodland where there are no birches for 3 miles, but there are acres of nettles.
YouTube
Practicing in snowy conditions looking for what I need.
Making fire is a deeply spiritual process as you build a relationship with the plants you forage and the land around you.
Im not a big fan of the idea that the Celts, our iron-age ancestors were indigenous. What about the Bronze Age People before them or the Neolithic? We even have Paleolithic ancestors who lived so much more connected to nature, the land and the rythms of its seasons as the Ice receded. I'm inclined to suggest our paleo ancestors who came and went from British shores as the ice receded, but then a 100,000 years later left. As the Ice tide returned. Their oral histories would tell of all sorts of unknowable catastrophic events.
They probably are our indigenous ancestors and no doubt had strange rites. The one thing that is probably certain, irrespective of any belief system is that they probably had segregated initiations for men and women, and the men would have gone through many rites of passage as hunters to demonstrate their syrvival adeptness. This makes complete sense for hunter gatherer societies which depend on each others skill and expertise.
These Paleo Ancestors would have had a deep connection with nature and lived in a paradise of abundant plant food, game & big predators
Up until 120 years ago, we had retained the fire making skills of our Celtic ancestors, flint or pyrites and steel with some form of plant tinder.
Notice the content of my tinder box is different from above pictures. This is normal for its contents to change through the year depending on what im doing and whether i top it up.
Same Tinder box different tinder..
You will be surprised how many plant tinders there are and how easy and quick to process they are. Firaging for plant tinders and fibres is where connection to nature deepens. The plants talk to us, its how we listen and act on their communication that matters.
Survival is a combination of instict, kmowledge, skills, connection to nature and science.
Its a lot more than sitting under trees. But trees asked only one think of people and that was to help them live forever. That is why we have pollarding and coppicing. Its a fair exchange, the trees go through a constant spring and fruit every 8 years. Humans get the wood and the trees regenerate. We have just forgotten our bargain and the trees.
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