Earth Changes & Wilderness Skills: A free Conference Call with Ricardo Sierra

Why a Relationship with Nature is Important for our selves and our children.
The changes that have been happening over the last two decades are mostly likely appetizers for the main courses to come. Each wave of disturbance, disappearance or storm is followed by new growth and awareness, no matter if the wave is ecological, social, technological or economic. I will be sharing ideas, concepts and strategies for understanding what has been happening and continues to unfold, and provide guidelines that can help you, your family or business adapt and grow.

Email us at HawkCircleOffice@gmail.com and let us know you are interested. We'll send you the call-in info and log-in code.

Many blessings,

Ricardo

The Battle on the Balance Beam: Wolverine vs Ninja Cat, vs Red Squirrel

Last weekend, we went on a great hike and found a perfect log for balance beam battles.... Personally, I am waiting until it is a little warmer, but the staff and apprentices were not deterred by the icy waters! Here is the video of their adventures...

P.S. Did you see the hidden animal in the dry leaves? It is a scout awareness test! Let me know what it is if you find it!

Hawk Circle 2.0 continues: The Community Conference Call

Greetings, Everyone, from Hawk Circle and Cherry Valley, where we are enjoying a blustery blast of wet snow in a typical March storm! (Okay, the picture is from a few weeks ago, in the Snowmageddon storm, but you get the idea!)

Trista and I have been thinking of having a free conference call to all interested people to:

1. Update everyone about some of the current Hawk Circle News and Happenings.

2. Speak about some of the current issues of our collective communities and discuss strategies that can begin to build wholeness for ourselves, our families and our communities.

3. Answer Your Questions about Hawk Circle, our camps and any other skills, animal, tracking, awareness or mentoring.

And you can send Trista and myself your questions by email ahead of time, too, so we can all benefit from the questions. I think it would be a good way to stay connected and gain your input on things happening in your communities, your needs, as well as insight gleaned from our collective skills, experience and knowledge.

If you are interested in being part of this call, please send me a note on Facebook or an email Ricardo.J.Sierra@gmail.com.

Thanks for your help and your friendship!

Big Picture: Thinking Like A Hawk

One of my favorite things about hawks is their amazing eyesight. They soar hundreds of feet in the air, riding thermal currents and get the big picture of the land, the animals, the clouds and their tiny prey far below. Their sudden plummeting dives are power and grace in motion.

Metaphorically, I like to think like a hawk, too. I like looking at issues, ideas and situations from high above, seeing connections, obstacles, ope

nings and multiple perspectives. I enjoy thinking from this place not just in the here and now, but also generationally, seeing how the past has influenced our present moment and how our actions or reactions will affect our future. Seven generations is a long time, but many native cultures thought all major decisions in tribal life to include the impact that their actions would have seven generations later. That is a lot of foresight!

It begs the question: Would our current economic, environmental, agricultural, medical, human rights and social issues be different if our community and political leaders thought with this long range perspective?

Seeing like a hawk, and thinking like a native, I know that we are planting seeds for the future. The work we do with youth, with children, with families and adults provide skills and experiences that will sprout, root and grow throughout the lifetime of each individual, and affect their decisions, actions and thoughts. Contact with the natural world, with each other free from electronic clutter, around the campfire, we open up to ourselves in a profound way. Listening, feeling, thinking, imagining- all of these things are part of the experiences at our camps and programs.

When I really get the big picture, when I fly or travel through major cities and across the country, I am humbled by how incredibly immense our world is, and how many people we have in this country alone. Does it matter what we do, then, with our small program and speck of green?

I think it does. Maybe more than ever.

When I started Hawk Circle, in 1989, we were one of the first exclusive camps offering wilderness skills and nature awareness skills to children and youth. There was no internet

then, so it is hard to say we were first, but the number of camps and programs was very small. Now, there are probably several hundred programs out there, in this country, in Europe and Canada, doing work year around, in schools homeschooling groups, at nature centers and mini workshops. This is all in just twenty one years! I know that our tiny movement will continue to grow as the years pass, and we will see the seeds we have planted bear much fruit for our grandchildren... for all children everywhere!

Do you see the big picture in what you do? Do you feel energized by the challenge of creating a better world for our children, or is it sometimes too much to handle? What makes you feel good about being part of the ongoing change?

Feel free to leave a message, and keep soaring on those thermals, people!

Future Seeds for our Kids: Preparing for Climate Change

Cary Fowler: One seed at a time, protecting the future of food | Video on TED.com

If you have any doubt that climate change is happening, know that there are many people who are dedicating their entire lives to help ensure our future for our children and grandchildren. While we don't store seeds, at Hawk Circle, we are preserving skills that our children will need to adapt and thrive in the changes that are to come, and they won't need money, either.

The impact this has on me and our work here is considerable. I am spurred on by their work, and I know our community and staff are fully dedicated to not only teach skills and nature awareness, but also to connect children to nature in a way that can preserve humanity in a powerful way.

Are you Experienced?

No, I am not doing a Jimmy Hendrix post here, people. This is much more important! The topic, in short, is about experience. Skills Experience. Community Experience. Nature Awareness Experience. Gathering Experience, and well, you get the idea.

When I started Hawk Circle, I remember thinking about how important it was to me to include not only the time dedicated to teaching a new skill, such as tipi fire building, or throwing sticks, but practice time. Dedicated, experience building practice. Time for trouble-shooting, problem solving, sharing with each other about what works and what doesn't, as well as time for students to talk to myself or the instructors for help or inspiration.

When I first learned a lot of these skills, I was at the Tracker School, or some other workshop, and time was often of the essence. Meaning there wasn't much time at all. We often spent our time taking notes, talking about skills or techniques, and learning through lecture and white board drawings rather than in the field, feet on the g

round experience. It was more along the lines of 70% Lecture-30% Field Work.

This might not seem that significant, and I am not saying I had a problem with it during my study. I had a lot of previous field experience, using hand tools like hatchets, axes, saws, chisels and more. I already knew how to pitch a tent in the dark, or travel off trail, or work on projects from simple sketches and outlines and make them work.

However, I was an adult at the time of my training and I had grown up in a number of rural areas. I split firewood all summer (by hand) for the winter, as we heated by wood stove, and that was how I learned my trees. It was a great way to learn but it took a long time, too.

Today's average student or camper don't have that breadth of rural living experience, so when they come into a camp or program, often they don't know their knots, trees, or knife carving skills. Their hands aren't used to holding hand tools, or twisting plant fibers into rope or string. This isn't a bad thing, really, it is just something that we have to keep in mind, today more than ever.

I set up Hawk Circle so each program focused on learning that is approximately 80% skills, or direct hands-on learning, and 20% lecture/story/classroom time. This means we might not be able to cover as many skills, but that the skills we do teach, students will leave with a real, working knowledge. Which means they can actually do those skills! (Isn't that the whole point?)

Beyond this post, my question to you is this: What does it take to get experience? Where do you practice? When do you find time to practice, to hone and refine and 'make your own' for fire-making, tracking, carving, or crafting? There are so many things that compete for our attention, for all of those precious specks of sand that pour from the hourglass of our lives!

If you have something that works for you, post and let us know about it. If you don't, and you need help, add that too. Thanks. We are all in this together.....

Looking Back on 2009

It's my last blog post of 2009, and I wanted to share a few highlights from this past year's adventures!

One: The Camp Bonfires.
This year we had some really great bonfires that lit up the night and burned high, sending sparks over twenty feet high into the sky! It was magical and powerful and exciting, and one of my favorite memories of the year.

Two: Gathering Hickory Nuts, Acorns & Autumn Olives.
It was a bumper crop of hickory nuts, which was fantastic because it has been a few years. We had fantastic weather, warm, sunny, with winds blowing the nuts down on our heads and all around us. Javi liked picking up the nuts and husks, which Trista and the Fall Apprentices used for dying yarn. The autumn olives made the most amazing tart jam that is the best wild jam I have ever tasted.

Three: The Nature Fashion Show from Painted Arrow Camp.
The staff and campers created clothing, jewelry, accessories and props out of natural materials (bark, leaves, feathers, plant fibers, wild flowers, cattails and more!). It was awesome!

Four: The Timber Framed Beds.
This fall, the Apprentices here at Hawk Circle made beautiful hand made beds for their rooms, which they crafted using hard wood pegs carved from white ash. The head and foot boards were made with larch and pine, and everyone sanded and carved them carefully to last for decades of use in the farmhouse! Thanks, Joel, Miles, Virginia and Nate!

Meeting all of you is a powerful memory.

Finishing a couple of sets of our timberframed bunk beds for the cabins is another.

What about cooking meat over the fire in the Winter Intensive last January?

All of the school groups and school visits were awesome.

The CROP Afterschool Program partnership with Hawk Circle was a highlight.

Going to Wintergreen Gorge was a highlight.

Teaching many of you to make pegs, chop wood or throw tomahawks was a highlight!

Tracking Bobcats was a highlight, too, and seeing the baby bobcats hunting eastern cottontail rabbits in the brush while bow hunting was totally awesome!

Timberframing in our barn was a highlight, listening to good music and teaching others about carving pine, larch, hemlock and white oak beams.

Seeing my son Javier growing up, learning to read and seeing him change and mature is an ongoing favorite of mine. It hasn't always been easy with all of his special needs, but this year, he hasn't had any big issues or anything. For that, I am always grateful.

As always, I am loving the amazing wildlife, nature, plants and trees, sunrises and sunsets, thunderstorms, snowstorms, flowers, fruits, smells, fresh air, beautiful animals and birds.... man, I could go on and on and on!

Thank you all for your support, encouragement,

friendship and hard work. It is a blessing having all of you in our lives.

Ricardo Sierra & Trista Haggerty
Hawk Circle Wilderness Education