My Bigger Vision, Part One

Austin Wright studies tracks in the mud along the Cherry Valley Creek

This is hard for me to write, but it's important that I spell it out.   I will try to cut to the chase and leave out all the emotional story and all that, because time is of the essence, and also because, well, it's brutal math.

For the past 25 years, I have been the director of Hawk Circle.   It started small, and consisted of over night camps, day and weekend workshops, and one on one mentoring and apprenticeships, and has grown to include residential trainings, after school programs, class trip retreats, adult skills intensives, father/son programs, rites of passage retreats and more.

I would have to say that, in the last fifteen years or so, we have trained, touched, taught or guided about 500 students a year.   So, that's a total of 7,500 people.   

During the ten years prior to that, we didn't have land we could run programs on consistently year round, so I would say that the number of people I could teach, along with my apprentices and staff, would be roughly a third of that number per year, so, it was about 165 people touched or taught per year.   That brings a ten year total for that stretch to be about 1,650 people.

My grand total of my personal impact in my wilderness education career, is probably in the neighborhood of about 9,150 people.  I could be off by a few hundred, either way.  It could be a lot more, but it could also be less, depending on how you measure 'teaching, touching their lives, mentoring or other meaningful impact.

I mean, seriously, some of the people in these numbers were people who I didn't know very long, such as at a college campus visit, who managed to learn a lot in an hour or two hanging out, talking about skills, and other people who are mixed in with these numbers are people who spend a year or more at our Hawk Circle community and grew tremendously in a myriad of different ways.   So, it's tough to measure.

Trista Haggerty, Jen Buchanan, Ariana Deignan-Kosmides
and Jesse Haggerty work on the Hawk Circle Cob Oven

In any event, even if I stretched that number into a nice, round figure and called it 10,000, well, it doesn't matter.   Because even if I look at all those awesome people, the kids, the adults, the staff, the parents, it's not enough.

When I look at all the numbers, of all the wilderness schools in the US right now, well, let's just say that there are maybe 10 schools per state.   There probably are more in some states, and less in others.   So, it's a nice round way of just making the math easy to follow.

At 10 schools per state, and our 50 states, that brings us to roughly 500 wilderness schools.  I am including gatherings as part of this, too.  

Lets just say for argument's sake, that each school, in it's career, up to this point, has had the same impact as I have with Hawk Circle.  Yes, I know that some schools are very tiny, and other schools are much more massive and impactful.  Let's just agree that it evens out.

At 10,000 students impacted in a meaningful way (I rounded up my own impact to make the math easy), multiplied by 500 schools, that gives us a total of 5,000,000.   Five million people, impacted over the last 25 years.

At first when I saw that number, I thought, "Wow!   That's freakin' awesome!"   

Seriously, it really is.  I mean, how amazing it is that we've gone from having 20 people sitting in a barn at the first Tracker School, to having gatherings of 500 to 1,000 people or more in different parts of the country.  That's cool.  It's a good thing.   It means that we are growing, and probably growing as fast as we can, given the resources and training that is slowly being transferred to new students all the time.

We should all feel great about that.  Every one of us, whether we are students of the craft, or mentors, or long time teachers or whatever, well, we are a part of that.  It's quite an accomplishment.  Especially since it's happened organically, with just passion and love for nature and the old ways and little else.

But seriously, think about it for a minute.

There are over 300 Million people in the US, maybe as high as 350 Million.  (I don't have exact census numbers right now and I don't feel like looking it up.)   But it's close to those numbers.   

Our 5 Million people touched is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the population as a whole.   It's not enough to change our culture's direction.

In my intuitive perspective (I am not claiming anything scientific here or statistically accurate numbers!) I think we have to get at least 10% of the population deeply connected to nature.   Call it the Hundredth Monkey theory, if you will.   (If you don't know that theory, Google it and check it out.  It might be debunked but it's still a cool theory!)  

Okay, maybe you don't agree with me on this, and that's fine.  Honestly, I think we need to get to closer to 50% of the population, actually, but that gets really depressing if I think of how hard I have had to work for my first 25 years, and only reach 10,000.   It means we won't make it in time, before we literally poison ourselves, run out of fuel and all the other scary things that I won't go into.

So, let's look at this first goal of just 10%.   In that scenario, we need to connect with another 20 million people in the next 5 years or so.  Maybe ten, at the outside furthest measurement.  If we take too long to reach that goal, we are putting our species future at greater and greater risk.

Okay, back to that 20 Million.   

So, how will we be able to reach 20 million more people in the next five years?

Well, if we divide 20 million people by an average of 500 students taught per year, we need 40,000 (forty thousand) schools or instructors teaching those kids.

The First Aurora Waldorf School Eighth Grade Class Trip at Hawk Circle

That's the bare minimum of trained, effective, amazing and powerful instructors needed to make this happen.

Pretty crazy, huh?

Yeah, that's how I felt.

So, this is the math that brought me to doing my summit on Nature Connection, with 29 speakers about the state of our planet and our connection and more, called The Wolverine Way.    (You can still listen to the interviews and hear their collected wisdom, by the way!)

This is why, for the past eighteen months, I have been focused on this bigger, scarier vision of what we ACTUALLY NEED TO DO to make a meaningful impact on our culture and our society, and our future as a species.

I decided, tonight, right now, that I am actually going to go for it.

I am going to try to find a way, to team up with whoever will join me, to train and mentor and support and connect, whatever, to reach a goal of 40,000 new wilderness skills or nature instructors.

I am deadly serious about this.   I don't really think there is any other more meaningful use of my life than to find a way to make this happen.

Yes, there is a spiritual calling to this, but it's not the only calling.   It's practical.   It's not that mystical.   We just have to find a way to make it happen.

Me, after a Boys Rite of Passage at Severn Run primitive camp, MD

So, here's the plan.   In order to teach hundreds and thousands of wilderness skills instructors, trackers and educators, we need facilities where they can come and learn.  Not just shacking up in tents and a wing and a prayer.  We need to know we can teach these folks the right way, with all of our available energy put into making that teaching the very best it can be, without a lot of logistical distraction.   So, we are building Eagle House, here at Hawk Circle, as a workshop room that can hold up to 50 people.   We have cabins and a lean to that can house about 18 people, and we need about three or four more cabins.

We need a dining hall that can feed that many people inside when the weather is cold, and we need housing for our staff too, so we can keep them renewed and fresh for each day of training.

That's one way that I want to start, so we can begin that process of getting these people trained in a big way.

I want to be clear about this:   I don't have all the answers. 

I know that I can teach a lot of people to be excellent instructors in a fairly short period of time.  I know that we can also get those people through some experiential, on the job training too, that will get them up to speed and get them even more effective.

I know I can teach some of the more serious folks how to be great program directors, too.  That is another level of work, but it can be done, and done very well.

And, I can also teach instructors who don't currently have a school or a program going on to grow their business and their impact, and get much bigger results.  With their clients as well as their bottom line.

All of this has to be able to work financially, too, so I am working on how to help make that happen as well.   Because if we can't get those 40,000 instructors paid to do the work they are trained to do, then we aren't going to reach those 20 million kids out there.

So, it's late, I'm tired and I'm going to go to bed and sleep on it.  And tomorrow, I am going to write more, to share a few more of my ideas.  I might record it as a video, even, just to do this a little faster.

But you can trust me on this, we're doing this.  

The big question is:   Are you with me?

Introducing the Speakers from my Summit on Nature Connection

Here are some of the things that people are saying about the Interviews:

"Thanks looking forward to listening Have learned so much so far. Priceless…."

"The whole summit has been amazing, thanks so much!!"

"I liked the part where he said: "Better hurry up before a bear eats me!!!" terrific interview, ordering his book!"

"WOW, what a powerful and inspiring voice for wilderness! Humans like Doug Peacock are truly a gift! Thanks for sharing! Great interview Ricardo Sierra!"

" When Sean Rowe was talking about his favorite wild edibles, my 5 year old lassie piped in (she was listening too while we were making dinner) "Mom, my favorite wild edible is wild raspberries!" "

"There was a LOT I liked about today's interview, especially the 2nd half. I took about 2/3 of a page of notes -- and a friend called me tonight to say she had listened to it after I posted a link to it on my Facebook page."

"Curiosity, Compassion, and Community-- perfect. We need more of the three C's in our world."

"Your message of conservation is an important message that needs heard!!! I will always support the effort to make this world a better place."

"I listened to the Eugene Schwartz interview, now trying to catch up on the others that I've missed. Thanks, and keep up the GREAT WORK!"


Okay, here are the list of Speakers on my Wolverine Way Summit on Nature Connection:

John Griffith, of the California Conservation Corps

Derrick Jensen, author of Deep Green Resistance and A Language Older Than Words

Tom Elpel of Hops Press and Green University, LLC

Kristen Schulte of the Yellowstone Youth Conservation Corps


Sean Rowe, musician, singer songwriter and Anti-Records recording Artist with Magic, 27 and The Salesman & The Shark

Craig Blacklock, acclaimed landscape photographer at Blacklock Gallery

Joe Lau, former Tracker School Head Instructor and founder of the Phyre Dojo wilderness school

Cheryl Charles, director and co-founder of the Children & Nature Network

Brandt Morgan, author of Vision Walk and Sacred Journeys Guide

Charles Saylan, author of The Failure of Environmental Education and director of the Ocean Conservation Society

Mike Douglas, director of the Maine Primitive Skills School


Doug Peacock, naturalist & author of Grizzly Years and In the Shadow of the Sabertooth

Randall Lewis Eaton, author of Hunting as a Rite of Passage

Eugene Schwartz, Waldorf Educator and creator of Millenial Child

Kiva Rose, herbalist and creator of Plant Healer Magazine

 Tom Brown III, founder of the Primitive Arts Collective

Susun Weed, Herbalist, author and founder of the Wise Woman Way

Reese Maxwell, instructor and founder of Dancing Sol, and co-founder of the Whole Earth Nature School

Matthew Bradley, co-founder of the Whole Earth Nature School

Victor Wooten, five time Grammy Winning Recording Artist and author of The Music Lesson

Tom Brown, Jr., founder of the Tracker School and author of over 19 books on Survival, Tracking and Earth Philosophy

Ruth Ann Colby Martin, former Tracker School Instructor & Certified Midwife

Lisa Bonny Berry of Four Elements Earth Education

Wendolyn Bird of Tender Tracks Tails and Trails

Tony Deis, founder of the Trackers Earth Camp and Wilderness School,

Cristina Eisenberg, wildlife biologist and author of The Carnivore Way and The Wolf's Tooth

Laura Zerra, wilderness skills instructor and Reality Show participant on the Discovery Channel's Naked and Afraid

Richard Cleveland, founder of The Earth School

Erik Hoffner, eco-journalist & photographer and editor at Orion Magazine

Special thanks to all of these kind speakers who took time out of their work saving the world to speak to me, and to you, and share their thoughts and ideas and stories with us.

You are all amazing and wonderful!  Thank you!

And if you want to sign up and get access to them, check out The Wolverine Way website!

The Wolverine Way Summit on Nature Connection

It all started from something I saw on Facebook.   

It looked like just about any other of the hundreds of links and posts about nature that show up every day in my Newsfeed, and I almost skipped over it.   But I didn't.   I read it and then I checked it for sources.   It was legit.   (You can read the original article here.)

That's when I had a few sleepless nights.   

You see, the basis of this report is simple.  Only one out of five kids are getting a close relationship with nature.   A meaningful connection to the natural world.   A real understanding of the earth and the land.   One out of five, means four out of five kids are NOT getting a real chance to connect.   It means that 80% of our kids are functionally disconnected from nature.  They aren't getting the emotional, psychological and physical benefits from a strong connection to nature.   They don't get the stress cleansing power of a walk in the woods.  They don't get the creativity boosting energy from making a fort, or exploring a new section of the back field.   They don't get the problem solving insights that come naturally from playing and adventuring in the wild.

There is also the intimacy that nature offers to our kids, as their first real relationship beyond their family.   The nature around us provides a protective factor that enhances almost every part of our lives.

I knew I had to do something more to make a difference.  I knew I had to have a bigger impact.

So, for the past eight months, I have interviewed 29 different experts in various aspects of the Nature Education 'field' so to speak, for a Summit of Speakers on Nature Connection.  Activists.  Philosophers.  Writers.  Biologists.  Conservation Leaders.  Trackers.  Wilderness Survival Experts.   Educators.   Musicians.   Photographers.   Writers.   Community Organizers. Nature Advocates. Herbalists.  And more…

It's called The Wolverine Way.   I called it that because the wolverine is a powerful animal that is virtually unstoppable in it's ferocity to defend itself, or get what it needs.   It is fearless in the face of certain destruction.  It will use a tireless lope to travel miles of vertical ascents of rugged mountains and walls of ice.   It is impervious to cold, too!   I thought it would be a suitable totem animal to help me define my approach to getting us connected to nature!

 

It's totally free to sign up, and all of the interviews are online audios that can be downloaded, or listened to easily.   You can listen by phone for the first 'airing' too.   Just click the link in this post and you will go to my web page where you can sign up for instant access.

I purposely interviewed experts from a broad range of nature connection spectrum, to give us the widest view of our situation, and get tools and perspective from these amazing individuals who have graciously taken part in this project.   

The biggest effect that I got almost immediately was a sense of hope.  A sense of renewed strength and energy.   I feel totally different after putting this together, and I hope that anyone who gets a chance to listen can come away changed, renewed, stronger, smarter and better able to keep up the work of getting that 80% number a lot lower in the next few years!   We have our work cut out for us, but we can do it if we work together!

Anyway, I am really happy to be sharing this with everyone, and here is the link to sign up:   The Wolverine Way.

I will try to post more often and in the meantime, get outside!    Have a wonderful day, everyone!

Ricardo