Sean Rowe: The Troubadour Scout of Hawk Circle... with new music, too!

Check out this article in the current issue of Metroland in the Capitol District, featuring our own Sean Rowe, about his experiences with music and wilderness, with much training from here at Hawk Circle.... Way to go, Sean! Can't wait to hear the album and sample some of those mushrooms, too.

(You can get a copy of the CD Magic here.)

Sean did an extended survival stay here in the fall of 2007, and worked hard at his fire skills, foraging skills, plant identification, shelter skills and so many more skills of awareness, tracking and survival... He also blew us away with his music and depth, and just overall presence and strength.

Check out the post and I will try to get the audio file that Luke Gaillard did with Sean after his trek, so you can listen and hear it all for yourself! More to come, people!

Signs of Spring, in Upstate NY

I knew spring was coming when I saw a flock of robins descending from the sumacs across the lawn, in a red-breasted frenzy, searching for the first worms...

I knew spring was coming when we were tracking by the stream, and the heavy back feet of a doe told the story of the fawn she was carrying, as she headed for the rich meal of alfalfa shoots and sharp pointed blades of grass.

I knew spring was on it's way when I heard the ladder backed woodpeckers chasing each other around and around our sugar maples, fighting for the prime nesting place and the best territory to win a mate... They made a huge cackling and melodious racket, hammering on dead trees and then flying in their undulating patterns, like three teenage boys jockeying for position at the dance...

I knew spring was coming when the curled, purple-red-green tops of skunk cabbage poked up in the dead grass by the river, with their shiny smooth skin and pungent smell.

I knew it was spring when the snow comes in thick from down south of the valley, covering the trees with wet clumps of gray-white snow that will last for an hour or so before slowly sinking into the earth and the tannic brown vernal pools where thousands of tiny frogs peep and croak in rhythm, in an orgy of mating and egg laying and exploring their watery world.

I knew it was spring when I walked outside and didn't need a coat or even an extra sweatshirt.

I knew it was spring when the snow melted and I could see all of the crap that accumulates after a long winter of covering snow, all over the yard and the trails and lawns. Sticks, small bits of peeling paint, wood chips, ashes from the woodstove, bits of bark and scraps from the wood pile, or the occasional lost mitten or glove.

I knew it was spring when I saw my first woodchuck of the season, licking salt in the side of the highway. A hundred yards further, my first dead woodchuck of the season....

I knew it was spring when the camps begin to fill up, with friends and students and the promise of summer begins to awaken like a seed, ready to take root.

You take a long time to get here, Spring, but we are sure glad you are getting closer!

Getting behind the Social Media curtain: Rick's Journal, for real!

Navigating social media is tricky. There aren't a lot of rules, but you can read lots of blogs or e-Newsletters with people who barely have been on FaceBook or Twitter for three weeks, giving out their professional opinions. And we have all heard of the college student who goes looking for a job but gets turned down when the boss Googles him or her and sees pics of drunken debauchery in the photo albums. Blah, blah, blah.

But what good is all of this Social Media crap if you can't be real? If you only get the slick, brochure version, the media massaged and scripted Rick? I mean, how do you get behind the facade?

I wouldn't call Hawk Circle all that bad of a facade, really, and it is pretty much from the heart and all that. But let's face it, it is still tailored to a larger audience, not wanting to offend anyone and perhaps turned down a notch or two, just to be, well, maybe a little more relaxed. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

But when people who run organizations, or businesses, or causes are on Social Media, how do you know when you are getting the real person, and not the "safe Rick"? When is it just a line from Madagascar, you know? "Cute and Cuddly, Boys, Cute and Cuddly!" (The penguins. For those of you who are living in a debris shelter, forget it.)

So, here is where it gets real. I don't need to misspell a bunch of words to let you know that I am real, either, and I am going off the script, and skipping telling you about my thoughts on American Idol, or how Javi and I like to look up at the night sky for the moon or shooting stars. We are going off road.

So.

I have been driving to a couple of schools in Delaware County, where I teach kids in an afterschool program twice a week. It is probably an hour and a half each way, so I have a lot of time to think, to drive, to scout for spears or arrow shafts, or fresh road kill, or any number of great wilderness resources that you can find along a country road side if you keep your eyes open. But mostly, I've just been listening.

Collapse, by Jared Diamond. Among other things. But mostly the audio version of his book.

People, friends, past students and campers, family, I've got to tell you: We've got some serious changing about to happen, and it is coming up very fast.

I know this isn't that ground breaking. I mean, anyone who has been paying the slightest bit of attention in the past six months to the financial collapse knows what I am talking about. If you watched an Inconvenient Truth, you know what I am talking about. If you have paid attention to the increasing rates of extinction, you know what I am talking about. If you think Monsanto is a bad idea, you know what I am talking about.

Do I need to go on?

But, what do we actually do? I mean, what can we do? When do we get up off the couch or table and begin to make changes? What changes should we make first? What is the best way to make the most impact? How should we do it?

If there is one thing I have seen a lot of in the past five years of teaching that is new and scary, is the 'deer in the headlights' syndrome, where students, when asked to do something that they might not be sure of how to do, will exhibit. They will freeze, and just wait until told what to do. They won't take initiative, and their fear of doing something the wrong way, or making a mistake, is so great that they will instead do nothing. They will wait and wait and wait.

Isn't that the same thing that is happening now? Aren't we waiting to see what someone else is going to do, to be inspired, or instructed or told so we can be sure to be on the same page and not make a mistake?

Why don't we trust our own inner voices, that are probably pretty hoarse from screaming at us, to get a move on, little doggy? Why can't we just make the jump and, if, five years, ten years from now, someone says, ha ha, wow, aren't we glad that the world didn't end yet, we can just smile and laugh along with them, while we pick our own beans, corn or apples? Heck, we can talk all the way to the root cellar, or the cider press, or whatever.

There is one thing that I got from reading his book that is particularly chilling: The concept called Creeping Normalcy, where the changes are happening but they happen so slowly, over so many years, that everyone sort of just goes along with the crowd and by the time they begin to fight against the current of society, it is too little, too late.

Maybe it is too late already. I will hold that that could very well be true. Seriously. There may be nothing that we can do to stop the events that are set in motion. In that case, all of the preparation in the world can't help you feed five hundred thousand hungry refugees and take care of your own family when the collapse happens.

I struggle to write this and put this out there to all of you, because for a long time I have not wanted to create fear in people. To have everyone think I am against society, or using fear to get people into programs or whatever. Because maybe, I just didn't want to admit that the inner voice I have is right, and that I am scared myself for the future.

I do know that the skills we offer can help, so I trust that. Skills are like a vaccine against fear.

But I am just sending this out there to say that it is time to start listening to your own inner voice, in whatever way you choose, and then, act.

You know. Do Something!

And then listen some more and act again.

I can't say it will save the world, but it just might. And I will add that in any case, it will feel good to listen to your own inner self and that is not a relief taken lightly. Listening and acting will bring you into alignment with your own personal vision, your purpose for being here, on this world, right now. It gets you on with why you are really here.

Okay, I guess I am done for now and my inner voice needs to go to sleep.

Good luck, to all of us. I think we are gonna need it!

Barry Keegan's Friction Fire Intensive April 3-5, 2009

You know, most people don't really know Barry Keegan. This guy surprises me all of the time, even after knowing him for about eight years! Barry is a very unique kind of instructor, combining extensive knowledge of survival and native skills, with detailed research of historical references of these same skills.

Take canoes, for example. I mean, we've all heard about the native style birch bark canoes, right? Sure. Got it. No problem.

But Barry, well, he makes Elm Bark Canoes. Hickory Bark. Spruce Bark.

Spruce Bark? Really?

Really. I mean, we have an elm bark canoe upstairs in our barn right now, that he made with our Earth Skills students. It is the coolest thing ever.

Barry loves to track down the earliest known references to those canoes, or stone celts, or the original shape of bows made with stone tools. The bow he helped me make, which I just finished tillering two weeks ago, is styled from a stencil he made of a stone tool made native bow in Sudbury, MA, which he was able to view first hand in his research on bows and native hunting implements.

It's obvious that he loves learning, and he loves to make stuff. Everything. You can feel it when you hold anything he's made in your hands. Smooth. Functional. More than just a stone or a piece of wood, if you know what I mean.

He also loves to share his knowledge in classes with students, and while much of that information goes over the heads of beginner students, they come to appreciate it after the fact too.

Barry works harder than anyone I know to perfect a skill in every detail. His pottery is exquisite. Barry's bows just gleam with rich lustrous wood grain, strength and form. Don't even get me started on his arrowheads and projectile points!

It's not easy to get all of the knowledge that Barry holds in one place. I'm not just saying that, either. He doesn't teach what he doesn't know, and he provides meticulous references, too. They aren't the same old recycled books, either, but articles, journal entries from early settlers, even archeologists and researchers in Europe and beyond.

If you get a chance to come take Barry's Friction Fire Workshop, or the Native Clay Pottery Workshop, or the upcoming Flintknapping Intensive in September, you won't be disappointed! Write us for more information, or check out the Hawk Circle website....

Gotta run, but I will write more about the Spring Earth Skills Semester and other news as soon as possible!

Facing the Unknown: Healing and Growth in the New Economy

This post could be titled "What I've been doing for the last three weeks", if I am being totally honest. And you know what? I could easily just say that I have been boiling maple sap, going to schools, ice fishing, tracking and painting the farmhouse. All of which are true.

But that wouldn't be exactly honest, now, would it?

I mean, it makes for a great newsletter, you know. Wilderness guy takes the brush and roller in hand, makes maple syrup, goes tracking and ice fishing and all that homey stuff you come to expect from Hawk Circle and me, maybe.

Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is really good stuff. Usually.

But in this case, it isn't good enough. No. Not nearly good enough. Because if I tell you all that good stuff, you know, how we tracked some fisher, some foxes, or bobcats, or had fun trying to catch fish through the ice, whatever, it wouldn't be real. It would feel fake, or more correctly, like a half truth. And I can't do that this time.

The whole story is that I have been going through a lot in the last three weeks. A lot. Feelings of all kinds have been ripping through me like waves, and I have been working hard to understand and integrate what has been going on.

You see, I am a guy. A man. And we don't have the reputation for a huge emotional range, or familiarity with the five thousand different shades of emotion and depth. (Think: A hundred different words to describe snow, or something like that!) Which doesn't mean we don't feel them all. We do.

It's just that we are hard wired to be more fight or flight types. Rather than communicate all of those feelings.

So, why all the feelings? What is going on?

Well, it's the economy. The uncertainty. The fear. That is definitely creating a fight or flight response. Except there is no where to flee too, and usually no one to fight with.

I see it in the faces of the men I play basketball with. A lot of them are scared. Nothing is predictable anymore, and things that seemed rock solid and sure have evaporated like the morning mist. It doesn't feel good, for a man, who wants to be able to tell his family that things will be all right, and feel sure about it, and for them to know they can trust him, to feel that way in this new world we are living in.

Trust me, most men are wired to get food, provide, and lead their families, their band or tribe, through the cold and the dust to a good place. A place where we can all feel good and positive and build something beautiful for this life, for this world. But I know I can't do that right now. Many of the instincts and senses still work, but the messages are conflicting. And so much of our lives are based on connections and relationships that intersect and make each other stronger and better.

I know all the stuff about the wolverine and everything, and that is good stuff. It is good to focus on that when we are preparing for action. But when you are painting for hours on end, or sitting in the cold wind boiling sap, you start to think about things. And feel those feelings. At least, I know I have.

It is hard right now for us. Enrollment in our camps is very slow. Scary slow. We have afterschool groups going on, and a small semester program, too, but the flow of income and energy is trickling and we are an organization that doesn't have vast resources of cash reserves, or an endowment, or anything like that. So we take action, we work hard, we leverage our resources, all that good stuff, but in the end, we wait to see what happens. We can't really add to our debt right now, and most of the banks aren't lending either. We do what we can, like everyone else in the world right now. We pray. We are thankful for what we have. We offer our mission and our lives and our vision to the Universe to help guide us through these times.

I know that if nothing else happens in this crazy world but this, I will be thankful. Because this experience has opened me to healing and my own growth that is so powerful and profound that I can't express how grateful I feel about it. It has been an opportunity that is like the perfect storm, if you know what I mean. The right conditions, pressure, winds, whatever, to create the energy and will to heal, to grow, to change. For me! Of all people, me. Which I have needed for a long time.

I am not getting too personal here, because when healing happens for me, it happens across the full spectrum of my life, not just in one area or another. Everything. And I have been waiting for a long time for this. A long, long time.

Most of it surrounds the fact that I have worked and worked and worked, as hard as I know how, as I am able, to help Hawk Circle and the circle of staff, students, campers and community, to grow and prosper and find hope, renewal and light in this world. And I have struggled with myself as much as the challenges that lay before us, working against myself, ironically enough, to find a way to grow. The feelings of despair, of disappointment, and frustration usually are there, just under the surface of my consciousness, for not being able to bring Hawk Circle to a stronger place, a more secure future, or to be more successful than it is.

(Just a side note: I am proud of all that we have accomplished in the last 20 years, and I feel great about where we are going, too, and how so many people have believed in us and still support us in many different ways, it is overwhelming at times too!)

However, the threat of the slow economy and the realities of low cash flow has only served to accenuate my fear, my own inability to be better than we are, etc, and opened my whole self to letting go of my own expectations and stress, and look within. Which has been very scary. And good too, at the same time. I know it sounds crazy, but things are crazy right now, so it kind of fits.

We still need campers, and support. We aren't giving up on our mission, our vision. I know we stand ready to serve, to teach and to guide, in the best way possible, without fear and with love and respect and thankfulness. I know I am afraid, but also filled with gratitude and hope.

The rest of this story has yet to be written. What happens next?

Time will tell. I will let you know, too. Stay tuned!

By the way, I finished my bow that I was working on for the last six years or so, really slowly! Thanks to Barry Keegan for all of his time and support! And Barry is helping Connor with his bow tillering in the pics here. And I am adding some pics of our maple processing and Trista with our baby rabbits! So it wasn't all healing and growth for the last few months. There was some ordinary Hawk Circle type stuff too!

Note: New blog to follow!

Hey everyone!

I have a short announcement to make about the blog our current Earth Skills Circle the Seasons student Connor O'Malley is writing about his year here at Hawk Circle. He has some great photos and is going to post about his experiences and skills training too. Check it out! It's called, oddly enough, Circle the Seasons.

More info to come soon about 2009 workshops, camps and programs!

Help from the Wilderness: My new eBook Wolverine Survival.

I just finished my eBook Wolverine Survival: Ten Secrets of Wilderness Survival to help you Survive the Economic Storm.

It was hard to keep it short. It was hard to cut out all kinds of stories and examples of each principle, to make it clear, to the point and get it out in a timely way. It was good to write, and see how these secret principles are woven throughout every part of my life and outlook on the world.

I don't know if you are in trouble, or worried, or what. It doesn't matter. The bottom line is, these principles can help clear through the fog that fear creates, and offer something of power. A path. A direction. Allies and partners....

I hope you and your family, your business, your community, are ok. I know that even if you are, you are still feeling it. The storm is vast and reaching across the globe in it's scope and impact. If you don't feel it right now, you will.

And it is a good thing, too. We need a wake up call. We need to make some adjustments, and change. It will force us to think in different ways. To work together to find solutions. To see the world a little differently. To recognize, grow and thrive.

I don't like to be afraid. What is the opposite of fear?

Trust.

In the long run, it's the mental game that gives us the ability to weather storms, whether they are actual blizzards or just storms of change. It is our mind and our hearts and our faith in the world that gives us strength to find a way to survive. So that is what I focused on.

Well, I hope it helps.
Let me know what you think.

Thanks and keep walking the good road.

Ricardo