This season’s training was focused around truly stepping into our rule as protector for the earth and our people. What is needed for us to serve? How can we train, learn and grow to be able to face whatever might be coming?
The area
This time, we consciously chose an area that is not so remote. Closer to civilization. Partly because of the personal connection of one of the guide’s – Andris- to the land and the animals (especially wolves) living there, and partly because it was important to experience more directly how we humans influence the wild beings all around us.
Do they hide even more? Do they get more used to and closer to humans? – Is that benefiting or hindering them in the long run? – All important questions with no easy answer.
The bumpy start
We are living in quite challenging and precarious times, and this also showed in the start of the training. If we constantly live on our edge, there is no wiggle-room for when additional challenges come up. And we soon learn, that the most important thing is always our health and the health of our loved ones. If that is not available, it’s out of our hands to do anything else other than that.
So when two of our trainees had to switch their focus on healing, it meant that we would only be 6 people out in the forest, immersing ourselves into the quest and question of what it takes to be a guardian.
Civilization’s Impact on the wild
Being out there, walking through the territory of the local wolf pack, we were faced with the conflict of illegal game/wolf surveillance, having found a high tech camera in a nature reserve that most likely was placed there to catch footage of the wolves. We can only guess as to why it was really there and what might have been the final goal or intention of it all. But it shows, that not even the forest is safe for the animals to be left alone at.
We walked across clear-cut areas, reminding us that even though it’s forest and it might feel like wilderness to us, it’s actually mostly just monoculture farming of wood. Again, not making it a safe place for animals to be left alone.
We found trash randomly dumped at least every other day, seeing a very important future mission to clean up the forest from things like old tires, car seats, cables and random other items.
Coming across an old dumping ground for a specific kind of duck being raised solely for sports hunting, killed by the hundreds, and then simply dumped
wild in a field, for animals like boar and fox to then be eaten (and poisoned by the led in the bullets), as definitely a specifically gruesome part of our discovery.
Being out in mid february and having the temperature, as well as the reaction of the plant and animal life be that it would seem to be beginning of april was yet another more long-term sign of our civilized influence on the climate and therefore on the wilderness we seem to cherish so much.
What to protect?
If we truly want to step into our role as guardian and protector, we first need to deeply understand and learn about what it is that we want to protect. otherwise we might do more harm than good.
We need to live as they live, move as they move, and learn as they learn. Completely immersing ourselves. When we realize, that we are constantly at the risk of being seen, heard and therefore either hunted by other wild animals or by humans, we get a small glimpse into the natural world of needing to be ever alert and present.
Sticking together is important
Humans are social animals. We function best, when we stick together. When we all take over certain roles and tasks, we don’t have to do it all alone. Especially just starting out with wilderness skills, our “pack” learned that no matter if it’s navigation, firemaking, cooking, collecting firewood, or sharing the story of the wake- or sleep time: it, works a lot better, takes less energy, yields more/better results, or makes it even only possible, if we all work together.
The discomfort
With each experience, different aspects of discomfort come up. They can be related to the cold, or the weather in general (usually, wet is even harder to handle than cold), but also, they can be found in more invisible parts of the experience.
But knowing, why you do the thing you do is a core necessity of going through any kind of discomfort. If we don’t know, why we do what we do, or if we realize, that our ideas or expectations might have been different, this makes it a lot harder to accept and live through the discomfort, in order to experience the gift we get when we stick with the path anyway.
Living a life of a guardian or protector is not for everyone. It’s not about an adventure, but about growth, learning, being of service and fully immersing yourself.
But when you learn to feel comfortable with discomfort, there is no stopping you!
here are some impressions of the immersion:
