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Guardian Way Blog

Becoming Protector 2022 – Going deeper

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:

Guardian Way Blog personal story

finding your place

Do you know the feeling like you don’t belong? Well, I do. I know it like an chronic rash that just wouldn’t completely go away…

Of course, it’s not exactly like that, but I’m happy to have found a similarly frustrating analogy… Because this is the life of a Guardian. I once talked with a group of fellow guardians, and we figured out, we’re a pack full of black sheep of our communities and families. And the closest to finding a place where we belong might be in a group of other misfits…

So here is my story.

I’ve been in the world of computers for a really long time, and there is the feeling of home there. It’s known. Or at least I know what I know and what I don’t know, and I feel confident enough in my expertise and experience to openly say what I don’t know and that I’m fine with it. But there’s something missing.

And on my search to find what was missing, I have found the wilderness and my own wild side. The part of me that feels truly alive when jumping into icy cold water, almost burning my hands when roasting my food on the fire, standing my ground when the wind seems to want to sweep me off my feet, or digging in the dirt to build an earth lodge. There I can be fully present, in the moment, connected.

But there always comes a time, where I remember the civilized world. Where I feel the need to go back. To build a bridge between those two worlds that I know so well, but can’t stay in completely. The only thought that keeps me grounded, reminds me, that I am right where I need to be, and that this is my place. The knowing that my role in life is to be a Guardian. A Guardian of the Earth, of the people, of the natural balance of our ecosystem. And to bring those different worlds together in order to bring balance, I need to know all the different players in the game.

I still feel a lot like I don’t belong. At the same time I find comfort in that realization. I will not be a specialist or someone “successful” in either of those worlds. I will probably never be so fully immersed in the wilderness like some of the people I know. And I will just as likely not become super successful in the world of IT. The only place for me is to feel fully present with myself. To be an expert of being a generalist, of being myself. To be a full-fledged Guardian. This also means being comfortable not in finding my place, but creating it. Not to compare myself to others but only to my past self.

To let go of all the ideas. Even the idea of letting go of all ideas. I need to embrace the fact that I will never truly feel comfortable. I can seek comfort and have my muscles become weak. But I won’t really feel comfortable in my skin. And I can seek discomfort, and feel the most alive. And I need to train my muscles for that. I can’t go out with nothing and simply build my own place, my own space. A place where I can find a balance between comfort and comfortable. I need to start slowly to build my muscles. Like with the process of rewilding an animal, I need to slowly get used to it, slowly build my own wildlife habitat, before I can release myself in it.

This is my exploration. This is my mission. What I have set out to do. I started almost 8 years ago, and it might be a lifelong mission. But I know that that’s the only path I can take.

This is of course just one of many stories of Guardians. Every Guardian is different. Not everyone feels to only have the role of the Guardian, or the Voice, or the Nurturer for that matter. And we all interpret it very differently. And that’s the beauty of the Guardian Way.
To find out more about your archetype, check out Who you are.