This year started for Native Awareness as it did for many of us under a blanket of snow! The prolonged weather has been a gift for the study of tracking and I often think about the skills of survival when faced with extreme conditions.
It was whilst walking our dog, when conditions were at their worst, that I stopped and looked at my surroundings. At first the biting wind and drifts of snow made it hard for me to distinguish objects other than their shapes and textures. I thought to myself, what would I do if I got stranded? How would I survive these conditions? At first I looked across this bleak landscape seeing little salvation, but it only takes a slight change in attitude for one to realise that the earth will provide. I scanned the landscape again; I looked at the snow and saw shelter, insulation and water. I also looked deep into the hedges and found the old stalks of burdock and willow herb which meant, fire, tinder and cordage. The ground also revealed the tracks of deer, rabbit, fox and mice or as I thought...food!
The news at the time was filled with stories of people panic buying and how travel routes had come to a standstill. Troubling times indeed but it is good to know that we still have the ability to take care of our basic needs of shelter, water, fire and food.
Each January I like to reflect on the year before and consider the one ahead and as each year goes by I get more and more excited about the future of Native Awareness. I think this year will go down in the school's history as one being of the most significant in it's development.
In May we are to launch Earth Living, our twelve month programme. The team at Native Awareness are thrilled about offering this curriculum of learning and having the opportunity for continuous contact with a group of dedicated students. We are also looking forward to expanding on some of the subjects found in the mainstream courses as well as going into great depth with new and inspiring skills. If you are interested in the Earth Living programme we recommend you book as soon as you can as we are limiting the number of students attending.
Native Awareness is also offering a varied choice of mainstream courses and I'm particularly excited about Expanded Awareness. When I first began building the school, this course was one which I looked forward with great anticipation to teaching. I can't wait to further stretch the boundaries of our perceived senses. The Camouflage and Native Scout courses are also going to be ones to remember! For those who have taken classes before with us, I'm sure you can imagine the fun and excitement that we will have during these sessions!
Last but certainly not least, I would like to formally welcome Hana Jones to the Native Awareness team. Some of you may have met her during the 2009 Native Skills 1 and 2 back to back. For those who know her, I'm sure that you will agree with me, in that she is going to make a wonderful and extremely knowledgeable addition to the team.
I very much look forward to spending some time around the camp fire with you.
James
]]>The festive season is approaching and what better gift to give than to reconnect people with Nature. Why not make use of our voucher scheme. We can arrange vouchers to any sum of money for a course. This works as a great way to introduce your friends and family to Native Awareness or for them to help you pay for your continued study.
As a gift from us we will be giving a 10% discount on all festive vouchers. This means that if, for example, you purchase a £50 voucher, your total to pay will be £45 but the voucher will entitle you to £50 towards a course.
We are working towards releasing the 2010 schedule within the next couple of weeks as well as the course description and dates for our new and exciting year course. We at Native Awareness are so excited about 2010, and are looking forward to gathering around fires with familiar and new faces.
Sorry for the gap between news announcements but this summer has been absolutely jam packed for Native Awareness. We spent the school summer holidays teaching youngsters which covered many skills, from primitive camouflage, to creating a giant bow drill set! (see photo) It has been great seeing children returning to the woods to learn many of their ancestor's survival skills.
The tanning class was also quite an adventure. When it was planned we dreamt of beautiful sunshine with a gentle breeze, ideal for softening deer hides. When the class arrived we faced the worst tanning conditions, torrential rain. We actually had to postpone the class for half a day as lightning struck our camp, twice, one strike hitting only 40 feet from a student! It was a hair raising experience! We ploughed on and managed to get the hides softened with the aid of a wood burner in a spacious yurt.
A few weeks ago we ran Native Skills 1 and 2, back to back. I have to say that I feel deeply honoured to have helped create these classes, they were our finest to date! The level of community created and peoples growth, with their individual relationship with Nature, was staggering. The two classes also conveyed to us that Native Awareness students are ready for us to run more advanced classes.
One of our main discoveries was our students interest in us running a class of one year duration. Within the next couple of months the new schedule will be announced including the year course description. I'm presently writing the course and planning many exciting topics but would love to hear from you on what you would like to see in a year's worth of training.
For those graduates of Native Skills 1 and above, there are still a handful of places left on the Native Gift class in November. If you are intending to come to this class please will you reserve your place as soon as possible. We see this occasion as a gift to our committed students, therefore we have not asked for course fees, but only a small charge that covers costs. It's going to be quite a session! Leave the pegs at home!
Looking forward to being in the woods with you all once more,
James
]]>Due to the global financial instability that prevails, we are to run a free class for our committed students. It pains us to think such vital education is being sacrificed due to matters that are beyond our control. Time and time again we receive comments from folk who are struggling to make ends meet and who otherwise, would have joined us in the woods, to learn more of the ways of the Earth.
We at Native Awareness are so very committed to the passing on and preservation of the ancient wisdom and skills we feel this will help!
The Native Gift class 13-15 November,will be free of tuition fees! It will be run slightly differently to other Native Awareness courses. The teaching time will be over two days and will be self catering. This is to keep the costs down. We will only be charging a modest amount for camping and insurance, that we believe that all can afford. Unfortunately our financial aid will not apply to this course as it does with others, as your payment will go directly to covering the cost of the venue etc.
The course content will be diverse to say the least as they will be subjects that the instructors have been eager to teach, we will not be re teaching skills that you have had in the standard Native Awareness courses but are going to be sharing advanced skills and teachings.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
James
]]>Thank you to all who sent your answers into us concerning the last Natural Mystery Quiz and yes, it was a badger latrine!
For this month's quiz we thought we would like to ask something a little more challenging! This is a skull taken from a road kill, it measures approximately 60mm long and 35mm wide but to whom did it belong?
Please send your answers to: contact.
]]>Last month we ran the bow making class and in my mind the week was truly perfect. As we had great weather we scraped on wood in the deep heat of the sun and created some beautiful bows from native timbers. We also sinew backed, rawhide backed and snake skin backed three different bows. The week was jam packed and as always we had time to share many jokes and conversations. The company was excellent!
As we were packing up the owners of the venue, an American bison farm, informed us that sadly one of their calves had died that morning and they offered us the animal. As a group we set about skinning the calf and removing its sinew, we were all involved; holding a leg, peeling away the skin etc. It was a beautiful and fascinating time. The calf was only a couple of days old but was as big as a roe deer. Feathers and I have dedicated ourselves to turning the hide into something beautiful for the Native Awareness school, to mark the great gift and the short life of the calf.
After skinning the calf, Feathers and I were anticipating the tanning. The act of changing a fleshy wet hide into something beautifully soft is a life altering experience. The feeling experienced from wearing the hide cannot be explained with words. Feathers has been fantasising about a buckskin hoodie for some time, so we have decided to run a primitive tanning class next month. Not only are we going to be tanning deer hides into buckskin but we are also going to start scraping an adult bison skin which is an opportunity not to be missed!
Over the next few months Native Awareness is going to announce the new and exciting projects that we are moving towards, one being an apprenticeship program starting in 2010.
Thank you all for your support in these trouble financial times, and please know that if you need help with funding etc, we will do our utmost to assist you.
I look forward to spending time with you around the slow burning fires.
James
]]>Welcome to the new Native Awareness website. We are delighted with our new site and would like to give great thanks to student and friend Emily Heath and her partner, North, from Whitespace Design for creating it for us. We hope you enjoy navigating around it. There are now many more exciting pages to view.
I would like to mention a few new changes on our site. We now have things for you to get involved in. Each month we will have an item called Natural Mysteries. This will be a fun way to develop and test your eye as a tracker. We will display a photograph for you to interpret. This could be of a partial track, a feather, leaf etc. We will also be producing a monthly page called, What To Look Out For In The Woods. I know personally that when I started studying survival skills I would kick myself when, a month later, I realised that I'd missed the window of time when I could have harvested a resource or seen a natural mystery. We are hoping that this section will help keep you on track!
The next few years are going to be extremely exciting at Native Awareness. We intend to develop the school in numerous ways, to encourage people to find their way back to wilderness. There are great plans afoot! We will be writing a regular blog to keep you informed with the direction and news of Native Awareness.
We look forward to spending time with you around the camp fire.
James
This photograph was taken in March. The hole is approximately 15cm wide.
What created the hole and what lies within it?
Please send in your answers. Contact
]]>As do many, I find the beginning of a new year to be the ideal time to firstly review the previous year, then plan and develop new ideas based on what I have learned. Thinking back to 2008 and the courses run by Native Awareness, my abiding memory has been of the dedication to the old skills new and returning students brought with them to class. I am filled with enthusiasm when I receive emails and letters from students that are full of excitement about the new projects they are working on. Only recently a student came to dinner with a bag of wooden spoons, a beautiful length of rosebay willow herb cordage and a couple of deer hides he was working on. I could see in his work that he had not only made an eating utensil but also had created a work of art! What a great way to give thanks to the tree that they came from.
We have been so impressed with the abilities of our students throughout last year that we have both developed the existing classes as well as writing new ones. Due to popular demand we are to run a class entitled, Awareness. People have been amazed with the awareness exercises given in our introduction class, Native Skills 1. Imagine how far we can develop our awareness in a three day course!
The bow making class has been totally redesigned. Graduates well know that Native Awareness not only teach a skill but teaches the principles behind it. The new class is not only to build a bow but to fully understand the bow making process. We are, therefore, going to teach multiple bow design, long bows, flat bows, re curves and sinew/rawhide backed etc. This will allow participants to learn from each other's bows as well as create their own.
A first for Native Awareness and we think perhaps the UK, is that we are running a birch bark canoe course! We are fortunate to have friends in the USA who are professional, traditional, canoe makers. John will be coming over this summer to teach how to create a wonderful piece of art that symbolises the apex of earth living skills. We are presently tying up loose ends, so full details are not yet on the website. Of course, you will be the first to know!
We have many more plans to announce in due course, but must now tell you of an important way we intend to assist both previous and new students. We realise that due to the current financial climate, paying for classes may well be difficult, but at Native Awareness we intend to help as much as possible as we firmly believe that if a person has the passion for learning, nothing should prevent that. On our new website we are going to offer different payment schemes, recommendation discounts etc. If you would like information on this before the new website is launched, we would be happy to send you the details.
If you have had snow this winter, I hope you all got the opportunity to go tracking. I love tracking in the snow. To easily see the multiple species that were out and about is a great gift in developing ones tracking. For me it was also interesting to see what animal scent my dog was picking up on. It was great watching him follow with his nose the straight line of the fox and the random movement of rabbits.
This is going to be a great year and I look forward to spending time with you around the camp fire.
James
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