An Affinity For Being Out There

Purpose is discovered in the many small steps – in the every moment where we grasp our smallness and realize our connectedness to the greater natural environment that supports life.

I think, for me, that this is the most attractive aspect of woodcraft – bushcraft – wildcraft – survivalcraft or whatever other craft label one chooses to attach to this craft thing. It is, I think, the most neglected aspect of the craft. It is the aspect that can’t be taught. It must be caught. And, I think (again this is an I think) that it is it that catches us more than us catching it.

Those of us that have been caught by it can allude to it. We can talk about it. We can live the unfolding, ever-deepening, perception and life changing realities of it. Ultimately, however, who or when someone is caught by it is outside our area of instructional control.

Sure. 

I’ll admit that these lines are a bit heavy on the philosophical side of things. Especially when the predominant conversations in this arena tend to remain focused on who’s got the latest custom knife or bush pot. Or on whether to baton with a knife. I will admit that I baton but it is a very selective thing that I do when making a hearth board for a friction fire kit. If I’m going to split firewood I’ll use an ax. That’s my choice and I’m sticking to it.

I can’t help but to wonder though. Wondering causes me to wander into philosophical waters.

Why did those earlier others (notable folks like George W. Sears, Horace Kephart, Townsend Whelen, Bradford and Vena Angier, and Dick Proenneke of the past Century, as well as a host of others before them) wander into the woods … some into extremely remote regions with life-threatening climates … and stay? Not for a few days - as is the case for most of us modernite crafters. Some went for weeks and months at a time. Some went for years. Some went for decades. Some went for an entire long lifetime.

Was it to brave the elements, practice their “survival” skills with minimal gear, and achieve some level of temporal (or financial) fame?

Hardly.

I do not, in reading the records of these earlier others, see any of these as a remote part of their motivation to do what they did.

Those folks didn’t just walk off into the woods without a few dress rehearsals before their big events either. They went mentally and physically prepared. They went equipped with the necessary skills and tools. And, in the going, they took with them an affinity for being out there. They fared well. 

They had been caught by it and eloped with it.

We are about to toss the 2016 Calendar into the trash bin and usher in a new year.

This past year was a crazy year of change for the two of us.

Change for the better. Much better. It took a lot of doing to pull off the downsize but we negotiated it successfully and are now comfortably hunkered down in our little cabin in the woods. We have, in some sense of it, eloped with the woods. Maybe not as deep in the woods as those notable others but in the woods nonetheless.

So here’s to the past. It has brought us to where we are.

And here’s to the future and all it holds in store as it unfolds.

Go ahead. Cut a new trail.