2020-006 | ABOUT HUMILITY BEFORE NATURE

WISDOM TRAILS: Bushcraft teaches you to be part of the landscape instead of the landscape as part of your designs. Humility before nature instead of arrogance. Blending instead of standing out. Adapting instead of plodding on tunnel vision.

Bushcraft makes you an island of your own instead of "no man is an island". Improvising and prepping is the name of the game.

First seen on Facebook

December 17, 2017

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BUSHCRAFT, FOR OUTSIDERS, is destructive. Their prejudice about its methods are anchored on the Western concept of outdoors living, which is very popular now and then in syndicated survival TV programs and in hundreds of YouTube channels. I could not disagree more and I would not have to elucidate further why because bushcraft is not ready yet for politically-correct societies and will never become mainstream, no matter how people tried hard about it.

For most people, including this writer, it is a way of life, although mine is a special kind of existence since I lived in an urban setting and turned “wild” when ranging the mountains. I have this special relationship with the outdoors and I try to remove this gap between modern man and his environment through my advocacy of imparting knowledge of bushcraft and the importance of safety of the outdoors. Safety does not only favor man but also of nature from man.

What is the difference then between my bushcraft and that of the popular Western concept? Not much really except that I would rather tone down mine because I saw how people tried hard to build it up but are torn down quickly by those who cannot understand its principles. How would you go about to make it palatable? Simple. With HUMILITY. Not by bending against criticisms but understanding nature first, embracing it perfectly and then let the skeptics see the beauty of bushcraft in it. Do not overdo things. Keep it simple. 

In the first place, bushcraft is a cerebral activity. It uses more brains – creativity and epiphanies – than it uses brute force. The latter is just the by-product of the former. You have to agree with that and that is where you start. Since man has dominion over earth and all its living things, we are morally its steward. Obviously, man’s place is above these things, we tend to be arrogant in how we dispose with these and then we broadcast it everywhere, which does not sit well with those who are advocating for a healthy environment.

On the other hand, a humble steward would work his way around and find other solutions instead of focusing on a challenge in a conventional way, with blades flashing and talk for miles of its sharp character! Very predictable and not a bushcraft way, which we tell the world is “bushcraft” and we feel “proud” about our exploits. It would have been alright if we have enough resources or we are just one million people living in this planet we called home. 

If there is humility on our part, we could easily blend in among it; adapt within it; and improvise around it. BLEND. ADAPT. IMPROVISE. This is the only guiding principle I used in bushcraft and it does not need a lot of explanations if it becomes one of your core values. I arrived at this conclusion when I demonstrated “Survival Day” for my adherents in the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild; a sort of certification process for one who likes to practice bushcraft in an ethical manner. 

I looked inwards long and hard to create a different philosophy in bushcraft where it shall be acceptable to all and it is called ETHICAL BUSHCRAFT. It is anchored more on the “blend, adapt and improvise” approach which is merely toning down excessiveness of this activity by leisure outdoorsmen and is, in itself, educational for the true traditionalists: the indigenous people, the homesteaders and the people who find the wilderness as their calling.

Ethical Bushcraft guarantees to leave so few traces of you as you enjoy leisure bushcraft activities in places below the treeline, in marshy jungles and rocky shorelines, where all the actions are. When you are on that level, you are an island of your own; a part of a landscape. In my part of the world, I now have adherents who are now into that and I feel so secure that it made our world a better place to live in.

 

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WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE BLOG, personified by this writer, is synonymous with the Outdoors, since Bushcraft and Survival is its niche. Safety and Security are its bedrock when it ventured into organizing outdoor events that involved people as in adventure/pilgrimage guideships and seminars; and explorations and expeditions.

 

Through tutorship, experience, folk knowledge and good old common sense, this writer was able to collect useful information which he is currently documenting in a book titled, ETHICAL BUSHCRAFT. He shares some of this information and knowledge in his training sessions; in his social-media account; and in this blog.