Direction of this website?

Greetings Scout, Nice to meet you.

I’m a Noob here, so if I say something that sets anyone off, let me apologize in advance. PM me and we’ll work it out.

A case for ranting, is made very eloquently here:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/talkitout.html

Evidently, there truly is a substantial therapeutic value to venting. This is a good thing

That being said, I have to say, ranting about what’s wrong without exploring and taking action towards solutions seems not only useless, but destructive, and has discouraged me from becoming active in this forum.

I was very excited when I discovered your blog, and saw what you have done towards promoting the concept of ReWilding. Love your videos, love that you have built and maintained a blog, a forum and a wiki. Love that you have had the courage to move out into the community and speak publicly.

That you are proactive, that you are putting your money and your energy towards this cause that you believe in is very inspiring, and is worthy of the highest respect and gratitude. Thank you for giving so much!

I would like to suggest the addition of a regular practice to be added to the forum:

Once the venting about a particular issue is complete, I’d like to suggest a further step - let’s explore and build a vision for how we want things to be - what we want to create instead.

I find when I follow up my rants by exploring this, very quickly I find myself discovering there are things to do - places to go, people to talk to.

Maybe Scout, you can explore your own process - how you move from your anger, frustration and disillusionment with “civ” into the action of visioning, communicating and building the world you want to live in, then share it with us. Teach us. Reorganize this forum to reflect that process.

Not sure how everyone else feels about this, I can speak only for myself. Such a reorganization would not only keep me coming back, but would encourage me to share ReWilding with everyone I know.

Howdey, US –

It seems to me that it might be a reasonable first-step to simply re-arrange the order of the forum, and place the things you’d like to see less emphasis on at the bottom of the page, and more emphasis toward the top. For example, you mentioned that you’d like to see less of the gloom-and-doom a-la “Civilizations Collapse”, but it’s the first thing that anyone sees when they visit the site, because it’s in the top 5 topics.

Also, I remember a conversation a while ago where you had considered changing and re-arranging the social topics to encompass broader and less-hierarchical terms (“All My Relations” springs to mind, but I can’t recall the context off the top of my head).

Anyway – thems my two cents. And thanks!

~SW

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I’m still trying to wrap my head around why the site has made me feel uncomfortable for a while…

My number one reason why I don’t care to hear about the economic/energy collapse because I don’t care. It has little to do with actual rewilding. Those events in themselves don’t signify the collapse of civilization, just a mini-collapse. I plan to rewild whether the collapse intensifies more in my lifetime or not. The collapse, while convenient to rewilding in someways and inconvenient in others has little bearing on my choice to rewild. Civilization enslaves us, I want to break free of that, regardless of collapse. These events definitely inform me on decisions I should make regarding rewilding, so I see there place… however, I feel they attract a certain “doomer” type of person to this site and it feels kinda swamped with that energy now. It takes away from the real discussions about rewilding that I want to have happening here. It feels like these discussions, because they take away from rewilding discussions on a forum about rewilding, re-define rewilding as a doom and gloom community. Rewilding is not about the abuse in and around the prison, it’s about the escape plan and the escape and the building something new. This is my story at least and how I feel here. I don’t mind having them here, but I think I may move them to the humanure bucket. Make sense to me; composting the collapsing culture? Might be a more appropriate place to put them. I don’t know.

I also have to say that all these discussions about various civilized religions bore the shit out of me. This makes me irritated because I feel like most of the conversations we had here in the first year were all really constructive/on the same page kinds of conversations. I feel like maybe the defending of this or that civilized religion reflects mostly people un-willingness to let go of and perhaps lack of researching the domesticating actions of those religions. I also recognize that myths change to reflect the environment so as collapse intensifies those myths may incorporate an animist world view. However, I don’t know if this site is the place to talk about that? I mean, there is a special sub-culture of Rock and Roll called Christian Rock… and I don’t listen to it. I don’t know if I want those religions conversations to dominate the forum…? Again, it all feels like it takes away from the real skills of rewilding; providing the cultural tools to create social networks of rewilding. Again I see that if you want to convince a christian that their religion “really” mean something else about rewilding, that’s fine. But to me rewilding isn’t about philosophically convincing someone about the ills of domestication; it’s about showing them. It’s about connecting to people (regardless of religion) on a human level. It’s about connecting to the land on an animal level. A language older than words has more power than words. You know? I feel like we were really on a roll with some of those social tools here in the beginning and it sort of dropped off at some point. This makes me sad. I want to make space for all these other topics, but I want to shift the focus back to these non-denominational, non-doomer, cultural tools.

I’m fairly new to the site, and therefore I can’t specifically address whether or not I liked an earlier direction in which the conversations were going since I wasn’t a participant in those conversations (nor have I read all of the previous posts.) But what I can contribute to this thread are my own ideas about what motivated me to start reading (and eventually posting) on the site. While I think there is a place for the doom and gloom conversations to an extent, I frankly would not have bothered to continue to read nor would I have been motivated to start posting simply for the doom and gloom conversations. Like Urban Scout, I already gave up on civilization and have seen that civilization is the problem. Therefore, it’s no surprise when one disaster after another occurs within and/or because of civilization. I certainly can see the therapeutic value in some doom and gloom conversation, and I do my fair share of participating in those conversations. But that’s not why I’m interested in this site. For me it’s about the community. I’ve felt isolated and like the lone freak for a long time. For years I’ve told all my friends about my plans to live in a hut in the woods, and no one, not a single person, has ever said “me too” or “I understand”. I’ve just gotten strange looks. Finding a community of people who get it is a real gift. Now, the question is, does this community go beyond the virtual? Do we actually use this virtual community to bring our ideas into the real world? That is what I would like to see. I don’t like civilization. But I like community. I used to think I’d enjoy living in my hut without any other humans, kept company just by the trees and the earth and the birds and the rabbits, etc. But these days I realize I want humans with me too. My question then is can we utilize this virtual community to bring together people to actually start living our rewilding talk? Can we actually support one another in the real world to step outside of civilization? That would be what I’d like to see. I’m not just talking about workshops or hanging out (though those things are well and fine too.) I’m talking about actually going for our dreams.

Then post on Rewild New England, already!

Hehehe, sorry for the shameless promotion, but it seemed like a good way to start. I’ve been thinking more about this, and I’m starting to see that this site should function like a nexus, or a hub. We can use it as a base, to record our efforts and give each other advice and tutorials, and to link up to other sites for more local stuff. This is what I was thinking, somewhat, when I started the Yahoo! group for the New England area. We can do networking and event planning locally, but also keep track of what our comrades in other regions are doing. It’s not only encouraging to know about what our friends are doing, but we can also steal each others’ ideas

As for the collapse stuff, I say we move it to a less immediately visible place. It’s interesting stuff, for sure, but it’s not as important as actual philosophy, social skills, and all that other fun stuff. Basically, shove it in a corner somewhere.

Perhaps this issue is tied to Anthropik no longer being active?

Somethings come to mind

-Post the things you wanna discuss. Be the change and all that stuff…
-Feature topics / Articles is it possible to post that kindof stuff somewhere?
-Topic of the Week/ Planned Discussion Subjects with in-depth material
-Collective Projects Lets DO something together!
-Local / bioregional forums ? I think not enough people for this?
-Renaming Civ Collapse to Our Indigenous Future or something else that shifts the focus from the Doom & Gloom of ending a life we know, to the possibilities of a life we get to invent. It is not the end of a world, its only the beginning.
-Id totally like different names for the topics. Stories by Campfire, Other then human persons, and so on…

take care

What if each region that is active locally had their own forum here rather than having to use an outside service such as Yahoo? Seems like it would make for more overall connectivity between regions, yet still address the needs of local rewilding groups.

And I also agree with you Dan, that the collapse stuff should be stuffed in a corner somewhere - not that it isn’t an important topic - just that it shouldn’t dominate.

I just want to point out the importance of topic titles

Ganakagok is a game about the first sunrise in ages. The people of Ganakogok do not know the sun. For ages they have lived in darkness. Tension rises amongst the people of Ganakogok because obviously their “known” world is about to end. Some think their world is about to collapse.

But what is this end, but a beginning? a transition into something new.

Speaking of collapse in isolation is speaking of endings. Perhaps it is wise when we picture that moment the sun rises above to sky in Ganakogok to realize we can choose to see Collapse or we can choose to see a rising sun.

you know, just a rant…

i think developing the bioregion thing is a good idea and then having little side forums for each bioregion so people can find others close to them and organize different meet ups and stuff based on where they are.

and on a side note, i think having a section for the trading post would be awesome. and then have little sub sections for different things. maybe even a section where travelers or whomever might offer their services or people can offer a place to stay for whatever services they may need. it might get different people connected on a more personal level, especially in conjunction with some kind of bioregional sub forums. it might also be a step towards people beginning something like rewild havens. i’m not very computer savvy so i’m not sure how one would set up something like that.

What’s the deal there? There hasn’t been any activity on Anthropik since before I’d heard of rewilding.

I’m another newbie here, but let me just put in a vote for more videos. I watched you skin that raccoon–that was really good stuff! I drove by a dead raccoon on the highway yesterday and I barely resisted the urge to stop and grab it. If I hadn’t been in the left lane going sixty-five mph, I just might have. (I was also in a suit, returning from a funeral :’().

Maybe you should encourage people to submit their own rewilding videos and let people comment on them. Just post just the interesting ones. It would encourage people to act, rather than just talk.

Just an idea.

I also think its cool that your explaining your disillusionment with the site and allowing everyone to comment and contribute. Ultimately, everyone is going to follow find their own path, the question is whether you want to continue bushwhacking your trail–while still blazing it for those who may be behind you.

I don’t know how much my input counts as I will soon make a leap in my rewilding path as I move to a residence without the internet and electricity. hooray.

The last convo- here that really excited me occurred when we talked about Rewilding Havens. That idea did and still does possess a lot of fire, I think. I think the discussions ran into obstacles in that few folks here have access to land or, if they do, the means to host people.

Anyhow, I guess what really interests me on sites like these are opportunities to meet and network with like-minded folks as well as the possibility of hearing their stories in how they’re making it along their rewilding paths.

It’s interesting, because if someone were to move to North Carolina and wanted to plug into some anarchist scene, I could totally point them to this person or that, this place and that. But if someone came to NC and wanted to plug into a rewilding scene, I’d be like, Um… oh…errr… I hear there are weirdos in Asheville… I don’t know. I know there’s people here and there into some related things, but I don’t really think there’s a good group of people who see all of their primitive skills or bike skills or DIY skills or foraging skills or mushrooms skills or gardening skills or anarchist skills going into some kind of integrated whole. I want that to change and if rewild.info could play a part in that, that would rock.

edit:
A few more thoughts, since I’d already begun to ramble. I’d love to find ways to open up rewilding to a larger audience. As it stands I know vegans, farmers, biodiesel geeks, masseuses, anarchists, bikepunks, liberals, new-agers, stoners, etc. who could bring something rad to the rewilding table, but who’ve never heard the term or who might not voluntarily associate themselves with it because of some ideological obstacle, though they’ve got the heart for it I’m sure. I’d like to explore more ways to bridge the gaps with these people and seduce them into the Rewilding Renaissance.

edit #2:
part of me thinks changing the splash page to include a quick intro and invitation to rewilding might help anyone who stumbles upon this site unawares of what the hell rewilding entails… maybe rather than burdening one person with the task of writing such a thing, it could show a mosaic of quotes from different members talking about what rewilding is about for them to give a glimpse of the many angles of this thing.

hrm…great topic, great points made. i’m totally new here, and haven’t ‘made friends’ yet but will take the risk of saying what intuitively washes over me when there are a few moments that i can steal to read here. it may come off as combative, but that is probably due to my lack of tact. this is, as you point out, your website and so you may toss me out of here for what i’m saying as you wish.

you have posted that you are ‘bored’ with certain lines of discussion. part of this lies with the difficulty that lies in every bulletin board i’ve ever seen or taken part in. the regulars that come daily discuss to death (or until they sputter out of enthusiasm) a particular issue, and therefore later comers who chime in on these topics, because they are still present as a record on the message board, are told that it’s all been said before and that the discussion is basically over. if you don’t want topics raised from the tombs, then put them truly to rest. it is your message board. archives can be ‘read only’, can’t they?

as for the ‘doomer’ feeling…i can’t help being paranoid in thinking that it is perhaps aimed at people like myself who have just BEGUN the journey that you are already well down the road on. people like myself, who have been struggling all their lives to wake up from this awful dream of what everyone else just calls ‘reality’ can’t help but point out each new realization, because it is like tasting something that they’ve never experienced before. they also can’t help but mourn for what is ending, perhaps mourning the death of their old selves along with it.

i well understand that the mourning is not, and should not be the focus of such a message board. perhaps, as someone who HAS already progressed over this territory, you can provide some useful info on how to get over that feeling, what might be on our list of ‘next’ firsts, and just generally provide a mentoring, guild atmosphere or guide over this totally new and sometimes scary territory. rewild skills? i don’t have 'em. couldn’t tell you what they were. it is nice to be able to get some idea of where to go next when you’re learning to walk.

you may not want to provide a forum that will be all things to all people. if not, direct us to where we should be rather than here taking up your bandwidth. a ‘mission statement’ would go far, and perhaps a clear indication of the idealogy and intent of where you would like to go with this site at the very top, where the donation thingie is right now, is a must. think of putting up a “Rewild Manifesto” on the page that leads us here, as in “if you don’t find some commonality with this perspective, you are not over 13 years of age…” etc.

another thing really is that the consensus seems to be that rewilding can only take place locally. in that way, the local flavour needs to be brought out as many former posters have indicated. i would love to find my tribe (or whatever the term is) and learn directly how to rewild. where are they? how do i meet them? who are the gurus (much as i despise that concept) of rewilding in this area? how do i get into this community? how to become a living part of it is the problem. breaking through the bulletin board seems also to be what you want, and is hopefully what we all want.

perhaps you should eliminate most of it altogether, and only host what you want to see. you’re (kinda) paying for it.

I have not been very active on this site for a while either,because the conversations over a few months got to be quite drab for me.Alot of the posts seemed like long winded rants rather than conversation.I never liked the doom and gloom aspect even at the start of my explorations into Rewild.info.I just assumed the doom and gloom aspect was inherent in the context,since I found this site through Derrick Jensens site,talk about doom and gloom.I stayed around anyway and enjoyed quite a few conversations for awhile.I became disillusioned with the site after all the political shit started to be focused on,what do politics really have to do with rewilding.Also all the religious talk is drab,what does discussing modern religions have to do with rewilding.The section of the site I would like to see get more attention is the Invisible technologies,perhaps this section could be moved more to the top of the forum.I have come to think this stuff is far more important than other more physical skills which have come very easy for me to learn almost as if I already knew them.Maybe streamlining the forum and putting priority on the sections that lead to a rewilding culture instead of a rant about what is fucked in the world culture.I have always thought to much doom and gloom negativity cripples real action in the world and it just leaves me feeling blah.

Great feedback everyone. Keep it coming. I’m going to end up going through this thread with a notebook and probably making changes at some point. On some level I kind of think the site may just stay the way it is for quite a while. I know that Jason is interested in revamping the site stylistically at some point, and we’ll probably make the changes then… of course, that’s sort of at the whim of his schedule and at this point I’m pretty unaware of that so we’ll see.

I think the idea of local chapters on this site is pretty hard to actuallize at this point, simply because of the limiting number of members here. Rather, I’d like to see this site inspire people to take rewilding to the streets of their own town and throw a rewilding open space. I’m changing the format of the Rewild Camp (taking out the skill share aspect) in my own town as a way of making more cultural, long-lasting changes and awareness for the core of rewilding as a philosophy. It would be great for me to make a video of the process and put it up here to inspire others to run their own in their own town. It’s really all about Critical mass. If I run one here in Portland and it goes well, I’ll do a Northwest Coast tour of them, etc. etc. If I ever get my book published, instead of doing a normal book tour I plan to run rewilding open spaces in every city I go to. 'course, if I had funding other than my own job I would use that money to do it with or without a book!

I’m working on a site right now (hush hush!) for the Portland version.

http://www.rewildportland.com

The idea is modeled after the BarCamp’s of the tech world. Right now I’m sort of a mess in my head. Just trying to get thoughts organized (as well as this forum organized) in a way that will inspire more Open Spaces for rewilding.

I feel kinda torn.

On the one hand, to the extent this forum has helped anyone out in its present state, that makes me really happy. I really celebrate that and feel good to have possibly supported isolated rewilders in such a way.

On the other hand, unless I participate pretty heavily in this forum, I don’t see topics addressed that really matter to me.

I’ve pretty much devolved to posting lolcats for my own amusement, and upon reflection I think this has happened because I want rewilding, as we know it, to (in my humble opinion) mature into its next level (yes I used ‘lolcats’ and the word ‘mature’ in the same sentence). I don’t want to discuss civ hate anymore; I want to throw a party for rewilding, for a renaissance of Family, Land, and Village.

Even the logo to this forum doesn’t really speak to me; it looks all feral and violent. I just don’t see rewilding in that way anymore. I think for anger, grief, and getting feet wet in hating on civ, Derrick Jensen’s forum does a way better job. I want something else out of this forum here, and I’ve stopped getting it. I certainly don’t get many comments at my blog, where I do talk about what matters to me.

I still highly value building Rewild Havens, and working on all the other lost heritage stuff. It just doesn’t seem to fit here so much, as things stand.

So I’ve talked with Urban Scout about maybe transforming this place, our electronic living room, into something more reflective of Scout and me. I say this knowing that it has helped some folks out in its present state, but I think we can do even more if we push ourselves to stay honest and true to our particular vision of rewilding. I think members will appreciate the change.

At the College of Mythic Cartography I give my best stuff away, but I get the feeling that it doesn’t get much road-testing. Not dream interviews, not storyjamming, not riddle-mastery, open spaces. I know some folks out there use it, sure, but I want to really kick start a change in rewilding culture as we know it - moving it even further from a material technology basis, deeper towards a social technology paradigm.

I don’t see native peoples identifying themselves by their tools, but rather by their stories and their relationships. I want the culture of rewilding here to move decisively into this world, and to teach me ways of embodying this and practicing this in my own life, that I could never think of on my own.

Hey I totally hear you Willem, those make up some of the topics that really make my heart beat when I read this site (and yours)

I find that the primitive skills stuff here isn’t very comprehensive or advanced compared to say the paleoplanet forum, but that it is nice to be able to discuss such things from a rewilding perspective - as most of the people who post at these other forums are against everything that rewilding is. I am one of the people that doesn’t get too excited about the stuff at your site, Willem - or the invisible technologies part of this site. Why? I live with a group of rewilding people very intimately, constantly working through social dynamics that arise - i would be interested if there were more people with stories about what works/helps for living in a community, with hands on experience. Alot of the topics discussed in those invisible technologies areas seem too far into the realm of the intellectual for me. I come looking often for practical advice on my physical journey of rewilding, an enourmous part of which is shedding dependencies on civilization (primitive skills).
Urban Scout and Willem, I understand that what yall are excited about here has changed, but remember that rewilding is alot of things to alot of people - often when i read your writing Scout I am annoyed that you are taking ‘rewilding’ and trying to make your conception of it the official conception of it. The physical aspect of rewilding is immensely important as are the social and all other aspects.

A couple of thoughts, Willem.

First - when I visit your site, the words overwhelm me. I spend a lot of time on twitter these days where if you can’t say it in 140 characters or less, it can’t be said. This is helping me focus my consumption of information so I can get more for less.

Second - I have no idea what a Mythic Map of my surroundings might be, or how it pertains to rewilding, which seems to me to be a very tangible and practical. I’m open to learning, however.

When I first found this site, my immediate thought was that it was a natural match for The Garden Earth project which has the objective of regenerating the natural wild garden state of the planet - to restore and regenerate healthy habitats for humans and other species in urban areas, in suburbia, in rural areas and on ranges.

The more time I spend here, however, the more I think maybe not.

wow, i love Willem’s site! :

His writings are all very tightly interwoven materials, subjects and ideas. I can imagine it being hard to follow when you just “drop” into that web of ideas and writing he has spun. Check out some of his back-issue posts and you might get a more clear picture of what this mythic landscape can be.

the Internet age makes me a restless info-junkie as well, but sometimes it can be really worth it to dig into something real deep, you might find a handful of diamonds to take back with you.

take care!