Post by Feral Wolf on May 27, 2010 11:09:30 GMT -7
Wild Roots Feral Futures Organizers’ Report Back
The process of returning from the wilderness to civilization—of “re-entry”—is never a pleasant or easy one. As we leave the free and Wild Earth behind us and return to the shackles of an omnicidal system, we reflect upon the lessons learned and the face-to-face relationships built in the process, as well as our role as insurgents within the heart of the empire. Our hearts look forward to returning to the freedom of the forest.
First, we would like to thank all the organizers, affinity group members, teachers, trainers, musicians, storytellers, wisdom keepers, and other attendees that made this event possible and successful. We couldn’t have done it without you!
For our part as “organizers” (a label we use with reservations) and participants, Feral Futures was an experiment in temporary autonomy conducted with minimal experience, from which great lesson have been drawn. As organizers we feel that we have learned a lot about networking and organizing such events, and despite our shortcomings and outright failures, we know we can only improve from here. Primarily, we seek to expend our collective to ease the burden on individual collective members. Please contact feralfutures@riseup.net if you would like to help organize future gatherings.
Workshops included self-defense, rabbit stick, the art of fire-making (bow drill, etc.), stalking, camouflage, wild edible/medicinal identification, sustainable harvesting, and preparation, cordage and slings, shelter, stone tools, star & moon gazing, humanure (human composting), and more. We are also very grateful to have had the Earth First! Roadshow stop by, who conducted trainings and workshops in areas varying from direct action to facilitation and consensus, from tree climbing to anti-oppression and security culture. Discussions around issues such as the revolutionary redistribution of resources (FNB, etc.), local struggles such as the Village at Wolf Creek, Desert Rock, Black Mesa, the San Francisco Peaks, indigenous resistance and solidarity, climate, wilderness, biodiversity, justice, and sustainability also took place, as well as political prisoner letter writing sessions.
More important that the specific skills learned and issues discussed are the real-life and face-to-face connections and relationships build with one another and our land base. For those who live in the area, intimacy with the immediate land base may have been, to a certain degree, pre-existent. But for those hailing from elsewhere, the task is now to return home, wherever that may be, and familiarize oneself with the land where they live.
A major area of needed improvement—on our part, as organizers—is getting more solid commitments for workshops, trainings, etc., beforehand. In retrospect, the momentum would also be sustained better throughout a quarter moon gathering, rather than a half moon gathering. The half moon cycle timeframe was good in that it allowed greater temporal flexibility for folks to attend, but bad in that it also dispersed attendance throughout time rather than concentrating it for a shorter period. Next year’s Feral Futures will thus take place for a quarter moon cycle, or one week.
Wild Roots Feral Futures aspires to become a decentralized, global rewilding collective as well as an annual gathering, if not more often and in various bioregional locales around Wild Earth. We invite and encourage other Wild Earthlings to create Feral Futures in your neck of the woods. Please contact feralfutures@riseup.net if you would like to help organize future gatherings.
We would also like to solicit attendees for feedback, critiques, criticisms, etc., so that we can more effectively learn from this experience and incorporate those lessons into our praxis for future organizing.
Stay Wild & Free…
—Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers' collective, Wild Earth
The process of returning from the wilderness to civilization—of “re-entry”—is never a pleasant or easy one. As we leave the free and Wild Earth behind us and return to the shackles of an omnicidal system, we reflect upon the lessons learned and the face-to-face relationships built in the process, as well as our role as insurgents within the heart of the empire. Our hearts look forward to returning to the freedom of the forest.
First, we would like to thank all the organizers, affinity group members, teachers, trainers, musicians, storytellers, wisdom keepers, and other attendees that made this event possible and successful. We couldn’t have done it without you!
For our part as “organizers” (a label we use with reservations) and participants, Feral Futures was an experiment in temporary autonomy conducted with minimal experience, from which great lesson have been drawn. As organizers we feel that we have learned a lot about networking and organizing such events, and despite our shortcomings and outright failures, we know we can only improve from here. Primarily, we seek to expend our collective to ease the burden on individual collective members. Please contact feralfutures@riseup.net if you would like to help organize future gatherings.
Workshops included self-defense, rabbit stick, the art of fire-making (bow drill, etc.), stalking, camouflage, wild edible/medicinal identification, sustainable harvesting, and preparation, cordage and slings, shelter, stone tools, star & moon gazing, humanure (human composting), and more. We are also very grateful to have had the Earth First! Roadshow stop by, who conducted trainings and workshops in areas varying from direct action to facilitation and consensus, from tree climbing to anti-oppression and security culture. Discussions around issues such as the revolutionary redistribution of resources (FNB, etc.), local struggles such as the Village at Wolf Creek, Desert Rock, Black Mesa, the San Francisco Peaks, indigenous resistance and solidarity, climate, wilderness, biodiversity, justice, and sustainability also took place, as well as political prisoner letter writing sessions.
More important that the specific skills learned and issues discussed are the real-life and face-to-face connections and relationships build with one another and our land base. For those who live in the area, intimacy with the immediate land base may have been, to a certain degree, pre-existent. But for those hailing from elsewhere, the task is now to return home, wherever that may be, and familiarize oneself with the land where they live.
A major area of needed improvement—on our part, as organizers—is getting more solid commitments for workshops, trainings, etc., beforehand. In retrospect, the momentum would also be sustained better throughout a quarter moon gathering, rather than a half moon gathering. The half moon cycle timeframe was good in that it allowed greater temporal flexibility for folks to attend, but bad in that it also dispersed attendance throughout time rather than concentrating it for a shorter period. Next year’s Feral Futures will thus take place for a quarter moon cycle, or one week.
Wild Roots Feral Futures aspires to become a decentralized, global rewilding collective as well as an annual gathering, if not more often and in various bioregional locales around Wild Earth. We invite and encourage other Wild Earthlings to create Feral Futures in your neck of the woods. Please contact feralfutures@riseup.net if you would like to help organize future gatherings.
We would also like to solicit attendees for feedback, critiques, criticisms, etc., so that we can more effectively learn from this experience and incorporate those lessons into our praxis for future organizing.
Stay Wild & Free…
—Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers' collective, Wild Earth