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Wolf Journey Chapter 6 - Shape Shifting
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Touching the Deer story as experienced and told by Chrism to be uploaded ASAP.
My Deer Song written and performed by Chrism to be uploaded ASAP.
I Choose You music written by Leslie Lightfall to be uploaded ASAP.
To listen to these audio files, you may need the free RealOne Player if it's not already installed in your system. Inspirational Artwork by Nikki.
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Introduction & Contents:
• Field Exercise 6A - The Fox Walk
• Field Exercise 6B - Stalking and the Inch Worm
• Field Exercise 6C - Crawling Forms
• Field Exercise 6D - Owl Form & Camouflage
• Chapter 6 Celebration
Order a fine print - signed, numbered, limited edition on 6x9 or 8.5x11 of Joanna's Artwork - here with Serene Stevenson (referenced in Chapter 2 breathing exercise) as model.
For those of us who see spirituality in nature, it is critical that we actually go outside and interact with the plants, animals and elements of our neighborhood. Staying indoors and imagining the spirits of nature is a questionable endeavor. People will doubt our view of the spirit world if we cannot back up our beliefs with physical experience.
Going outside and experiencing the world as it was originally created, while also experiencing the modern world of industry and technology, is all part of the epoch in which we live. It’s worthless to try to explain the electronics of computers if we don’t know how to turn one on and send a message, just as our explanations of the plant, animal and elemental spirits will be fraught with error if we don’t know how to interact with them in the physical.
Not only is the imagination of plant and animal spirits questionable if we don’t really see them or experience their physical counterparts, but it may even be unhealthy. We need to go outside and make ourselves aware of nature on a regular basis, or else those nature spirits whom we encountered in the past become lost, or cause illness.
I remember opening doors to the spirit during wilderness quests, finding myself living with one foot in physical reality, and another in a beautiful spirit world of nature, where animals appeared like they were scripted. It was the most wonderful time of my life, and I felt closer to the Great Mystery than anytime before or since.
But as I sank further back into my work life over subsequent months and years, so too did my spiritual awareness and personal strength decrease. In fact, I sometimes felt that I was somewhat excarnated when I should have been grounded in the physical world where I live, and it seemed to cause unclear thinking and even illnesses.
Being excarnated is feeling "spacey" or not very aware of the earthly needs of those around us. This is not a healthy state of mind, in my opinion, for we live here in the physical world, during a time of dense materialism where few people can see into the spiritual world. And if we cannot see into the spiritual world all the time, then we need to be careful not to imagine it inaccurately.
Fundamental Christians say that following any other path than theirs is dangerous, for the "road to hell is paved with good intentions." But I say that instead of retreating into a "safe" box of beliefs, we must live fully into our physical world along with their spiritual counterparts, while at the same time making no assumptions about them. Like my music mentor Pat Lundquist said to me once, "asummption is the mother of all mess-ups" with one word change there.
One of the greatest mistakes I’ve made is placing an interpretation upon a what I saw as spiritual serendipity. These are examples of what it means to experience spirituality in the physical world, but unless we are extraordinarilly moral beings, we should be satisfied to simply observe, and not project my interpretation upon the experiences.
I can found that it can be risky to guess, and when serendipity happens, just give thanks, don’t place an interpretation upon it, and if you do, don’t assume that you are correct in your interpretation. We’ll know with a lot of hindsight if we were right, or after we’re dead and our life flashes clearly before our eyes.
Unfortunately, those of us who are drawn toward nature spirituality are nonetheless living in an era where most of the indigenous knowledge of animals and plants has been lost to history. There is nothing we can do about it. What we can do, however, is go outside, sit at the same place regularly, and get to know the species and elements that surround us there.
As you now know, a regular study site, or secret place, is critical for anyone to know nature, on any level. But sometimes it is difficult to see what is going on even there, especially since few of us have people in our lives who have real knowledge and experience in nature.
Nowadays, books are our mentors. Field guides, in combination with simple observation, note taking, and returning to the same spot repeatedly, will give us the experience we need to ground our spiritual beliefs here in the physical world. This process is critical for us to bring health back into the world’s environment, and to bring legitimacy back into nature-based spiritual practice.
Field Exercise 6A – The Fox Walk
Required Resource: Tom Brown field guide which has a description of the Fox Walk.
____After reading through the stories and description on Animal Forms, open your Tom Brown field guide and read a description of the Fox Walk. If it is at all confusing, call up your instructor and as for clarification.
____Dress in dark clothes today – greens, browns and blacks are best, since you'll be
wearing bright clothing might defeat the purpose of learning your first invisibility skills. Then, as always, go to the bathroom, take your first aid and sanitary supplies, and drink some water. Head toward your study site, practicing your Fox Walk the whole way.
At any time during this exercise, go ahead and take off your shoes. It's a lot easier
to fox walk barefoot or with thin-soled shoes that don't restrict the ankles. In addition, going barefoot will make you several times more silent, and effectively more invisible. Further, you will be in closer contact with the earth, much more aware of it and of all around you. At the least, find a nice lawn sometime to go barefoot on, since that is the easiest surface to learn on.
____When you get to your study site, pause to greet the area with thanks for the
lessons it is about to bestow upon you. Walk all around your study site area doing the Fox Walk at the same time you are doing your Owl Eyes, or in other words, employing your peripheral vision – "splatter vision" as Tom Brown might call it in his field guides. Remember not to look down unless something important catches your eye. Use your feet to see where they are going, and your eyes to see everything else. Take a good amount of time to prctice your Fox Walk in the terrain of your study site, which is probably more difficult than on a sidewalk or on the lawn, before going home.
____ But take a rest before you leave your study site, and reflect on whether you
moved through your area so silently that you were almost invisible, or undetectable to people if not birds and animals. Feel how your heart is beating, and whether everything seems very "loud" after you've opened up your senses so much in your effort to move with little impact while maintaining awareness of what's around you.
____Now shake off any oversensitivity in order to bring yourself back home into
society. Pound on the ground if you have to, then walk home in a way that seems natural to you at this point.
____Make a journal entry describing your experience, and be sure to list all the
pointers that you want to remind yourself to do in order to become better and better at the Fox Walk. Also journal the weather, animals and plants as normal. There is so very much to learn about the Fox Walk, because it is the single most important exercise you will practice to become a naturalist. Talk with others about the Fox Walk, and practice it with them. Ask them what they think is important about the Fox Walk, and you will probably hear something you never thought about it, even after doing it for years. So walk like this whenever you can, and soon it will become natural, and a barometer for your awareness.
At this time, we would like you to reflect on the importance of breaking up predictable
patterns in your goal to become invisible. If you go to your study site at the same time every day, the animals and the people will start to notice, with whatever effect that causes. Or think about animals: they recognize you by sound, but also by sight, seeing the patterns of your clothes, face, and body outline. Practice breaking up those patterns, and again, reflect on this in a figurative sense, too, and see if there are patterns in yourself and others that you'd like to journal about which may be stirring some grief in you.
Field Exercise 6B – Stalking & The Inch Worm
Required Resource: Tom Brown field guide with a description of the Stalking.
____Get out your Tom Brown field guide again and read a description of stalking. If it is at all confusing, call up your instructor and as for clarification.
____Get dressed in clothes you can get dirty, and ones that will keep you warm if
they get wet. Go to the bathroom, take your first aid and sanitary supplies, and drink some water. Head to your study site, practicing your Fox Walk.
____When you get to your study site, pause to greet the area with thanks for the lessons it is about to bestow upon you. Go to your Anchor Point in a very slow Fox Walk, using your Owl Eyes and Deer Ears this time.
____ When you get to your secre place, rest for a while, until things have fully settled down around you. Now, practice stalking a plant 15 feet from you, remembering to go slow as a tortoise, not showing your teeth, and trying whenever you remember to, to keep your Owl Eyes and Deer Ears in full gear. Remember, when you stalk, you are also vulnerable to being stalked up upon like any prey, so maintaining awareness about what is going on around you is critical while you focus at the same time on your own prey – that plant.
____Whenever you make a slight noise, freeze until you know all is calm again, then continue. Remember that successful stalking is slow, methodical, and refined. Undo speed is often the cause of failure. Rest upon reaching your plant.
____Now walk around your study site doing the Fox Walk, Owl Eyes, and
Deer Ears. As soon as you sense something like a bird or animal, assume your stalking pose and see how close you can get to it. Don't loose track of time today if you need to get back home, but continue until you have tried it a few times.
____Stalking is not always, or even usually, done on the feet. Often you will
need to be on your hands and knees, and perhaps even moreso, on your belly. So get down on your belly and try your next animal form – the Inch Worm. First find a patch of overgrown grass, or find an animal trail under some shrubs to help make the exercise easier to understand. What you do is crunch your arms under your chest, making fists and having them pointing forward just in front of your face. Flex your toes toward your shins and put them on the ground. Use your toes and your forearms to move you a couple inches forward slowly, then crunch your toes up toward your shins again, and carefully move your arms ahead to prepare for your next whole-body movement. Continue these steps over and over until you have gone through your grassy or shrubby area. Feel free to rest when-ever you want to – this is the luxury of the Inch Worm Animal Form – easy to rest.
____Take a rest before you leave your study site, and reflect on your level of invisibility, or silent movement in nature. Feel how your heart is beating, and whether everything seems very "loud". Shake off any oversensitivity in order to bring yourself back home into society. Again, pound on the ground if you have to, then walk home in a way that seems natural to you at this point.
____Make a journal entry describing your experience, and be sure to list all the pointers that you want to remind yourself to do in order to become better and better at stalking. Stalking takes a lot of practice. Practice with all your legged and winged friends, and with other students of nature to push each other in the development of your skills and awareness. Ask them what they think is important about stalking. In your journal, assess your success and how much you improved at stalking over the course of these couple hours. Rembember to journal the weather, animals and plants you witnessed.
Field Exercise 6C – Crawling Forms
2 hours plus hours finding a dog, cat, deer or horse, a rabbit or weasel, and a raccoon or other waddler to observe.
____You will be doing three kinds of movement on all fours during this Field Exercise. You will be "scissor walking" like animals with large head & shoulders and sleeker rear ends, "waddle walking" like animals with larger rear ends and relatively smaller heads, and "bounding" animals that generally have elongated bodies. So, to observe a "scissor walker" watch your own dog, cat, horse, or something else with proportional or longish legs. Then watch a raccoon or bear or wolverine or badger or something similarly shaped on T.V. or video or live to see them commonly "waddle walk". Then go find someone who has rabbits, or a ferret even though we don't like people having wild pets, to see how "bounding" looks.
____After you've done that preliminary research, get ready to mimic them yourself. First, gently stretch out, as if you are about to go running and lifting weights. Then get dressed in clothes you can get dirty, and ones that will keep you warm if they get wet. Go to the bathroom, take your first aid and sanitary supplies, and drink some water. Head toward your study site, practicing your Fox Walk, Owl Eyes, and Deer Ears, and Bear Nose the whole way.
____When you get to your study site, pause to greet the area with thanks for the lessons it is about to bestow upon you. Think of a fairly open place that will afford lots of your movement in your study site, and go there using your Fox Walk, Owl Eyes, Deer Ears, and Bear Nose to sense all that there is in the area without you effecting anything. See, moving through your area like that will allow you to observe all that is happening as if you weren't there, not how everything would be in response to your presence. So keep practicing.
____ When you get to the area where you've chosen to do your Animal Forms, relax and get ready, unless something else is more important, such as observing a cougar lounging in the lower branches of a tree nearby. Now, try walking in a straight line, like the deer usually do. Make sure one foot is placed directly in front of the previous like you are walking on a tight rope. When you are to the end of your steps, close your eyes and imagine that deer stepping exactly where you did, walking on that tight rope. One hint: it places its rear right hoof directly into the place where its front right hoof was just after it lifts up the front. Another hint: if its rear hooves follow directly into the track of its front, then it simply has to think about placing its front hooves in a straight line on that tightrope in order to pull of the feat, of creating tracks in a straight line as if it were hopping on one leg.
____ Now you get down and imitate the deer. It's easiest to be on your fists unless you have flexible wrists, and on your knees to make your rear "legs" the same length as your front "legs" (your arms). Your knees will be acting like the rear hooves, with your feet dangling as if they are not there. Your fists will be like front hooves.
Although your right rear hoof goes into your right front hoof track, you need to move opposite sides of the body at the same time – your right leg at the same time as your left arm – and placing that rear hoof just a millisecond after your front hoof lifts up. Thus, the term "scissor walk". Try to find your rhythm, since this Animal Form is easier if you keep moving smoothly.
____Okay. Rest if you need to. Now its time to "waddle walk". Stand up and walk that tight rope again, only now imagine it as a wide board. Swing your right arm forward as your right leg takes a step, and then your left arm with your left leg, like Frankenstein or something. Try it until you feel how you are waddling. Then stop, close your eyes, and imagine a bear doing the same thing. It's putting its right rear paw next to its left front paw as it steps, and then its left rear paw next to its right front paw as it continues, so it creates a track pattern of two tracks, a front and a rear, next to one another, and then the next set is opposite – left and right reversed.
____Now you get down and imitate the bear. It's best to keep your feet on the ground, so that your head angles toward the ground a bit like these waddle walkers must endure. Pause with each step if you need to at first. Take a rest after you feel you've got it.
____Now imagine a rabbit with your eyes closed. It has big, big rear paws and little front paws. Imaging it jumping by pushing off its rear legs, rising into the air, then descending onto its front paws first, maybe next to one another, or one in front of the other. Then here comes its big 'ol rear end with those big old feet. All those big feet can do are to fly up next to, or even in front of, its front feet, crunch-ing up its body until its rear legs are fully down, and then it can release its front paws from the ground and reach out, forward and up into the air for its next jump.
____ Your turn. This one is hard unless you are very flexible, and you have strong enough arms to take the weight of your landing, and strong enough legs to push off so your legs fly out in front of your hands when you land. Be careful not to injure yourself here, especially your wrists when landing, or your head in case you tip forward. Happy landings.
____Take a rest before you leave your study site, and send your awareness outward throughout the area again. Thank the land for supporting you in your fun, and head on home.
____Make a journal entry describing your experience, and draw each of these three animal forms in a diagram, pointing out the most important things you need to remember. Then for each, write down when you think each form might come in handy not only for that animal, but for you when you are learning to move efficiently in nature. Think of different terrain and vegetation, and different situations of tracking, searching, hunting, playing, studying, and exploring. Also remember to journal the weather, animals and plants you witnessed.
We expect that you will discover a lot of new things about your secret place, as well as about yourself, from the perspective of an animal. When you journal here or at the end of this chapter, you might consider pointing out all the new things you noticed from down on the ground, and make it a goal to observe all nature you come across from now on from may perspectives, to discover so much more.
Field Exercise 6D – Owl Form & Camouflage
____Take a look at your Tom Brown, Jr. field guide again, and read the section about camouflage. When you are done, go to the bathroom, take your first aid and sanitary supplies, and drink some water. Then take a half hour to gently stretch out. Get dressed in clothes you can get dirty, and ones that will keep you warm if they get wet. Head toward your study site, practicing your Fox Walk, Owl Eyes, and Deer Ears, and Bear Nose the whole way.
____When you get to your study site, pause to greet the area with thanks for the lessons it is about to bestow upon you. On your way to that place you were in the 3rd Field Exercise, keep your eyes peeled for things like mud, charred stumps, and light branches you could put on yourself to camouflage later. Remember to keep using your Fox Walk, Owl Eyes, Deer Ears, and Bear Nose to sense all that there is in the area without you changing anything.
____ When you get to the area where you've chosen to do your shape shifting, relax and get ready. Practice your Bear Form until it feels easier. After that, practice your Deer Form, the scissor walk which many people find harder to coordinate. Spend some time with it, until you feel you've improved a bit with it. Then do your Rabbit Form, and focus on making your landings as smooth as possible. This aspect of the Rabbit Form is very important today, since your Owl Form builds on that soft landing ability.
____ Now look around and find a log or rock or stump about 2-4 feet high. Get up on it and spread your wings like an owl. Imagine how incredibly silent owls are when they fly. It's not just when they fly either, that they are silent, but when they land as well. Their serrated feathers create perfect aero-dynamics when they fly, and when they land, they swoosh their wings forward like many birds, cupping the air to create a soft landing, only their feathers are so perfectly serrated in front, that almost no sound can be detected even when they land. Sometimes we hear them when they take off, as the branch they were on gets pushed down. But normally they just fall off their perch and catch the air, creating virtually no sound even upon take-off. Keep imagining that owl just flying though the air now, perfectly silent and aero-dynamic, with your eyes closed, and your Deer Ears in full gear, since that's what the owl relies on in the dark – perfect and precise hearing.
____Time now to jump down. Well, actually it's more like falling gradually off your perch to maintain silence. Your arms are still outstretched to the side, almost behind you, with your hands high, a bit above your shoulders. Just before you land, cup those arms down like lightning, ending in a hug. If done at the precise milli-second, this will create backward momentum, which will silence your landing, just like the owl does. Keep your hands cupped, and try it over and over. Remember to always start with your eyes closed up on your perch, imagining that you are an owl. Fall off with wings perfectly spread up and out, and then gracefully but like lightning, cup the air at the perfect time, and end up hugging yourself, squatting on the ground, and noticing if you made less noise than the last time.
____Okay. Take a rest. Take time to feel what your body is doing on the inside, and let your heart rate return to normal. Then extend your awareness again outward using your sensory awareness. Look around for where you will find the best camouflage. Take time to roll in the mud, or paint yourself with charcoal - that's the burnt, black stuff left over on stumps from forest fires. Find some downed ferns or other branches, and secure them over your head and around your body to break up your outline – which is what catches the eye most – lines on the edges of your clothes or body.
____When you are camoued-up, choose your favorite animal form, and begin moving through your study site area in that way. Change your animal form if the terrain demands it, like getting down from the Fox Walk into the Deer Form to go under hanging branches, for instance. Keep your Senses Meditation in full gear, and spend as much time as you have doing this. Whenever you see a bird or animal you'd like to stalk, go ahead. One hint, however, if you haven't noticed this already, is that when the birds notice you sneaking around, they just might start making a racket. Animals can feel your intentions, too, so use your Third Ear to let them all know you aren't planning to hurt them, thus having them help you remain invisible.
____Eventually it will be time to clean up. Do your very best to remove all traces of your camouflage before you even think of exiting your study site where someone can see you. No need to worry them. Take a moment when you feel you are presentable enough to head home, to take a look at the sights, hear the sounds, smell the odors, and feel the sensations on the periphery of your study site. Thank the land for supporting you in your fun, and head on home.
____Make a journal entry describing your experience. Include a description of what camouflage worked the best for you, and draw the Owl Form in a diagram, pointing out the most important things you need to remember. Mention when you think the Owl Form might come in handy, such as in a survival situation. And as always, journal very briefly the weather, animals and plants you witnessed.
Repeat any or all of these field exercises until you feel like you've begun to embody the Fox Walk, one of the Crawling Forms, and Stalking, and Jumping/Landing softly. Each time, journal your experience, plus the weather, animals, and plants you witness. When you feel like you've come to know the contents of this chapter well enough to move into tracking, do the chapter summary and go on!
Chapter 6 Celebration
After you've read the introductory Invisibility & Animal Forms information, then done the 4 Field Exercises, read this page, follow its directions, and deliver the summary to your instructor.
____Prepare to go to your secret place, and visit it with no agenda besides having an attitude of wandering, whether you remain in one spot or move around. Then complete this chapter summary.
____Make a new map of your study site. We expect there will be some more detail in your map after you got down and crawled around the area in your animal forms exercises, discovering it from a whole new perspective. Have your map reflect in some way the new world you discovered down on the ground.
____Complete a written Thanksgiving Address journal entry.
____After practicing the Shape Shifting Field Exercises at your study site, write a short description of your combined experiences. You may want to describe what feelings came up for you, fears, happiness, sadness, wonder, and more. This may be the point at which you journal about the patterns you might discover in yourself that we briefly asked you to reflect upon at the end of the introductory essays in this chapter.
____Set goals for yourself regarding animal forms that you are confident you can achieve. What do you wish to learn, experience, gain from practicing this skill?
____Note in writing anything you liked, or saw needs editing, in this chapter of the Naturalist Mentoring curriculum.
____Give the following written information to your instructor:
o The new map of your study site.
o Your written Thanksgiving Address
o Your journal entries from Field Exercises 6C & 6D
o Your summary of experiences with Shape Shifting
o The written goals you have set for yourself
o Your written evaluation of this chapter
Index to Wolf Journey (chapters currently uploaded)
• Introduction to Part One - Skills of the Naturalist
• Chapter 1 - Your Secret Place.
• Chapter 2 - Fears & Hazards.
• Chapter 3 - Sensory Awareness.
• Chapter 4 - Sketching & Journaling.
• Introduction to Part Two - Skills of the Tracker
• Chapter 5 - Humans and the Hidden Wilderness.
• Chapter 6 - Shape Shifting.
• Chapter 7 - Mammal Mysteries.
• Chapter 8 - Bird Vocalizations.
• Introduction to Book 3 - Skills of the Herbalist
• Chapter 9 - Caretaking Nature.
• Wolf Journey Handbook for Students & Teachers.
• Chapter 30: Glossary of Terms.
• Chapter 31: Outings Checklists.
• Chapter 32: Understanding Taxonomy.
• Remaining chapters to be uploaded asap.
Wolf Journey is available free online, although donations to the WOLF Foundation - Max Davis Scholarships for earth skills education are requested with the suggested amount of $1.00 per chapter or set of recordings you utilize, with checks payable to the WOLF Foundation, c/o Scott A. Davis, CPA, 103 E Holly #401, Bellingham, WA 98225, or by calling us at 360-799-1997 with your visa or mastercard. An alternative way to contribute is to become a WOLF Booster which gives you the additional benefits of board membership and complimentary access to the Wolf Camp property on Woods Lake. The latter alternative requires completing a property use form. Books and other resources which you will need for successful completion of field exercises throughout Wolf Journey can be purchased through our camp store once it is up and running. In the meantime, we recommend purchasing through Tom & Renee Elpel's wonderful online Granny's Country Store or simply email them at orders@grannysstore.com or call 406-287-3605 to order. We offer this book series as a correspondence course for Wolf Camp alumni and as part of our Summer Camps & School Year Classes and Residential Intensives & Training Camps curricula, but if you would like an instructor to guide you while studying these skills in your own area, we recommend clicking on PrimitiveSkillsLinks.Com to find an earth skills specialist near you who can personally review your field exercises and journaling work. Other schools and outdoor instructors who would like to use this curriculum for their own classes, mentoring, etc, are free to do so. We would appreciate donations, or having your students donate, to the WOLF Foundation as described above. As a supplement to (or instead of) completing the Wolf Journey book series, we also recommend signing up for the Kamana Naturalist Training Program through the Wilderness Awareness School which inspired many of our own field exercises. They can offer academic credit, and they specialize in correspondence mentoring no matter where a student is located.
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