Four seasons of bushcraft

This is your chance to step away from the busyness of modern life and technology and come in to deeper connection and slowing down with ancestral skills. Join us one weekend a season for this wonderfully connective journey.

WINTER - build a relationship with fire skills and the way they can support us. (4-6 October)
SPRING - is about bird language, listening to the concentric rings of nature. (22-24 November)
SUMMER - takes us bush with natural shelters. (tbc)
AUTUMN - brings alive a whole new world of tracking. Reading the stories left on the earth. (tbc)

FIRE

We like to look at fire as a relationship. Anyone should be able to light a fire with a lighter, and if we make that fire big enough then we can get it's warmth for a while without doing anything more. When we come in to relationship with fire there is much more to it than light and sit.

Imagine the relationship needed with the knife and the wood that allows us to make a friction fire set. Then feel into your body and know how it needs to be positioned in order to turn the spindle to create the friction to create the dust to create the ember, that first sign of life.

That's big relationship, that's what we know. And it's only just begun.

Now you have an ember, a living coal. Now imagine the relationship with the plants that allows you to make a tinder bundle ready to receive this new born hope of a fire. Enter the breath of life, your breath, what a delicious gentle relationship is formed in that moment of bringing breath to a new born coal in a soft bed of tinder to nurture and coax out of all this the birth of a flame.

Wow. And it's only just begun. Because now you have to have the relationship with the kindling and the larger sticks in order to feed this fire up so that it in turn can feed and nurture you, the warmth, the gentle crackling, the smell, the release at a cellular level that connects back through time to all our ancestors.

This is fire.

Logistics

When: Arriving from 5pm Friday, start with 6.30pm dinner.

Where: Human Bushcraft and Wild Living, 57 Parenga Road, Otaki Gorge

Price: $350 (all food included). $100 deposit payable now, remainder payable on the weekend.

What to bring:

A note pad and pen,
A torch/headlamp
A tent and sleeping bag & mat
Appropriate clothing (that can get dirty). Warm gears for this time of year.
A drink bottle and a few snacks
Rain jacket, togs and towel(the river is right there and great swimming)
Any personal medication

We provide all organic food but you may want to bring your favourite snacks.

Tell us as soon as you can if you have any dietary requirements so we can try to meet them.

We have a few extra basic sleeping mats if anyone needs one. Please call us with any questions. We look forward to sharing with you.

We keep this land free of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, vaping, and cell phones. You are welcome to use you phone as a camera but we ask that you have turned off the rest of the time. We do have coffee and tea.

Health and Happiness,

Steve and Jenny