Touching the Earth – Fire and Shelter

Touching the Earth - The kids'll love it!

A great way to start the Christmas holidays and get out in the woods.

Touching the Earth – Fire and Shelter day

13th December

Two of the most important priorities when living outdoors to ensure you are warm and comfortable are shelter and fire.

On the Natural Pathways Fire and Shelter day, the whole family will build your very own shelter using just what the woodland provides. A great way to get the kids outdoors and a bit of nature under the fingernails. You’ll also learn how to light a roaring fire and keep it going – without matches!

If you fancy going down to the woods – you can find more details here.

Oh, and watch out for the bears!!!

[Teddy bears that is ]

 

Autumn Harvest – Pine Sap

Autumn brings with it an abundance of foods. The woods are alive with the dash to get ready for winter. The forest floor is covered in a carpet of sweet chestnuts and hazelnuts. The perfect feast for small mammels. Scurryings and scuttlings, a nibble here, a cache there.

And deep in the woods, wounds on the pine trees bleed sap down their bark.

 

Autumn Harvest – Fly Agaric

Autumn brings with it an abundance of foods. The woods are alive with the dash to get ready for winter. The forest floor is covered in a carpet of sweet chestnuts and hazelnuts. The perfect feast for small mammels. Scurrying and scuttlings, a nibble here, a cache there.

Surrounded by this maelstrom, the Fly Agaric slowly spreads its spores.

 

Ancient Technology: Flint Knapping

Flint Arrow Head

Will Lord, the UK’s top flint knapping expert, has been bringing ancient technologies alive since 1975. His courses are always eagerly awaited down at Natural Pathways.

Learning how to master the basics of flint knapping such as pressure flaking, notching, stemming and fluting can open up a whole world of natural possibilities. Working with living stone can be mesmerising while also creating something of practical beauty, just like our ancestors.

Will Lord - The UK's Master Flint Knapper

Humans have been using flint based tools for millennia, it is only over the last 2,500 years that we have lost this knowledge. Bringing this ancient technology back to life re-opens the connections we have to the earth.

Come and join us and see how the living rock can be transformed into tools so necessary for our ancestors survival. The next flint knapping course in the heart of the Kent woodland is on November 7th. More details and booking can be found here.

 

Bushcrafting in the Rain

So it rained. A torrential downpour from mid-afternoon till around 11pm. Embers hissed before dying in the main fire pit – but we were prepared. A parachute became our tipi; another fire pit was dug and before long dinner was bubbling away in the potje.

 

Environmental Education is “our way to the future”

Direct experience of nature promotes sustainable lifestyles

“…empowering individuals to restore and maintain the Earth’s natural systems, it also supports the well-being of future generations by promoting sustainable lifestyles.” John Aquilina

The most sustainable lifestyle is to live completely with the land, an integrated part of this wild system we call nature. But we can’t all run off and live in the woods (as much as I’d like to!). To save the world, we need to save ourselves first. And to save ourselves – we need to get outside and play.

 

Alone in the Wild

Did anyone watch Alone in the Wild? Ed Wardle dropped off in the Yukon’s “unforgiving wilderness” with the aim of surviving alone, with basic provisions, until winter. He lasted 50 days.

 

Water – Basics

Essential for life on Earth

Apache Indians and many other indigenous cultures around the world regarded water as the Earth Mother’s blood. They afforded it great respect and prevented polluting the lakes and rivers. During modern times this respect has all but disappeared.

Many of our rivers and lakes are polluted through the works of industry, agriculture and many other “benefits” of modern living.

 

Bushcrafting: The Spiritual Connection

Awakening the senses to feel the energy and power of nature is not a prerequisite of the Natural Pathways Bushcraft courses, but quite often it’s an inevitable result.

 

Bushcraft For Business

Our ancestors had to work in strong teams to ensure the survival of individuals and the community. Without this abiding sense of teamwork, early modern humans may not have survived. Wilderness and survival situations provide a perfect opportunity to nurture a team’s spirit.