coyotes guide chapter 3
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
1/37
23
(Chapter 3)
Core Routines o NatureConnection
Remembering Original Instructions
Some etymology:
Instruct In + Struare = to pile inEducate Ex + Ducere = to lead outCultivate From Colere = to dwell in, cherish
The Core Routines o Nature Connections are things people
do to learn natures ways. They arent lessons. They arentknowledge. They are learning habits.
Luckily or us as nature guides, shiting our mental habits
into these Core Routines o Nature Connection comes as
second nature to all human beings. This way o knowing
was not born a ew hundred years ago, or even with the rise
o civilization thousands o years ago. Rather than inorming,our teaching job educates ourselves and those we mentor todiscover what the Haudenosaunee people call our original
instructions. Humans evolved with original instructionsdesigned or dynamic awareness o nature. I we can inspire
practice o these Core Routines, remembering our original
instructions will happen on its own.
Decades o experimentation and wide-ranging research with
people in the orests and elds, deserts and coasts, as well as
dialogue with elders rom many traditions, have culminated
in the list o Core Routines ound here. They belong to no
culture in particular, but are universal, belonging to all who
live on the Earth.
These routines are the underlying practices we inspire and
acilitate people into doing whenever they go outdoors. They
rest beneath all structured and seemingly unstructured lessons
or activities, whether we engage one-on-one or students
cruise the trails by themselves. Routines will work magically
with reedom to come and go as they please like the tides
and the seasons. Some routines will jump to the oreront,
begging to be practiced, while others ade in emphasis. Each
human being comes into this world with an ancient blueprint
Secret Spot Prose, written byEarth Arts youth, Ithaca, NY
The Song o Nature
Most people do not
hear the song o nature,
but, i you sit in a special place,
and notice everything
around you,
sometimes you hear it.Its not like hearing a bird
sing, or bees buzz,
Its rather a song o
understanding,
warmth, and eeling, and
not o notes and words
So, have you heard the
song o nature?
Addy Davido, age 8
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
2/37
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
3/37
25
This Tree
This tree has been livingor one hundred years,
through snowstorms, stand-
ing so broad and old.
I you listen you will hear
her words o long ago
and hear about the children
that played under her
when she was only a sapling
and she will also tell you about
the little amily o doves
that lived in her or
so many years
and how one o her
branches ell o
when she was playing tag
with her riend the wind.
I you sit there long
enough, shell also
tell you about her story.
Sierra Helmann, age 7
It seems those days all youhad was the seat o your
pants. Thats how they like to
tell it anyway . You didnt
just open a book and teach.
You by god were the book,
outront in all ways, blunt and
dogeared and coverless.
Paul Hunter, oreword to Headmasteron a Bulldozer, Building a School
rom the Ground Up, by Ellen Haas
or connecting with the natural world that has its own
timetable or learning. Let it fow.
SOME Core Routines o Nature Connection
On the remaining pages we describe thirteen Core Routines.
Our list is not THE denitive Core Routines o Nature
Connection. Up until now, many aliated organizations
and teachers have shared Core Routines as part o a liquid,
ever-changing body o oral tradition. We picked thirteen we
all agree will be the most helpul or readers o this book.
This chapter transmits the spirit o these routines, what they
are and why they are important. Further on in the book,
youll see these routines reerred to, especially in the Book
o Nature. In the Activities section called Introducing Core
Routines, youll nd specic ways to start up these practices.But or now, sit back, relax, and let the unique moods and
favors o these Core Routines o Nature Connection wash
over you and into you.
As you read, see i you can nd versions o these routines
within your own childhood or adult lie, or in the stories o
your riends, amily, or heroes. You might be surprised. Ater
all, these are the heritage o all us human-olk.
Sit Spot
Sit Spot in a Nutshell:
Find one place in your natural world that you visit all
the time and get to know it as your best riend. Let this
be a place where you learn to sit stillalone, oten, and
quietlybeore you playully explore beyond. This will
become your place o intimate connection with nature.
The Magic Pill
Our core o the Core Routines begins with the Sit Spot,
the heart o this mentoring model. Its the magic pill i ever
there was one. Because weve seen it, time and time again,
to be so vital and enchanting to the lie o both young and
old children, well take a ew more words here than with the
other routines, to make sure we pass on the soul o the Sit
Spot routine.
The idea is simple: guide people to nd a special place in
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
4/37
nature and then become comortable with just being there,
still and quiet. In this place, the lessons o nature will seep
in. Sit Spot will become personal because it eels private and
intimate; the place where they meet their curiosity; the place
where they eel wonder; the place where they get eye-to-eye
with a diversity o lie-orms and weather-patterns; the place
where they ace their earso bugs, o being alone, o the
darkand grow through them; and the place where theymeet nature as their home.
The Sit Spot routine was the heart o Jon Youngs early men-
toring by tracker Tom Brown Jr. With Tom coaching rom a
distance, questioning and inspiring. Jon visited one spot by
himsel nearly every day or seven years. Jon says today that
his Sit Spot in the orest near his New Jersey home had more
to do with his development as a human being, not to mention
as a naturalist, than anything else. The place will orever be a
part o him. His relationship with that place was the pebblethrown in the pond that started Wilderness Awareness School
and all its concentric rings.
The Essential Attitude o Sit Spot
The essential attitude o this routine grows to know one place
really wellone biome, one community o soils and plants
and animals and trees and birds and weather systemsat
all times o day and night, and in every season and weather.In other words, the place becomes your nesting niche, your
study site, your tracking playground, and your retreat and
renewal center. The Spot itsel becomes the home base rom
which you explore outwardwhere you leave your upright
human sel behind and get down and crawl on hands and
knees, raccoon style, to sni and eel around.
While it is very important to have ones own ot-visited Sit
Spot, we can apply the attitude o Sit Spot to any place
with similar ecological eatures, not just our own specialplace. The place eels o amiliarity, relationship, and
in-depth knowledge, and when you go to it your attitude
overfows with childlike curiosity, discovery, and uninhibited
playulness.
Sitting Still
The other part to this routine is about sitting, about stillness.
On the simplest level, to sit silent and still or a long periodo time will slip open the door o a world that most humans
As time went by, Irealized that
the particular place I had chosen
was less important than the actthat I had chosen a place and
ocused my lie around it... What
makes a particular place special
is the way it buries itsel inside
the heart, not whether its fat or
rugged, rich or austere, wet or
arid, gentle or harsh, warm or
old, wild or tame. Every place,
like every person, is elevated
by the love and respect shown
toward it, and by the way in
which its bounty is received.
Richard K Nelson,
The Island Within
Dont Kill The Sit Spot!
We have seen parents become
militant about their childrens Sit
Spot time: You cant eat your
desert unless youve been to your
Sit Spot! Please do not do this!
The Sit Spot works becauseo magic. As soon as it be-
comes a chore or a punish-
ment, the magic dies. Use
cleverness to get them there,
not the crack o a whip.
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
5/37
27
never know: the private world o wild animals and the language o the birds. Sunrise
and Sunset are especially magical times, when wildlie actively pulses with lie. Once
you sit quietly long enough, the birds sort o shrug you o and accept the act that
youre there, and there or good. As they return to their daily tasks, a previously hid-
den dimension o your landscape opens up.
Wild animalsweasels, raccoons, bobcats, owls, or exampleknow the patterns o
human activity and move out to its edge to go unseen. Sitting still initiates you intotheir undomesticated realm, a wild place that plays by dierent rules than the human
world. By being a quiet, unobtrusive guest, you will come to know the Jungle Law,
and learn to make yoursel welcome again, as an accepted member o the natural
community.
Sneaking into Sit Spot time
We never want to orce people into going to their Sit Spot as i it were an assignment.
Instead, we subtly guide them there by wisely playing games that build up their com-ort level, telling inspiring Sit Spot stories, and asking questions about the activities
o squirrels and birds and dandelions. I you, the mentor, also spend time in your own
Sit Spot and tell resh stories about what happened earlier this very morning, then o
course your stories provide an invaluable role modeling tool.
Many o the activities here are games that will help us lead people into the Sit Spot
routine in a roundabout, unconscious way. Hiding or sneaking games require stillness
or long periods while crouching in a bush, or lying silently on the ground. With the
adrenaline o a game rushing through, students hardly noticed the bugs crawling over
their skin and soon a new comort level in nature emerges.
Finding the Right Spot
We recommend you nd a good spot near water, shelter, and ood or wildlie, that
you can get to easily and oten without doing damage to a ragile landscape, with
little danger o predators or other hazards.
But this can be ound almost anywhere. Our editor, Ellen Haas, has an elderly mother
who takes endless delight in observing the birds eed, the ducks breed, the butterfies
emerge, and the bees pollinate rom her spot on her patio o a Dallas retirement
community. City dwellers can nd vacant lots, ditches o the local baseball elds, or
sidewalk gardens that, i invested with quiet attention, brim with wild lie. Folks who
live in wild landscapes ull o ticks or bears or snakes can nd sae paths and shelters
rom which to bathe in their wilderness. And or young children, help them nd little
places in the back yard where they can be sae and still and alert and enchanted. Its
not about the quality o the spot; its about the quality o attention within it.
Our our-year Kamana Naturalist Training Program is predicated on visiting a Sit Spot
daily, so thousands o our riends have established regular Sit Spot routines. We couldgo on or pages with their powerully appreciative testimony. It is amazing, however,
what terrible wailing and lamentation go on in the beginning as each individual tries
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
6/37
to nd the perect spot. In the end, i all our kinder guidance ails, we advise, I you
cant be with the one you love, love the one youre with.
Hitting Cruise Control
I we can get people going to a Sit Spot near their home on a regular basis then the
learning journey takes on a lie o its own. Weve hit cruise control at that point, then
we simply and eagerly listen to their stories, ask questions about subtleties, and send
them on errands that deepen the complexity o the Sit.
I remember one o my seven-year-old students, Mira: her parents told me that she
hardly ever spent time outdoors, and then only when accompanied by her parents.
For a ew months, we played a lot o those comort-enhancing games, and then Miras
parents came to me with a new story rom home.
Whenever Mira gets home now, she doesnt say a word, she just puts her stu down
and runs outside to the back yard and into the trees. She stays out there or hours
all by hersel. We see her sometimes: she sits or a while, she climbs trees, she goes
around looking at things. Beore she wouldnt go out alonenow its hard to get her
to come inside!
Even my own mother, whom you would denitely not consider the outdoorsy type,
conded in me a couple o years ago: I had a Sit Spot, too, when I was a child. There
was an oak tree in our back yard, and everyday I would get home rom school and run
out to sit under that tree. Sometimes I would read a book, other times I would just sit,
thinking, taking in the world around me.
Wheres Your Sit Spot?
Think back through your lie and, ultimately to your childhood, and see i you have
or have ever had a Sit Spot routine. You might be surprised. Children seem, without
ever being told, to instinctively nd a place o their own that they gravitate to and
make their outside home. As a kid, a gnarled old tree in my neighbors yard that
was easy to climb, secluded and sheltered, and served to give me a view o the land
around me. Many adults keep up a similar practice all through their lives. It may be
the window by their bird eeder, the bench behind the tool shed, or the place where
they take their break rom work. Wheres yours?
Story o the Day
Story o the Day in a Nutshell
Ater spending time in nature, tell the story o your day. Tell your story verbally
with others, or by writing or drawing in a journal.
Well say it one more time, so you cant say we didnt hammer it home: the Sit Spot
routine is essential. But equally important to the development o sensory awareness
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
7/37
29
and knowledge o place, the Story o the Day assists as its
complementary twin, its primary dance partner. Every human
already understands and practices this core routine.
The Custom o Storytelling
Growing up, I remember routinely telling stories with my
amily. We would sit around the dinner table at the end o the
day and share what happened at work or school. My parents
would question me or more details about what I had learned,
and Id question them, too. Our stories varied: they could be
somber, exciting, or sometimes get us laughing so hard wed
choke on our peas. Here, we emphasize the dierence as a
Core Routine by telling experiences with nature.
A staple practice o hunters and gatherers around the world,
storytelling knit the society together. The men would go outor a day o tracking and hunting, while grandmothers and
children might harvest berries, root vegetables, or bark to
make thread and cloth. Around the re at night they would
gather and report the stories o their days. This exchange o
stories seems to be very important to humans. For millennia,
survival depended on inormation gained about ood sources
and other patterns in the landscape.
Story o the Day In GroupsA classic orm o Story o the Day breaks everyone into
small groups. You go out or adventures or a while and then
reconvene to exchange the stories o each groups discoveries.
These stories move our emotions, entertain us, and can easily
turn a wet, cold, hungry experience into a memorable drama.
To invite children to tell their stories to one another, we
share many old tricks. You will learn them as you go. Circling
up, quieting down, listening to each other, passing a talkingstick, loosening stuck tongues, tightening loose tongues,
drawing stories on a collective map: all these will come with
practice and amiliarity.
You can invite adults to tell their stories in a great variety o
ways, some using art, some using computers, on-line orums,
list-serve groups, graphic arts, songs, skits and just plain
storytelling. Grownup storytelling produces great energy.
People laugh hard, they cry, they sing, and then they sleep
well at night with smiles on their aces. We always getinsightul eedback rom their story-o-the-day sessions.
Natural history writers are
storytellers. Scientists are
storytellers. Scientists live anddie by their ability to depart
rom the tribe and go out into
an unknown terrain and bring
back, like a carcass newly
speared, some discovery or new
act or theoretical insight and
lay it in ront o the tribe; and
then they all gather and dance
around it. Symposia are held
in the National Academy oSciences and prizes are given.
There is undamentally no
dierence rom a Paleolithic
campsite celebration.
E.O. Wilson, in Writing
Natural History, Dialogues WithAuthors, by Edward Lueders
Language clothes Nature,
as the air clothes the earth,
taking the exact orm and
pressure o every object.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
My grandmother laid theoundation or rog-catching
and shing. Grandma knew
her role. Her role was to
catch my stories. With a
grandmother to come home
to, there were a lot o things
to see and learn and gather.
JY
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
8/37
Then, the very next day they go out on the trail vigorously
gathering more stories to tell.
Sharing stories with others builds a collective knowledge
much greater than the isolated experience o one person. We
can gain a storehouse o inormation rom others stories: one
saw rogs by the pond with bright red legs; one made rope
out o old dead cedar bark; one snuck up on coyotes andaplodontias living in the woods near the pond. Storytelling
layers knowledge slowly built up over time, as a living oral
library.
Sharing our personal stories inspires us on urther. Group
sharing arms everyones amazing experiences in nature can
be accessible to all. I Danny can catch a rog or Samantha
can touch a deer, well then, why cant I? Curiosity, our great-est resource or learning, becomes contagious. I you listen to
someone tell about catching the rog by the most beautiulpond just down the street, you just might want to go there
soon. Or maybe you wonder, now that weve mentioned it,
who ever heard o an aplodontia?
This constant pouring o individual experience and knowl-
edge into a collective pot or the community unveils one
o the great advantages to group learning. Many people
recognize the value o and crave such a learning community.
As participants begin to trust that there will be a constant
rhythm to this routine, that they will get many chances totell their stories, the momentum builds into a palpable group
zeal at storytelling time. Age matters not. All people respond
to this cycle o learning and sharing in a magical way.
Story o the DayFor One
I not in a group setting, stories can be told to a journal. With
young children this might be done through drawing or art, or
dictating to you, the writer. Again, we share many tricks orthis which may depend on your skills and the skills objectives
o your program.
Older youth can journal tracks they nd in the eld, or
write about Sit Spot experiences, keeping weekly Field
Inventories, as students do in the Kamana Naturalist Training
Program. I you like to inspire sketching and drawing, let
it be in the spirit o expressing a story rather than coloring
inside the lines. I you love how words clothe experience,
you can guide people into nding strong and vivid words andways to unold all the sensory input o their moment in time.
The Pipes o Pan sound early
beore the sense o wonder is
dulled, while the world is
wet with dew and still resh
as the morning . The
look o wide-eyed delight in
the eyes o a child is proo
enough o its presence.
I heard (the Pipes o Pan) in
many places as a child, but
one o the best was an alder
thicket where I used to hide, a
veritable jungle that had never
been cleared. The swamp began
just beyond the garden ence
and I went there oten, bur-
rowing my way through the
maze into its very center.There I had ashioned a nest on
a dry little shel. It was cozy
and warm, and like any hidden
creature I lay there listening
and watching. Rabbit run-
ways ran through it and birds
sang in the branches around
me . The alder swamp was
my reuge and no one came
there but me. Only Motherknew, and she understood it
was mine and mine alone.
What I heard there were the
Pipes, and what I sensed, I
know now, was the result o
a million years o listening
and being aware, the accumu-
lated experience o the race
itsel and o ages when man
was more a part o his ancientenvironment than now .
Sigurd Olson,
Open Horizons, The Pipes o Pan
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
9/37
31
Writing and drawing can end up back in the story circle as Show-and-Tell. Something
about knowing their writing will be perormed or published, or their drawing
displayed or mounted, res up attention to their work . . . as i a predator might be
watching! For some, this enhances their experience, or others it can block them with
ear. Again, use this response as an opportunity to guide their paths with the intent o
empowering them to nd their own storytelling gits.
How Stories Reveal Edges
Story o the Day encourages sel-expression and sel-condence in the validity o
each persons personal experiences. With many people, you might see a progres-
sion rom trembling shyness to charismatic power. At rst, some may demonstrate a
collapsed, drawn inward body language. With no eye contact, the timid oer only
a low and mumbled speech. Ater many opportunities to listen to others and share
their stories, even the shyest gradually transorms into a bright voice, a lited chest,
sparkling eyes that pour out excitement, and unerring sel-assurance.
Whenever you listen to a persons story, you have a golden opportunity to discern
their edges and inspire them with tting questions. As a routine, careul listening to
Story o the Day gives you, the Coyote Mentor, leisure time to hear what captures
the attention, what your students notice and dont notice, what they eel proud or
awkward to talk about, and what words they choose to express themselves. The
chapter ahead called Questioning and Answering will be a very helpul guide to place
questions right at the edge o their stories. Good questions, aptly chosen and well
timed, will get your people curious and push them to bring back even better stories.
The Big Two Routines
These two routines, Sit Spot and Story o the Day, eed each other constantly,
like a call and response. The other eleven Core Routines that ollow can be ound
contained within these two, as specic techniques to enhance time spent outside and
daily refection on it.
The antidote to Nature Decit Disorder may be this simple: get people to spend time
in nature, and when they return, be there to catch their stories.
Expanding Our Senses
Expanding Our Senses in a nutshell:
Use and expand all your senses as ully as you can. Pay attention! Look Alert!
Stretch Out! Use all the senses, one at a time, and together.
Pay attention!For nature connection, we use only one golden rule: notice everything. Get down
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
10/37
in the dirt and eel it. Widen to Owl Eyes (a name we like
to give to peripheral vision) and detect movement. Hear
the ar-o cry o the hawk and the wind in the trees. Smell
the scent carried in the warm breeze. Feel the direction o
sun. Taste the sae wild edibles. At every opportunity, alert
your students to expand their senses until doing so becomes
routine, a practice, a habit, a discipline, and nally, a brain
pattern.
Remember the context o Expanding Our Senses. People
who lived o the land, taught this skill rst: pay attention at
all times to everything. E. O. Wilson describes the intensity
o the state by calling it the naturalists trance, the hunters
tranceby which biologists locate more elusive organisms.
They had the alertness o predator and prey. This continual
state o being directly caused much o the awareness and
naturalist knowledge learned without schooling.
I you hunt or watch birds, then you already know the drill.
Perhaps youve been a photographer, or had a job watching
or res rom a tower, or detecting potential avalanches at a
ski slope, or maybe youve raised a toddler in a cityscape ull
o hazards, all o these require close attention.
As a Coyote Mentor take every opportunity to stretch
everyones sensory awareness, including your own. Your
actions, however subtle, lead to alerting, discovering, invok-
ing, evoking, reviving, appreciating, encouraging, inspiring,questioning, expanding, widening, stretching, exercising, and
ocusing sensory awareness. The introductory exercise on
Expanding our Senses in the Activities section will give you
some helpul approaches.
Forging a Dierent Set o Brain Patterns
The routine o Expanding Our Senses wakes us up to more
ully using our amazing innate capacity or seeing, hearing,smelling, tasting, and touching. In terms o brain patterning
theory, this routine excites and ocuses conscious attention
on our sensory neurology until reaching out with our eyes,
ears, nostrils, taste buds, and skin suraces becomes a mental
habit. Throughout our lives then, well absorb sensory
inormation with increasing subtlety.
Ater all, our senses never turn o. Our brain patterns only
lter what we pay attention to. Simply, this routine breaks us
out o habitual brain patterns and wakes us up to capacitieswe would normally ignore. Through conscious use o our
Lets go pick berries.
Do you like berries?
I love berries, I like
sweet things.
Lets go pick berries.
And while youre picking berries,
youre asking questions. How
come this berry is dierent
rom that one and these are
red and those are white? Each
time we add another meaning-
ul awareness component, we
stretch them urther and urther.
I you could attach little strings
o awareness to them, theyd
look like a daisy with many
petals, a three dimensional
fower, a clover bloom, with
many, many rays o awareness
going out in all directions.
JY
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
11/37
33
What is spiritual? The more
o our brain that we engage,
the more o our antennaethat we tune, the stronger our
sensitivity to the vibrations
o the lie orce around us.
JY, Seeing Through Native Eyesaudiotape, What is spiritual?
Slots between the trunks up
ahead shiver with blue where a
muskeg opens. I angle toward it,eeling no need to hurry, picking
every ootstep careully, stop-
ping oten to stare into the diz-
zying crannies, listening or any
splinter o sound, keeping my
senses tight and concentrated.
I listen as closely as possible
but hear nothing. I work my
eyes into every dark crevice
and slot among the snowybranches, but see nothing. I
stand perectly still and wait.
Then I see it.
Richard K. Nelson,
The Island Within
There is an intimate reciprocity
to the senses; as we touch thebark o a tree, we eel the tree
touching us; as we lend our ears
to the local sounds and ally our
nose to the seasonal scents, the
terrain gradually tunes us in turn.
David Abram, The Spell o theSensuous: Preception and Language
in a More-than Human World
senses, we can actually strengthen them, and give them ull
range o motion, just as you might strengthen muscles by
exercising at a gym. For whole-brain learning, we want to
exercise all the senses in the ever-changing, many-textured
playground o nature.
Humans Dominant SenseEach animal has a dominant sense that determines its
liestyle, how it interacts with the world. The long nose o
dogs makes or a world organized by smells, while the huge
satellite-dish ears o deer mean a world ull o important
sounds. Humans, a lot like cats with large eyes mounted on
the ront o a fat ace, possess the ideal set-up or a visual-
based lie.
Human eyes operate as acute instruments that guide ourliestyle as biped animals with dexterous orelimbs. However,
this can become a double-edged sword, both a git and a
limiting actor. Whenever we allow one sense to be over-
emphasized, it is possible or the other senses, and thus other
parts o our brains, to be under-developed. Try this great
practice or stealing away our dominant sense so as to awaken
the othersuse blindolds. I you would like a taste o this
suggestion, prepare yoursel a meal at home, and then sit
down and eat it blindolded. The world shows up very dier-
ent without eyes. (We also recommend reading Read HelenKellers biography, or the rather terrible picture o sudden
epidemic blindness in Blindness by Jose Saramango.)
However, we also want to use our git o sight ully. Our
cultural infuences now narrow our vision into a small range
to use books, TVs, computers, and handheld electronics. I
you watch a new-born baby, youll see its huge eyes take in
everything. Catching the movement o a fy or bird outside
the window, they will suddenly turn with wonder to look.
This peripheral vision, the ability to see out o the cornero the eye, allows us to detect subtle movements, such as
animals slinking into the bushes as we arrive near their ter-
ritory. It also provides excellent vision at night. A ew o my
students who wear glasses have changed their prescriptions:
ater a ew months o routinely expanding their vision, their
eyes actually changed as a result o this natural way o seeing.
We do need tunnel vision, that especially narrow ocus, to
execute certain tasksbut there we can also stretch the edge
o our ocus to take in more rom peripheral vision.
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
12/37
The Five, Sixth, and More Senses
Expanding Our Senses on a routine basis extends the unc-
tional use o our brain well beyond the norm in our modern
society. We highly recommend reading Diane Ackermans
lively research on each o the ve human senses in her book
A Natural History o the Senses. Our sidebar lists additional
senses abridged rom a list o ty-three that Richard Cohenidenties in his book, Field Guide to Connecting with
Nature, Creating Moments that Let Earth Teach. These give
just a hint o what our biology is capable o.
Consider the possibility that what is oten reerred to as our
sixth sense combines the ull use and coordination o our
ve senses. What may seem mystical to some, might be plain
biology when the brain is used optimally. I anything could
be called strange, it would have to be that so many humans
settle or using only a tiny portion o the brains capacity orperception.
Questioning and Tracking
Questioning and Tracking in a Nutshell:
Become a detective and track everything as a clue to a
mystery to be solved. Ask questions about everything,
and push your questions until they yield answers.
Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
Like peering through a window into wildlie, tracking animals
can be endlessly ascinating. By capturing imagination and
empathy, it demands whole-brain intelligence and concentra-
tion. Getting down on all ours and staring at the ootprints
o animals oers a particular abundance o opportunity or
imprinting search images. Like reading, studying the sign and
ollowing the trails o animals, develops powers o pattern
recognition that stay with you or the rest o your lie.
I you nd a our-toed track with claw-marks, you might use a
eld guide to identiy it, and you might use a ruler to measure
and determine the type o gait the animal used. The gait
pattern then may tell you more about the animals behavior,
even about its mood. Trying to gure out when the animal
made the track also draws you in to notice the weather. And
youll also start to notice how that our-toed track relates to
the nearby rodent tunnels, and how those tunnels relate to
Let us ollow, said Mowgli,
The jungle is wet enough
to hold the lightest mark.
Bagheera the Panther, trot-
ting with his head low said,
It is single-oot (he meant
there was only one man),
and the weight o the thinghe carries has pressed his
heel ar into the ground.
Ha! This is as clear as sum-
mer lightning, Mowgli an-
swered; and they ell into the
quick, choppy trail-trot in and
out through the checkers o
the moonlight, ollowing the
marks o those two bare eet.
Now he runs switly, said
Mowgli. The toes are spread
apart. They went on over
some wet ground. Now why
does he turn aside here?
Wait! said Bagheera, and fung
himsel orward with one superb
bound as ar as ever he could.
The rst thing to do when a
trail ceases to explain itsel is
to cast orward without leav-
ing your own conusing oot-
marks on the ground. Bagheera
turned as he landed, and aced
Mowgli, crying, Here comes
another trail to meet him. It is
a smaller oot, this second trail
and the toes turn inward.
Then Mowgli ran up and
looked. It is the oot o aGond hunter, he said. Look!
Here he dragged his bow on
the grass. That is why the rst
trail turned aside so quickly.
Big Foot hid rom Little Foot.
Rudyard Kipling, The JungleBook, The Kings Ankus
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
13/37
35
Cohen lists 53 natural survival
senses that connect and bal-
ance Nature within to Naturewithout. They include:
Sense o time
Appetite and hunger
Sense o temperature and
temperature change
Sense o season, includ-
ing the ability to insulate,hibernate and winter sleep
Humidity sense, includ-
ing the acumen to nd
water or evade a food
Hearing, including resonance,
vibrations, sonar requencies
Sense o awareness o ones
own visibility and conse-
quent camoufaging
Sense o proximity
Sense o ear
Sense o play
Sense o excessive stress
Sense o emotional place,
o community belonging
Psychic capacity, such as ore-
knowledge, and animal instinctSpiritual sense, including
conscience, capacity or
sublime love, sense o sor-
row, and sacrice.
Michael J Cohen,
Reconnecting with Nature
the surrounding grasses, and how those grasses link to the
topography. Like snowfakes or words, no two tracks, no
two trails, are ever exactly the same. So tracking is the art
that develops, and then innitely complexies, your image-
vocabulary or reading the book o nature.
Tracking as Scientifc InquiryTracking wildlie by looking at ootprints and other sign
denitely oers a ertile opportunity or developing knowl-
edge o place, but we want to extend the metaphor. We mean
tracking in the broadest sense. The discipline o tracking
nurtures quality observation, observation guided by intense
curiosity, question ater question. So tracking, like scientic
inquiry, always begins with a question. Then it includes gath-
ering evidence and reasoning deductively; dening, rening
and proving hypotheses. Tracking, like playing the detectiveor the scientist whose discoveries are goaded on by a burning
desire, leads you to nd answers.
Tom Brown Jr. likes to ask, When are we NOT tracking?and o course, the answer is When we are asleep or dead!Humans track. It is the most natural thing or us to do.
We track with our eyes, ears, nose, touch, taste, emotions,
minds and bodies. Anyone can track anything. Herbalists
and gardeners constantly track: through years o inquisitive
observation they deepen their knowledge o plants. Whatplant is this? Why does this plant grow so well here and notthere? How do the dierent seasons aect the medicinalpotency o this plants leaves, fowers, and roots? The techni-cians in the back room xing our computers track electronic
pathways. Parents track the development o their children.
Youth track adults to mimic their liestyle strategies. I your
attitude is inquiring and your method is scientic, youre a
tracker.
Tom has another aphorism: We want to put the quest backin question and the search back in research. The core
routine o Questioning and Tracking instills a mental habit o
intense inquiry. When people relax, their naturally curiosity
asks amazingly good questions. As mentors we empower that
curiosity to keep their questioning alive. Role-model this
enthusiastic inquisitiveness in your own lie to lure them rom
edge to edge.
In our Seeing Through Native Eyes audio series, Jon Young
introduces the art o tracking with as good a picture as we
can give o how a person might use the classic interrogatives,
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
14/37
Who, What, When, Where and Why, with animal tracks.
He calls these the ve arts o tracking. This excerpt rom
Tape 2 shows how these questions can guide your inquiry:
Jon Young on Awakening Inquiry
Lets Look at Tracks.
On your way to your sit spot, theres that little road that you
walk along, and theres that little mud puddle there. Can you
picture it? You can see the raindrops like little dots all around
the tracks. And in it as you look closer, you see a set o oot-
prints. You can recognize that there are some toes there, and
some claws, and you can recognize some heel pads. And you
can kind o get a sense o the direction that the animal went
in. And you can almost see its size; can see how big it may
be. You can tell how heavy it is by pushing on the groundand saying, Wow, this ground is pretty rm; but notice, these
tracks went in pretty deep. This animal is pretty heavy.
Your rst question you might ask is WHO? Who let thistrack? The identication o signs, hairs that you nd stuckon a thorn, droppings that you nd along the edge o a
eld, chews on the edge o a piece o bark: these are all
signs. Holes in the ground. Who lives there? Whose trailis that? What animal is most likely to use that trail? These
are all questions that are related to the rst art o tracking,identifcation.
The second question you might come up with is WHAT? Iknow what kind o animal it is, but Im really curious to know
what its doing. Is it running? Is it walking? Is it looking letor right, up or down? Is it scared? Could you tell rom thistrack? Is that really possible? I you had a long stretch osand in order to understand the ull length o the stories, you
could do it, and thats the art o interpretation.
Back to your mud puddle. Youve got an idea o who it is, and
what its doing. What you want to know now is, WHEN was
it here? Thats the third art o tracking, the art o aging. Whendid this animal go by? Ask yoursel this, Are those raindropsI see in the mud all around that track, also in the track itsel?What does that mean? That animal came by beore the rain.So i I could only gure out when it last rained, I have an
idea o how old these tracks must be. Maybe the ranger who
works at this park can tell me.
The next thing is, Hey, I dont care who made those tracks,
I dont really care what that animal was doing, and I dont
d tracks in hard sand.
on tracks on the beach.
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
15/37
37
even care what time it was here. What I want to know is WHERE it is right now?Can I ollow it? Can I take up this track right here as i it was the end o a string andollow it to its source? A good tracker can do that. Thats something the Apacheswere known or. Thats something the Aborigines in Australia are known or, and the
Bushmen o the Kalahari. They can ollow a string o ootprints and lead you right to
the animal. The art o trailing is very dicult. But you can learn that too.
So you have the Who, What, When and Where o tracking. The next one is WHY?Why does this animal come by here every day between 8:30 and 10:00? Why does itgo down this mud road? Why is it moving at this speed and not another speed? Whydoes it always seem to be in the same kind o energy fow? It doesnt seem to be goinganywhere except in a straight line, why is that? And why are there always humantracks next to it that seem to be rom the same time? We call this art ecological tracking.
The question Why always comes rom the bigger picture; youll never get the answer
right rom the ootprint itsel. Knowing what berries are ripe will tell you where the
bear is going. Knowing what sh are running in the rivers will teach you about otters
and about mink. Knowing about the acorns that are alling will teach you about thedeer and the grouse, the turkeys, the bear. All o these things are related. And the
more you know about nature, the better you will be at tracking, because youll be able
to put the whole picture together.
Animal Forms
Animal Forms in a Nutshell:
Physically, mentally, and emotionally imitate any and all animals in their move-
ments, behaviors, and personalities.
A Long Tradition o Imitation
This potent routine might seem a bit dierent rom the others, more akin to dance
than mental gymnastics. What we call Animal Forms simply imitates the physical
and mental actions o animals, birds, and to some extent even grass, wind and water.
This kind o practice can be ound in cultures across the globe. For instance, think o
the many martial arts rom Asia based on imitation o animals, such as crane, tiger, or
turtle. Also, many indigenous cultures conducted imitative dances and dramas, oten
with accompanying masks and costumes. The Hawaiian Hula, an ancient and modern
dance orm, brilliantly demonstrates such animal and nature dances. Cave paintings
in Europe and old European stories indicate that the ancestors o Europeans did the
same.
In the Activities section ahead, well teach you some basic perceptual strategies,
movements, or ootprints o common North American animals: owl, deer, ox, cat,
dog, raccoon, and rabbit. Also, well suggest games that call or imitation, pretending
or play-acting how animals sneak, hide, climb, stalk, pounce, and eat. Over time, your
own experiences with will teach you many more.
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
16/37
Bodily Learning
We can learn by eel the anatomy behind animal move-
ments. How do two-leggeds walk, how do our-leggeds?
How do blind moles navigate? The practice o imitating
animal movement, which includes its mood and strategy,
creates a meaningul relationship with the animal. Combined
with eld guides and journaling, practicing animal orms willimprint search imagesmulti-dimensional, dynamic models
o character and ormin both mind and body, into our
very being. Learning by heart could mean this: developing
a stronger sense o instinct and intuition, and growing in
empathy with what we imitate.
O course, without ever being told, people, especially
children, naturally mimic Animal Forms. Think back to your
childhood: did you ever pretend to be an animal? Did you
ever have a avorite stued animal that you brought to liewith play-acting? Which animals did you love to be? Whatdoes your body remember today about the animals move-
ment? I you ever get among native olks such as the SanBushmen, you will notice that adults routinely imitate things
too. They get a great deal o humor out o it as well.
Physical Education
Why encourage the practice o animal orms? Animal Formspresents a positive channel or physical development. Many
o the orms we teach have some concrete, physical applica-
tion, such as Raccoon Form or crawling through thickets o
brush, Deer Bounding Form or jumping over logs, or Cougar
Form or sneaking through low cover. Thereore, Animal
Forms oten make up the Physical Education sections o
our days. The diversity o animals in the world provides a
spectrum o movements that can develop all areas o our
students bodies, rom stretching to climbing to running to
lying fat and still.
Animals as Teachers
Animal Forms also establishes animals as teachers, as beings
whose liestyles oer valuable lessons or our lives. Not only
physical movements, but mental attitudes can be learned
rom animals. For instance, watching a squirrel relentlessly
harvest nuts in the all reveals the mentality o hard work and
getting it done when you really need to. The long-rangevision o a hawk or eagle can teach us about seeing the big
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
17/37
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
18/37
Wandering
Wandering in a Nutshell:
Wander through the landscape without time, destination,
agenda, or uture purpose; be present in the moment; and
go o-trail wherever curiosity leads.
Hmmm an educational activity without purpose? A walk in
nature without a destination or intent? Are we serious?
Unstructured Time
Yes, we eel so serious about this routine, that most o our
programs have a built-in wander or walkabout or about
hal o our time out in the eld. We call this The 50-50
Principle. We plan our whole day to ollow a structure, but
count on ty-percent o the time in the excitement o themoment, involving timeless, unstructured Wandering. There
is nothing to accomplish, nowhere to go. By just being pres-
ent in the moment, curiosity gently leads us wherever we go.
Why would we spend so much o our time wandering
aimlessly?
In the modern world, we call a lot o things priorities: our
agenda, our calendar, our jobs, our bills, our children, our
parents, the gear we need or recreation. They push us thisway and that in a direction that fows away rom nature.
Having an agenda or expected plan o action closes our
minds to what else may be happening at any given moment.
Wandering without aim opens us to what nature wants
to teach. In terms o brain patterning, Wandering is the
quintessential Coyote routine, a habit to break habits, and an
essential skill or allowing each person to connect with nature
according to their own special gits.
The literature o naturalists overfows with tributes to the
downright spiritualand politicalvalue o slowing down,
o living in unstructured time. A ew choice tidbits describe
that value I mentioned:
Wendell Berry, a Kentucky armer, and conservation poet and
essayist, writes inAn Entrance to the Woods,
The aster one goes, the more strain there is on the
senses, the more they ail to take in, the more conusion
they must tolerate or gloss overand the longer it takesto bring the mind to a stop in the presence o anything.
The Fity-Fity Principle
Use the 50/50 principle butplan 100% o the time, with
perhaps 50% o the activi-
ties being core activities such
as sitting, mapping, students
mentoring students, etc. For
the other 50% o the time,
prepare or the unexpected.
Pick rom a repertoire o activi-
ties or dierent situations, so
i an unexpected event hap-
pens, you have an appropri-
ate lesson at your ngertips.
Maybe aim or one with an
inspirational hit, one with an
adrenaline rush, one introduc-
ing a wholly new area, some
library research, and a variety o
other activities that you could
change at a moments notice.
David Forthoer, Kamana Student
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
19/37
41
Kingshers: they make a hel-
lacious noise, blast and rattle
beore them, so the whole worldknows theyre coming. Rest on
a branch over water with their
big bills, suddenly dive. Hit
the water and shoot their wings
back to propel themselves that
extra jolt orward. Tom would
say, Lets go be kingshers.
Wed climb on the rock and
dive straight down and try to
catch a sh with our aces.
JY
Sigurd Olson, canoe guide and activist who worked to save
the Quetico-Boundary Waters Wilderness, writes in his
biography, Open Horizons,
Something grew on me during those years o roaming
This was the sense o timelessness, a way o looking at
lie that truly had the power o slowing speed. In town
there were always deadlines, a host o things to do, butas soon as the canoes were in the water and heading out,
the tempo changed. The coming o day and night,
the eternal watching o the skies, sunrises and sunsets,
the telltale story o winds in the maneuvering o clouds,
the interwoven pattern o rain and mist, cycles o cold
and warmth, even the changing vegetation, all these
ltered intothe comprehension o time being endless
and relative with all lie fowing into its stream
Barry Lopez, in a powerul essay inPatriotism and the AmericanLand, commissioned ater September 11, 2001, calls on moreo us to become true naturalists, writing,
Firsthand knowledge is enormously time consuming
to acquire; with its dallying and lack o end points, it
is also out o phase with the short-term demands o
modern lie. It teaches humility and allibility, and so
represents an antithesis to progress. It makes a stance o
awe in the witness o natural process seem appropriate,
and attempts at summary knowledge nave Firsthandknowledge o a countrys ecosystems, a rapidly diminish-
ing pool o expertise and awareness, lies at the radical
edge o any countrys political thought.
Letting Curiosity Lead the Way
Wandering through a landscape being led solely by curios-
ity and open eyes is the ertile ground or true discovery.
Wandering allows us to get in touch with what excites us.When were not pushing a learning-agenda, curiosity comes
to the oreront and guides the learning process. As mentors,
we all into the role o ellow discoverer, ellow questioner.
We wait or true desire to learn about something naturally
surace as we wander, and then we plant whatever seeds o
meaningul knowledge we have to share. And then we ask
another question.
In his book Free Play, Steven Nachmanovich agrees:
Such a walk is totally dierent rom random driting.
Leaving your eyes and ears wide open, you allow your
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
20/37
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
21/37
43
Mapping
Mapping in a Nutshell:
Orient to the compass directions, and perceive the landscape rom a birds eye
view. Draw maps to locate eatures o the landscape or tell stories that map your
explorations.
A natural routine amiliar to anyone whos ever driven in a big city, mapping orients
us and shows us the gaps in what we notice. It creates a need or people to know what
bird that was by the swamp, or where that creek goes. It also brings the landscape to
lie as the diversity o natural signposts emerges through the connections between
birds and berry bushes, between coyote scat and vole-lled meadows, between bodies
o water and the daily movements o animals.
Drawing Maps
For older youth and adults, this routine comes easy. Draw maps all the time. Sketchyour Sit Spot and the trails and signicant eatures radiating out rom it. Sketch your
own house and yard and where it ts in your larger sphere o living. Draw the route
you took on a wander.
Ater a day o exploring, gather under the whiteboard and draw a collective map o
where you went and what you saw. First, using the sun, stars, or a compass as a reer-
ence, identiy the directions o North, South, East, and West. Then ll in your big
landmarks, your trails, and the sites o the events that caught your attention.
Also, we encourage more ocused groups to keep personal map-journals. They mightbegin with a blank slate or a store-bought contour map and ll it in with the locations
o prevailing winds, ecological zones, wetlands, sunny spots, places never touched
by sun, birds glimpsed, animal tracks and trails, ood sources, or shelter trees. We
encourage putting down everything on hand-drawn maps.
About Process, Not Product
The point is not to produce perect maps. Rather, mapping engages in a process
innitely benecial to human development. Let the process evolve, and guide it withyour questions. Dont get hung up on maps that arent right.
That said, as you practice the routine over time you will notice a marked dierence
in the accuracy o mapping. Every year when a new group o olks shows up at a
teaching location we regularly use, they divide into groups and explore then draw a
map o the small pond with a wiggly shape. Ater doing so, they show it to the rest
o the group. Every map turns out dierentone like a jelly bean, another like a
long-necked goose.
Over the year, this process grows more precious to watch: every participant, includ-ing the acilitators, gradually begins to check the image in their mind with the
actual reality o the pond they walk around, discussing and arguing with others, and
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
22/37
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
23/37
45
Traditional cultures created Songlines about their places with legends and songs:
that mountain over there identies where a leader went up and prayed and cried or
his people, and those drainage veins o snow coming down show streams o his tears;
or that tree by the river with the two huge branches represents an old woman whose
great arms watch over and take care o the river and its sh. In The Practice o the
Wild, Gary Snyder tells o traveling by truck in Australia with a Pintubi elder who
recites the traditional Songline at truck speed. He reports, I realized ater about hal
an hour o this that these were tales to be told while walking, and that I was experi-encing a speeded-up version o what might be leisurely told over several days o oot
travel.
Take it slowly in the places you visit. Story your place as a means o navigating
through it. Your adventures will lead to Songlines all across the landscape. O course,
name the places you go. Try naming them things you will remember, names that play
o emotions o kids and adults: Death Crossing, Booger Hill, Funky Chicken Lake,
Sneaking Cougar Trail.
In essence, we take the mapping mentality to story the landscape into one hugeinter-connected place that holds meaning or all o us. Whether through drawing
simple maps, communicating rom a birds eye view, or paying attention to the our
directions, the routine o Mapping practices, like the old saying, getting to know a
place like the back o your hand.
Exploring Field Guides
Exploring Field Guides in a Nutshell:Browse through feld guides as treasure-chests o knowledge that fll up the
vacuum o your curiosity about nature.
When people want scientic inormation, how can we help them nd it or them-
selves? Teaching them to Explore Field Guides makes them lie-long, sel-sucient
citizen-scientists o the natural world.
Field Guides as Elders
Field Guides express the amalgamation o many peoples lie work. As treasure chests
o hard-earned knowledge passed on and built upon, they symbolize the modern
equivalent o the knowledge o an elder rom a traditional culture: they hold the
collective experience o many generations.
Elders rom indigenous cultures have shared with us how their grandparents or aunts
and uncles passed on their intricate understanding o the environment through stories
or by showing them things. Their descriptions o how this happened suggest that
the elders only taught things when the students showed up ready or the lesson. The
same is true with eld guides. These wonderul books can be exciting to sit with,
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
24/37
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
25/37
47
and letting search images develop subconsciously. Over
years, this unconscious le-cabinet o images becomes huge.
We have seen this with people o all ages, rom very young
to quite elderly. However you do it, take a hint rom Jons
grandmother, Nanny Cecil, in the sidebar. Make the explora-
tion into these treasure chests a journey o magical discovery.
Journaling
Journaling in a Nutshell:
Keep a regular record, in drawings and in words, o your
experience outdoors. Keep dated sketches, captions,
and comments that describe your landscape. Keep it up
through all the seasons until it becomes a habit you cant
live without.
By journaling, we do mean carrying around paper and
pencil or laying open a sketchbook at the nature desk inside,
next to the bookshel stacked with eld guides. Here we have
the rst core routine that involves tools. Assemble a sturdypad o paper, a pencil or an ink pen, something to add color,
and an eraser or a good beginners toolbox.
Stretching the Imagination
Routine Journaling stretches and etches all the details a little
urther into the brain. Its the Sit Spot and Expanding Our
Senses, Story o the Day, Questioning and Tracking, and
Mapping all recorded in line and color and words on a page.
Look at something and then drawit, then look back to checkon the things you werent sure o how that ear comes o
the head, or how that lea attaches to the stem. Can you eel
your visual imagination wake up? Coloring a tree green, then
looking twice, and shading the green and adding brown,activates a furry o synaptic connections. The sketcher enters
a lively image-questioning sequence with the thing observed.
Because it res up the brains visual imagination, drawingimprints images in the minds eye library.
O course putting what you see or how you eel into wordswakes up the linguistic brain. A ve year old can learn six
words or green and use them with delight all the rest o
her lie. Journaling means nding words that name plants andanimals and birds, learning adjectives or color, inventing
metaphors or smell, and growing a versatile vocabulary or
Golden Guides
My rog-catching wasdriven by my dads mother,
Nanny Cecil and my childhood
years until I was ten were Nanny
Cecil years. She took care o
my sister and me when both my
parents were working and some-
times wed go stay with her in
her little apartment on the sixth
foor in the city o Asbury Park.
She had grandmother magic
and knew how to work it with
us kids. She understood that
children have these passions that
she could tease them along with.
What did Nanny Cecil do
that was so impressive? This
shows you how her mind works.
She would tell me and my sister,
You can go anywhere you want
in my apartment, but whateveryou do, dont go in the bottom
middle drawer o my dresser.
And then shed turn, Im going
to wash dishes. Shed sit there
and wash the same two dishes
over and over again or the lon-
gest time -- and sing--, and that
would give Kim and me enough
time to kind o slide up along
the wall. One o us would watch
or the other while we crawled
on our bellies up to that middle
bottom drawer and looked in.
Nanny had Golden Guides
in there! The Golden Guide
to Reptiles and Amphibians
had drawings and maps and a
picture o how rogs use their
eyes. It was unbelievable
treasure. And it was orbid-den! Think about that.
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
26/37
movement. So much in nature is new or people that the
words they nd to record their experience oten involve
creative metaphor and little stories. So journaling, whether
written or dictated, connects the language parts o the brain
to sensory experiences rom nature, and both bring each
other alive.
Journaling as Paying Attention
The real purpose o the core routine o journaling trains the
mind to pay attention. Its important to keep a journal regularly.You want to end up with a thick book. To do that, you need
to exercise some discipline. Its the discipline that all good
writers and artists and wildlie personnel practice relentlessly.
Youll nd their journals throughout the bookstores telling
how journal-keeping taught them to pay attention.
The consistency o a nature journal lies in its dating system.
At the top o every page write the date, the season, the time
o day, a marker pointing north, and a note on the weather.
So the very act o writing the heading calls or orienting,
or settling down and looking around. Then enter whatever
captures your attention in the moment o journaling, in
words or drawing, or both. Kept up consistently, a ve-day
journal tells a story, and a year-long journal records an era ull
o seasonal change.
Best o all, the patient and disciplined journaler instills a
mental habit o paying attention to all the nuances the ve
senses can perceive. Consistent journaling leads straight to a
career as a naturalist!
Journaling as a Means o Finding Ones Git
Many people eel rustrated with the paraphernalia and
change o attention needed or journaling. So let some othem o the hook. I you can, try to catch your students in a
buttery-fy like net lled with tips and allowances about how
to make the journal part o their personal journey. I they
produce a nished book, honor it with ceremony. Once they
nd a style that makes them happy, theyll demand journaling
time.
So guide them to nd their own special git, their personal
journaling style. As many dierent orms o journal-keeping
exist as the multitude o people and snowfakes. Our KamanaNaturalist Training Program calls or journals to be submit-
ted on a regular basis, until they turn into portolios kept
What that did or me and
my sister. Id be looking at
the pictures in the book, Oh
my Gosh, look at that!
My sister would be on guard
and shed say, Hurry up, hurry
up, Nannys coming! So Id
close the book and the drawer,and shed say, Just kidding. My
turn to look and yours to watch.
Every once in a while, Nanny
would catch me. Oh, you saw
it, shed say. Well, well just
have to read rom it. And I sat
on her lap and learned to read
rom these Golden Guides.
Every one o the pictures in the
Golden Guides is burned in mymemory. Theyre not dead bird
pictures; theyre living images.
My grandmothers role rom
her kitchen in the city was to
send me on errands and chan-
nel my stories into eld guides
when I came home at the end
o the day. Have you ever
caught this one? Well, you
should try to catch me one othose. Id like to see one. And
when I came home, she wanted
to know the whole story: what
did I catch, name it, use these
books to nd out what they eat,
and go catch stu they eat.
Little by little, the guides
migrated over to my house.
There was probably a rite o
passage where we were allowed
to look in the bottom drawer.
Field Guides were my elders
growing up and Nanny Cecil
was the mentor who drove me
to them with her questions.
JY
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
27/37
49
in our back oce. When the assignments come in they
are amazingly dierent. Some people do little firty move-
ment sketches in pencil with mussy handwriting and arrows
pointing here and there. Some send in beautiul colored
art that weve borrowed and published here! One drew a
range map on every page, then developed it into a thematic
cartoon. Some use the grid paper enclosed with the program;
others combine words and sketches to the outer margins otheir sketchbook; while still others tap out their words on a
computer with headings and bullets and even scan in their
sketches.
For every dierent style o keeping a journal comes a choice
o equipment. Consider the options: the pencil and portable
memo pad in a zip lock bag; the sketchpad in a leather
cover; the desktop journal in a library o reerences; the piles
o single sheets stued into pockets; the laptop les; the
CyberTracker GPS system.
For younger children, do not burden them with equipment,
but do encourage them to carry a pad and pencil and stop
once in a while to record something in their journal. Just get
them to top their page with a little heading, then jot down
whatever they want. I the younger ones need help, you can
take dictation. Remember as a mentor, be like Coyote, gently
luring them into journaling, noticing the edges o their
resistance and enthusiasm. Help them discover their gits! Let
their journals go every which-way until each child discovers
his or her own journaling style.
Bottom line: nd a way to introduce journaling and make it a
habit that those you mentor cant live without.
Survival Living
Survival Living in a nutshell:
Interact with the natural world around you as i your
entire subsistence depended on it, including all the
basic human needs: shelter, water, re, ood, tools, and
clothing.
The Original Landscape o Nature Connection
You and I wouldnt be alive i our ancestors had not practiced
this Core Routine o Survival Living or all those hundreds
o thousands o years beore agriculture and civilization. All
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
28/37
subsistence cultures have in common the necessity to survive
in a wilderness environment, where the slopes o land and
orces o climate shape their brain patterns, where, according
to Stalking Wol, the animal is an instrument played by the
landscape. Indigenous culture all share the raw experience o
surging adrenaline, the ght or fee response. They have in
common a deeply elt sense o kinship with all the elements
o their natural world, a recognition that humans play onlyone tune among many.
The practice o survival accumulates in our bones and blood.
It could be said that todays people are still hunters and
gatherers, but the landscape gives us dierent eedback .
We learn early what to click and turn, when to stop and go,
how to pay attention to domestic and man made things that
matter to us. But our modern systems eliminate the need to
survive in direct, unmediated relationship with natures raw
elements. The mental habits that result rom Survival Livinghave dimmed: ingenuity, sel-reliance, and improvisation,
and, as John Burroughs advised, taking nature by the right
handle.
Practicing Survival
Nothing gives us more meaningul relationships with nature
than really putting ourselves out in the elements and living
o the land. It creates the ultimate need to learn.
One o our students, Emily, went on a guided survival trip
with a ew other students. During their trip, they spent the
night in a shelter they made out o branches rom the hem-
lock tree. They made a sleeping-mat foor inside their shelter
rom the springy green hemlock boughs, and they also made
tea rom the vitamin C-rich hemlock needles.
A day or two ater her trip ended, back on our land, I
watched her rom a distance as she walked up the hilltowards the outdoor gathering space. Midway up the trail,
she suddenly looked up, staring at something: two hemlock
trees standing by the door to the shelter. When she saw
them, she suddenly halted. Immediately transported back in
her mind to her shelter, she could eel the sot comort o the
green hemlock boughs on her body. As she told me all about
her experience, she said she could still taste the citrus-tinged
hemlock tea. She remembered how easily the dead twigs o
the hemlock lit up when everyone shivered in the cold, strug-
gling to make a re. Standing there, seeing these hemlocks
she had passed so many times beore without noticing, she
Go nd a piece o paper; it
doesnt matter what type or size.
Find any pencil, marker, or draw-
ing tool. Now gather up your
eyes, take a deep breath, and ask
yoursel: What is happening
outdoors, this particular season,
this time o day, and in this
particular place where I live?
Clare Walker Leslie,
Keeping a Nature Journal
Haiku
Writing a poem
O seventeen syllables
Is very di
From a Student Assignment
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
29/37
51
cried. Emily created a meaningul relationship with the
hemlock tree. From now on, whenever she sees a hemlock
tree, she remembers it with grateulness.
I you can, nd a way to interact with nature in the raw.
Stretch peoples comort zones by staying outside in dicult
weather. Our gear lists or expeditions begins with this head-
ing, There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropri-ate clothing! Use wood to make res. Use plants or ood
and medicine. Make leather rom animal skins or clothes
and drums. You might even learn how to grow your own
ood, and learn to hunt and sh. With just a little training
and practice, you can help others cultivate vegetable or herb
gardens to build shelters or survival orts with sticks and
leaves, and start res in the old way, with riction methods o
bow-drill or hand-drill.
Simulate a Genuine Need to Learn
These skills are valuable, ultimately, not because we need
them or daily livingalthough they may indeed save
someones liebut or the way they help us develop connec-
tion to place, and teach us to relate to nature in the oldest,
most undamental way. We learn the most when we have an
intense need to learn, and nothing creates need like survival.
But i your situation wont allow actual survival learning,then try to make Knowledge o Place genuinely important
to learn. Take people there through imagination: tell stories
and play games based on tracking and stalking, hiding and
ambushing, collecting and dissecting, nding ood and mak-
ing shelter. Stories o heroic deeds or survival are absolute
avorites, just as they seem to be or todays audiences o the
TV survival reality shows. Stories abound in the Activities
section to re up the imagination o what it would be like to
survive in the wild. Many o the games simulate the routines
o Survival Living rom deep in our DNA.
Minds Eye Imagining
Minds Eye Imagining in a Nutshell:
Use and strengthen your imagination as much as pos-
sible, imprinting images in your mind to gather rom the
experience o all ve senses.
Without weariness there can
be no real appreciation o rest,
without hunger no enjoyment
o ood; without the ancient re-
sponses to the harsh simplicities
o the kind o environment that
shaped mankind, a man cannot
know the urges within him.
Sigurd Olson, Open Horizons
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
30/37
Developing the Imagination
This routine develops our imagination and our ability to
re-experience events with our eyes closed. To teach nature
literacy, then see with the Minds Eye, we must go one step
beyond plain reading into reading with the intent to learn
by heart. Not only visual images, but also smells, favors,
sounds, and textures imprint in magnicent detail in peoples
brain patterns when they rely on their nature literacy or
survival. Routinely imagining with our Minds Eye allows our
sensory experiences to really sink in. This skill provides us
with the dynamic memory required or eld biology and bird
watching and is the evidence o a well-developed naturalist
intelligence.
The Minds Eye Imagining Technique
When you come across a track while on a walk, look at it
closely or a minute, then close your eyes and picture it in
your minds eye. This simple sequence intensely ocuses your
mind on the shapes o that track. Your mind strains to see it
in ull detail, preparing to re-tell the wondrous story about its
every detail. When you open your eyes again, you see some
things you didnt notice the rst time, and when you closeyour eyes again, the picture in your Minds Eye grows clearer
and more vivid. Birdwatchers use this technique as they de-
velop their eye to spot birds fight patterns, their movement
in the trees, and the slight dierences in coloration among all
those Little Brown Jobbies.
The students in our Kamana Naturalist Training Program
learn to use the Minds Eye technique to make sketches in
their eld journals. First, they look closely at the pictures
perhaps a Northern River Otterin the eld guides. Then,without looking at the pictures, they sketch the animal. In
the act o sketching, they will notice they hadnt registered
the length o tail, or the spacing o eyes or how the otter
stands up on its hind legs. Looking back at the pictures, they
take note and ll the gaps in their original memory. Thus the
sketch-image o the otter greatly improves, not only on paper
but, more importantly, in the Minds Eye Imagination o the
artist.
I certainly have ound good
in everything: -- in all natural
processes and products, notthe good o Sunday school
books, but the good o law and
order, the good o that system o
things out o which we came and
which is the source o our health
and strength. It is good
that re should burn, even i it
consumes your house; it is good
that orce should crush, even i it
crushes you; it is good that rainshould all, even i it destroys
your crops or foods your land.
Plagues and pestilences attest the
constancy o natural law. They
set us to cleaning our streets and
houses and to readjusting our
relations to outward nature.
Yes, good in everything,
because law in everything, truth
in everything, the sequence ocause and eect in everything,
and it may all be good to me i,
on the right principles, I relate
my lie to it. I can make the
heat and the cold serve me, the
winds and the foods, gravity and
all the chemical and dynamical
orces, serve me, i I take hold
o them by the right handle.
The bad in things arises romour abuse or misuse o them
or rom our wrong relations
to them ... . Our well being
consists in learning the law
and adjusting our lives to it
John Burroughs,
The Gospel o Nature
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
31/37
53
Storytelling with the Minds Eye
The Minds Eye Imagining routine develops a ling cabinet
o single images or identiying what you see in nature and it
oers a potent technique or telling the Story o the Day.
Beore I incorporated the use o my imagination into my
nature studies as an adult, I remember how scientic reportsand descriptive passages in literature bored me. I saw just a
bunch o words with little behind them. Ater a ew months
o using my Minds Eye technique to draw plants and animals,
suddenly those words opened doorways into a vast landscape
o images in my imagination. I was foored!
The more I used my minds eye to remember lea shapes and
bark patterns, the more I enjoyed it when other people talked
to me about these things or I read about them. It was as i
suddenly I could see the movie behind the lines in a book.
Turning this aroundadding all other senses and memories
to the mixI began to write and tell stories with my mind
ocused on the rich sensory wholeness o the experience.
Since then, Ive become a student o the great storytellers and
speech-givers and I have discovered they all use the power
o their imagination, their Minds Eye Imagining, to entrance
their audience. We are image-based, sensory creatures at
heart.
As people tell the stories o their day, help them ground
themselves in the moment o their experience. Help them use
all their senses to remember the precise angle o the harriers
tipped wings, the smell o damp earth or spring fowers, the
squishy warm eeling o wet socks, the rst touch o sun on
their cheeks on a cold morning. Children, always so present
to their experiences, are all born storytellers. But they will
only truly know this about themselves when they practice
using their Minds Eye Imagining and tell their tales rom a
place o bright, detailed imagination.
Listening or Bird Language
Listening or Bird Language in a Nutshell:
Be still and listen. Quiet down and crane your ears and
eyes to notice the vocal signals and body language o
birds and other animals, including humans. What mes-sage do you hear in their voice?
Power Outage Overnight
When our son was in ourth
grade he had a teacher who
was game to try an idea I had
or classroom environmental
education. We organized a
Power Outage Overnight or
thirty-seven ourth graders.
Ater school, in the all, we
traveled rom the school yard
down a hal-mile service road
into the Denny Creek val-
ley. We set o noisily as the
sun lowered; and then as it
darkened and things became
odd and unamiliar, we listened
or owls and heard the creek.
Then we crept back to the
blacked-out school gymnasium,
ate our Earthquake Kit ood,
told stories huddled around
fashlights, and slept in our
bags on the foor. Lots o
parents came or the overnight
and there were little fashlight
res all around the gym.
The Power Outage Overnightwas a raving success and the
third graders who are now six
eet tall and halway through
college still remember it
and tell me their memory o
it in astonishing detail.
EH
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
32/37
The Language o Birds
You know how you can talk to your best riends on the phone
and just tell, by how their voices sound, they eel upset? Or
surely youve seen the ast street-walk o people in business
suits that says, Dont bother me...Im in a hurry! Listening
or Bird Language reveals itsel through subtle movements
and careul interpretation o slight signals translated intoclear, meaning-lled communication. We call it Listening or
Bird Language but we extend the metaphor to include keep-
ing our own presence quiet, and then listening, watching, and
eeling all the nonverbal signals that sing and futter about us
all the time.
Much o the evolution o birds has been invested in the
development o their complex vocal language. By learning
how to tune into that language, within any landscape humans
and other animals can be part o the constant many-speciesconversations that oer rich inormation about lie. Lots
o other animalssquirrels, dogs, crickets, and rogs or
instanceuse complex vocalizations to communicate, too.
All o it together, creates a language in which a panoramic
range o hidden meaning can be understood, i we pay
attention.
Luckily, interpreting Bird Language does not require intimate
knowledge o each individual birds song or each rogs
call. Basic patterns are easy to recognize; we develop thesepatterns in more detail in The Book o Nature chapter under
Birds: The Messengers o the Forest. For starters, you do
need to know, baseline and alarm. Happy and comortable
birds use baseline songs and calls as they go about their dailybusiness. Their songs deliver the overall eeling o peace and
relaxed well-being. The alarm calls are the sudden piercingcries that tell you somethings up. A predator has come into
the neighborhood! Cat below! Hawk above! Owl roosting
too near our nest! Children abroad! These easily recognizablealarms are terric or inspiring olks to pay attention.
Learning to Listen
As I rst heard Tom Brown say, every time an animal moves
in the orest, it is like dropping a pebble into the clear
surace o the pond: concentric rings go out, announcing the
disturbance to everything the ring touches.
Once people see the communication possible by reading bird
language, they will observe or themselves the more sophisti-
Universal Language o Birds
Learning the Language o
Birds is not about you being
a master birder or the Audu-
bon Society and participating
on bird counts and knowing
every bird on your lie list. Its
about simple common sense.
And the beauty o it is that
the same teachings that I
learned rom Tom Brown rom
the Apache way, I heard rom
Ingwe rom the Akamba in
Kenya. When I looked into the
Bushmen o the Kalahari, they
had similar teachings. When
I read Jim Corbetts books
about the Himalayas in India,
the oothills where the tigers
roamed, he described the exact
same principles in action.
All o these were armations
or me that bird language was
truly universal. So learning it is
was not about knowing all o the
birds o your area. It was about
understanding patterns o voiceand movement and recognizing
disturbance in those patterns.
JY
Cat Calls
How do you think the alarm or
a cat is going to move? First,cats always seem to be up to no
good, and their body language
broadcasts a sneaky intent.
Second, cats move in little bursts
and stand still and move in little
bursts and stand still. So, the
alarms are going to move in little
bursts and stand still and move
in little bursts and stand still.
JY
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
33/37
55
cated nuances, the concentric rings o alarm that vary with the type o predator, the
time o day, the time o year, and the length o time they can sit quietly without being
the source o the disturbance.
Thereore, the routine practice o Listening or Bird Language begins with not
creating your own disturbance. Listening or Bird Language can inspire people to
walk quietly through the landscape so they dont create a bird plow, a swath o wake
beore and behind them that silences or alarms all natural talk. Even the very youngcan be inspired to hold still a long time until they blend into the landscape and hear
birds come alive again with their daily baseline twittering.
Over time, we learn to move through a orest without disturbing so many birds; we
learn to blend into the landscape and relax our body language to put birds at ease.
Ater learning how to move through the alarm systems o birds without setting them
o, we eventually come upon surprised wildlie, whose eyes give us a quick amazed
look o surprise that a human could see them rst.
Sel-Knowledge
Observing and understanding meaning in subtle patterns o sound and behavior can
be applied more broadly to the rest o human lie. As people learn to be still and
listen to the tones that refect the moods o sensitive wild things, an awareness grows,
or each person, o the disturbances that they and others cause. People will eventu-
ally realize that their moodsears or angers, impulsiveness or hesitanciessend o
concentric rings o disturbance, both in the natural and human worlds.
Think o when you walk outside each morning to the mailbox, your car, or to get the
paper. The birds in your ront yard watch you and come to expect the body language
and moods you demonstrate. They react accordingly. Your bird neighbors watch you
so careully rom your ront and back yard that they probably know youin some
waysbetter than you know yoursel.
I we dont move gently through the orest, the birds and the rest o nature give us
immediate eedback. Here is the deeper lesson to the routine o Listening or Bird
Language: the attitudes and body language we carry aect the world around us.
Listening or Bird Language as a routine shows us that we can choose the impact we
create as we move through the world.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving in a Nutshell:
Find in yoursel a grateul heart and express gratitude or any and all aspects o
nature and lie. Begin every episode with thanksgiving and give nods o thanks as
you go about your day.
-
8/8/2019 Coyotes Guide Chapter 3
34/37
Thanksgiving as a Routine
How is Thanksgiving a routine or na