TrackersTEAMS headed down to Prescott College1stFebruary
I don't know how this will work out. All I know, is that I have faith in Dr Pramod Parajuli. "Pramod?" you say. Yes, he is from a villlage Nepal and now a professor at Prescott College.
Pramod has always been a supporter of Trackers. He pulled Dan Daly and I into founding the Naturalist Training Course at Portland State University 5 years ago. He trusted two trackers (small t) to teach this masters level course. Its been evolving ever since.
Pramod sees the genuis and gifts of everyone he works with. My friend and TrackersNW instructor June Rzendzian was able to get her degree in green burial, Dan was able to do his thesis living with a family of shamans in the amazon river basin. At Portland State he was ahead of his time. Students fashioned these self-directed masters degrees and pulled in key community partners such as Toby Hemingway, Stuart Cowan and of course, TrackersNW. He took a stand and took chances for people he cared about. I respect him for that.
Often more energetic and full of bravado than even me, Pramod sometimes befuddles us with the scale of his vision. So I am heading down to Prescott to see where TrackersTEAMS can be of help.
Nicole is my partner in this endeavor with Prescott. We will be giving presentations on The Nature of the Village. Well, the concept, not the program. Here is what I plant to rant to PhDs about:
Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the value of Bushcraft
Today, participation in the out of doors is often limited to observation and sport. People crave real interaction with the natural world. Being fed by the land is a rite of passage that truly creates empathy and accountability for place and community. Through harvest and care of sources of local wild foods principles of sound ecological practice can readily be applied. We discuss how knowledge and direct experience in bushcraft, wild food systems and folk arts can illuminate dramatically an integrated human relationship that encourages diversity. We also address how theory and initiatives of sustainability that lack these components of locally sourced craftsmanship and food systems may actually be prone to long term failure and degradation of core values and function.
Systems Awareness and Tracking as Applied to Ecology
Tracking and naturalist skills can be considered a euphemism for awareness and greater connection to the world around you. Both the practitioner and the student not only gain a more full breadth of knowledge for the natural world, but a functional and kinesthetic understanding of how it integrates in a whole dynamic web. The deep awareness of ancient trackers of hunter-gatherer cultures were born from necessity and an intrinsic relationship of place stemming from survival in nature. We introduce a new language of learning that is interactive ecology and the core principles inherent in tracking both as a tool in systems thinking models.
Team Leadership, Business Planning and Market Awareness
The hunter and gatherer of tribes have traditionally demonstrated a deft awareness of their resources and long term sustainability directly integrated into their culture. The social entrepreneur and business meets a similar modern analogue. The capacity to assess resources for the community while projecting and developing stability through the self organizing systems can be found in survival strategies of animals, plants, humans and ecological systems. We address how critical it is to understand a market driven economy through the lens of systems awareness and how collaborative work teams can be one of the most effective tools that produce both generative profit and reparation for the local land base. These teams and their processes utilize highly functional cultural systems in both professional, academic, communal and familial environments for long term diversity.
Yes, I used some of this in the website information.
