Raising Wild Hearts
An inspirational show focused on growth from challenge and ideas to take the path less traveled. Ryann Watkin interviews experts and shares resources on education, creativity, nature, spirituality, mental health, relationships, self care, and more. Ryann is a passionate speaker, mom, wife, and educator who asks questions that provoke self-awareness, meaning, and purpose. Psychology, spirituality, family— and where they all intersect— is the heartbeat of Raising Wild Hearts.
Raising Wild Hearts
Rewilding Our Children: Engaging Kids with Nature and the Power of Outdoor Education
Today we're diving into the deep implications of rewilding for personal sovereignty and child development. Max, Founder and Guide of the Lion Man School of Rewilding is joining us to talk about he significance of unstructured time in nature, rites of passage for boys, and the myriad educational opportunities Mother Nature provides.
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I think that children today don't have a foundation in plants. I guess if you take a look at like, if you show a kid a McDonald's sign right, they immediately know it's McDonald's. But if you show them a leaf of a certain plant, they wouldn't even know how to differentiate that between another plant.
Speaker 2:Welcome Revolutionary Mama to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. Welcome Revolutionary Mama to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. I'm Ryan Watkin, educator, mom of three, rebel at heart and passionate soul on a mission to empower and inspire you.
Speaker 2:Here we'll explore psychology, spirituality, parenthood and the intersection where they all come together. We'll discover how challenges can be fertile soil for growth and that even in the messy middle of motherhood, we can find magic in the mundane. Join me on my own personal journey as I talk to experts and share resources on education, creativity, self-care, family, culture and more. I believe we can change the world by starting at home in our own minds and hearts. I believe we can change the world by starting at home in our own minds and hearts and that when we do, we'll be passing down the most important legacy there is healing, and so it is. Hi friends, welcome back to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. Today we're talking about rewilding. So I have Max Gordon joining me today for an amazing conversation. He is the founder of the Lion man School of Rewilding.
Speaker 2:Max has a ton of knowledge about survival skills. Max has a ton of knowledge about survival skills and he is also a teacher. He's an educator, he's a guide. He mentions in the episode he just finished his Waldorf teacher training and he has a ton of various experience. He talks a lot about indigenous cultures and what he's learned from them and how we can bring that into our modern day lives.
Speaker 2:In this episode we cover a ton. We talk about rites of passage for boys, we talk about rewilding. We talk a bit about Max's courses and his philosophy on education. Also, heads up, max was at the beach when we recorded this, so some of the signal and sound on the episode gets a little crunchy in some spots, but you can absolutely still understand what we're saying. So just a heads up there and stick around to the end of the episode where Max shares some resources and ideas on where to go to learn more about foraging in your local community, which I thought was super interesting. All right, let's dive into my interview with Max. Hey, max, welcome to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Ryan. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm pumped to have you. I am super intrigued by the work that you do. I am really really interested in nature personally, for myself and my kids, and I like to incorporate nature in our home education but then also just in our life. So the concept of rewilding, which is what your school is all about, really has me intrigued. And I just have to start at, like, the broad question of what is rewilding, cause you hear that word and some of us might not be quite sure what to think. Like are we raising wild animals? Like, are we, you know, this kind of a whole thing? The word wild gets a little bit of a negative connotation. So to you, what is rewilding and why did you put that that word in the name of your school?
Speaker 1:apologies, so kind of uh, what was humanity like prior, especially prior to the industrial revolution? But I also have an interest in prehistory, so kind of what was what, what? What were humans living like, um, like, what was their diet, lifestyle? How were children raised up in tribal settings across different indigenous cultures, across continents, and what are some of the commonalities you find, you know, even amongst different people? What are some of the commonalities found there?
Speaker 1:So in rewilding, there's like there's a lot of the conversations right now about rewilding landscapes. There's a lot of the conversations right now about rewilding landscapes by that meaning, how do you take a landscape and bring it back to its maybe most productive, most healthiest form? You have the whole idea of rewilding animals. There's a big movement right now with bringing back extinct animals, or even the one that comes to the top of my head is the orac, which is the wild progenitor, the wild ancestor of all modern cattle. Um, and so a lot of breeders are breeding and trying to figure out how we get back to the an orac like, because the orac has went extinct in the 1600s. I think the last animal living was from Poland, but the auroch was drawn on cave walls in Europe in the Paleolithic. So we know that our ancestors at least Europeans who have ancestry in Europe would have hunted those animals for food. There's a lot that goes into that, jared Diamond he has a book called guns, germs, and still he goes pretty deep into that.
Speaker 1:Um, there's some negative connotations, um, different points. You know, you have kind of the myth of the wilderness in terms of when, kind of when europeans came to this continent, to north america, they didn't really understand what they were seeing, meaning that, for example, if you look at agriculture in Europe, you know medieval agriculture looks different than how agriculture was practiced here on the continent. So there was a little bit of cognitive, probably cognitive, misunderstanding which I think probably led to just an exploitation and maybe just an evaluating of the people here. And of course, when you get to the Nazis, you have like the eugenics program. Unfortunately that was a program that was forced upon people and with the intent of selecting and breeding out and just doing these really inhumane activities towards people. So rewilding to me feels like just a reconnection with nature, reconnection with ancestors and ancestral practices.
Speaker 1:Um, and it's, it's, it's, do you know, done by yourself. You know there's nobody doing it to you, you know it's there. It's. It's, do you know, done by yourself. You know there's nobody doing it to you, you know it's, there's a choice involved in it and so there's a there's an advantage of that. So this seems like a choice which is the most important. Nobody's doing it to you. The way I think about it is kind of doing to yourself. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so thank you for breaking that down. I love words and I'm obsessed with the meanings and like the threads we can pull on with words because they're so powerful. The name wild is in my podcast for a reason, and it's so funny that you're like I haven't even gotten to the bottom of it, because neither have I. I like I'm like, what does raising wild hearts mean? And it's so interesting hearing you kind of break down. Rewilding helped me get a little bit of clarity on what wild is for me, and the part that you ended with is nobody's doing it to you, you're doing it for yourself. It brings up the word sovereign for me, and I think that's really important. And I think that's really important and what I'm doing the work with my children and then helping and guiding other parents to do is like helping our kids step into the sovereign beings that they are, of course, with like guidance and protection, and so, yeah, I love how our missions are kind of intertwined and I love how we broke down that word.
Speaker 2:There are so many things I want to double click on there, and actually one of the questions I had written down was about landscaping. We just moved into a new home in December and we're kind of working with like a blank slate and I'm like, oh, I want the wildflower garden here for the pollinators and I want some seed grapes here, because we're in Florida, of course, so I'm trying to look at it through the lens of like what's native, what's gonna possibly produce something that?
Speaker 1:we could forage, which is another thing I want to break down with you, something I've been interested in for a while. It's like and some modern researchers are confirming it like they're talking about how the amazon rainforest it's kind of a relic of human giant permaculture garden, meaning that the species there that are dominant or have that their presence there, were probably tended to by humans. They're actually giant trees that grow on Amazon and they're wild, but why are they there? So you also find it in charcoal remains what they call terra preta. So when I went to visit a village in southern Mexico, this Lac and Don Mayan village, they practiced slash and burn agriculture, which has gotten a bad rep because of the whole push for climate change, and so a lot of the practices have been lost, meaning people move to cities or the economy changed. They see a lot of economy now coming in from ecotourism, but when I got to tour one of these last remaining sites that are still actively managed by this man and his grandfather, who was like over 100, taught him, and so the way I learned it and there's a lot of research I can send you some links towards, and this is just going to be one example that connected with me and I'm sure that there's a lot of research. I can send you some links towards for it and this is just going to be one example that connected with me and I'm sure that there's other examples, at least from tropical regions you can find the Mediterranean regions.
Speaker 1:There is, you know, you could find evidence for rewilding landscapes throughout the continents. I have a fascination with tree agriculture. Uh, throughout the continents I have a fascination with tree agriculture. I've been doing a lot of things with fruit trees here in New York, um, kind of doing some food forest stuff, um, which definitely ties into foraging, um, but again, that's like we're talking about scale here, um, but anyway, just kind of going back to that lock and door mind of the village, what they do is they kind of transform rainforest, they cut the rainforest and then they burn. So that's like the end of the cycle.
Speaker 1:The beginning of the cycle is creating a. They create like the three sisters garden, which is like the corns, beans and squash, but there's other herbs that they're harvesting there in other plants. When we got to look at that soil that was just like such rich soil, the black soil. Like he took a machete, he dug into it and so I think each. I don't remember how many cycles there are, but there might be seven to ten cycles.
Speaker 1:Each of them I think it's a 42-year-old cycle. Throughout of them, that could be. I think it's a 42 year old cycle throughout, and each cycle going from a field to an abandoned field, to a shrubby forest, to a secondary forest, back to a mature forest they're able to take that field and bring it back to a rainforest. So the most biodiversity is where indigenous peoples are and it's been a shame that indigenous peoples have been kicked off landscapes in the name of conservation. That's something I've been kind of fighting against and fighting for is more of how do we kind of bring conservation and indigenous rights back and sovereignty, food sovereignty kind of? Those are the intersections that I'm interested in and I'm sure that in Florida I can even recommend some people that design that are, that are really good designers in the area that I can recommend.
Speaker 2:Cool. Yeah, it's always something that's on my radar. Trying to well, you know, I think it's like trying to. How can we grow our own food, like it's kind of trendy right now, like, oh, how can we grow things and not be dependent on the system to feed us? How can we make it a learning experience for our kids and how can we make it something that's beneficial for, you know, the earth, like mama, earth, needs some love right now for sure. You said push on climate change. I just want to go there.
Speaker 1:I think. What do I believe in? I think I believe in a clean environment, meaning I don't believe in pollution. And is the climate changing? Probably I'm sure it is changing. I read something about the last 2,000 years. This was the hottest, north America was the hottest it's been in 2,000 years. But again, that's in 2,000 years, that's not in 2 million years. So obviously life, life has been here a long time. Humans have been on this earth, um, for over 200 000 years, meaning we've adapted. I can't really say whether or not I believe in it or not. I believe I'm sure the climate is changing, as it always does change. If that, if, if politicians are using that to move people into cities and to de-incentivize agricultural living, then I think that I'm against that. I think that population density is an issue too. So I think I'm against, really are against our pollution, broad scale deforestation and exploitation of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if you know Zach Bush at all, but I really love listening to him talk about our soil and biodiversity and the earth and you know the cycles, the natural cycles that Mama Earth has gone through and will continue to go through.
Speaker 2:Um, because I think a lot of you know I don't watch the main, I don't watch news, like I'm not interested in, like mainstream media, and so I think much of it is just like based on fear, and so I think that just a more nuanced view of it, of like how can we take accountability in our own homes?
Speaker 1:For sure. I mean, I've known, I've heard about Zach and um. I know that Jordan Peterson talks a lot about how if we just increase the income of every person here to a certain minimum, then they would start caring about people, would start caring more about the future because they're not worried about survival. They would actually care about future generations, which I thought that was interesting. I mean, it's making me think about things. What does that actually look like? How do you give money away and stuff like that? It's a different thing, but that's interesting.
Speaker 2:That is interesting and I've heard similar in that I think there's a certain survival necessity for home, food, water, clean water, all those things, and then, once you get past a certain income level, those things and then, once you get past a certain income level, I think it's like it's not something exorbitant. I think it's $75,000 a year and like no more happiness, fulfillment, joy comes like from or out earning $75,000 a year. It's like survival needs met and then there's an ability to be fulfilled, be happy and be thriving.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I always think that that's really interesting, too similar to what you're saying. So you mentioned the industrial revolution, and for me I connect that with education a lot, because the education system around the industrial revolution had to provide factory workers essentially that's what it was created for Sit down, do what you're told, learn to follow instructions and to me, a lot of the modern education system, which doesn't feel that modern, is still keeping up with that industrial revolution education philosophy, and so I'm curious what your thoughts are on education.
Speaker 1:That's a wonderful question and it's something I'm, you know, continually working on with my team. Like I said, we teach rewilding but in particular we teach survival skills, but skills that are we use a lot of, teach a lot of prehistoric technology like stone tools, bone tools, shell tools, prehistoric pottery, animal tracking, foraging, first aid. I personally have an interest in prehistoric combat medicine and medicine prior to modern applications. So in my classes, you know I definitely have a lot of. We give the students a lot of freedom, we allow risk in our classroom. Our classroom is nature. There's so many things that I could teach you about foraging and how they cross-relate to different disciplines. Like, if you take a plant, you know we could talk about, you know we could talk about climate, we could talk about local weather, we could talk about hydrology. We talk about hydrology, we talk about chemistry and phytochemicals and talk about the history and how history was impacted by this plant. So I think that the living classroom is something that I'm interested in. So just getting kids out into nature and exploring using their bodies and then I guess, at certain ages, just bringing some more academics. But yeah, I mean, I love doing what I do. I love bringing kids out into nature and bringing them certain skills. It brings me a lot of joy, especially in certain subjects that I'm very passionate about.
Speaker 1:So I think that children today don't have a foundation in plants. I guess if you take a look at like, if you show a kid a McDonald's sign, they immediately know it's McDonald's, but if you show them a leaf of a certain plant, they wouldn't even know how to differentiate that between another plant. So I guess kids are really malleable when they're young and it's like thinking about what, what do we actually want to teach them? Not necessarily what we don't want to teach them, because I think it's good to give them option, to give them. You know, if you do this you will have this consequence, you know. But kind of giving them the ability to do that, um, but I I believe in teaching kids about archaeology and local history, plants and animals and my appreciation for nature, because, as a teacher myself, if a kid is interested in something, I feel like I have to be interested in it too, and I am, so it's also as a teacher is also as a guide. It's also important to be able to relate.
Speaker 2:Everybody can see it that kids are just calmer and more relaxed, more receptive to learning when they're outside in nature. If you have a fussy baby and you walk outside, there's an instant calming effect. There's so much just grounding and peace that can be found through nature. I love that. And yeah, between the ages of zero to seven, and arguably for sure, probably in the mother's womb, there is, I mean, they're just sponges Everything is just kind of downloaded into their conscious and subconscious minds.
Speaker 2:It's wild to me and yeah, so like the path we've taken for education is a little off the beaten path, and I like how you said not focusing on what you don't want them to learn but just adding in what you do want them to learn, because I think there are situations where parents can't homeschool or can't send their kids to the play-based school, and so when the kid gets home, you guys go on a nature walk together and you point out the birds and you just start becoming aware and present of what's around us all the time we're recording this and I see the birds flying above your head and the sun, and it's just like it's this presence and awareness, and it can almost just start there, like walking outside and saying what do you notice, right?
Speaker 1:Sure, sure, I mean, it makes me think about, like, what's the end goal? Right, like, what are we, what's our end goal? Like, and how do we, you know, reverse engineer that? Um, it's not like I have the answer, but you know, I've been thinking about like, maybe talking amongst my colleagues, like, what is what's the end goal? What is like, what do we want our oldest student, our, you know, our, our best students to come away with? Like, what do they, what can we have them impart, impart into the world and bring to the world?
Speaker 1:At some points I was like, oh, do we want them to be hunter gatherers? So I was like we don't want them necessarily just just to be hunter gatherers. You know, and I've been thinking about that because I've been watching the alone show and things like that, and my friends are like, oh, max, max, you should go on this and I could go on it, um, um, and I'm sure it'd be fun and stuff like that. But, um, I think I think letting um, kind of giving them, you know, in this I learned that from my walter teacher training that I just completed this spring and kind of giving them the capacity to do certain things, but necessarily not being the dictator for that and not, you know, not knowing what their future will hold, um, but like you just see people that just imagine like a baby today, like what good they could bring to the earth. You know that this child can, can, and we don't know what that looks like, but like this child could change the world. Um, and how do we constantly give back? You know.
Speaker 1:So I've been thinking about how do I give back in a place of abundance, you know, knowing that I don't need the money and I'm not doing it for the money, I'm doing it for, for, for humanity, you know, and I'm doing this. And why am I doing this? It's like it's really important to me, but personally I just find a lot of joy in being with the children, roughhousing and going, adventuring and climbing trees and planting trees, fruit trees, and teaching them how to taste this plant and smell this plant and hit this rock and practice this sword, thrust and roll this way and say this thing to your neighbor. You know, like, just, like, it's just, it's just. I can't, I can't really say I'm. I'm so grateful for where I am in my life, you know there has been hardships, um, but I'm definitely really grateful for him.
Speaker 2:It's amazing. So what I thought of was like the law of pure potentiality. So Deepak Chopra has a I think it's him. He's got the seven spiritual laws for parents, and it's one of the things that I go back to quite a bit, and the first law is the law of pure potentiality. When you look at a seed, you know, just to wrap your mind around, what that seed can become, and that's our children, I mean. It's just so beautiful. You know, you said there's been challenges and I'm curious, like who little Max was? Were you always interested in nature?
Speaker 1:Young Max. So I'm actually in the process of writing a book right now, which has been something I've been thinking about, and so it's been actually really therapeutic actually to do that, um, and so it's been actually really therapeutic actually to do that. And young Max, um, he, I grew up on a pond, um just outside, every day, and fished every day and explored. My mother had a garden. I was outside, my mother locked. My mother says she locked the door in the summers. You know, she, I couldn't go back inside. Um, I didn't have a cell phone until middle school, which great. I think that was really important for me. Um, and maybe that's even too young, maybe it could have been high school, but who knows? Really um very curious person.
Speaker 1:I was in the boy scouts a little bit, but I didn't like it that much. Um, that was a little bit when I was older, um, like when I was like 10 or 11, um, but I just remember just being outside all the time, um exploring, uh, no matter what the weather. Um, I, my mother, read to me a lot, which I think was good. I think having a well well-read family is important, um, and yeah, I mean I had. You know, my parents got divorced when I was about eight. So I think there was certain hardships that made me throughout my life not just that, but that makes you kind of go inwards. It's funny, you know, like it's you're part of the tribe your whole life. But then there is a point where there's a coming of age, and what does that actually mean? You know, we don't really talk about that in our society anymore, um, or maybe we have some weird ways of doing that that aren't actually like time-tested, you know? Um, but um, coming of age to me was like, in part, was just being alone, you know, in nature and finding being alone in nature and finding, finding friends in nature, um, meaning that I found the friend, my friends. I was in trees and the water and the animals there that became my friends.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, einstein said, you know, I think people asked him um, how can we become as smart as you, albert, you know? And he said read fairy tales. Um, he said that and that, that, and you know, the power of your imagination is one of the most powerful things in the world and I think that I have a very strong imagination. I've always, I have, I've had a strong dream world my whole life. Um, I think I do think of myself as a visionary.
Speaker 1:I like to envision like a better world, a better, better, a better max, um, a happier and healthier max. Uh, so I mean, yeah, I was very active. I like, uh, I like sports, I like to be active. I think that's really important. Keeping kids active, um, keeping them moving, um, giving them complex, complex experiences, um is is important. So, yeah, there's a lot of different things, but not in short, I guess just me being outside was the most most powerful thing. Complex, complex experiences is important. So, yeah, there's a lot of different things, but not in short, I guess just me being outside was the most most powerful thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have written down here your thoughts on rites of passage for boys, because in a lot of ways we've gone away from that as a society.
Speaker 2:Please add in where I'm lacking here, but I think in a certain regard we used to put boys out in the wilderness with a knife and maybe like tarp or something, I don't even know and they went on a quest for two days or three days and they went through this hardship and they figured out that they can survive and that's what helps them in the transition from boyhood to manhood. And my youngest child, who's two and a half now, is a boy and I'm starting to think about how I might, and my husband might, facilitate that experience for him once he's at a certain age, because I think now there are a lot of and it's not just boys. I have my own thoughts on girls too, but I think the boy talk is relevant right now. I think in a lot of ways there are some unhappy and unfulfilled men and, of course, women walking around in our society and perhaps it's this lack of reverence for the transition from childhood to adulthood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just thinking about my own experiences, and it wasn't perfect. You know I didn't grow up in a tribe. You know my family was divorced and I've had a lot. You know, whatever story, we always have things to work on as individuals. But I think there could be all kinds of rites of passage. You know there could be passages that are not. You know it could be traveling by yourself. It could be being getting really sick and coming back to health from that. It could be, um, sitting in a sweat lodge. You could be sitting out in a cave for a few days. Um, as a boy, I think it could be obviously being with a community of men and elders and kids your own age and going on adventures for multiple days and doing hard things. And doing hard things that are physically hard, um, and doing things at night. That would be, you know, things that are blindfolded or something around a fire. I think men don't know really how to cry anymore. I think we've hardened a lot of. I think society has been hard on men. I think that I still have personal work to do. I think about that. Still have personal work to do. I think about that all the time.
Speaker 1:I think teaching kids how to meditate is really important. Teaching boys how to meditate, teaching kids about yoga, the yoga as Deepak says. I love Deepak. He helped me a lot when I was younger, at least in his guided meditations. You know the yoga of meditation and actually physically doing yoga as a practice. Teaching kids about businesses and and finance I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:Um, about um, about nature, about hunting, I think, uh, something about animals and men are really important. That really goes back a long way in their dna. I think teaching kids already boys already want to start cutting up animals and exploring that and learning about hunting. The best way to teach animal tracking is to teach hunting or vice versa. But, yeah, things around fire, things around different sensory things using multiple senses Singing is important, crying is important, um, laughing is important, um, I think there's a lot of things about trust and trusting yourself and trusting your community, knowing that you're going to be taken care of. Um, and then uh.
Speaker 1:So I was just thinking about how, when did I feel like? When I was first a man? I remember, I mean, I remember when I was in college I did like a seven day water fast. That was really interesting. I definitely definitely was zoning in out of something and then into something else.
Speaker 1:Um, I remember going, um going to the amazon rainforest and being with the tribe there for multiple weeks and that felt like I read a passage meaning like this being away from everything and being away from your family, um, so there's different, different, different things that um finding finding a brotherhood, you know, like when, right now, I'm with my bros here at the ocean some of my best friends and having having your bros, you know, having your bros that have your back, that you do hard things with, that you know you can be vulnerable with. You don't have to be vulnerable all the time. There's a time that you're not you don't have to say everything at all the time but people that you can trust, right, they're not just your parents. I think that that's important too.
Speaker 1:Right, he's gonna your boy is gonna want to find, of course, your father, of course your husband, but also, like other men that could be his uncles, pseudo-uncles, pseudo-grandfathers, pseudo-great-grandfathers, and then, when he's 20 or he's 18 or 16, taking care of the younger ones. I think that's the rite of passage once you start taking care of the younger children as well. So I don't know. There's certain ideas there that have come to mind. I mean, when I started going to the gym, I felt like right of passage, you know, when I started working out, I felt like a man. You know, I felt like this started to do that and I do that every day now and I love doing that and that's impacted my life.
Speaker 2:well, I have to send him off into the wilderness with just a cup and a knife, and that's it. And you mentioned so many beautiful, brilliant ideas that are just like simple, like day to day stuff going to the gym, taking care of the little kids, like, and agreed. I mean that is. It's a great point. It kind of opens up the, the possibility there. You know it doesn't have to be or look yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't think so. Yeah, I don't. I don't think, um, I think the diversity of the diversity of things, and you know, your boy will meet other boys, you know, and, and they're going to have their own way of being in their own story, and he'll, and he'll learn from that, you know, he'll, he'll, he'll be influenced, because peer pressure could be a positive thing as well. You know, it doesn't always have to be a negative thing.
Speaker 2:So true, love it. Okay. So before we start to wrap up, I'm curious. I know you have a ton to say on this topic, but give us like an overview on foraging. How do we know what to look for other than your book coming out, cause I think you said you're writing a book which has to do with foraging too. So yeah, just like for the beginner's mind, tell us a little bit about foraging and very sweet thanks for yeah, thanks for many reminding the listeners about my book.
Speaker 1:It's not out yet. I don't even want to say the title because, uh, I just want to keep it secret keep it right now cool because it's it's close to me.
Speaker 1:You know it's not really. It's not, it's not ready to go out into the world yet, you know, um, but uh, forging, I've thought a lot about this, you know, um, I guess we there's some evidence. But learning, obviously, getting getting in touch with local, local chapters wildflower chapters are great. We meet a lot of people that way um, mushroom, mushroom groups, you know local groups that do mushrooming, those are really great. Um, so, anything with naturalists. Those are people that have experience with plants, with animals, local hunters, with people that look at water. Obviously, you're near the ocean, so fishermen, those are great. But in terms of foraging, definitely start to get used to looking at wildflower books In terms of identifying trees or identifying plants in general. Flowers are really main way of identifying plants, so getting a really good local wildflower book could be also a tree book as well. That's a great start.
Speaker 1:And so, once you identify certain plants, getting to know your area, right, try to just. You know what my mentor, arthur Hines, says. He says, you know, look beyond the wall of green. You know, when you're walking, it's not just a wall of green, right, there's individuals there that are living in a community, right, but there are individuals, right, just like you know, we're walking with people and there are individuals and that's also a community. So kind of get used to identifying things, get used to that, okay.
Speaker 1:So once you have an idea of who that is what its name is. You don't actually know who it is Like, just because I know. You know you're Ryan, don't know really who you are, you know, and we're just getting to know each other, so it's an introduction. It's like, hey, my name is, my name is Ryan, I'm not going to gonna hurt you, I'm here to help. What can I do? What can I learn? You know what? How can I? And and what can you give me? You know, it's like I don't know if there's a woman robin kimmer, who was one of my teachers.
Speaker 1:Robin kimmer, she wrote the book spreading spook ass and she talks about their honorable harvest, meaning that, uh, you know, you know there's different principles for foraging. And one of the things that she sticks with me is like when you go to your grandmother's house, you know, you know, when you see that cookie jar, you don't really just go take your cookies. You know, you ask permission. You know, can I, grandma, can I have a cookie and she, of course, she said you can have a cookie, uh. And then she said can you help me with this young man, you know? So that's something that sticks out.
Speaker 1:So once you know the name of certain things, then you know it's really time to go deep in, to deepen the things. Sometimes it's okay not even to know the name right away, like I've done workshops with different teachers of like just sitting in a community of plants or walking and sitting community and meditating and kind of talking to the plant world and saying you know, this is what I'm, this is what I I'm really dealing with this sickness, my liver is really having a hard time right now. Which of you guys can really help me out? And you'd be surprised. You know, once you go back to your house and kind of take some specimens back and you know, once you've got the name of it down, you can start to look into some of its uses and might actually have some liver benefits.
Speaker 1:So in terms of uses, there's different paths. You have modern pharmacology, meaning that you can look up. I like Google Scholar a lot. You can look up a plant, that's medicinal and phytochemical benefits, so you get a huge database there. Another thing is to do is to look up Native American ethnobotany. So ethnobotany is a study of how plants and people interact. So, because we're in Turtle Island, north and South America, you want to look up specific and there's certain databases that I could send to you, at least that I know of in North America, but there's tons of resources there.
Speaker 1:So, corroborating modern scientific pharmacological research with traditional ecological knowledge, with traditional indigenous knowledge of how to use it, because a plant could be used internally, could be used externally, could be used for food, for medicine, it could be used for fuel. It could be used for building material. It could be used for hunting material. It could be used for fuel. It could be used for, for for building material, could be used for hunting material. It can be used for dying, dying. It could be used for clothing and fiber, uh, and in containers. Um are. So there's. Plants are foundational for anyone interested in survival skills. Plants are foundational. There's not.
Speaker 1:You know, you can't really do anything if you don't know the local plants around you at a deep level. So if everybody's trying to increase their survivability in the next 100, 200 years, I would encourage your families to to really dig deep into your local plants and also local people. Uh, there might not be local people that you know about. They might be extinct, unfortunately. They might not be here anymore. But there might be resources that you could look into to see how do they build their houses with the local material here, what do they hunt? And if you can't, you know, I know, there's a big issue with pollution in the Everglades right. There's a lot of sugarcane polluting the waters, which just causes people not to be able to eat as much from the landscape. So I'd also encourage people to protect your plants and protect your waters and go out and fight for them, because that's your groundwater, that's your food, that's the air that you breathe. You know that's the visceral, that's the real thing. The climate. You know drill change starts from ground up. You know it's not going to start necessarily from a dictator, from a politician telling you to do certain things. No, so I think we could take our power back by by learning about our local environment. And for me, for me that has really been centered around plants, but of course I've I've been so fascinated with stone technology now, like, how do you make an arrowhead? Oh, how do you make this type of arrowhead, or that one or this from this cultural group, how do you make a stone axe? Or how do you make a stone chisel? Or how do you make a bone hook? Or how do you make a bone harpoon? Um, like these things, things are just, they're so cool and as a, as a man and and the boys that I work with, they kids are just naturally interested in it, and so you know there's, you know you don't want to always tell them this is how you do it, because you know, sometimes kids surprise you and they're like, wow, you just figured out a brand new way that I'd never thought about of making a certain tool. This is genius, you just discovered something genius. You put a lot of hard work. Great job. You know, you're putting in the work, you're putting in the mental work and the physical work and your imagination. Good job, you know, um, and thank you, child, for you know, when I went to visit the one of the shivyara tribes in the yasuni national forest and ecuador, the amazon rainforest. The children would bring in I don't know five to ten catfish a day, right, and they would go help their mothers gather yuca in the field and go out with the men, go hunting and and etc, etc. So it's like the kids can contribute. I think you were.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting to think about how we've misunderstood children. I think it's honestly sad sometimes how I see how modern schooling has messed up our children and maybe messed up is the wrong word but guided them in a slightly different way. And I think as a society we're going to come around. It's going to be full circle. As a society, we're going to come around. It's going to be full circle. You know we're going to come home again. It's the pendulum is going to swing, and so I think the pendulum is going to swing and hopefully just find some part in the middle to come back to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with you. I love that. And for those people listening who are totally intrigued because I know many, many are how can we find you and follow you and learn more about the amazing work that you're doing in the world, max?
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you, ryan. Yeah, I have a website, linemanrewildingcom. You could look up our school, the Lineman School of Rewilding, on Google. We're just trying to do more and more content now. We're just trying to give away more things for free, so the team is growing, our classes are growing I'm really grateful for that and trying to reach a bigger audience. And, yeah, it's been a journey, it's the start of it, something new, and so I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to link that up in the show notes so that you can just jump down and click on it. The website's awesome. I was checking it out shortly before we hopped on, so it's a great resource for anybody to go. You're on, looks like, most of the social media platforms, so you know, if you're into social media, go follow Max there too. Okay, and now, as we officially wrap up, I'm going to ask you the three questions that I ask everybody at the end of the interview, even though I have like a billion more official questions for you, but maybe we'll do a round two of this at some point.
Speaker 1:So the first question is what's bringing you joy today? Oh wow, being with my friends here at the ocean, going, surfing, being with mother ocean. Right now it's like, it's great. You know I'm not the best surfer, but I'm not the worst.
Speaker 1:So you know, that's what matters. I'm just having a smile on my face right now. Nice, love it. What. What, if anything, are you reading right now? I'm reading, like maybe I'm reading a book on, um traditional English woodworking. I'm reading a book on, um, the history of the Middle East. I'm reading a book about, um, uh, one of my mentors, uh, samuel Thayer, his foraging book book that he signed for me. I'm rereading that. And then I'm reading a book on mammals of the Northeast, mammals of North America, their tracks and science that I mentioned before. Yeah, so those are main. And then I have some audio books. I'm reading Jared Diamond, guns, germs and Steel. I got a book by Rick Rubin on creativity and, of course, podcasts that I'm looking forward to listening to your podcast as well.
Speaker 1:Awesome, very cool and then the last question I have for you is who or what have you learned the most from? Wow, who or what? Who have I learned the most from, or what? So it could be, that's great. I mean probably some of my mentors. My mentors include Arthur Haynes. He's a famous botanist and skills practitioner in Maine. I've learned from Robin Kimmerer and Neil Patterson Jr, who are indigenous people from my school in upstate New York, that I learned from. Those are a couple of people that I could think of, so one to one woman and two men a couple of people that I could think of. So one, two, one woman and and and two men.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thank you so much. This conversation has been absolutely amazing. Thank you, ryan, I really appreciate your time and on your Saturday, I really appreciate it. Hi again, friend, if you're listening to this, you made it to the end of a Raising Wild Arts episode. Yay, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so you can hear more amazing conversations just like this one. And here's the deal. If you made it this far, go ahead and hop down on your podcast app and rate and review the show. Your words and five stars truly mean the world to me. Thank you for your support of the show. Thank you for showing up and listening week after week. I will be dropping new episodes every Monday, so tune in then and I will talk to you soon.