Rewilding

In April I went to Anima Center to meet teacher and re-wilding teacher, Jesse Wolf Harding and to help with ongoing construction projects as one of their on-site helpers. 

 Jesse Wolf Hardin, is a personal hero of mine for his rewilding path. Jesse acquired the property in 1981 and has worked for over 30 years to restore native species and trees. When Hardin acquired the property, the riverbank was severely deforrested from cattle grazing on the young tree sapings. Harden built fences to keep the cattle out and replanted native trees. The result was apparent when I entered Anima and noticed the trees were so thick in places I had to walk around them to get into the forests around Anima. 

Hardin's idea wasn't original or complicated. It was simply the most effective way for an individual to positively affect his landbase. He bought an abused piece of land, replanted trees and has shared this land with bears, mountain lions, and wolves. Domesticated animals are banned from the property with the exception of the human visitors who come here. 

This strategy is the perfect way for an individual to heal a piece of land.

I came here as a helper to get a sense of the lifestyle here. I will try my best to describe Hardin's mission and what I got from the experience. 

Myself, before taking the 40 minute walk to arrive at Anima in Gila National Forest, NM.



Through Hardin's initiatives as as steward the  ecosystem can support coyotes, elk, mountain lions, havalina's(related to pigs). As part of being a steward, Hardin, personally drove the poacher's away from his property with a gun. 

Hardin is a rewilding teacher whose mission is to help others rewild themselves. To rewild is reverse the process of domestication and de-wilding. The word "domestication": comes from the root "to dull the senses." It is a product of genetically altering animals to exhibit certain characteristics. Humans beings have themselves been domesticated. When we "rewild" our natural world and ourselves we become in tune with our senses. By reconnecting with the wilderness, our senses become aware. We become a part of the woods instead of sepparate from it.  To do this we have to find ways to live within an eco-system like an indigenous person. 

Hardin live's off the property with his small family. They eat a lot of wild meat and food. Living off as much wild food as they can has meant less reliance on destructive shipping and cultivation practices. By eating Elk and not beef, they are eating an animal that is fits in the local eco-system rather than destroying it. By  gathering  to eat Nettles, Wild Lettuce, Dock, Shepard Purse, Acorns(their tastes chocolaty) they don't have to till and destroy the topsoil that is done in agriculture. By eating more of the wild creatures of the world, less inputs are needed to in the way domesticates need to stay alive. Wild creatures have their defenses still. 

It's not the cows fault for being put in forests, but people for bringing an animal that is appropriate for midwestern grassland to a forest area

Anima consists of Hardin, his wife, Loba, an herbalist named Kiva Rose and her daughter Rhiannon. Kiva Rose and Jesse Wolf Hardin edit and publish Plant Healer's Magazine, to connect nature people to herbalism.

The Anima Center is a model of simplicity. Anima caches their rainwater. Solar panels provides enough power to run some computers for their magazine. Loba, his wife cooks their food on a wood stove. This food has to be preserved since their is no refrigeration.

While they have a bullseye target for their diet and the lifestyle, their location in an anti-environmental town keeps them from eating 100 percent organic food. 

In  recent years the services Anima offers to the outside world have expanded with time. At first they offered personal counseling and now are in their second year publishing Plant Healer's Magazine, for herbalists and plant people. In the last year, they have opened the property for Wwoofers to come and according to Hardin "pass the baton" to those who are interested in a simple and ecological life.

I came as a volunteer to help them build amongst other things a mud oven and cold frames. But that doesn't answer why I really came to Anima.  I was looking for teachers.  For me, it took years interested in doing my part for the environment that led me to teachers who, alive or dead, discovered that out our environmental problems were fundamentally a problem of domestication, agriculture and  Western Civilization. Domestication and Western Civilizations religions and philosophy treat man and nature as separate. Our Western Civilization is in a unique war with nature and the most powerful people who can stop it have spent so little time in nature that they lack the experiential knowledge to understand how to live within it. The Wildness of the World is something "savage" and "untamed" and negative instead of positive. Then I realized that it is when we live within an eco-system that we are careful to protect it.  From there, I found similar people like Daniel Vitalis, Arthur Haines, and Jesse Wolf Hardin.

Many of my teachers use the Native Americans as a model for sustainable living. I've learned that Native American tribes and indigenous people, often revered for being sustainable beings, were not perfect, but they did learn from their mistakes. They ate wild food and lived or died by their actions in such a system. They harvested plants for food and medicine. The animals gave them a bulk of their calories and the plants kept them healthy. It was when they took took much from an area that they suffered. Knowing hundreds of different varieties of edible plants kept them thriving. When sets of wild food weren't in abundance, the people relied on other foods. 

Hardin is a spiritual teacher with a crucial distinction. He doesn't see the difference between chopping wood and spiritual quests. He sees both as being fundamentally necessary. We live on a landbase that requires our help. We live within it. It's the alienation from the landscape that we've hurt ourselves and all the wildness of the world. 

As Hardin has gotten older he has become more focused on writing and education and has spent less time working on the homestead.  Helpers and volunteers now spend time maintaining the homestead they live on.

Under the roof is the oasis. The house in the background is a writing shed. 

A simple bridge and walk way minimizes the everyday human  from stepping on the plants.

A fellow helper named Fritz firing the mud brick oven the helpers made.

Walking down river from Anima, I felt the energy and saw
 the remains of the Mogollon Indians who
'rlived here thousands of years ago.

For the most caring among us, we can learn how to live in ecologically balance when we begin living on the planet as people, instead of remaining lost in space. 

While Hardin's plan is simple to follow, it requires letting go of civilization's conveniences.  We have to let go of our ideas of material progress. Then we have to learn how to live on the planet as animals.  There will be humanist, religious, sociological, financial, cultural beliefs we have to break a long the way.  Then in order for us to live off the land we have to learn skills that most people don't learn as a child. 

If you're already keyed in to these premises then Anima is your ally. Hardin's doesn't write to convince anyone but to offer support to people already. 

Just being there, gave  me a taste of what to expect from this path. I slept outside under the stars most nights and I shared most of my meals with the other helpers. I think most of us slept better being in the circadian rhythym of the place. With no electricity or running water our routines were changed. I cool myself off in the river. I used bucket of soapy water to clean myself. We heated hot water for dishes. We transported our water from a water cache to the cabin. . Outside I received more than enough sun unlike most vitamin- D deprived office workers. 

Kiva's herbs and Loba's excellent cooking gave me the medicine and foods I needed to enjoy the experience. They gave me a taste of the wild and it's pleasures. 

 The manual labor was good for my body and cleared my mind.

I slept well. Ate well. Laughed a lot with the helpers. Made an earth oven. But the most important of all was I found people who felt the same way I felt about things. 

Time slowed down at the time. My mind calmed down to. I felt relaxed and healthy in the natural environment. I felt affirmed by my comfort in the situation.

I left stronger for the path ahead.

Jesse Wolf Hardin put aside an hour during my time to consult me on the personal challenges I have ahead to make Rewild a piece of land. However, given the simplicity of the plan any complication in the plan is of my own design and to let that go.

Jesse advise me to do what expresses my true self. Don't do it for a guarantee, but to express my true self. If   this means to let go of the promises made in the past to do it. 

We want guarantees of getting what we seek so we don't seek. However, we should do these things are to express our true selves.

We should do things because we are willing to do them. If we aren't then we shouldn't. It's really that simple.

It took me a lot of time in nature and a lot of knocks to get to where I am now to discover the wildness of the world as something that makes life more exciting and liberating. I am going forward willing to change. 


If you feel this way you are not alone.


If you want to connect with Anima to find out what services they have to offer or to offer support, you can visit their site at animacenter.org.