Anna Visits Korean Wildlife Photographer And Wildnerness Skills Expert, CheGiSoon

Anna, a friend and part of the Ancestral Skills Korea group recently visited, a wildlife photographer and nature expert. Finding another person interested in primitive skills is always exciting as they can be a potential ally.

Anna is interested in community building. She is going to be point person to try to get together a group of people to visit the gallery and the community center.

From her blog, and conversations,

His gallery in Chungcheon, Gangwondo, is called '야생 갤러리' which means 'Wild Gallery.' About CheGiSoon,  최기순: He is a Korean wildlife documentary filmmaker and photographer, who teaches part time at Kangwon National University where my friend has gone to school, runs this small space in Chuncheon.

He's been going back and for to Russian for 15 years, documenting wild animal life, particularly amur leopards, bears and tigers. He also owns a property in Hongcheon, outside of Chuncheon, where Korean students and nature lovers come to stay. "

After an initial meeting, Anna and CheGiSoon,  met again in Anna's town, where he showed her "endless photos of his work in Russia,.' Anna can speak Russian at a high level, so the conversation was functional between broken Russian and Korea.

Hongcheon center, is what I am most excited about. As Anna described, it is named 까르 돈 'cardon'  the Russian name,  for the special house where the natural preserve guards live. That the Russian language has such a word, is evidence of naturephilia with a certain group of Russian people.

That CheGiSoon is using Cardon as a name, sounds like a caretaker to me.  Is he going to be another teacher and mentor for me? Does he need a student or a helper? Is there is something I can collaborate or help him with, such as building or planting for Cardon.  Perhaps I can help with primitive skill teaching to Korean students. Perhaps I can learn more about natural building in exchange for my labor. Time will tell.

I wish I could read this book: It's called, Less is More 없는 걱이 만아서 자유로운

It's a book written by three women, a mother and two daughters who live a simple life. They spend their days farming, reading, and philosophizing. They put very little emphasis except to earn what is necessary. Because they've whittled downed their material needs they need little money. The grow food to support themselves, but not for sale. 

They don't suffer in the fields. They work hard and have time for themselves, to read and philosophize. A large portion of the book talks about the books they read and the discussions they are able to have from their simple life. All in all it has been a journey of self-discovery for three woman.

As gardeners, they plant seeds in the forests as well as their garden to encourage them to grow wild. They experiment with planting rare varieties of seeds to see what happens. Most don't grow, but some do. 

They have move five times and left their planted trees and gardens as they moved. Whether it is part of their plan, they are actually making food gardens in their path. Living gifts for the next inhabitants. 

Do-Eun, the matriarch interviewed in an article which is also my source material is titled:  "Life of Three Women Philosophers" spent years learning to use her body for physical labor and this along with the freedoms afforded in her lifestyle, she found herself.

" I know longer think of myself as weak."

For years she struggled through worrying what others thought about her and how people thought about their lifestyles. 

Through her journey her focuses shifted to what she needed to what mattered to her self at the time. I will let her speak for herself. The following words are her words.

"There was a time when freedom mattered the most to me, and then it was ecology, and now I’m most interested in seeking answers. You can call it philosophizing. I have this hope that I might be able to look at things more closely from a perspective that the modern civilization cannot.

She learned that she was being true to herself. 

"Now, I trust myself. I tell myself, “You are living truthfully,” with confidence. Believing in myself, that’s what I learned. It took a while."