Nature mysticism with no exclusion.

     I have been a part of real intensive outdoors group since I was 12. from the begining the experience has been a very moving experience. the first night on a camp here in a small patch of wilderness northeast of Toronto Canada I was told as were my peers that i was to put on a blind fold and in turn walk down the dirt road ( it was within a closed campground so no cars). the premis was that i would walk and feel, smell and listen but not see and find my way the whole half mile alone. Peter who was the leader( this group was not affiliated with the Scouts but similer) said that if you just feel with your feet gravel you are on the road and if it turns to leaves you are off track. I felt reasonably scard being twelve walking a unknown road at 10 pm alone. to add to the intensity that further required us to be exercizing our awarness. we were told that at a point along the trail someone is sitting in the woods just off the trail and that if we felt like we were being watched at any point to stop point toward where we imagined the fantom to be and say something like "to my right". Surprisingly i nailed the last part despite feeling like someone could be watching me the whole time, and i didn't get lost.

    Over the next 4 years of weeknight meetings devoted to nature awarness, survival and native american spiritual study( including some George Gerjif, dan millman and Wilber near the end) I got to take part in endless excursions into exploring the natural world and I realy formed a strong love and respect for it. Fortunatly our leader had a grounded sence of an integral perspective so despite the most romantic nature mysticism that we were exposed to i came away not only angsty about the present ecologicall perils of man but also having a strong sence that there was no real seperation between man made and nature.

    I would like to teach all of the wilderness awarness and survivall skills i have learned. By now my values have been so jumbled up with questions of what is spiritual and what is materialist but also more than ever, because i am starting to find out that even the most material pursuits (such as i have experienced through studying and fully emercing myself into nature via the sences), are fundemental in that the spiritual and intelectual growing i have done have both been catylized by them.

"Fox walking (walking very deliberatly) and wide angle vision( peripheral) are the gatway to spirituality" Tom Brown jr