Way of the Earth

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Blue Hill, ME
Way of the Earth

Ancestral Skills School in Blue Hill, Maine 💫
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12/10/2024

Birch tar ✨ We try our best to live from the landscape we live within; which means limiting ourselves to whats here. We love doing this because it causes you to look around and see the value that exists in everything and it’s healthy to be at the whims of the natural world. Sometimes you just have to make do, and sometimes you get the best there is. Fortunately for us, this landscape is blessed with the mighty gift of Birch Tar.

We use birch tar for so much…
✨ most importantly, as a very effective insect repellent! 🦟
✨ treating bark tan leather and felt for water proofing/resistance.
✨ use as medicine, pure or diluted in salves.
✨ woodland perfume to attract the forest fae (that’s how I found Colby).
✨ rubbing on wood crafts, bone tools, cordage, etc for preservation

And the best part is how our relationship with birch deepened when birch tar was introduced to our life. Showing us over and over, that these skills truly are the language humans speak with the earth.

Thank you Birch 💛 for your tar and all the other ways you support us.

Want to learn how to make Birch tar & attract your own forest fae babe? 🧚
Visit our website for more info on our 4 month immersion program ✨

12/03/2024

Cedar & Basswood Bark weavings 💫

From clothing to cordage these generous trees bring us on journeys deep into the forests, retting bark til it’s broken down just enough, processing it in applicable ways for your project, spinning with handmade tools from bone and wood, and weaving on looms built by hand. Each tree has different strengths to keep in mind when working with them.

✨ Cedar fiber shines at…
- Being highly mold, bacteria and rot resistant
- Strong
- Quite water resistant

✨ Basswood fiber shines at…
- Extremely strong
- Easy to process
- Long staple length and easy to thin the fibers

Like all ancestral skills, the depth of relationship is found in practicing the skills over and over, peeing back layer after layer of the never ending gifts the land around you has to offer.

Thank you to the tree realm for taking such good care of us 💫

11/26/2024

Everything is a track.

Asking ourselves the sacred and important question starts to reveal the story… What happened here and what is it telling me ✨

Why did this deer stop here each time it passes?
Why are its hind hoofs pressed deep into the forest leaves?
What caused it to leave in such a hurry?

Tracks impact and reverberate throughout time. The more you learn about tracking, the longer and more detailed the story of the land gets.

Visit our website for more info on our 4 month immersion program ✨

11/22/2024

One of the deepest lessons we’ve learned from Cedar, is that we can only heal the earth as much as we heal ourselves.

So for those of us deeply called to be in intimate relationship with the earth, becoming a competent steward requires us to be on the never ending journey of healing our inner world.

Healing is becoming whole, it’s not changing who we are. It’s to listen to those lost parts of us that are waiting to be seen & listened to; once they are listened to, loved, and welcomed back to us, they become our greatest gifts. We develop our innate super powers and become medicine to give back to our ecosystem.

No other being in the wild lives for themselves, and humans are no different. We are medicine creatures for the rivers, the plants and the animals. They used to look up to us for that, and there is no reason we can’t return to a world where yarrow looks to us for our own gifts, like we lovingly look to her. We are meant to be their protectors, their stewards. As indigenous leaders around the world tell us, to be caretakers of the earth is our original role.

When we heal ourselves, then we can turn towards the earth and see what she needs to be the most abundant, radiant version of herself too. Because when we have seen the depths of ourselves, the earths depths are unveiled. We can hear exactly what she needs and follow with grounded actions that truly change the world and make our ecosystems/communities more abundant; and thoroughly enjoy the journey along the way.

In our immersion program, we gently weave in inner skills; using ancestral skills, the land and our community as the relationships that enliven and support that journey.

Visit our website more information on our immersion program 💫

11/19/2024

Smell ✨ another layer of sensing aliveness.

Our sense of smell enriches our world. All smells, yummy, gross, uplifting are information that informs our decisions and helps guide us through the world.

Perhaps the reason so many people are obsessed with the smell of buckskin, is because a smoked oil tanned skin has represented warmth/shelter for all of our ancestors for hundreds of thousands of years. The sense of safety is deeply engrained. Like buckskin, so many smells cue various emotions that send us feelings of security (shelter, food, your loved ones) or danger (harmful bacteria, forest fire, incoming rain).

In our immersion program we love following scent trails, navigating the land by how it smells, tuning into smelling weather shifts and enjoying the rich array of smells that come from a life full of earth skills.

Visit our website to learn more about our immersion program 💫

11/05/2024

The tracking box is a like a book to study the language of the tracks; where we learn to read the multitude of stories left through the marks upon the earth.

Each track has something to say...
🐾This wave created across the ball of foot, shows a reduction in speed.
🐾 The deep depth of toes and the placement of the two tracks next to each other shows a quick stop of sudden surprise.
🐾 The shift in sand around the right heel indicates a sharp turn in a new direction.

Each track contains an abundance of information, rich in detail, revealing as much as we are capable of seeing and asking.

07/10/2024

Pitch sticks! ✨ an easy way to harvest and store pine pitch for fire starting, salves, natural epoxy/hafting recipes, etc. We just collect it on a stick, dip it in ashes to make it not sticky and then store it somewhere out of the sun so it doesn’t melt. So many gifts from the pines… 🥰

Visit our website for more info about our 4 month immersion program 💫

07/04/2024

Pine baskets made in our gifts of the pine workshop with our immersion program ✨

Pine is one of the most universal trees, found in so many different landscapes. So many of our ancestors relied on this tree so their life could continue. Thank you pine!

Visit our website for more info about our 4 month immersion program 💫

07/02/2024

The apprentices have been nurturing a relationship to pine tree this summer 💫

They have made pine bark chips, tea from the needles and bark, pitch sticks for fire starting and medicine, clothes pins from the branches, dug roots for sewing, and made some amazing baskets! And soon we will make pine pitch “apoxy” to seal some cracks in coal burned bowls and haft bone tool handles with.

Participating with the wild kin abound in nature dispels the internal conscious or unconscious belief that we are separate… we are far from separate. Humans belong to the earth, and there is a wildly intimate connection there waiting to be remembered.

Visit our website to learn more about our 4 month immersion program 💫

06/28/2024

We all have a role, a niche in nature within the ecosystems we live in. Fish, amongst other roles, are a significant food source. They live to feed many species and are designed to be nutrient pumps from the ocean to the land, which relies on them dying. If they don’t die, they don’t complete their role. Their vision path is not fulfilled. Thank you fishies for letting your life move through us so we can continue to live.

The best way to honor the animals we kill, is to kill them well with love in hearts, like these wild hearted apprentices biting their heads off.

06/18/2024

Adding the layers to a filter made from only materials from the land ✨ a root basket, sand, charcoal, sphagnum moss, twigs, pebbles and grass ✨

Visit our website for more info about our 4 month immersion program 💫

04/30/2024

The deeper you go into the technicalities of bow drill, the deeper you can access bow drills greatest potential to root you into connection to the land.

Becoming competent isn’t about getting good at a skill. It’s about what you learn along the way; because ancestral skills are born from interconnections. You can’t just do bow drill, you must get to know the land deeply. And yourself.

You must learn…
🔥 which trees are good for bow drill kits (and why) and how to carve a set.
🔥 how to make cordage from the land at various times of year.
🔥 different materials to make a tinder bundle with and how to construct one.
🔥 proper posture
🔥 you must practice believing in yourself and pushing through when the learning is hard…getting to know your own inner fire.
🔥 the list goes on…

The more times you do it, the more shared story you create, and the more bow drill starts shaping who you are. You become kin of fire.

All ancestral skills are like that… they are truly the language humans speak with the earth. The journey of becoming competent in the skills is a playful journey of developing deep relationship.

✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨

Thats why we offer advanced level classes in our 4 month ancestral skills apprenticeship. We teach in a heart based way with reciprocity woven throughout… all while having a total blast 💫

Link in bio ✨ don’t let financial barriers get in your way. We want this program to be accessible to anyone who feels called.

Address

319 Jay Carter Road
Blue Hill, ME
04614

Telephone

+12076649006

Website

http://WayoftheEarth.com/

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