The Lure of the Woods

I grew up wandering the woods.

Getting out there wasn’t an occasional thing.  It wasn’t a weekend, seasonal, or occasional thing. It wasn’t a thing to pass time away. It was a lifestyle thing. A walk through the woods was a daily thing.

Daily walks through the woods were mostly on account of some kind of work that needed doing … checking on fences … moving cows from day pasture to overnight corrals … closing gates … bringing the Jersey milk cow home for the night. 

Those normal daily chores always took a lot longer than necessary on account of all the woods exploring that somehow arose as part of the normal course of life for a boy that wasn’t more than 8 or 9 years old when he started wandering the woods solo.

It was, too, around that age that I graduated from a BB gun and began toting along that old .22 single shot or a .410 shotgun when out doing my woods chores. The scope and range of my woods wandering found itself largely expanded with that graduation.

I have the impression, looking back, that a lot of my peers and teachers in school believed I was maladjusted and deprived of the better things in life.

I wasn’t good at organized sports and was always one of the last ones picked for teams by peers in the schoolyard picks. That was embarrassing at first but I learned to accept and expect it as a matter of course. It was also an early on education in how the system works to reward and to punish based on some imagined preferential performance prescription. I’ve never been a fan of systems … regardless of their name or intention.

Systems create system-dependency and do nothing to promote self-reliance. Systems, in fact, depend upon this dependency to maintain their existence. The more self-reliant we become the more we jeopardize the health and welfare of systems.

School work didn’t interest me. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the intelligence to do it. It was boring. I was also surrounded by kids and teachers that I shared little in common with on a personal level. I spent a lot of time staring out the window thinking about things that were more interesting than reading, writing, arithmetic, and measuring up to and fitting into all the extracurricular amusements and games that quantified the lives of the townies I found myself forced to mingle with.

 Intelligence?

I was smart enough to figure out in a hurry just how much I needed to do to make good enough grades to keep my woods exploring, hunting, and fishing privileges from being restricted when the report cards were sent home to be signed and returned!

If, looking back, those childhood peers and teachers were right in believing I was maladjusted and socially deprived, I’m glad of it. Those maladjusted and socially deprived years laid down something deep in the fabric of my being that I’ve never been able to shake loose from.

I tried to put those roots behind me as a young adult and well into my adult years … tried to fit into the social scheme of things … and marry myself to the ideals and standards for success set forth by society. That may work for a lot of people, but it just never worked out for me. I was, for way too many years, miserable in a suit and tie and wing tip shoes. I was also gone from my woodsy outdoor roots for so long … so long on pavement and concrete sidewalks … that getting back out there away from campgrounds and campground amenities and deep into the deep woods with its natural inhabitants for a camp with minimal gear was more than kind of scary at first.

The truth is, though, that the deeper you get the deeper you want to get. The lure of the wild, and the deep peace and solitude it affords, is captivating if we will allow it to capture us. There is something in every clearing, valley, creek, and grove that stimulates the senses, offers different natural views, and opens wilderness windows of perspective that heightens the strength and enhances the aroma of the captivating lure.

I am of the opinion that it is this lure, and all that is inherently related to it, that is the real heart, frame, and meaty muscle that gives meaning to woodcraft or bushcraft or whatever else folks choose to call this thing that comes with a certain set of skills and tools surrounding it. However, every item in the toolbox … without the carrier being a captive of this lure … is merely infatuation that fast grows cold and is regularly replaced with the newest item brought to us by slick marketing.

 Skills? I can teach skills.

Tools? I can recommend appropriate tools that will stand up to the task without breaking the bank.

The lure?

We are surrounded by its curriculum. Its scent hangs heavy all around us. It reveals itself in every morning dew, in every sunrise and sunset, its aroma permeates every breeze, and crackles in every kindled campfire. Its effects are intoxicating and addicting.

I can talk about it. I can lead people into its arena. But that’s about all I can do.