The Art of Group Reliance

From our friends at This Is Primal War:

Primitive skills are not merely niche hobbyist and macho survivalist concerns, rather are the birthright of every human today, much as knowing how to navigate thousands of miles each season is the birthright of the Monarch Butterfly. It is precisely these skills that kept our asses alive for the millions of years of human existence, but they did much more than just allow us to survive. These most basic of skills created and sustained communities of people, built ties, strengthened relationships and allowed us to be more fluid without the constraints of an anxiety racked, alienated work force of producers and mind-numbed consumers.  Today, these skills are written off by many in the left as the toils of reactionary, right-wing militia types, hell-bent on individualist living.  How short is the memory of those dependent upon forgetting?

The basics of our survival: food, water, shelter, containers and cordage, are now available in finished, plastic wrapped, mass produced form to any first world person with the money to buy them. The concept of need is tormented in it's false projections and the joys of wants are as manufactured as the cheap filth products that abound to fulfill them. This process requires the enslavement of a production society, the enslavement of a service society and the enslavement of a consumer society, married to the absolute destruction of the land bases of us all through industrial extraction, waste, and the civilization borne illness of a disposable society. We have ourselves a recipe for insanity. The division of labor is not only a division of who does what work, but a division of self to the land in which we were born to thrive in. The passing of primitive skills helps to break the barrier of the frightened co-dependence of civilized life, and welcome in a wildness that is not only all around us, but inside of us. 

The battle we are in constant struggle with is the innate hierarchies in civilized living. There is much argument to when these began. Some say with the advent of agriculture and some with the concept of marriage, others with gender roles and religiosity. No matter where it began, we cannot argue that hierarchy is a cornerstone of civilization. Without it we cannot domesticate, subjagate, persecute, or enslave. One of the greatest benefits to primitive technologies is their decentralizing force. Who controls your ability to survive, controls you totally. If the elements of survival are shared with all, or at least grasped by all, then there is an automatic liberation in it's beginning. If we take even a cursory glance at the functions of our societies today, one will see an intentional hording of information. Whether this is for profit or control, or both, varies by situation. Power dynamics are  prevalent in most civilized relationships, necessitating the constant struggle towards liberation.

  Children are kept segregated from society, in small boxes where they are taught anything BUT the methods of survival. Advertising uber alles ensures that an entire nation will be under the firm choke-hold of consumerism. We are taught to want, and what to want, but not how to create. Elders, many of whom do not even have the skills to survive themselves, are also pushed away into packing houses of the sick and dying.  We are taught to navigate THEIR systems of life, to ignore the natural systems from which we are being ever torn. By the age of 5 we are all too familiar with the Logos of fast food poisons, while simultaneously taught that the forest is the place where the big bad wolf lives. This elemental disconnect begins our journey away from the community of life, and into the assylum of alienation. Food comes from those lighted signs and danger comes from the dark places. Most people I know that are between the ages of 17 and 28 do not know how to prepare their own food, let alone how to grow, forage, or hunt for it. This is a primitive skill that has been taken away, refined and left to the experts, this case being the corporate giants, to handle. We were once these children too, and we were taken away from this world at birth. We are taught to see our history in the rear view, always receeding, and not allowed to understand that the story of our lives is alive, albeit in much danger of extinction. Everyone from the age of 18 to 65 is stuck in the middle ground of not knowing where to put their ass or their face, and end up covered in shit.

As our family has taken steps to break from societal confines over the years, none of our choices have been so beneficial as seeking out primitive skills.  You cannot begin to know what it feels like to sit with a group of your family and friends and rediscover hand to mouth skills from the land that surrounds us until you do it. Political discussions are a great form of intellectual masturbation, but little brings more joy to resistance than holding life in your hands and feeling at home. In the vast sea of Green Anarchist critique, most of which I very much enjoy and take part in discussing often, I have seen a disconnect from the skill aspect of primitive living. Without this element we are flinging shit in the wind of academia, hoping to not get hit on it's return. There is no philosophizing needed when my 7 year old daughter teaches me how she knapped a flint scraper with elk antler. Maybe for some of you, there is too much philosophizing to grasp it. As for me, I am content with it being what it is. A child who is not only grasping an ancient skill, but having a hell of a good time doing it. It is a few hours she is not being slammed with billboards and adverts. An hour she is not being made to feel less than another because her clothes are dirty, or she is not quite as strong as another kid. It is a time that negates time, and begets confidence, skill, tools, and re-creates memories that are older than us all.

One myth of primitive skills is that  the classes are costly, and the instructors are all macho hetero males. While there is a lot of truth to part of this, being that organized classes with specific "tracker" groups are quite overpriced, and many of the "leaders" of these classes are capitalist macho pricks, this, of course, does not need to be the case. Many of the skills I learn are from books or friends, for free. Being that I don't have any macho prick friends, I skirt the latter and since most of my friends have no money, and are quite content, I dodge the prior. It is not that I am opposed to paying for certain classes, or gatherings, as I understand that the filthy lucre of the king has taken over most of our daily exchanges, it's just that we don't have any money, so it is not an issue. If you do have the money to take a course or a few courses from a good tracker school, by all means do! Take every thing you learned and share share share! Your friends will love it and if you are savvy enough to make a zine, youtube videos or a blog, you can guarantee I will be reading it at some point. In the meantime, there is no end to the amount of free information that exists on these subjects. 

Click here to read more...

Basic Street Medic Training at Wild Roots Feral Futures 2012

We're excited to announce that Colorado Street Medics will be facilitating a two-day Basic Street Medic Training this year at Wild Roots Feral Futures. The training will take place June 17th & 18th.

Who & What are Street Medics?

You’re among thousands at an antiwar demonstration when police start using pepper spray and firing tear-gas grenades. You’re choking and blinded. People around you are shouting and panicking. Ordinary fire and rescue services are standing idle–they are instructed never to enter areas until police declare them secured, and to tear-gas a crowd is to define it as insecure.

Who will help? The Street Medics. A band of volunteers with varying levels of medical credential but all specially trained in the treatment of the injuries most common at demonstrations. Street Medics walk purposefully alongside frightened crowds, urging them to “walk!”. They move in buddy pairs, carrying medical supplies and wearing eclectic uniforms–a fishing vest with MEDIC and a star of life emblazoned on the back or a jacket with a Red Cross made of duct tape.

Street Medics aren’t just at protests. We travel wherever we can to offer medical care. Be it an anti-war demonstration, a natural disaster or a war zone, the Street Medics will travel to help those in need.

Colorado Street Medics are one of the original street medic collectives organized to assert that healthcare is a human right. We band together as medical providers ranging from herbalists and paramedics to doctors and acupuncturists. We believe in participating in solidarity, not charity. We participate in events as community members, not saviors or heroes. We work to deconstruct oppression in ourselves and our communities as well as supporting social movements that work to do the same.

Wild Roots Feral Futures 2012

 

"The whole earth is in jail 
and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak."

June 16 - 24, 2012

San Juan Mountains, Southwest Colorado 
(Exact location to be determined)

Greetings from the occupied Nuchu (Ute) territories of Turtle Island, colonially known as the "American Southwest"!

We are very happy to announce that, for the 4th year running, the Wild Roots Feral Futures (WRFF) eco-defense, direct action, and rewilding encampment will take place in the forests of Southwest Colorado this coming June, 2012. WRFF is an informal, completely free and non-commercial, and loosely organized camp-out operating on (less than a) shoe-string budget, formed entirely off of donated, scavenged, or liberated supplies and sustained through 100% volunteer effort. Though we foster a collective communality and pool resources, we encourage total self-sufficiency (which we find to be the very source and foundation of true mutual sharing and abundance).

We would like to invite groups and individuals engaged in struggles against the destruction of the Earth (and indeed all interconnected forms of oppression) to join us and share your stories, lessons, skills, and whatever else you may have to offer. In this spirit we would like to reach out to local environmental groups, coalitions, and alliances everywhere, as well as more readily recognizable groups like Earth First!, Rising Tide North America, and others to come collaborate on the future of radical environmentalism and eco-defense in our bio-regions and beyond.

We would also like to reach out to groups like EF!, RTNA, and the Ruckus Society (as well as other groups and individuals) in search of trainers and workshop facilitators who are willing to dedicate themselves to attending Wild Roots Feral Futures and sharing their skills and knowledge (in a setting that lacks the financial infrastructure to compensate them as they may have come to expect from other, more well-funded groups and events). We are specifically seeking direct action, blockade, tri-pod, and tree climbing/sitting trainers (as well as gear/supplies).

Regarding the rewilding and ancestral earth skills component of WRFF, we would like to extend a similar invitation to folks with skills, knowledge, talent, or specialization in these areas to join us in the facilitation of workshops and skill shares such as fire making, shelter building, edible and medicinal plants, stalking awareness, tool & implement making, etc. We are also seeking folks with less "ancestral" outdoor survival skills such as orienteering and navigation, etc.

Daily camp life, along with workshops, skill shares, great food, friends, and music, will also include the volunteer labor necessary to camp maintenance. In past years we've experiences a bit of resistance to requests for basic work volunteers, so we are making a point of it now to ask you to come prepared to pitch in and contribute to the work load. We encourage folks who would like to plug in further to show up a few days before the official start of the event to begin set-up and stay a few days after the official end to help clean up.

Site scouting will continue until mid-May, at which point scouts and other organizers will rendezvous, report-back their scouting recon, and come to a consensus regarding a site location (though we encourage and intend to foster the spread of this event beyond the region that initially spawned it, Southwest Colorado has once again been isolated as the event location region simply because no other communities stepped up with a solid and dedicated proposal to organize and host the event in their own area). We are also planning on choosing a secondary, back-up site location as a contingency plan for various potential scenarios. Email us for more info on getting involved with scouting and site selection processes.

WRFF is timed to take place before the Earth First! Round River Rendezvous, allowing eco-defenders to travel from one to the other. Thus we encourage the formation of a caravan from WRFF to the EF! RRR (caravans and ride shares can be coordinated through our message board at http://feralfutures.proboards.com/ or via our mailing list & discussion group at http://groups.google.com/groups/wild-roots-feral-futures).

We are currently accepting donations in the form of supplies and/or monetary contributions. Please email us for details.

Please forward this call widely, spread the word, and stay tuned for more updates!

For The Wild,

~The Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers' collective

Email: feralfutures(at)riseup(dot)net

Blog: http://feralfutures.blogspot.com/

Message Boards: http://feralfutures.proboards.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/feralfutures (outdated)

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144156462306036

Mailing List/Discussion Group: http://groups.google.com/group/wild-roots-feral-futures

For the sake of comprehensiveness, we are including below our original call-out as used in years past, which is a living document, changing and evolving as we ourselves learn and grow:

We are looking for folks of all sorts to join us and help facilitate workshops, conflict resolution and management, direct action and medic trainings, wild food walks, and much more! We will be focusing on many things, including but by no means limited to anarchist theory and praxis, unpacking privilege, decolonization, rewilding, ancestral skills, indigenous solidarity, direct action, forest defense, earth liberation, animal liberation, security culture, civil disobedience, hand to hand combat, survival skills, evasion tactics, green anarchism, anti-civ, post-civ, star watching and navigation, maps and orienteering, shelter building, permaculture, and whatever YOU care to bring and provide. But we need everyone's help to make this as safe, positive, and productive a space as it can be. Our own knowledge, skills, and capacities are limited. We need YOUR help!

Roles we REALLY need filled:

• Kitchen! (last year's informal kitchen was supported by Durango Food Not Bombs and upheld communally by event participants, but this year we are once again reaching out to the likes of Seeds of Peace and Everybody's Kitchen in hopes they'll provide kitchen support this time around)

• CRAM team (conflict resolution and management: we need people of diverse gender/sexual orientations who know how to give support to survivors of sexual assault and to people with PTSD)*

• Medics! (especially WFRs, WEMTs, & EMTs of diverse gender/sexual orientations)

• Child care! (We will have a kids space and support parents in participating in communal child care)

*There is a need for both womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk on both the CRAM and Medic teams because many people in our communities aren't going to trust men, cis people, or heteros with their health or to help with conflicts. We do not expect womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk to do the support work, but seek to create and maintain a safe and welcoming space that allows for plenty of room for it.

We at the Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers collective feel that white dominated spaces & racism within our communities are a significant problem, & feel the need to confront that. Due to the legacy of racism within our communities of resistance we will be holding workshops on white privilege, settler privilege, & cultural appropriation.

We also feel that cis-hetero, male dominated spaces and hetropatriarchy within our communities are equally problematic, and will also be holding workshops on patriarchy and (anti)sexism.

We would like to put out a request for workshops on white privilege, hetero privilege, cis privilege, and male privilege. We recognize that it's not the job of those of us oppressed by white supremacy and heteropatriarchy to facilitate those workshops. We don't expect oppressed people to attend, but you are welcome to. While it is not the responsibility or duty of queers, POC (People of Color), and other oppressed and marginalized people to assist white, cis-hetero, and privileged people unpack, deconstruct, and confront their own privilege, these processes will be open to all.

We intend to create clinic space with some privacy provided for patient care so that the bodies of trans people (and also cis womyn) aren't on display during vulnerable moments. We will also be implementing a safe(r) space policy to keep perpetrators of sexual/physical assault out of our community and support survivors by respecting any processes of accountability they initiate.

Womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk have full support of the Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers collective to establish safer spaces for themselves, including spaces that are only for people who are oppressed by sexism, people who are queer, and people who are trans. We recognize the need for those spaces because no matter how much we work on our privilege, as recovering hetropatriarchists still in the process of mental and psychological decolonization and recovery, we're still going to be bringing heteropatriarchy into the space (hopefully unconsciously and unintentionally, which does little to change its effects).

We also intend to create family/child friendly space that includes multigenerational workshops and activities appropriate (and fun!) for kids.

Camp guidelines (in progress):

We seek to create safe(r) space for all, including families and children, the sober, and those who identify as GLBTQ.

Please do not make assumptions about an individual’s gender, and if you feel unsure, do not be afraid to ask what someone’s preferred gender pronoun is. If you use the incorrect gender pronoun, you will be corrected, but it is not something to be ashamed of. We have all been raised within a gender binary culture and breaking free of these false binaries is a process of learning and growing for all. It is also appropriate to introduce your preferred gender pronoun when first introducing yourself to new people, if you feel the desire.

Due to natural circumstances and the lay of the land (rocky trails on steep hills, etc.), ableism and “disability” may hinder accessibility for some to the inner reaches of the gathering, including the hot springs. This is a reality of the natural world that is beyond our ability or desire to alter or control.

We expect everyone to observe good security culture. If you are unfamiliar with security culture, check out our security culture workshop(s), check the zine library for security culture literature, or just ask an event organizer for a basic overview. Basically, don’t talk about your or someone else’s involvement in illegal activity, and don’t make jokes, because even jokes can be used in court as evidence against you. Keep in mind that ANYONE could be an infiltrator or informant. While we must act accordingly, it is also important to not let this reality sow seeds of distrust and suspicion within our communities that leads to self-repressive restrictions on our ability to form and build relationships with one another as human beings and creatures of this Earth. Following good security culture allows us to interact and build relationships without placing ourselves in unnecessary and risky situations because of potential surveillance.

When it comes to physical intimacy and sexual contact, ASK FIRST! No Compromise In Defense of Consent!

For more on consent, attend our consent workshop(s) or inquire with event organizers.

Violence, physical assault, emotional assault, and/or sexual assault will NOT be tolerated under any circumstances and anyone who engages in such assault will be asked to leave. In instances of assault we will trust and believe the survivor and respect any processes of accountability they initiate.

For more information on how our communities deal with assault and accountability, check out our conflict de-escalation/resolution workshop(s) or inquire with event organizers.

In attempting to manifest the world we desire, we will pursue non-coercive means of conflict resolution and non-coercive processes of accountability. Decisions affecting the group will be made horizontally through the utilization of consensus process. If you are unfamiliar with consensus process, check out consensus workshops.

We seek to create a temporary autonomous zone which functions as an egalitarian community. In this spirit of cooperation and mutual aid, we request that people attending the gathering sign up for work shifts such as cooking meals, cleaning the kitchen and washing dishes after meals, digging latrines, doing supply/water runs, security & welcoming, etc. A shift sign-up sheet will circulate at communal meals.

We ask that people establish communal fires in the various neighborhoods within the gathering and refrain from making personal fires. Communal latrines will also be constructed in the various villages and we ask that people refrain from digging personal cat holes. This will minimize our overall impact on the land.

Drugs and alcohol are discouraged, but a rowdy zone will be established at the parking area, where we request the partying be restricted. NO illegal drugs, please. All other space, including celebratory and ceremonial space, should be considered sober space. Your personal space is, of course, your personal space, and you may do what you wish within it. Please respect others. For safety reasons, we request total sobriety when attending workshops and trainings. Unlike many similar gatherings, a space IS being designated for partying. This is more than you will find at most gatherings of this sort. So let’s have some fun!

Dogs increase our impact on the land and local wildlife, and are thus discouraged, though we understand and accept the fact many human beings and their canine companions are inseparable, and they will undoubtedly remain a part of our rewilded and feral futures upon this planet. We request that if you bring your dog, you keep it on a leash. If your dog attacks wildlife, other dogs, or human beings, you will be asked to leave the gathering. Please bury your dog shit!

Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available. Also see the information from last year as much of it will remain applicable this year as well, though there are also many changes in store to make this year's gathering a much wilder experience than last year's. See you in the woods!

May the forest bewitch you,

—the Wild Roots Feral Futures crew:
-the Dirty Hands Collective http://www.myspace.com/dirtyhandscollective
-Earth First! Durango (a cell of HC.EF!) https://southwestearthfirst.wordpress.com/
-Root Force Durango http://www.rootforce.org/
-Rising Tide Durango http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/
-Durango Food Not Bombs https://durangofoodnotbombs.wordpress.com/

feralfutures@riseup.net
http://www.myspace.com/feralfutures
http://feralfutures.blogspot.com/
http://feralfutures.proboards.com/
http://groups.google.com/group/wild-roots-feral-futures

Ⓐ Ⓔ ✌ ☮ ☠

What to bring (suggestions):

Vital items we are seeking:

☆someone with a pickup truck with one of those giant water tanks!

Personal items:

• tent
• sleeping bag
• hammocks
• food & water
• water filter (suggested)
• toilet paper
• adequate clothing for hot days, cold nights, rain, etc.
• your own bowl, cup, utensils, etc.
• flashlight/headlamp & extra batteries
• sunscreen and bug repellent if you use it
• swimsuit & towel (there are swimming holes & hot springs! who wants to skinny dip?)
• fishing gear & license (world-class fly fishing!)
• musical instruments
• your knowledge, wisdom, and skills
• your friends!

Communal items (to share or donate):

• tools (like shovels for digging shitters and hatchets/axes/saws for cutting up fire wood)
• food and water (a communal kitchen will form)
• kitchen gear (large pots, pans, water containers, etc.)
• extra tents, easy-ups, etc. (the larger the better)
• tarps and rope
• hammocks, hacky-sacks, frisbees, etc.
• climbing gear (harnesses, ropes, etc.) for tree climbing/sitting trainings
• First Aid gear!
• random primitive skills supplies (you know better than we do!)
• arts and crafts supplies (think of the children!)
• radical environmental, primitive, and rewilding literature
• local plant and animal identification guides, etc.
• local topographical maps
• your knowledge, wisdom, and skills
• your friends!

Things NOT to bring:

• firearms and other weapons (there's a difference between a TOOL and a WEAPON)
• parasitic or predatory human beings
• a bad attitude (including racism, sexism, classism, heteronormativity, homophobia, speciesism, ageism, ableism, etc.)
• the pigs and/or feddies
• a wire (we will be holding mandatory naked security culture workshops in the hot springs. No just kidding, only with your consent!)

Wild Roots Feral Futures 2011: Site location/directions!

After much deliberation, we've consented to once again utilizing the Piedra location (same directions as below).

Despite the location of many amazing possible sites, we have concluded that Piedra is by far the most resilient to our impact, and offers many other pros that outweigh the cons.

We are, however, this year focusing on encouraging folks to spread out a lot more than in years past, deeper into the Weminuche Wilderness, which is Colorado's largest and wildest.

See you in the woods!

PS - There's a ride share at http://feralfutures.proboards.com/

—

The time has come to openly release the directions to the site of this year's Wild Roots Feral Futures gathering. Though the gathering takes place for a one week duration, we invite everyone to arrive a little early and leave a little late. After all, we need help setting up and cleaning up!

Base camp is located in the Piedra Area along the Piedra River (below the Wiminuchee Wilderness north of Highway 160 between Durango/Bayfeild and Pagosa Springs, CO. Turn left when headed east from Durango to Pagosa on 1st Fork Road (FR 622) which is on the east side of the Piedra river.

The site is 5 or 6 miles up. You'll see a T in the road sign with a right hand turn but right after the sign and before the turn there's a parking area to the left with a sign by the trailhead that's labeled Sheep Creek Trail Head. That's the main parking/entrance and there's LOTS of camping and extra parking up top and LOTS of camping up above or down below on the way down the mountain side, or all the way down by the river.

The site features a natural hot springs along the side of the river, but we'll save those directions for those of you who show up in the woods!

Site directions/location:

Drive East from Durango, CO on US Hwy 160 for approximately 35 miles (West from Pagosa Springs). Turn left (if headed East from Durango) on FS622, the dirt road on the East side of the Piedra river, NOT the one on the West side of the river. Drive for about 5 to 5 1/2 miles until you see the turn-out & parking area on your left, which is pretty obvious. There should be a sign that says Sheep Creek trailhead, and a trail going down the hill. If you come to a bridge that the road crosses, you've gone way too far. That's the definite turn-around point.

At the turn off of HWY 160 onto FS622 is a sign that says 'Piedra Resort,' and the first road sign you see DOES have a 622 sign, a little forest service colored one, but the bigger road sign says Archuleta County 166.

The first half-mile or so of the road has washboards right now, but the rest is okay. You cross two cattle guards on the way in and right at the site there's a yellow T-in-the-road sign.

Most of the space is up top, but the trail goes down the hill to another meadow or two and then down to the river where there's another spacious meadow, and then upriver to the hot springs. The river is still high (but peaked and dropping) but as of yesterday at least one hot spring is uncovered and good for soaking. The trail pretty much ends at the springs, and sorta restarts on the other side of the river, so you know you've reached the springs if the trail ends. they're little pools down along-side the edge of the river, with camping spots above the bank a little ways.

This is the FS map, but it doesn't show the exact FS road (it's right at the bottom tip of where it says "Piedra Area," right on the edge of the wilderness): http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/sanjuan/maps/sjnf-map.htm (Search "Devil Mountain, Colorado," or "Piedra, Colorado" on Google Earth and/or other map websites.)

It's a good site, because we have two towns to hit up for town runs, Pagosa and Durango, and then also little Bayfield in between. It's close to both NM and the San Luis Valley (just over Wolf Creek Pass from Pagosa). Please be kind to the locals!

Let us know if there's anything confusing about these directions, or anything else we can do.

More site information:

The Feral Futures rewilding gathering is taking place along the Piedra River in the San Juan National Forest of Southwest Colorado. Nearby is the Weminuche Wilderness Area, Colorado’s largest Wilderness Area. This is high elevation so those coming from lower elevations should be aware that time is often needed to adjust.

The Piedra Area and its adjacent roadless areas may be the largest expanse of contiguous, undeveloped forest remaining in Colorado. Only the nearby Hermosa Roadless Area may compare. The greater Piedra Roadless Area includes the mid-elevation stretches of the Piedra River and a half-dozen major tributaries. Piedra contains a large amount of the remaining old-growth ponderosa pine in the San Juans along the Piedra River and the lower reaches of its tributaries. River otters were successfully reintroduced into the river in the 1980s. The River and its tributaries provide excellent habitat for native Colorado River cutthroat trout, and Piedra also harbors some of the San Juan's best habitat for the northern goshawk.

The 1993 Colorado Wilderness Act designated a 60,000-acre portion of the 114,000-acre Piedra roadless area as a special management area equivalent to wilderness in all respects other than reservation of wilderness water rights. Approximately 12,000 acres of the RARE II roadless area have been modified by timber harvest and road construction in the last twenty years. This leaves 40,000 acres of remaining roadless lands contiguous to the existing Piedra Area.

(Info from the San Juan Citizens Alliance website)

Wild Roots Feral Futures 2011: Updates & Call for Workshop (& Other) Confirmations

WRFF Summer Solstice celebration featuring music from holy!holy!holy! & more! June 22, 2011 (Wanna play? Now booking bands/performances!)

"The whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak."

The Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers' collective is formally requesting confirmations for workshops, discussions, presentations, performances, and more at this year's Wild Roots Feral Futures, the 3rd annual direct action, eco-defense, & rewilding encampment this June in Southwest Colorado.

Don't like the focus of our event? We're open to more! Got ideas? We want to hear them!

Send ideas, suggestions, proposals, and confirmations to feralfutures@riseup.net and/or post them to our message/discussion board at http://feralfutures.proboards.com/ (also post announcements as comments wherever you're seeing this post!)

Scouting & site selection:

Open site scouting has begun. Consensus scout council will convene at an undisclosed location on Saturday, May 28th. Contact feralfutures@riseup.net for more information.

Scouting considerations:

• National Forest land 

• Roads accessible to non-4WD vehicles and large vehicles like busses 

• Parking adequate for 50-100 vehicles, where all four tires can get 
off the road 

• Adequate gathering/camping space (the more spread out, the better!) 

• Water! (Springs? Filtration? Haul it in?) 

• Preferably large trees (like Ponderosa Pine) for climbing trainings
(We are open to other suggestions/considerations…)

 

The 3rd annual Wild Roots Feral Futures direct action/eco-defense/climate camp will take place during June 14-22, 2011 in the foothills of the mighty and wild San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado.

Up for discussion and consensus is the site location. Autonomous and independent scouting is encouraged.

Contact feralfutures@riseup.net to provide input and/or get involved.

We are looking for folks of all sorts to join us and help facilitate workshops, conflict resolution and management, direct action and medic trainings, wild food walks, and much more! We will be focusing on many things, including but by no means limited to anarchist theory and praxis, unpacking privilege, decolonization, rewilding, ancestral skills, indigenous solidarity, direct action, forest defense, earth liberation, animal liberation, security culture, civil disobedience, hand to hand combat, survival skills, evasion tactics, green anarchism, anti-civ, post-civ, star watching and navigation, maps and orienteering, shelter building, permaculture, and whatever YOU care to bring and provide. But we need everyone's help to make this as safe, positive, and productive a space as it can be. Our own knowledge, skills, and capacities are limited. We need YOUR help!

http://feralfutures.blogspot.com/

http://feralfutures.proboards.com/

https://groups.google.com/group/wild-roots-feral-futures

http://www.myspace.com/feralfutures

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144156462306036


More info:

Roles we REALLY need filled:

• Kitchen! (last year's informal kitchen was facilitated by Food Not Bombs chapters from Taos, NM and Durango, CO and upheld communally by event participants, but this year we are once again reaching out to the likes of Seeds of Peace and Everybody's Kitchen in hopes they'll provide kitchen support this time around)

• CRAM team (conflict resolution and management: we need people of diverse gender/sexual orientations who know how to give support to survivors of sexual assault and to people with PTSD)*

• Medics! (especially WFRs, WEMTs, & EMTs of diverse gender/sexual orientations)

• Child care! (We will have a kids space and support parents in participating in communal child care)

*There is a need for both womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk on both the CRAM and Medic teams because many people in our communities aren't going to trust men, cis people, or heteros with their health or to help with conflicts. We do not expect womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk to do the support work, but seek to create and maintain a safe and welcoming space that allows for plenty of room for it.

We at the Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers collective feel that white dominated spaces & racism within our communities are a significant problem, & feel the need to confront that. Due to the legacy of racism within our communities of resistance we will be holding workshops on white privilege, settler privilege, & cultural appropriation.

We also feel that cis-hetero, male dominated spaces and hetropatriarchy within our communities are equally problematic, and will also be holding workshops on patriarchy and (anti)sexism.

We would like to put out a request for workshops on white privilege, hetero privilege, cis privilege, and male privilege. We recognize that it's not the job of those of us oppressed by white supremacy and heteropatriarchy to facilitate those workshops. We don't expect oppressed people to attend, but you are welcome to. While it is not the responsibility or duty of queers, POC (People of Color), and other oppressed and marginalized people to assist white, cis-hetero, and privileged people unpack, deconstruct, and confront their own privilege, these processes will be open to all.*

*The above statements are, of course, over-simplified and over-generalized. It is highly important to operate from an awareness that these are not monolithic, static categories and that individuals do not so easily fit into a simplistic "either/or" scenario of oppressed/oppressor. Rather, there are many layers and intersections of oppression and privilege interwoven and intermixed (and often colliding) within the conglomerate we call the self, formed through the reciprocal processes of social construction and autonomous individuality. "Privilege" and "oppress" are situational verbs and constructed social qualities, not inherent and hegemonic qualities of individual human beings. (For more insights into the failures and limitations of dogmatic "anti-oppression" rooted in the false fight against alleged "identity politics", we recommend the three "Lines In The Sand" articles regarding identity politics, anti-oppression activism, and social war. The first, "You Have to Do It My Way," confronts the dismissal of identity-focused struggle or activism by many anarchists; the second, "So Fucked Up," analyzes the dynamics of guilt, disempowerment, and marginalization built into common practices of anti-oppression activism; and the final, "Some suggestions for real solidarity," proposes ways to improve mutual support between conflictive and supportive anti-authoritarian practices. They can be found on http://AnarchistNews.org as well as a printable zine on http://ZineLibrary.info)

We intend to create clinic space with some privacy provided for patient care so that the bodies of trans people (and also cis womyn) aren't on display during vulnerable moments. We will also be implementing a safe(r) space policy to keep perpetrators of sexual/physical assault out of our community and support survivors by respecting any processes of accountability they initiate.

Womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk have full support of the Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers collective to establish safer spaces for themselves, including spaces that are only for people who are oppressed by sexism, people who are queer, and people who are trans. We recognize the need for those spaces because no matter how much we work on our privilege, as recovering hetropatriarchists still in the process of mental and psychological decolonization and recovery, we're still going to be bringing heteropatriarchy into the space (hopefully unconsciously and unintentionally, which does little to change its effects).

We also intend to create family/child friendly space that includes multigenerational workshops and activities appropriate (and fun!) for kids.

Camp guidelines (in progress):

We seek to create safe(r) space for all, including families and children, the sober, and those who identify as GLBTQ.

Please do not make assumptions about an individual’s gender, and if you feel unsure, do not be afraid to ask what someone’s preferred gender pronoun is. If you use the incorrect gender pronoun, you will be corrected, but it is not something to be ashamed of. We have all been raised within a gender binary culture and breaking free of these false binaries is a process of learning and growing for all. It is also appropriate to introduce your preferred gender pronoun when first introducing yourself to new people, if you feel the desire.

Due to natural circumstances and the lay of the land (rocky trails on steep hills, etc.), ableism and “disability” may hinder accessibility for some to the inner reaches of the gathering, including the hot springs. This is a reality of the natural world that is beyond our ability or desire to alter or control.

We expect everyone to observe good security culture. If you are unfamiliar with security culture, check out our security culture workshop(s), check the zine library for security culture literature, or just ask an event organizer for a basic overview. Basically, don’t talk about your or someone else’s involvement in illegal activity, and don’t make jokes, because even jokes can be used in court as evidence against you. Keep in mind that ANYONE could be an infiltrator or informant. While we must act accordingly, it is also important to not let this reality sow seeds of distrust and suspicion within our communities that leads to self-repressive restrictions on our ability to form and build relationships with one another as human beings and creatures of this Earth. Following good security culture allows us to interact and build relationships without placing ourselves in unnecessary and risky situations because of potential surveillance.

When it comes to physical intimacy and sexual contact, ASK FIRST! No Compromise In Defense of Consent!

For more on consent, attend our consent workshop(s) or inquire with event organizers.

Violence, physical assault, emotional assault, and/or sexual assault will NOT be tolerated under any circumstances and anyone who engages in such assault will be asked to leave. In instances of assault we will trust and believe the survivor and respect any processes of accountability they initiate.

For more information on how our communities deal with assault and accountability, check out our conflict de-escalation/resolution workshop(s) or inquire with event organizers.

In attempting to manifest the world we desire, we will pursue non-coercive means of conflict resolution and non-coercive processes of accountability. Decisions affecting the group will be made horizontally through the utilization of consensus process. If you are unfamiliar with consensus process, check out consensus workshops.

We seek to create a temporary autonomous zone which functions as an egalitarian community. In this spirit of cooperation and mutual aid, we request that people attending the gathering sign up for work shifts such as cooking meals, cleaning the kitchen and washing dishes after meals, digging latrines, doing supply/water runs, security & welcoming, etc. A shift sign-up sheet will circulate at communal meals.

We ask that people establish communal fires in the various neighborhoods within the gathering and refrain from making personal fires. Communal latrines will also be constructed in the various villages and we ask that people refrain from digging personal cat holes. This will minimize our overall impact on the land.

Drugs and alcohol are discouraged, but a rowdy zone will be established at the parking area, where we request the partying be restricted. NO illegal drugs, please. All other space, including celebratory and ceremonial space, should be considered sober space. Your personal space is, of course, your personal space, and you may do what you wish within it. Please respect others. For safety reasons, we request total sobriety when attending workshops and trainings. Unlike many similar gatherings, a space IS being designated for partying. This is more than you will find at most gatherings of this sort. So let’s have some fun!

Dogs increase our impact on the land and local wildlife, and are thus discouraged, though we understand and accept the fact many human beings and their canine companions are inseparable, and they will undoubtedly remain a part of our rewilded and feral futures upon this planet. We request that if you bring your dog, you keep it on a leash. If your dog attacks wildlife, other dogs, or human beings, you will be asked to leave the gathering. Please bury your dog shit!

Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available. Also see the information from last year as much of it will remain applicable this year as well, though there are also many changes in store to make this year's gathering a much wilder experience than last year's. See you in the woods!

May the forest bewitch you,

—the Wild Roots Feral Futures crew:
-the Dirty Hands Collective http://www.myspace.com/dirtyhandscollective
-Earth First! Durango (a cell of HC.EF!) http://earthfirst.org/
-Root Force Durango http://www.rootforce.org/
-Rising Tide Durango http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/
-Durango Food Not Bombs http://www.myspace.com/durangofoodnotbombs

feralfutures@riseup.net
http://www.myspace.com/feralfutures
http://feralfutures.blogspot.com/
http://feralfutures.proboards.com/
http://groups.google.com/group/wild-roots-feral-futures

Ⓐ Ⓔ ✌ ☮ ☠

What to bring (suggestions):

Vital items we are seeking:

☆someone with a pickup truck with one of those giant water tanks!

Personal items:

• tent
• sleeping bag
• hammocks
• food & water
• water filter (suggested)
• toilet paper
• adequate clothing for hot days, cold nights, rain, etc.
• your own bowl, cup, utensils, etc.
• flashlight/headlamp & extra batteries
• sunscreen and bug repellent if you use it
• swimsuit & towel (there are swimming holes & hot springs! who wants to skinny dip?)
• musical instruments
• your knowledge, wisdom, and skills
• your friends!

Communal items (to share or donate):

• tools (like shovels for digging shitters and hatchets/axes/saws for cutting up fire wood)
• food and water (a communal kitchen will form)
• kitchen gear (large pots, pans, water containers, etc.)
• extra tents, easy-ups, etc. (the larger the better)
• tarps and rope
• hammocks, hacky-sacks, frisbees, etc.
• climbing gear (harnesses, ropes, etc.) for tree climbing/sitting trainings
• First Aid gear!
• random primitive skills supplies (you know better than we do!)
• arts and crafts supplies (think of the children!)
• radical environmental, primitive, and rewilding literature
• local plant and animal identification guides, etc.
• local topographical maps
• your knowledge, wisdom, and skills
• your friends!

Things NOT to bring:

• firearms and other weapons (there's a difference between a TOOL and a WEAPON)
• parasitic or predatory human beings
• a bad attitude (including racism, sexism, classism, heteronormativity, homophobia, speciesism, ageism, ableism, etc.)
• the pigs and/or feddies
• a wire (we will be holding mandatory naked security culture workshops. No just kidding, only with your consent!)

Wild Roots Feral Futures 2011

Greetings from the occupied Ute territories of Turtle Island, colonially known as the "American Southwest"!

We are very happy to announce that, for the third year running, the Wild Roots Feral Futures (WRFF) eco-defense, direct action, and rewilding encampment will take place in the forests of Southwest Colorado this coming June, 2011. WRFF is an informal, completely free and non-commercial, and loosely organized camp-out operating on (less than a) shoe-string budget, formed entirely off of donated, scavenged, or liberated supplies and sustained through 100% volunteer effort. Though we foster a collective communality and pool resources, we encourage total self-sufficiency (which we find to be the very source and foundation of true mutual sharing and abundance).

We would like to invite groups and individuals engaged in struggles against the destruction of the Earth (and indeed all interconnected forms of oppression) to join us and share your stories, lessons, skills, and whatever else you may have to offer. In this spirit we would like to reach out to local environmental groups, coalitions, and alliances everywhere, as well as more readily recognizable groups like Earth First!, Rising Tide North America, and others to come collaborate on the future of radical environmentalism and eco-defense in our bio-regions and beyond.

We would also like to reach out to groups like EF!, RTNA, and the Ruckus Society (as well as other groups and individuals) in search of trainers and workshop facilitators who are willing to dedicate themselves to attending Wild Roots Feral Futures and sharing their skills and knowledge (in a setting that lacks the financial infrastructure to compensate them as they may have come to expect from other, more well-funded groups and events). We are specifically seeking direct action, blockade, tri-pod, and tree climbing/sitting trainers (as well as gear/supplies).

Regarding the rewilding and ancestral earth skills component of WRFF, we would like to extend a similar invitation to folks with skills, knowledge, talent, or specialization in these areas to join us in the facilitation of workshops and skill shares such as fire making, shelter building, edible and medicinal plants, stalking awareness, tool & implement making, etc. We are also seeking folks with less "ancestral" outdoor survival skills such as orienteering and navigation, etc.

Daily camp life, along with workshops, skill shares, great food, friends, and music, will also include the volunteer labor necessary to camp maintenance. In past years we've experiences a bit of resistance to requests for basic work volunteers, so we are making a point of it now to ask you to come prepared to pitch in and contribute to the work load. We encourage folks who would like to plug in further to show up a few days before the official start of the event to begin set-up and stay a few days after the official end to help clean up.

Site scouting will continue until mid-May, at which point scouts and other organizers will rendezvous, report-back their scouting recon, and come to a consensus regarding a site location (though we encourage and intend to foster the spread of this event beyond the region that initially spawned it, Southwest Colorado has once again been isolated as the event location region simply because no other communities stepped up with a solid and dedicated proposal to organize and host the event in their own area). We are also planning on choosing a secondary, back-up site location as a contingency plan for various potential scenarios. Email us for more info on getting involved with scouting and site selection processes.

WRFF is timed to take place before the Earth First! Round River Rendezvous, taking place this year in Montana, allowing eco-defenders to travel from one to the other. Thus we encourage the formation of a caravan from WRFF to the EF! RRR (caravans and ride shares can be coordinated through our message board at http://feralfutures.proboards.com/ or via our mailing list & discussion group at http://groups.google.com/groups/wild-roots-feral-futures).

We are currently accepting donations in the form of supplies and/or monetary contributions. Please email us for details.

Please forward this call widely, spread the word, and stay tuned for more updates!

For The Wild,

~The Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers' collective

Email: feralfutures(at)riseup(dot)net

Blog: http://feralfutures.blogspot.com/

Message Boards: http://feralfutures.proboards.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/feralfutures

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144156462306036

Mailing List/Discussion Group: http://groups.google.com/group/wild-roots-feral-futures

For the sake of comprehensiveness, we are including below our original call-out as used in years past, which is a living document, changing and evolving as we ourselves learn and grow:

We are looking for folks of all sorts to join us and help facilitate workshops, conflict resolution and management, direct action and medic trainings, wild food walks, and much more! We will be focusing on many things, including but by no means limited to anarchist theory and praxis, unpacking privilege, decolonization, rewilding, ancestral skills, indigenous solidarity, direct action, forest defense, earth liberation, animal liberation, security culture, civil disobedience, hand to hand combat, survival skills, evasion tactics, green anarchism, anti-civ, post-civ, star watching and navigation, maps and orienteering, shelter building, permaculture, and whatever YOU care to bring and provide. But we need everyone's help to make this as safe, positive, and productive a space as it can be. Our own knowledge, skills, and capacities are limited. We need YOUR help!

Roles we REALLY need filled:

• Kitchen! (last year's informal kitchen was facilitated by Food Not Bombs chapters from Taos, NM and Durango, CO and upheld communally by event participants, but this year we are once again reaching out to the likes of Seeds of Peace and Everybody's Kitchen in hopes they'll provide kitchen support this time around)

• CRAM team (conflict resolution and management: we need people of diverse gender/sexual orientations who know how to give support to survivors of sexual assault and to people with PTSD)*

• Medics! (especially WFRs, WEMTs, & EMTs of diverse gender/sexual orientations)

• Child care! (We will have a kids space and support parents in participating in communal child care)

*There is a need for both womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk on both the CRAM and Medic teams because many people in our communities aren't going to trust men, cis people, or heteros with their health or to help with conflicts. We do not expect womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk to do the support work, but seek to create and maintain a safe and welcoming space that allows for plenty of room for it.

We at the Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers collective feel that white dominated spaces & racism within our communities are a significant problem, & feel the need to confront that. Due to the legacy of racism within our communities of resistance we will be holding workshops on white privilege, settler privilege, & cultural appropriation.

We also feel that cis-hetero, male dominated spaces and hetropatriarchy within our communities are equally problematic, and will also be holding workshops on patriarchy and (anti)sexism.

We would like to put out a request for workshops on white privilege, hetero privilege, cis privilege, and male privilege. We recognize that it's not the job of those of us oppressed by white supremacy and heteropatriarchy to facilitate those workshops. We don't expect oppressed people to attend, but you are welcome to. While it is not the responsibility or duty of queers, POC (People of Color), and other oppressed and marginalized people to assist white, cis-hetero, and privileged people unpack, deconstruct, and confront their own privilege, these processes will be open to all.

We intend to create clinic space with some privacy provided for patient care so that the bodies of trans people (and also cis womyn) aren't on display during vulnerable moments. We will also be implementing a safe(r) space policy to keep perpetrators of sexual/physical assault out of our community and support survivors by respecting any processes of accountability they initiate.

Womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk have full support of the Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers collective to establish safer spaces for themselves, including spaces that are only for people who are oppressed by sexism, people who are queer, and people who are trans. We recognize the need for those spaces because no matter how much we work on our privilege, as recovering hetropatriarchists still in the process of mental and psychological decolonization and recovery, we're still going to be bringing heteropatriarchy into the space (hopefully unconsciously and unintentionally, which does little to change its effects).

We also intend to create family/child friendly space that includes multigenerational workshops and activities appropriate (and fun!) for kids.

Camp guidelines (in progress):

We seek to create safe(r) space for all, including families and children, the sober, and those who identify as GLBTQ.

Please do not make assumptions about an individual’s gender, and if you feel unsure, do not be afraid to ask what someone’s preferred gender pronoun is. If you use the incorrect gender pronoun, you will be corrected, but it is not something to be ashamed of. We have all been raised within a gender binary culture and breaking free of these false binaries is a process of learning and growing for all. It is also appropriate to introduce your preferred gender pronoun when first introducing yourself to new people, if you feel the desire.

Due to natural circumstances and the lay of the land (rocky trails on steep hills, etc.), ableism and “disability” may hinder accessibility for some to the inner reaches of the gathering, including the hot springs. This is a reality of the natural world that is beyond our ability or desire to alter or control.

We expect everyone to observe good security culture. If you are unfamiliar with security culture, check out our security culture workshop(s), check the zine library for security culture literature, or just ask an event organizer for a basic overview. Basically, don’t talk about your or someone else’s involvement in illegal activity, and don’t make jokes, because even jokes can be used in court as evidence against you. Keep in mind that ANYONE could be an infiltrator or informant. While we must act accordingly, it is also important to not let this reality sow seeds of distrust and suspicion within our communities that leads to self-repressive restrictions on our ability to form and build relationships with one another as human beings and creatures of this Earth. Following good security culture allows us to interact and build relationships without placing ourselves in unnecessary and risky situations because of potential surveillance.

When it comes to physical intimacy and sexual contact, ASK FIRST! No Compromise In Defense of Consent!

For more on consent, attend our consent workshop(s) or inquire with event organizers.

Violence, physical assault, emotional assault, and/or sexual assault will NOT be tolerated under any circumstances and anyone who engages in such assault will be asked to leave. In instances of assault we will trust and believe the survivor and respect any processes of accountability they initiate.

For more information on how our communities deal with assault and accountability, check out our conflict de-escalation/resolution workshop(s) or inquire with event organizers.

In attempting to manifest the world we desire, we will pursue non-coercive means of conflict resolution and non-coercive processes of accountability. Decisions affecting the group will be made horizontally through the utilization of consensus process. If you are unfamiliar with consensus process, check out consensus workshops.

We seek to create a temporary autonomous zone which functions as an egalitarian community. In this spirit of cooperation and mutual aid, we request that people attending the gathering sign up for work shifts such as cooking meals, cleaning the kitchen and washing dishes after meals, digging latrines, doing supply/water runs, security & welcoming, etc. A shift sign-up sheet will circulate at communal meals.

We ask that people establish communal fires in the various neighborhoods within the gathering and refrain from making personal fires. Communal latrines will also be constructed in the various villages and we ask that people refrain from digging personal cat holes. This will minimize our overall impact on the land.

Drugs and alcohol are discouraged, but a rowdy zone will be established at the parking area, where we request the partying be restricted. NO illegal drugs, please. All other space, including celebratory and ceremonial space, should be considered sober space. Your personal space is, of course, your personal space, and you may do what you wish within it. Please respect others. For safety reasons, we request total sobriety when attending workshops and trainings. Unlike many similar gatherings, a space IS being designated for partying. This is more than you will find at most gatherings of this sort. So let’s have some fun!

Dogs increase our impact on the land and local wildlife, and are thus discouraged, though we understand and accept the fact many human beings and their canine companions are inseparable, and they will undoubtedly remain a part of our rewilded and feral futures upon this planet. We request that if you bring your dog, you keep it on a leash. If your dog attacks wildlife, other dogs, or human beings, you will be asked to leave the gathering. Please bury your dog shit!

Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available. Also see the information from last year as much of it will remain applicable this year as well, though there are also many changes in store to make this year's gathering a much wilder experience than last year's. See you in the woods!

May the forest bewitch you,

—the Wild Roots Feral Futures crew:
-the Dirty Hands Collective http://www.myspace.com/dirtyhandscollective
-Earth First! Durango (a cell of HC.EF!) http://earthfirst.org/
-Root Force Durango http://www.rootforce.org/
-Rising Tide Durango http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/
-Durango Food Not Bombs http://www.myspace.com/durangofoodnotbombs

feralfutures@riseup.net
http://www.myspace.com/feralfutures
http://feralfutures.blogspot.com/
http://feralfutures.proboards.com/
http://groups.google.com/group/wild-roots-feral-futures

Ⓐ Ⓔ ✌ ☮ ☠

What to bring (suggestions):

Vital items we are seeking:

☆someone with a pickup truck with one of those giant water tanks!

Personal items:

• tent
• sleeping bag
• hammocks
• food & water
• water filter (suggested)
• toilet paper
• adequate clothing for hot days, cold nights, rain, etc.
• your own bowl, cup, utensils, etc.
• flashlight/headlamp & extra batteries
• sunscreen and bug repellent if you use it
• swimsuit & towel (there are swimming holes & hot springs! who wants to skinny dip?)
• fishing gear & license (world-class fly fishing!)
• musical instruments
• your knowledge, wisdom, and skills
• your friends!

Communal items (to share or donate):

• tools (like shovels for digging shitters and hatchets/axes/saws for cutting up fire wood)
• food and water (a communal kitchen will form)
• kitchen gear (large pots, pans, water containers, etc.)
• extra tents, easy-ups, etc. (the larger the better)
• tarps and rope
• hammocks, hacky-sacks, frisbees, etc.
• climbing gear (harnesses, ropes, etc.) for tree climbing/sitting trainings
• First Aid gear!
• random primitive skills supplies (you know better than we do!)
• arts and crafts supplies (think of the children!)
• radical environmental, primitive, and rewilding literature
• local plant and animal identification guides, etc.
• local topographical maps
• your knowledge, wisdom, and skills
• your friends!

Things NOT to bring:

• firearms and other weapons (there's a difference between a TOOL and a WEAPON)
• parasitic or predatory human beings
• a bad attitude (including racism, sexism, classism, heteronormativity, homophobia, speciesism, ageism, ableism, etc.)
• the pigs and/or feddies
• a wire (we will be holding mandatory naked security culture workshops in the hot springs. No just kidding, only with your consent!)

An Organizer's Report-Back from Wild Roots Feral Futures 2010

The second annual Wild Roots Feral Futures, a small, free, and informal eco-defense & earth skills gathering on the shores of the Piedra River in the San Juan National Forest of Southwest Colorado—which we consider occupied Ute territories—took place from June 19th through 26th, 2010. Many attendees arrived days before the official start of the gathering, and others stayed on after the official end to help break down and clean up. Nestled in one of the largest and last remaining stands of old growth Ponderosa Pine, amongst the meadows of many-colored wild-flowers and the natural hot springs along the Piedra River, on the edge of Colorado's largest Wilderness area, folks from coast to coast converged to share skills, stories, music, adventures, and much more...

For my part as a locally-based event organizer, the tasks and lessons of co-organizing such an event proved to be quite challenging, not to mention draining (to the point that it's taken me weeks of r&r to even get around to writing this report-back, sorry!). Pre-event organizing—which mostly consisted of promotion online and around town—wasn't as taxing, but once in the woods, I found very little time to participate in the many amazing activities and workshops, and spent much of my time filling roles no one else had stepped up and volunteered for. Naturally, tasks like digging or burying latrines, or graveyard welcoming/security shifts, are quite often difficult to get folks to volunteer for, but towards the end, it became very difficult to get anyone to sign up for any of the shifts whatsoever, and a handful of people ended up carrying a disproportionately large amount of responsibility (many thanks to all those who did volunteer, and extra special thanks to those of you who did something multiple times when others wouldn't step up!).

There were many amazing workshops and activities, but I feel the diversity was in some contexts lacking (not enough real direct action and forest defense stuff, for example). In the future getting a more solid and diverse list of actual commitments for workshops beforehand, and a more effective and efficient system of announcing and listing them in the woods, will be receiving greater attention from event organizers and facilitators.

Many of the intentions expressed in the language of our original call-outs and in the camp zine failed to manifest themselves, and many who had previously dedicated themselves to filling certain vital roles were simply unable to make it. We apologize for the lack of certain spaces we intended to have present but may not be empowered to create ourselves, such as a safe medical clinic space for womyn and trans people, a more solid, experienced, and dedicated medic and conflict resolution team, etc.

Inter-persynal conflicts and medical situations certainly did arise, sometimes over-lapping, and it is my opinion that these situations were exacerbated by the lack of a medical and conflict resolution infrastructure adequately prepared to handle such situations. At least one conflict was ultimately left unresolved. Luckily, the medical situations and inter-persynal conflicts that arose were not of an extremely critical or dangerous nature (though others may disagree). I ultimately feel that in this respect, things went pretty smoothly, or at the very least could have been a lot worse, as we were never faced with a situation I would describe as an emergency or even a crisis. Fear of complete and utter catastrophe is never far from the minds of those who carry and feel the weight of organizing such an event.

Often, for myself at least, the weight of perceived obligation, as an event organizer, often manifested itself negatively and unproductively in an over-bearing attempt to facilitate certain daily tasks such as morning circle, where camp basics are reviewed and workshops are announced, along with security sign-up and other announcements. At a certain point much of the camp expressed discontent with the power dynamics of these discussions, which is a heady way of saying that too few people were talking too much and dominating too much of the discourse. Such feedback is vitally important for organizers who may be taking on too much "responsibility" out of a perceived obligation to make sure certain tasks are accomplished, and gives us space to step back and re-evaluate the dynamics of the communities we spontaneously form in the woods or in the streets, collective houses, and squats. And so that's exactly what I did: step back.

And guess what? Things still happened. Others stepped up to fill the spaces I vacated. Spontaneously, folks would call for workshop announcements or make a security sign-up board and call for volunteers. Instead of the event organizers talking at other attendees, it was everyone's circle and anyone could say what they wanted to, which was, of course, the original intent (many thanks to everyone who stepped up to help facilitate morning circle and other daily camp tasks, you rock!). The overbearing weight of the role of the organizer often interferes with this, which is, of course, why it must be abolished as such. This is not to say that being an organizer or a facilitator isn't an important role, but rather, one that we must revision and remove from any separation of importance from the active roles others take on, on the ground and in the woods. Otherwise organizers suffer unnecessary stress and the weight of too much responsibility (most often self-imposed through a false perception of necessity and obligation), while animosity and separation is created between event attendees and the organizers the attendees begin to feel are trying to put themselves in a position of leadership or authority (something anarchists and anti-authoritarians often respond to with knee-jerk, reactionary virulence). Sometimes certain people take on the task of getting something going and keeping it going, but once we're all there together in the woods or in the streets, we all need to be organizers and facilitators. So step up and step back.

We as locally-based organizers were also inadequately prepared with certain infrastructural gear such as adequate radios for security/welcoming and medics, and towards the end of the gathering, as some people collected the gear they'd lent out and went on their way, we found ourselves without adequate radio communications and thus faced a total breakdown of communication between the welcoming and the main camp down the hill. Luckily, this was never a significant problem, but it certainly could have been.

Our high-capacity water storage and water filtration system also suffered a bit of a breakdown, but through innovation and a combination of boiling and personal water filters, there was, for the most part, enough drinking water to be had, though the situation was admittedly precarious at times. Securing the drinking water system will be more of a central and primary concern in organizing future events.

We were perhaps overly-optimistic in our hopes and ill-formed expectations that the gear and skills that we ourselves personally lacked would simply come together spontaneously and autonomously through the collective contributions of the greater community we all formed together. I would like to personally apologize for any such lack on our part as local event organizers.

A note on law enforcement: last year, due to the National Rainbow Gathering near-by in New Mexico and the presence of a handful of Rainbows at Wild Roots Feral Futures, we had one visit from Forest Service law enforcement officers who appeared to be looking to harass Rainbows (and thought part of a bow drill for making fire was a pipe, etc.). The incident was nominal and didn't result in confrontation (aside from minimal harassment and intimidation tactics) or arrests.

This year, we had no overt visits from uniformed law enforcement officers. One local Forest Service truck was spotted driving by and seen leaving as well, and no other sightings were recorded by the security team. This is in stark contrast to the treatment received by our predecessor event, Feral Visions, which faced heavy repression from the State towards the end, as well as other similar events in the US and abroad.

Of course, this lack of law enforcement presence only applies to uniformed officers. We will probably never know who else may have been walking amongst us, talking to us, and listening to us. And if proper security culture was observed, that doesn't matter (on that note, there was at least once incident brought to my attention of blatant disregard for and violation of security culture basics that consisted of open bragging regarding alleged participation in an illegal action, which is a definite security culture no-no!).

Though active feedback is certainly preferable, we as organizers also value retro-active feed-back and are thus calling on event organizers and attendees to write their own report-backs about their experiences at Wild Roots Feral Futures 2010 and send them to feralfutures@riseup.net (let us know if you'd like to to be kept private or if you'd like it published on our blog, etc.). Please, be honest, and be harsh. We need criticism and critique in order to learn and grow, not puffed-up glorification and congratulatory back-patting. These report-backs, however, are not spaces for the continuation of inter-persynal conflicts, so please, no calling people out directly or making direct accusations against individuals. Though such conflicts require accountability and hopefully resolution, we cannot facilitate that, and these report-backs are not the place for it.

I would like to thank the many wild and amazing folks who helped organize Wild Roots Feral Futures, who came out, attended the event, plugged in, helped out, and made the event the amazing learning and growing experience that it was. We very literally couldn't have done it without you. See you next year!

May the Forest Bewitch You,

-Nathan Negation, Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers' collective & the Dirty Hands Collective (Durango, CO)