Unlearn, Rewild: Earth Skills, Ideas and Inspiration for the Future Primitive

by Miles Olson

Overview

Picture a world where humans exist, like all other living things, in balance. Where there is no separation between "human" and "wild." Unlearn, Rewild boldly envisions such a world, probing deeply into the cultural constraints on our ability to lead truly sustainable lives and offering real, tangible tools to move toward another way of living, seeing, and thinking.

Part philosophical treatise, part hard-core survival guide, this unique and thoroughly unconventional manual blends philosophy with a detailed introduction to a rich assortment of endangered traditional living skills, including:

• Harvesting and preparing unconventional proteins
• Feral food preservation
• Dealing responsibly with waste
• Natural methods of birth control
• Tanning and processing animal skins

Lyrical, humorous, surprising, enlightening, and thought-provoking by turns, Unlearn, Rewild is essential reading for those who wish to heal themselves and the earth, live gracefully into the future primitive and experience their wildest dreams.

Miles Olson has spent the past decade deeply immersed in learning and practicing earth skills. While foraging, hunting, gardening, and gathering for his livelihood, his experiences have given him a unique perspective on rewilding, radical self-reliance, and the impact of civilization on the natural world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780865717213
Publisher:	New Society Publishers
Publication date:	09/01/2012
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Miles Olson has spent the better part of the past decade living off the grid and intimately on the land, as a squatter on the forested edge of a sprawling town on Vancouver island. Subsisting by foraging, hunting, scavenging, gardening and scrounging as part of a small community of feral homesteaders, he has amassed a toolkit of endangered earth skills that are fast disappearing from this earth, as well as a unique perspective on the relationship between the human creature and wild nature, and the great winding road to a sane, sustainable way life.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

Part 1 Ideas

1 Sustainability and Wildness 3

2 What is Rewilding? 9

3 Subsistence 19

4 Technology, Ethics and Freedom 27

5 How to Walk Away from Civilization 33

6 Reflections at the End of the World 43

7 On Being White 51

8 Veganism or Radical Sustainability? Tough Questions About Diet 59

9 Something in the Rain 69

10 Succession 75

11 Killing the Most Beautiful Thing 83

Part 2 Endangered Skills

12 Learning How to Live 89

13 Honoring the Bodies of Animals-By Eating Them 91

14 Feral Food Preservation: Unconventional and Traditional Methods of Putting Things By 103

15 Meet Your New Friends: Indispensable Plant Allies for Hard Times 123

16 Feral Food Cultivation: Thoughts and Strategies on "Tending the Wild" 133

17 Hunter-Gatherer, Gardener-Trapper 141

18 Dressing and Undressing Our Food: How to Skin and Gut a Creature 155

19 De-Industrializing Contraception: Birth Control for Sustainability and Survival 163

20 Working with Skin 171

21 Getting to Know Nuts 187

22 Exploring Entomophagy: Bugs as Food 193

23 Fire and Light 203

24 The Tao of Poo: Notes on "Giving Back" 211

Conclusion: The Future Primitive 217

Index 219

About the Author 225

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Miles Olson is a true radical; that is, he gets to the root of the problem — which is that we have cut ourselves off from our own innate wildness and are busily trying to domesticate a planet that has a will of its own. The only real solution is to return to a wilder and simpler existence. Olson's pure, clear voice helps us get grounded and get started.
— Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute , and author of The End of Growth

Unlearn, Rewild is an extraordinary and unconventional survival guide. Olson provides a hands-on manual to break free from enslavement to jobs, bills, and the trap of civilization to rediscover one's true nature.
— Thomas J. Elpel, author of Participating in Nature

Miles Olson has asked the all-important but often ignored question about sustainability: what kind of world do we wish to sustain? He then tears up some popular delusions about getting there.
— Samuel Thayer, author of The Forager's Harvest

Do the terms "human monoculture", "technology trap" or "ecocide" resonate with you? Are you going broke but want to live well? Does living outside the system appeal to you? Take this book, written by a professional dropout/escape artist, as you make your own escape. Along with philosophy (for attitude adjustment) it covers scavenging road kill, which grubs are good to eat and most everything else you need to know to go feral safely and in style.
— Dmitry Orlov, author of Reinventing Collapse and The Five Stages of Collapse , ClubOrlov.com

Editorial Reviews

Miles Olson is a true radical; that is, he gets to the root of the problem--which is that we have cut ourselves off from our own innate wildness and are busily trying to domesticate a planet that has a will of its own. The only real solution is to return to a wilder and simpler existence. Olson's pure, clear voice helps us get grounded and get started.
---Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute, and author of The End of Growth

Unlearn, Rewild is an extraordinary and unconventional survival guide. Olson provides a hands-on manual to break free from enslavement to jobs, bills, and the trap of civilization to rediscover one’s true nature.
–Thomas J. Elpel, author of Participating in Nature

Miles Olson has asked the all-important but often ignored question about sustainability: what kind of world do we wish to sustain? He then tears up some popular delusions about getting there.
-- Samuel Thayer, author of The Forager’s Harvest


Do the terms “human monoculture,” “technology trap” or “ecocide” resonate with you? Are you going broke but want to live well? Does living outside the system appeal to you? Take this book, written by a professional dropout/escape artist, as you make your own escape. Along with philosophy (for attitude adjustment) it covers scavenging road kill, which grubs are good to eat and most everything else you need to know to go feral safely and in style.
---Dmitry Orlov, author of Reinventing Collapse and The Five Stages of Collapse

From the Publisher