Have been off-comp for a long time, but felt like it would be good to tell something about this year's Urvision for those of you who weren't there. (Urvision = a Rewild Camp in Sweden, organized this year for the third time)
This year I biked to the place (a forest near Stockholm) from Finland with a friend, through the Åland Islands, which was GREAT. We didn't pay anything for the few ferries we had to take in between the islands (only one of them would have cost something, around 10e, but it was easy to just go on board without paying).
I had been aiming to come at the beginning of the camp, at 3.8., but ended up getting there maybe on the 13th. But anyway, I got to be there for some five days of the actual camp, plus a week after that hanging out with others who stayed.
There were a lot of people also this year, around 70-80 at best, I heard. Too many cool people for such a short time! But I guess I'm not better myself, I've never got myself to stay there for longer than a few weeks at a time, with all the work-and-school-shit I still have... But anyway, I felt very good with the people and the atmoshpere, it felt somehow even more relaxed and warm than last year. I was also feeling much stronger mentally, and felt it very easy to take contact with people, smile to them, talk to them, hug them if they seemed up for a hug. I really felt especially good that I was able to hug with so many people along the days, somehow, to feel cared for. Also always (when I had the energy) when I saw someone looking unhappy, I went to ask them if they're ok and try to support them if they weren't, and I felt others were also taking care of me in this way. I think it's really, really important in any gathering or community. Not just taking care of someone's physical injuries, but also giving support when someone is feeling fragile with their hearts. I was thinking of maybe getting some Soul Medics to future camps like this, like I heard they have in JUKSS... meaning people who you can ask emotional and mental support from, if you don't get it from just random campmates.
This year I was much more interested in socializing than anything else. I did attend a few really good workshops, about nuclear resistance in Finland (which is really needed now, there's a lot of nuclear mines and power plants planned to be built here! there's stuff about that in www.nuclearfreefinland.org), and COP15 (although I came only to the end of the workshop), and about being Wild and Queer (it felt like we talked half through the night). Then there was taking part of the basic household work of the camp, dumpstering, cooking, carrying water, etc. And DANCING! And DRUMMING! And SINGING, and swimming, and wandering around in the woods, tasting random pieces of wood and fir needles...
I felt like I got to know better some people I met last year, which is really cool. Some of them plan to stay in the woods for the winter. I was feeling so good about the place, the forest and the lake, that I felt a great urge to also just stay there, start living with those wonderful people... But I felt it was too early, I don't think I could handle the winter yet, I need more experience, more skills, better gear, and I don't feel comfortable about having no money of my own at all, just living on the money of my mother and friends...! So, I decided I'll study in Finland for at least this year, and go to work and maybe even get a driver's licence.
-- end of Urvision story --
Yeah, so I started in this school in Finland a week ago. It's near Tampere (one of the biggest cities), in Hämeenkyrö, a school called Osara. I'm doing a Nature Enterpreuner Programme, learning stuff about wild foods and all kinds of self-suffiency skills (and how to make money with them). It feels like the best place for me now, with lots of sparkly foresty people. It's really amazing how many really cool people there are at our class, with same kinds of interests as I have. I'm really glad I'll probably get to spend a lot of time with them, some of us evenlive at the dormitory. The programme is also cool in the way that we only spend half of the month at the school, and the other half we have "distance studies", when we can basically do what we please (although of course, if you want to do well in the tests, you should do a bit of studying on these weeks also). But I feel so good to have this time and space in my life to work and do REWILDING STUFF. Especially I'm glad that this school is near Tampere, since most of the rewilders I know live around here. I'm sure we'll get some action going together!
I'm wondering if I'll also want to be organizing a Rewild Camp to Finland next summer, not sure if I have the energy and resources... but it's still along way off. (ah yeah and I should contact those people that were interested about it too, who gave me their e-mail addresses...)
I got a mail from Lynx from Four Season Prehistoric Projects (they organize Stone Age lifestyle camps in the US, seems quite cool to me: http://www.hollowtop.com/lynx_shepherd.htm). SHe said they would be coming to visit Finland next February! They would be interested to have a tour at schools and other places where they could have a slideshow and talk about their project, and I promised to scout some pklaces for them. Tell me if you know of some place! I got the impresion they'll also visit Sweden and Norway around then.
My moods are going up and down, glad about the school, but getting anxiety with trying to find a job and a flat, and I get inexplicably nervous and aggressive whenever I visit my parents' house. So I try not to... I also worry a lot about the future. My worst fears are that there's not much healthy land left anymore on this planet, and climate change or nuclear waste or pollutions or anything will destroy even that soon... That when civ has finally crumbled, there's nothing left for even us wild ones to live by. But I still feel some hope of even having some kind of more human existence than the one I've had thus far... I can smell it, I can taste it, when I'm gathering cattails with my friends from the pond, when I'm learning to listen to the land with them in the autumn forest...
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