Bow making – teaching self sufficiency and resilience is an important part of the apprenticeship

We are now moving into our fourth month of 2016’s Earth Steward Apprenticeship with a smaller group than in some previous years. These seven young adults have so far learned the basic principles of survival: shelter building, fire making, fire cooking and foraging. There have been a lot of impressive attempts by the whole clan to make fire by friction, with fifteen year old Ashby, one of the female members of the group, producing five coal babies in a row, two of which were nurtured successfully in tinder bundles and went onto become actual fires, an incredible feat considering she is still relatively new to the skill.

Our time together has been filled with lots of nature games, some deep nature immersion and close encounters with animals, birds and plants. In one particular memorable moment when we were playing the game “Nest Robbers”, some students discovered an actual nest with Great Tits flying back and forth. During our five day camp in the Spring half term we invited a group of younger students to join us. The Junior ESA group slotted in really quickly and the woods were filled laughter, joy and the sound of many types of woodland craft echoing through the trees.

It is both a joy and a honour to hold space for these young people, our future cultural and community leaders who going through a critical process at this point in their lives of discovering who they are and the many gifts they can bring forth. I am positive that their experiences here in the woods will give them a positive and deep relationship with the natural world for the rest of their lives, whatever their future career paths.