Recently, I came across this article in Outside Magazine called Rewilding the American Child. While I love this article I would like to see more articles and discussions on the role of a mentor in the life of a child as that person connects to nature. Unstructured free-time is just a small part of a bigger whole. Imagine your kids growing up with connections to multiple adults of various ages who are like super fun, adventurous, and loving aunts and uncles for your kids. These adults are watching your kids closely for signs of curiosity, passion, excitement, and fear. When these signs show up the aunts/uncles are there to observe or maybe to help the child reflect and be guided towards a deeper part of themselves. The aunts and uncles not only have the ability to observe and listen deeply (as they have practiced form thousands of hours of sitting alone in the wilderness) but they also possess a deep skill-set of wilderness skills that children are hungry to learn. The wilderness skills (along with the mentor) teach the child that failure is part of learning, that nature is a teacher, that pushing our edges of comfort can be incredibly rewarding, and how creativity can flow from heart to head to hands and then manifest as a gift to others. The mentor plays a vital role in this journey.

I look forward to the day we start seeing articles on the incredible gift of having a wilderness mentor in the life of a child. I won't wait for it though and have plans to do some writing and podcasting on the subject. Let me know if that interests you, or if you would like to be interviewed, or you would like to support this in some other way.

 Followed many trails today and most notably this coyote trail through the snowy forested landscape. I love how trailing puts me in a state of total presence; senses peaked, mind quiet and attentive to inner-feelings and outer events. I hear the bird calls around me, I feel the breeze, and I notice how I am feeling about it all. Each trail of an animal I come across beckons me to pause and ask myself do I follow this one? How recently did this animal pass? Who is it? How is it moving? Where is it going? I check the questions against my sensory awareness/observations, past experience, and gut-feeling. It's a state that's not quite focus, almost the opposite of it really, although I'm not thinking about anything else. It's a state of openness.

Recently, I had been attempting to follow trails of stories on FB that turned out to be misleading. Someone or group of someones had purposely covered some of the tracks (masking the big picture), left false tracks, and created circles of confusion. I know this tactic well when it comes to throwing a tracker off your trail. Here it was used in a more sinister way to divide the people.

It is refreshing to follow the trail of the wild instead of the trail of human influence that drives so many to anger, frustration, confusion, and division. To me, the trails of the wild are pure. It is something that can be hard to come by yet it is so readily available.

I believe that trailing wildlife in the wilderness is extremely healthy for the mind, senses, imagination, body, and intuition of a person. My friends who have spent time doing this on their own will likely agree. I often experience peace, excitement, curiosity, happiness, wonder, awe, calm, and joyful epiphanies at the discovery of what the tracks are showing me.

These kinds of experiences tracking inspire me to share the wilderness with others. "OMG this is so amazing! More people need to experience this!!" is a common thought at some point while I'm on an adventure.