From HerbMentor.com, this is Herb Mentor Radio.
You are listening to Herb Mentor Radio on HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher. Today, we have a special edition of Herb Mentor Radio, Mentoring Kids in Nature Connection with naturalist, tracker and author Jon Young. Jon Young is author of Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature, Animal Tracking Basics, Advanced Bird Language, Seeing Through Native Eyes, Reclaiming Our Natural Connections and the Kimana Naturalist training program.
He's also founder of Wilderness Awareness School and creator of the Art of Mentoring workshop series which is offered by wilderness schools around the world. You can connect with all of John's classes, expeditions, projects, events, books, CDs, and more at JonYoung.org. That's J O N Young dot o r g. Jon, welcome back to Herb Mentor Radio.
Wow. It's great to be back, John.
Yeah. Good afternoon. Oh, that's that's, it's it's my pleasure. It's awesome. It's always great to hang out with you. Yeah.
It's always great to have us.
Agreed.
So before we get going, Jon, I, I I want to mention to folks that LearningHerbs.com, HerbMentor.com, the wild craft board game that we have all owe their existence to John and his tireless and selfless efforts to reconnect the children of the world with nature. It was John's vision of helping the world through environmental and nature education that led me to work over a decade directly with him starting in nineteen ninety one. And we created some pretty cool stuff together. To make a really long story and journey short, the foundations of John's manoring systems are what make make learning or absorbentor, our herbal kit, and wild craft to make it all tick. It's really what's under the hood. Isn't that right, John?
Yeah. Except if you have unsatisfied customers, then that's clearly where you must have dropped the ball.
Yes.
I will take full responsibility for all your success.
Yes. I I joking aside, yes, those of you who are listening, John, he he honors me, but he really he honors a lineage of mentoring technology that goes back to the beginning of time. Both he and I were lucky, fortunate, blessed to be mentored by the same mentor, Yue from East Africa, who really was, you know, one of the architects of the of the process that you're experiencing, through Herb and her products and and the things that John does or if you're working with any of the people in the school networks.
So, yeah, thanks for that compliment. And I and I always like to say whenever that's directed at me that I we we we have to pay tribute to the elders that came before us who carried this technology through time and who were also selfless in their commitment to following through on the things that were done for them when they were little kids. So may it go on from here, and may you can carry it forward in your work and your life work too as well, those of you who are listening, if it can be beneficial to you and your family.
Cool. Thank you.
So, you know, we really should have a little powered by the art of mentoring on our website somewhere probably. Should come up with a little icon for that. And that's more or less what I want to discuss with you today. You know, it's and it's not really just mentoring kids in nature really.
It's anyone in nature or even mentoring, you know, yourself. Many folks listening are mentored on herbmentor dot com and perhaps they have the wild craft board game. And, I want them to understand why, you know, it is why we do what we do and also how they can use the same underlying principles in their own lives to help others because, it's like you said, it's that lineage. So if people are learning, about this, then they it doesn't just stop here, you know.
We're not the only ones who can do this and that's what's so awesome about, you know, with what the work John Young has been doing because it's never been exclusive or about him or proprietary. It's always been like how can he or how can the wilderness awareness score or any of the networks of schools that are out there, how can we all work to help for the benefit of the future generations? Which is why we got in all the I got in all this and started working with John in the first place is because of that, way that, to to help the future generations in the earth by education and connection, you know, which I, you know, found early on to be way more powerful than just being angry at people and just doing straight activism.
It's a it's a very empowering and inspiring kind of activism that really, you know, keeps your life in a positive direction. It's really fun to do and brings you health.
So let's see here. So, John, why are relationships with nature more important for kids than, like, just getting information? Why are the relationships important?
Well, you know, this, this is an important question, and it's really helping us as a movement identify ourselves education.
Maybe it was advanced environmental education or maybe education.
Maybe it was advanced environmental education or maybe we called it nature education for a while.
And in the last four or five years, you know, thanks to the work of Richard Louv and, in shining a light on all the research that others had done years before him, pointing out this this phenomenon of nature deficit disorder, which basically says, you know, we're disconnected, from nature and there's some symptoms that are positively unfortunate, that result from this disconnection disorder.
Now the disconnection disorder isn't officially recognized, you know, in the physician's desk manual. And, you know, some people laughingly talk about, that people still go into the health care office and ask for health insurance to cover nature deficit disorder. You know? But the the truth of the matter is, nature deficit disorder is a collection of symptoms of real conditions, some of which are recognized in, you know, the physician's manual that would allow health insurance to cover, for instance, ADHD or, even autism, mild forms of autism.
These are all sort of negative side effects, if you will, of disconnection.
And Hey, John.
I just wanna say that whatever you're doing there when you're leaning over, the audio is getting a lot better.
Are you close to the Oh, you know, I I guess what I what I did was I leaned over to turn off my, my sound on my iPhone so it wouldn't bother us anymore.
Alright. Alright.
But, maybe is this is this the the sweet spot that we need right here?
Yeah. It's the sweet spot. The phone keeps ringing though.
Yeah. You know, it's Greg Sommer trying to reach me. I better call him back.
So he and I have been playing phone tag for years, it feels like.
Well, anyway, so, we are, it's a Seattle phone call coming. It's funny, so I'm talking to you in in Washington state. And here's one of the mentors, you know, of our movement here that I mentored since the age of eleven growing in as I'm talking to you. How do you like that?
Right.
But anyway, sorry, Greg. We're, we're gonna, talk a little bit about sound. I'm sort of mentioning the negatives, but I I I have to mention the negatives in order to kinda get us into the concept of of what are the positives. Mhmm.
And, I hope you can all put up with that for a minute. It's, you know, it's not a negative. It's not a really bad story or anything. It's just just what is.
Richard Louv, basically, he wrote the the forward for Coyote's Guide very generously, and he did that because Alan Haas, coauthor on Coyote's Guide, the project, you know went up to him at an environmental ed conference and sort of told the story and said we need you to write the forward He looked at the manuscript and said yes and you know declared that we were good medicine for nature deficit disorder and Okay, so I started to think about that Now we, at that point in two thousand seven, had not yet distinguished ourselves from environmental education. I think we all knew that we were different, somehow, and we knew that we were taking people on longer journeys, but we hadn't really established this concept of mentoring connection.
That was not really in the forefront of our mind. And you can you can remember back to the days when at Christian Brothers Academy, I was teaching, people how to track after school. Yeah. And I thought it was all about learning information about animals and trees and plants.
And, really, the early iterations of Kamana were really information focused, but we knew that we needed the connection based routines of the awareness trail.
So I guess I made an assumption.
My assumption was that if people gain enough knowledge about nature, enough information, then they will feel empathy for it. And so there's a bit of a process skip, and I worked for four years with a consultant very closely who was really analyzing our processes with us. And he said, isn't that an assumption? And I said, what? He said, taking people and giving them a lot of information about nature and exposure to nature is gonna result in some kind of empathetic result for nature? And I said, well, it's my experience. He said, in all cases?
I said, well, actually, no. Not in all cases. He says, well, tell me about when it didn't work.
So I started thinking about it, and very often, it was when people were, you know, somewhat competitively oriented around information. Yeah. There's different ways that that shows up.
Do you know what I mean? Like, if you're if you're at, like, say, a skills gathering and people are almost, kind of walking around with this excessive pride about how much skill they have.
Yeah. Of course.
You know? And so if you look at the core values that hatch the lineage that you and I are both, you know, working on behalf of and and with the benefit of behind us, that kind of skill showmanship doesn't exist.
Mhmm.
You know, for instance, I just came back from the Kalahari where one of the you know, probably one of the very last subsistence communities exists, where these people are still living this very very old way Of nature connection mentoring. I mean, of course, they don't call it that you know that They don't even know what that means. We actually even asked them how they did that, and they looked at us blank. What are you talking about?
And we had to really explain explain to them what we meant, and then they said, oh, yeah. We are doing that. How about that? We never thought of it before.
We just thought it was just being alive. You know? Mhmm. They took it for granted, basically.
You know?
So and not not because they didn't value it, just because they didn't even know it was something to pay attention to. And that's sort of what happened to me too. I think, I didn't realize there was a whole another process present in our work, which was the process of connection mentoring. It wasn't really information transfer, You know?
So, I found in a number of of settings, you know, for instance, in the tracking community, there it has its, you know, its its, sort of pride and marksmanship, you know, thing going on. People, you know, I can track better than you can kind of a thing. In the primitive skills part of what we do, you know, my my skills are better than yours. I use less modern materials than you do.
Mhmm.
Over here in the, you know, the category of, herbs, I'm sure you're gonna find it with people who say, well, I'm an herbalist who studied with this person and that person, and I, you know, I put up this many tinctures a year, therefore, I am, you know Sure. So okay. So that is a uniquely Western thing, you know, that sort of competitive, kind of mindset, which is almost in a way, okay, I'm insecure about myself, so I have to show you how great I am. You know?
In the Bushman community, you don't see that thing. What you see instead is, oh, you've identified me as the best tracker. Uh-oh. That means I'm not doing my job as a member of my community.
Therefore, I will stop tracking, and I'll make sure that the younger people around me start tracking while I'm still alive to watch.
So the actual recognition of skill in an authentic nature connection, mentoring community, the recognition that you are the last person with those skills is enough to motivate them to stop practicing while they're still alive, which seems really re a reversal. So if you're a Westerner, you're thinking, what? That's right when you're at the top of your game. You could be making the most money. You know, you're the expert. It's time to raise your rates, not not quit the game.
But in their world, they have a different outcome in mind. Their outcome is, well, if I am the last person who holds this knowledge to this degree and I die, these children will be robbed.
So it's my job to make sure they can do it while I'm watching. Mhmm. And so that's where mentoring kicks in. Okay? So it's a commitment to the regeneration of knowledge in the children that drives that mentoring equation.
So we, in a sense, had a kind of a an wake up moment, you know, through recognition by Richard Louv, and his work with the Children in Nature Network, and us being, you know, sort of put in this position of, hey. You're the experts. You know, for the last thirty years, you guys have been practicing nature connection mentoring. We've only been, you know, thinking about it.
And here you are. You never stopped. We're gonna go to we're gonna go to you guys as the ones who know. And then we had to make sure, well, do we really know?
You know? Or do we end up here by accident? So we had to do a lot of self analysis and a lot of internal reflection on our movement in the last thirty years to identify that we have actually I'm not gonna say we created a unique field because really, you know, the ancestors created the unique field. We're just the recipients of lineage and kept it alive long enough to be able to talk about it intelligently.
So we didn't create nature connection mentoring.
Right.
When the music stopped in the game of musical chairs, you know, through the generations, we happened to be the ones standing.
You know? So everyone looked at us. Right.
You know, you can say I'm the author of Coyote's Guide, and and Evan McGowan, you know, is is the key storyteller in Coyote's Guide, and and Alan is one of the key consultants on the Coyote's Guide project. We're all coauthors, but, really, none of us are. You know? I only am able to do this because I was this was done for me.
And so in this strange kind of way, we're getting the attention, but, really, there's a process that needs to be looked at. And I and I'm thankful that you are actually, you know, willing right now to put that process on the table and for us to have a look at it. It's a fascinating topic for me. I think it's really one of the funnest things ever to dis to discover. I've been working for thirty years in a way that I didn't even know.
Right. Right. Right. Right.
You know?
And and, you know, what was interesting is some things like, you you know, which it's something I didn't actually hear you start really talking or defining until more recent years. You're right. Like, all those years earlier on together, we were focused on, you know, just did that whole process of building knowledge and all. But then you started talking about something that really struck me and that was the kid trails because I could connect with that. I, being forty one, remember in my neighborhood growing up that every kid on the block cut through each other's yards and went down to the creek. Can you speak a bit about that? So because why that's so powerful is because people can really have probably have been major moment to realize just how things really have changed.
Yeah. You know, well, I grew up, in in the age of, TV being really, sort of in its infancy. You know?
I I was there to watch black and white, turn color.
Mhmm.
And I had three channels.
So and I think anybody who grew up in this fifties, sixties, you know, who were there for the early days of TV can remember Even seventies, we just had the local channels.
There was no cable when I was growing up.
Right. Right. That's true. So when when, you know, TV was on, we all kind of knew that there were certain shows at certain times that you came inside for.
You know? So it was like a a big impetus. You know? Oh, Sunday night, meet you at Omaha's Wild Kingdom and and Disney stuff.
Right. So you're you're you're in for that. You know, it's like, oh, I wouldn't miss that. For some reason, that was important.
But the rest of the time, you you kinda said, I don't need this, and you go outside, you know, because TV just just didn't do it for you. Bugs Bunny at three o'clock did it for me.
I loved it.
You know? And, so we we then we're really in a place where we could see the effect of media because we were literally consciously thinking about the times when the shows were on, and we would come in for that. So people kinda forget that, you know. And and nowadays, you know, it's twenty four seven, a hundred channels or more, plus video games, plus computers. Right?
So all of it, super seductive, designed by really great psychologists who really understand what motivates us and keeps us glued. You know?
Uh-huh.
And so, some families, three, four TVs going at the same time throughout the house in different rooms, different channels.
It's so seductive and so powerful that nature just doesn't pull them outside anymore.
At the same time, Richard Luth made the observation. He said, well, he said, what's going on here? You know, what are the effects? What are the sociological factors that contribute to kids not going outside?
And he looked into it, and the number one thing was fear on the part of the parents that really drove this cultural choice to keep kids indoors. Right?
Fear. So he looked into this into the statistics. Is it more dangerous now, you know, twenty eleven than it was in nineteen sixty or nineteen seventy to go outside as a kid? And, actually, statistics say it is actually safer for kids to go outside now than it was in the sixties and seventies.
But what's happened is because we now have twenty four hour, seven day a week news channels, headlines are blasted at you from multiple media sources constantly. So if there's a child kidnapping case, you're gonna hear about it fifty times a day if you have even, you know, a remnant of media operating in your household.
Whereas if you remember back in our childhood, the news came on at six.
Right.
And if you missed it, you were like, oh, I missed it.
Now what? Right. Oh my god. I missed the news. What's what am I gonna do?
It's over for the day. You know? I'm not gonna get any news now. And then you'd give it, oh, darn.
International news.
Seven to seven thirty. You know? Quick repeat of the headlines. Okay. Phew. Right? Or you had to wait till eleven o'clock or ten o'clock depending on, you know, what what channel.
But the point is that he said that he believes sociologically and culturally speaking that the fear factor is much higher now, because of the effect of twenty four seven news media. So put that aside for a second. The bottom line is kids aren't going outside. The the second thing that really seems to be contributing to all this is, access.
You know, there just isn't access to being outside.
And you you have to wonder about the access question because you and I both grew up in a place where, I didn't go to a park, you know. Right. I just cut I cut through yards and I went to the creek. Right.
Exactly.
That wasn't that wasn't an environmental ed center and that wasn't a state park.
You know, that was just us being kids exploring our our hood. Right?
Right.
So the impact and this is this is the part that really, really digs in deep. I, as a kid, had access to the forest and creek primarily because we, the children, kept the access open.
And we kept it open because we actually went back there so often that the plants never had a chance to grow back in certain places So trails actually formed right And those trails, we didn't, like, go out with loppers and cutters and, you know, weed whackers to make trails.
The trails were the result of our activities. Mhmm. We were we were playing outside in the winter, and when the snow melted, we were still playing outside. And as the, you know, the nice warm weather came in and the wet soil was there and the little grasses began to grow up, we trampled them.
Right. So they never had a chance. You know, the blackberries, they tried to grab us with their claws, but we ripped them off because we were walking through while the while the while the claws hadn't hardened yet. You know?
So, you know, the the blackberries were rendered harmless by our constant presence, you know.
And then, after years and years and years of that, you know, there was literally tunnels through the underbrush that were the size of the children. And, you remember that. I remember that. And I called them children's trails. And and in the, late eighties, I went back to my neighborhood and went to those places and found that all the children trails had grown over.
And in the most recent years, in the last five years, I went back again. And not only were they grown over, but now there was, like, massive thickets, throughout the whole area. It was almost like an impenetrable wall had formed.
I I gotta I'm gonna add that I found the same thing. I I remember you saying that, and I happened a couple years ago to drive through the neighborhood I grew up with, which is which is I you know, happened to be the town next to yours ten years later. But still, it was, and and, yeah, I I I stopped in the car at a few key places and peered into the woods. And you've been in the back yard of my own house in this little network that we all made and biked through and everything and nothing.
Thickets. You're right. Thickets. There was no activity at all.
Yeah. And check it out. Here's here's the other one that really strikes me is, the lawns. I I know you remember the battle between fathers and children. You know?
Always getting yelled at for leaving our bikes out on the lawn, our toys, our baseball bats, whatever, and getting getting yelled at because we play too much on the lawn and make these dirt spots.
Right.
And, you know, so the lawns were always a little ragged looking.
Right.
And there was this unspoken culture of competition for perfection, you know, between between homeowners. And, the kids were constantly the thorn in the side of that, you know, the perfect plan. And, you know, I always say kinda with some sadness today when I address audiences that, hey. The fathers in the end, they won because the lawns now in those neighborhoods are absolutely perfect.
Oh, yeah. There's not a blade out of out of, you know, sink. You know? It's like somebody combed them.
But there's a bittersweet re result there, you know, because you don't see anyone outside.
And, you know, the kids, they're in the car when the car pulls in the driveway. And really in a haunting kind of a way, the garage doors open with automatic garage door openers, and Right. Cars disappear into these space stations and the doors close automatically. And you don't even get to see who was in the car because the windows are tinted.
So there's this really sort of surreal disinhabitation of nature that's that's occurred in the last twenty, thirty years. And, you know, it's it's having many compounding effects on the well-being of children, but also adults because let's face it, you know, it's two, three generations of people raising children now since those days.
Right.
And, you know, what you're looking at is, parents who were once children who were disconnected.
Right.
So it isn't just the kids. It's, you know, two and even three generations, you know. I'm working with grandmothers and grandfathers right now who need remedial training in in how to inspire children to go outside because they don't remember that from their childhood.
It's a key time now because the thing is there are plenty of people still who can easily who are parents now like me who can recall those days. I mean, when I when I first started working with you, I mean, it was only, you you know, I was in my early twenties, and I was maybe twenty, twenty one. And I and the first thing you pointed out was that the amphibians and the songbirds had declined or were gone because of chemical lawn care. And I couldn't believe it, and I went back and I said, damn, he's right. I can't find a salamander on one of these logs, and I not hearing these birds.
And I said, wow. That's true. You know? And and that was alarming. And then after the kid trail thing, I was like, wow.
That's really alarming. But the thing is, there are people who can still remember catching the frogs when they're kids in salamanders and bringing them in and, you know, coming in with muddy clothes. So we it it is a pivotal time now, isn't it? Because we still have plenty of us who remember who are the parents, who can do something about it.
And, you know, I I do a lot of lecturing around around the the world, basically. And, my audience is often at least half people who are my age, a little younger, and older, you know? So there's a lot of gray hair in the audience, and they all grew up at the time we did. And they all remember. And I'm basically telling them, hey. Look. You know, you have a set of skills which you may not even realize you have.
You know, you are the grandparents now who can remember what this was like, and you can encourage the parents that are around you and the other grandparents who don't know.
You can help them learn and remember because it it I think, essentially, people read the flyers for my talks, and I attract the people who once played outside the way you and I did. So there's a good a good population of people out there, a lot of them, who who could be, you know, mobilized essentially as an army of mentors. And they and they need to be, frankly. I think it's a it's a time, a very, very pivotal time and a crucial time for us to awaken the nature connection mentoring instinct.
Exactly.
So now, you know, I I'll just freely tell people, you know, because I'm very transparent on my side that if you if you got our board game well, Crafter, you're our mentor. I'm just gonna tell you now, you you you fell into my trap.
That should be nice. Because because my trap was to have you start to look at this stuff, folks. And, and maybe you're gonna play wildcraft with your kid and and and you're gonna sit there and you're gonna, you know, learn about a few plants. Or maybe you're on herb mentor and you you went out and now you see where I'm coming from, you know, because I'm there and I'm saying, okay, go out and make this salve out of this herb or make this, syrup and then, you know, you're going out and having to gather the elderberries, for example.
And then while you're out in elderberries, guess what? You're out in nature or you're outside. And the same with wildcraft. When you if your kids have even my sister, you know, my sister, John, and I was and and even her one of her kids came up to her and said, oh, here's one of the plants from uncle Johnny's board game, you know.
And and they recognized it. And so now now that you're, you know, y'all know this and then that's our intention to start thinking about this to help the kids out, let's talk about some strategies or things that kids can do, like methods of mentoring or how people can begin to effectively work with their kids in raising nature awareness and and all that.
Alright. Well, great great suggestion.
You know, I'm looking, first of all, at your board board game. And I and I thought kind of, you know, this might sound like a shameless plug for coyotes guy.
There I love that book. There's no I always plug it all the time.
Great. You know, you gotta sell the the Herb Mentor package, which includes the game and the coyotes guide.
Yeah. You're right. Good idea.
I'm thinking about, you know, Coyote's guide on the back of every toilet. You know? Because Ellen Ellen Hawes and and I used to joke around a field guide on every, you know, coffee table, basically.
I think that we're not going to get to the field guide on every coffee table until we get a coyotes guide on the back of every toilet. Exactly And, you know, Coyote's Guide is the perfect book to put there because there's you know, open it anywhere and you find these great little tidbits that help you rethink how to approach any given moment with a kid, you know, or an adult really. I mean, we'll say children, but, you know, adults need this too. And I I never, I I'm never, you know, I I just continue to be amazed at what I think everyone must know and discover, to my shock a lot. You know, like, oh my god. They don't really know that.
And that's so basic, and oh my god, what now? You know, so let's not just let's not assume any of us that we know what mentoring means or that we have enough tricks in our tool bag to be effective nature connection mentors. You know? I think we would all do well to just assume we don't know and to approach it with beginner's mind, with an innocent mind and say, there's a lot for me to learn and there's a lot for me to experience.
And I always tell adults, I mean, no matter what, if you're thinking in any way, shape, or form of doing nature connection mentoring with the next generation kids, you know, anyone younger than yourself, you yourself need to step onto that path immediately.
And, well, what does that mean? Well, it might mean simply going outside and sitting on that nice little bench outside your front door.
I have a nice little bench, outdoor furniture bench from a friend who gave it to me.
And I I go out and sit on that bench a couple times a day, and I just I just sit there. I'm not gonna pretend that I have to take a hike to some far distant beautiful place, in nature that has some idyllic quality in order to feel connected.
I know that if I step out my front door and I just sit there for a minute, even a minute, I'm going to have a high quality connection experience. And this is where everyone needs to start. We need to remember what connection feels like because it isn't information. So remind yourself of that.
We, the Nature Connection Movement, Coyote Sky being sort of the textbook for it, is essentially saying, here's a new field for you all to consider even though ironically, it's probably the oldest field there is. You know what I mean? It really literally is probably the oldest field there is. If you can call this mentoring methodology a field, then you have to say it's the oldest one there is.
Right.
Because this has gotta be what we all shared in common for one hundred and fifty thousand years, you know, with the Bushmen. The Bushmen are still doing it.
So that's why they're on the front cover of the of that second edition, by the way. Right. Now I am coming back to this moment where I'm sitting on the bench as recently as this morning. Okay?
Why is it a connection moment? Because I sit out there, and I'm thinking, god. I got a busy day. The accountant's coming and, okay.
When he's gone, then John Gallagher's call is coming up and, okay. Alright. Let's see. I gotta get this done.
And, okay, I'm gonna be cooking dinner tonight. So I wanna you know? So this is probably typical. Right?
You probably do the same.
I go outside and I sit on the bench, and then I hear the Stellar's j's.
Right? I'm like, okay.
What's going on over there?
There's nature connection.
That's the beginning of it. Put yourself outside, tune in with your senses, and become curious about the first thing that jumps up from your neighborhood. So in this case, it's the Steller's Chase. And and now I have to sit there and listen because, you know, they're not just doing that.
It's loud. It's obnoxious. It's it's actually tugging at my diaphragm. I'm I'm starting to feel it in my body that these guys are really upset about something.
I know I have to go back inside for this phone call that I'm on right now, but there's half of me that wants to walk over, you know, the hundred yards in my neighborhood to find out what the heck they're so upset about.
So I sit there and I listen and I listen and I I have two minutes exactly, and I decide, alright. I have to let this go. But I'm gonna make a mental note that there's a male and female Jay who are really pissed about something over there, and I have a feeling it's because the raven is trying to get to their nest.
But I have no way of verifying that now. Anyway, I walk back inside, and I have a question.
And my question is, why are they upset?
My question is, where is their nest?
My question is, you know, why haven't I noticed those two jays in particular before?
I have a pair of jays nesting under my porch eve on the other side of the house.
But these guys are too far away to be the same jays. It's the next territory over. So I wonder where their territory is, and all these questions start to emerge. Oh, and I wonder, could it be a bobcat, or could it be a house cat?
So I come back in with, like, you know, ten questions after sitting outside for two minutes, but here I am relating it to you and perhaps you on the other side of this call who are hearing this from me tuning into a live moment with me and my own Nature Connection process. You know, maybe you're picturing the redwood trees. Maybe you're, you know, you're smelling the air of these coastal redwoods here in California or wondering what a Steller's jade looks like.
And if my curiosity is stimulating your curiosity, well, then we've entered into the process of nature connection. Because nature connection is about sharing curiosity with each other. And if we share it with each other the way John's sister did around the board game, you know, oh, hey. That's one of the the the plants from John's board game.
It's the same thing. You know? It's these moments of and, oh, I wonder and, oh, what's that? Those are the moments that we capitalize on in Nature Connection Mentoring.
I had a, a woman that I spoke to today on the phone, one of my clients, and she says, oh, gee. I I kinda I wonder is it am am I the right person to be in this program because I don't know anything about nature. Right?
And I I immediately encountered, well, you're exactly the perfect person to be in this program because it isn't about knowing, it isn't about having information and looking good against people who also have information.
It's legitimately about us sharing our wonder and enthusiasm and awe and curiosity with one another about our own neighborhoods and building relationships one thread at a time, you know, plant, animal, tree, bird.
Is that what you mean by building ropes with nature?
Yeah. That's a bushman concept.
And it's it's referenced to a conversation that, a man was having with a bushman, and and the bushman, he he said, tell me what it means to be a bushman. He says, well, he says, if I get if I get up in the morning and I walk out of my hut and, I start to walk out on the landscape here and I see a little bird in a bush, you know, I'm going to, have a quick look at that little bird. Now there's a little sort of footnote in here. A lot of us have little birds that show up in our peripheral vision, and we might even for a split second realize they're there.
But if we don't actually recognize that little bird, and I don't mean recognize it as a species, I mean literally recognize it. It's like someone walks into a room with other people and People are all talking to each other already and that person feels a little bit awkward, you know, they're kind of walking into a new situation, they're waiting to be recognized. They're waiting for someone to pause in what they're doing, turn, make eye contact, give them a smile, and give them a nod. That's some that's called that's recognition in this definition right here. Okay? That's what the Bushman means by recognition.
It's a it's a moment of engagement.
Mhmm.
A conscious moment of engagement. I I recognize you.
I honor your value for simply existing in this space and this time with me, sharing this moment of life with me. You see what I mean? That's what they mean by recognize because I discovered later that when I talked to various audiences about this, they when I when I said recognize, they thought I meant we're able to identify.
You see how our mind works, even the western mind?
Right.
You know, it's always about information and labeling.
Right.
In this case, it's not about that.
In this case, the bushman is saying, if I should step out of my hut in the morning and see a little bird and recognize him, there's a moment of engagement.
And in that moment of engagement, a little thread will form between me and that other bird. So tomorrow morning when I get up, if I go on the same route and I happen to pass that same thicket where that little bird was yesterday and I see that it's saying little bird again. Again, I recognize him. The thread gets thicker. You see that?
Yes.
And over time, the thread turns to string, the string turns to cord, the cord turns to rope. But I have ropes with my Steller's Jays because I see them every day and I recognize them every day and I'm curious about what they're up to. Here's the husband. Here's the wife. Here's their nest. Here's the kids they're raising.
As the bushman says, you know, when the cat comes into the yard for me, I'm I'm Americanizing this. You know? For him, he said the mongoose. When the mongoose goes near the nesting territory of the little bird, the little bird gets upset about that mongoose the same way I get upset when a hyena comes into our village when the children are out.
You know, he has the same challenges I do. He's trying to raise the family the best way he can. He's trying to keep him safe, too.
You know, so there's this this sort of reference to I can empathize and connect with you because I recognize your challenges. I recognize your context. I am part of your world. You're part of my world. We communicate.
When you're upset, I hear it, and I know it's the mongoose. You know? When I'm upset, you hear it. You know it's the elephant. I have to chase them away. You know?
Right. Right.
You know? You see what I mean? So there's, like, this reciprocal communication going on in that story. But they they find a way to make that same reciprocal communication grow and engage with plants, with trees, with soil, with water, with stars, sun, wind, moon, birds, plants. You name it. See?
And he says it at the end, that's what it means to be bushmen, ropes with everything.
And and, you know, this is exactly the answer I need to give, because sometimes I, you know, I do stuff because I've been mentored in the system for so long, and I don't even realize what I'm designing or doing. Because so many people will be like, well, how come the wild card board game doesn't have, how to, you know, do this or do, you know, do it with this or, you know, whatever. And I'm just like, well, because it's really about exploration, and it's really just about connecting and going out or an urban tour. Why don't you have a certificate? Or why don't you have a, you know, why why do you have these various experiences for us and not this guided a to b kind of program? Why is it like, you know, why why can't I get a master herbalist certificate?
Like, well, exactly. Because I'm my goal is to bring you on those journeys of discovery with your personal relationships and connections with nature. It's not about a end goal, and it's not about that kind of Western thinking.
Nice.
So exactly. Wow. Cheers.
So so then connected to that is parents are, like, might wanna know about how to how to see some of their kids natural curiosities and then connect that to the natural world. And I think some of your children's universal passions that you recognize might help some parents, you know, just to identify a few that they may see in their kids that are common that they can then say, oh, there's they're they're showing that. Let's let's now connect that to something outside, you know, that kind of thing.
Okay. So, I I I think immediately one of my favorite stories ever, around this is, Penny Livingston, the great permaculturist and partner in creating the rDNA program with me and my wife, Nicole, and her husband, James.
We were, taking a group of RDNA students out on the landscape, and they had all year been waiting and waiting for Penny to say, if this was my land and I was working on it, this is what I see and this is what I would do. You know? So it's kinda like the master's about to talk about this, you know. And, boy, people were so excited. And, we went on this walk, and we walked around the land for a little while. And we got to, to the bridge, the wooden bridge over the creek, and she was talking about this area. And, people were standing on the bridge because that's where they needed to stand, and they were facing Penny.
And, Penny was, you know, gesturing and raising her hand, pointing and this and that, and talking about what she saw. And everybody was really engaged. Full body nods and, you know, looks of it and curiosity and humility and excitement on the faces of the participants.
And then one individual man, he looks over his right shoulder down into the creek for a second, and he does the double take. Now I'm watching the whole thing from my vantage point, which is just off the side of the bridge. So I can see Penny, I can see the group, I can see him. And his body language immediately catches my attention because I see him reposition his body so that he can look down into the creek while watching Penny, but his full frontal his full frontal engagement with Penny has now shifted.
And he's now slightly tilted so that he could see into the creek.
And the funny thing is that other people around him also noticed what I noticed. Subconsciously, they all kept looking at Penny with that same raised eyebrow, nodding head, agreement, and excitement, but they started to kinda sidle over towards the guy who was reshifting his body language so he could look into the crate.
Now there was three people looking in the crate. Right?
So of course, my my subconscious mind is saying, I wonder what he sees.
And so pretty soon, little by little, the whole class starts to shift closer and closer to this guy all while trying to pretend they're interested in what Penny's having to say. Now I know they are interested, but the body language is stronger than, you know, what's going on with Penny.
And Penny finally says, alright. Alright. I can't pretend anymore that you guys are interested in what I'm saying. What is in the creek?
You know? So at that point, that guy had already squatted down and was looking at Penny and, you know, still nodding at her while squatting and looking, you know. So it just made things go bad. The whole class was now looking at the creek.
Turns out it was this huge crayfish that had red, purple, and blue on it. And it it was just enormous, and it was in this perfect spot to view it. And, you know, it was just, you know, this great moment where information transfer technology lost to nature connection instincts. You see?
Right.
Like, you know, that story really totally is the pinnacle of of what parents should be looking for.
You, parents, are often like Penny, or I'm like Penny. It's about information. I'm the expert, you know. Oh, well, you know, to survive in this world, we all need to be experts.
And you should even change your facial expression and even talk a little different you say. Because there's this sort of subconscious bizarre human behavior that that's associated with that that part of our brain, you know, let's face it. You know, and that that part of our brain is a very small subset of who we really are, you know, but yet our whole society places so much importance on that as if that's all that matters. Mhmm.
But that doesn't bring us happiness. That doesn't bring us connection. That doesn't take care of our environment. You know, that doesn't help guide our ethics and values and develop our intrinsic sense of connection to everything else.
It as a matter of fact, from my experience, we'll do the opposite. It will actually cause people to isolate, separate, compete, feel insecure. Right? So do, by all means, pay attention to the difference between what authentically generates connection versus what generates the sense of importance or responsibility or whatever that is because that's a whole different part of your brain and it's a very small subset of what brings health and vitality and deep connection.
So I want you to look at what makes kids happy and curious naturally, and crayfish are amazing. You know, berries, ripe and delicious, blackberries, the smell of them on a warm day when there's not much of a breeze. You know that smell, John?
Yes. Yeah.
You know, when the Himalayan blackberries, yes, they're invasives. I know we can do all that kind of stuff around it. You know, place all that judgment and critical thinking. Forget that for a moment.
Look at the smell of the blackberry in the air.
Taste it on your tongue because you're smelling it on that warm day and just be like, oh my god. Smell that. You know? Oh my god.
You know? And then watch the effect that's having on the kids. You know? Their eyes are big.
They're looking around. You know, they're wondering, are the adults gonna do something about this? You know?
Will somebody tell me, can I eat this or not? You know? Because my body says I need to eat it. You know?
And those are connection opportunities, you know? And I'm not saying you do this around poisonous plants, you know. And I'm you know, don't don't immediately say, oh god. Well, he'll get us killed.
Take, you know, common sense precautions, really, you know. Look at Coyote's Guide. It tells you the same thing. But it also tells you pay attention to those connection opportunities.
What are the universal passions that children all have in common that make them wanna do stuff outside, explore, get deeper into the landscape, have fun, giggle, laugh, fall on the ground from laughing, you know, be completely amazed by an emerging, dragonfly larva from its its, its, you know, larval shell into its adult form, wings unfurling, sun shining, you know, just eyes as big as saucers being like, oh my god. What is this? You know?
I'll never forget, when you're now how old is Aiden now? Twenty six?
Twenty six, yeah.
Twenty six. I remember when he was, like, you know, eight or nine, and I was out at night with him with flashlights over a pond looking at all the frogs and toads emerging from the spring peepers and all that. You know, or even my, you know, of course, my own kids as well. Blowing dandelion, seeds across the yard or Yeah. Or, you know, exploring the tide pools or the little places in the creek or the river.
Exactly.
Exactly. That's that's it. You know? And, you know, here, listen to this from Richard Bluff. Okay? So imagine what this guy now knows. Right?
New York Times bestseller author, bringing about this concept, you know, the last child in the woods, saving our children from nature deficit disorder. That's the title of his book. He's on Oprah. He's on the Today Show. His his book, his initiative, the Children in Nature Network, it now activates forty five million Americans strong, you know, that's that they know something's up and something needs to be done. Right?
Right.
He's talking to audiences all over the world. He's talking to researchers all over the world. He writes his second book, The Nature Principle, from all his research and all that he's gathered. Think about who he's spoken to, what he's seen, and what he knows from his perspective. Right?
And he speaks in San Francisco last September and he says, well, you know, he's talking to these funders and these stakeholders in the in the Greater Bay Area, funding community to help the Tuolumne River Trust, organization. And he's tired of these guys, and he says, well, you know, what we realize is that funding is a shrinking pool. You know, the the nonprofit organizations are gonna fight over you know, compete over the last remaining water in the waterhole. You know, it's it doesn't look good.
So funding is not gonna save the day. You know, government programs aren't gonna save the day. They're overburdened, underfunded. You know, we have this enormous deficit problem, so we're not gonna get money from the government to fix this. All the foundations are suffering because, their investments have shrunk, the economy has collapsed, etcetera. You know? So he's just like painting dismal picture after dismal picture.
Don't wait for the programs to save the day, you know, because if there are any programs that are doing Nature Connection work, I promise you they're underfunded and overburdened with people who need their help. Mhmm. So he says, so that sounds like really bad news. Right?
He says, well, yeah. But there's really good news too. There is that capital operating that has always saved the day all through history, and that's the innovation of creative people, moms, dads, neighbors, who just take initiative themselves to do the right thing. And he says what they discovered was that, hey, here's a mom and dad with two kids, and here's mom and dad's best friends who have three kids, and they're all kind of the same age.
So why don't these two parents get together and take their five kids collectively and go just do stuff outside?
Yeah. You pack a lunch. Right? Go to a cool place. You know, don't don't don't set your aspirations so high. You know, you don't have to climb Mount Rainier or fly to the Galapagos. You know?
Just get together because you guys live fifteen minutes apart and agree to hang out in a semi wild place while the kids play in the creek.
Because the adults will finally be able to have a real conversation because you may have noticed if you're a parent that if you're out with your own kids and it's just you and mom or you and dad, you know, like, it's just the parents and the kids. The kids are exceedingly needy.
Right.
And and irritable.
Right? And they're kinda like, oh, you're driving us to do the stupid thing again because dad likes nature.
You know? You know, you you get that side of the kid. Right? But if, you know, Bob and Sue and Mary and Frank go out with the five kids, The five kids don't want anything to do with the adults, you know, and they immediately find the little hidden tree that the parents can't see, and they find ways to get into trouble instantly, you know, climbing dirt cliffs and, you know, climbing in the tree and jumping out and doing stuff that if you watch them, you wouldn't let them.
You know. But nothing happens to them when they do that stuff. I mean, you know, let's face it, you know. We as kids, John, did stuff that if our parents knew, they would have let us do it.
Of course.
Nothing ever happened, you know, and and that's, you know, that's the research.
Everyone's saying, you know, we really underestimate the continuously would lose her shoes in the swamp behind our house.
The only time my mom would even know she was in the swamp behind her house.
Yeah. Exactly. So my mom probably doesn't even know there is a swamp.
She's like, I can?
Wait. So if she was a bushman, the bushman would have named her, you know, according to the fact that she loses her shoes in the swamp. They would have said, no. This is a pattern with her. Let's name her.
They would've tied the shoes on tighter.
And she's now a high school psychologist, so go figure.
Yeah. Yeah.
But, you know, you get the point. And Richard Booth said, you know, that's where all the action is right now. You know, he calls it the third tier or the third ring of culture. You know, the first ring is, you know, programs and funding, you know, first and second ring.
The third ring is citizens doing it for themselves.
So, you know, that's I think that's where the answer does lie. And here in California where we live, a lot of families have very intentionally sold their homes in other neighborhoods and purchased homes, in the same neighborhood largely inspired by what you guys did in Carnation Washington, you know, when several of your families in in the Wilderness Warner School community deliberately bought houses in the same neighborhood so that kids could grow up near each other. I mean, you know, that's that's just citizens taking initiative and then parents getting together around a campfire at night and the kids playing, like, mad in the house and nobody knows what they're up to.
And on a summer night, we'll all take a walk down the path to the river and hang out and, you know and or or if it's, you know, snowing, we'll all just we all can just walk over and slide at the little hill over there. You know? So so yeah. Exactly. So we've had a lot of experiences like that just kinda getting together and winging it.
Yep. And that's what it takes. And you know what, parents? You're not gonna get it right, you know.
And you won't do it perfect, and you won't get a certificate, and no one's gonna give you a master's degree. Well, actually, actually, that's not true because University of Vermont, and I are collaborating now to create a mid career, professionals you know, mid career professional master's degree, low residency master's in Nature Connection Mentoring. Wow. Wow.
Very excited about that. But, again, you won't need that master's degree. The, you know, the the textbook is Coyote's Guide. FieldLab is going out and doing stuff. You know, so it it it is not going to be the super technical thing. It's actually going to be more of a very practical, in the body experience of let's go out and do things with each other and and talk about it afterwards and then measure the sense of connection and how it changes and shifts over time.
And if there's gonna be research, it'll be researching into the psychology of connection. Yeah. But you don't need that.
You just need to know that you're happier and that your kids are happier. That's your measure of success.
I mean, every every parent's gotta know that after you've spent a day outside and go in, you're, you know, dinner time and bedtime, everything is suddenly a lot calmer and easier.
You know, it's just everyone just has better mental health about them, you know. You get cooped up inside. Everyone gets irritable and, you know, takes in all the crap and messages from the TV shows they might be watching. I have a preteen now, and he watches some of these Disney preteen shows.
And he watches those, and he's a real sensitive kid. Why is he sensitive? Because since age three, he's been in wilderness awareness school and has been out there every week spending a lot of time in nature and tracking and doing stuff. And he's a musician, and he spends a lot of time doing that.
And so when he watches that stuff, he's really sensitive. And he takes it on, and all of a sudden, he's, you know, as as sassy as the kids in whatever that show is on Disney that they watch with the wizards or whatever. And, like, where did you get that? And he and he makes everyone's life miserable.
I'm like, will you just stop watching this and just go back outside, you know, because we always have the best weeks. So, you know, John, a lot of people I talked about the art of mentoring before. This is a longer workshop series that you do. But a lot of folks like well, I mentioned, of course, we've been talking about the book Coyote's Guide and people may have seen that you, you know, talk about coyote teaching, things like that. Just so so for folks listening may not heard that term or understand what that means. Just to to kinda wrap things up towards the end here, like, what do you mean by coyote teaching and the power of coyote teaching and stuff like that, like that word coyote and all that kind of stuff?
Coyote has many reputations, throughout native lore and literature without you know, there's just many, many faces of Coyote. One of them is the trickster transformer.
The concept of the trickster transformer is not, you know, a thief or a criminal.
Trickster and that's what it's become in modern thinking. But coyote in traditional lore and legend basically represents the trickster, which is a universal symbol throughout cultures worldwide.
Only westernized, cultural phenomenon have have changed the trickster into the devil, for instance, you know, made it evil.
In all other cultures, there was an innocent view of the trickster, and it it archetypally simply means this. If I'm stuck in a rut, can I trust myself to get out of my own rut? Let's just look at it like that. Have you ever tried to break a habit and trust yourself to break it?
It usually takes an outside influence to pull you into another dimension of consciousness in order to make intrinsic changes to change old behaviors.
That is the essence of trickster transformer right there. That's the positive light side of that concept. You know, Westernization has resulted in, you know, the satanizing of the trickster, literally.
You know, you you have to go back for the innocent definition of trickster.
When a kid walks up and says, what's this?
And my mentor, Tom Brown, would say, oh, it's a, wood snail. You know, the kid says, oh, and walks away.
Wood snail's gone from their consciousness. Right?
If the kid instead walks up and says, Tom, what's this? He said, this is one of the early influences on me. This story I heard in nineteen seventy eight, it really just knocked me up back and made me say, oh god. That's what this is about.
This kid sees the wood snail and says, Tom, what's that? And Tom says, oh my god. How does it move? Look at it.
You know? And the kid says, oh, wow. It's kinda weird. It doesn't have feet, but it's sort of you know, and the kid has to actually use his body to explain it.
It's kinda kinda rippling along, you know, and he's kinda moving his shoulders and arms to show Tom how it's moving. Right?
And then Tom says, woah. I wonder how it eats. You know? And the kid says, gosh.
It doesn't even seem to have a mouth, but it's got this kinda weird tongue like thing that keeps going in and out and, you know, changing shapes. And he says, well, how does it breathe? And he says, oh, it's got a hole in its side. Is that an injury or is that is that how it's breathing?
You know? And what are those things? And they're coming up on these little stocks with these round balls at the end that's these are they eyes or are they antenna? Like, what are those?
You know? And pretty soon, he says you're spending twenty minutes looking at and engaging with full body, you know, storytelling with a living being making full engagement with a wood snail. But the moment you say, oh, that's a common wood snail, oh, and they walk away.
And he says, that's the difference between information transfer and Coyote Mentoring. You know? Coyote Mentoring, of course, you could tell them the name, and of course, you could give them information.
But the point is not that.
The point is causing engagement, recognition and engagement so that the thread can form. Or if the thread is already there, we can make the thread into a string. And if the string is already there, turn the string into a chord. And in a nutshell, that's the goal of Coyote mentoring. And the process is engage as many senses as possible.
And the commitment is core routines. Return to the same over and over again so that you can develop real relationship with them. Like the established chick.
Now people know why when you go on the, you know, we have a a part of our forum on our mentor dot com where people can post a photo of a plant and say, like, what is this plant? Now everyone knows why when you post it, instead of giving you the answer, I go, well, wait. How many petals did that have? Or Yeah. Was that purple or blue? Or what did it smell like when you crushed your leaf? That's why I'm always gonna do that, and it makes some people mad, but, you know, whatever.
Send them to the other forum.
Exactly.
Information information junkie dot com.
Herbal information junkie dot com. I'd like to go register that.
Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, so the coyote, it's not about lying. It's about a process of of how someone explore an engagement. Exactly.
And then discover their own curiosity, which eventually leads to their own passion, which eventually that's that's what you really want. You know, you wanna turn on that natural power inside people that comes from deep connection to nature.
Exactly. And as a result, your children will be healthier, happier, and smarter on a lot of levels, not just information.
Correct. And that is the beauty of the whole thing and what we're trying to do here.
And, well, it only took us how many years to figure all this out, John?
I don't know. Thirty, I guess. I'm a slow learner. What can I say?
I know. I've known you. Do you know I've known you for twenty six of my forty one years?
That's amazing. Terrifying. I know.
In a way.
You know, so I invite folks, who wanna take this concept further. Of course, there's a lot in what we just said that you can just take and practice on your own without even purchasing anything else because nature is free and you can go out and explore and breathe and play all you want. If you want to read more about some of the background philosophies that johns and others have discovered who wrote coyotes guide with him or get a lot of ideas for activities and exercises and really fun things that you can do with not just your kids, but a group of kids, whether you be a teacher or a mentor or, you know, a parent with multiple kids or the neighborhood kids, get the neighborhoods together. I mean, best format of activism, go out and play. Right?
You can go check out the Coyote's Guide book and and you can, of course, just go to john young dot o r g, j o n young dot o r g. And you can check out more about John and all the cool stuff he's doing, art of mentoring series that he does around the world and and, just ideas and things that you might, you know, really wanna get into. And you can, you know, get the book and various CD series and things that John has written or DVD, CDs and whatnot right on that site on John Young dot org.
Well, John, It's, always a pleasure. It's, thank you so much for spending I know you're really busy, Flannery. You're just you're just about to go out and, teach art of entering again off in the British Isles again?
You're just there and you're going Yeah.
Yeah. End of June, Scotland, and then August here in, California and then September in Vermont. And, I know there's also one in Canada and Toronto.
We're being asked to come to Norway to develop this, South Africa. I mean, it's it's, it's kinda blowing up a little bit.
Okay. So that that means if anyone listening to this, which will probably go out June, July, you can catch, you know, go look on that site if you wanna catch Art of Mentoring in, in in this country, you know, August, September, you can do that. Or they're in California or Vermont. And you can get on John's list, and, of course, he'll tell you about all the cool stuff that he's doing coming up because you've been, teaching for well, as far as I know since I've been about fourteen or fifteen, and you're still at it.
So I guess I'm just it's just what I'm gonna do. I guess I guess you should settle into it by now.
Yeah. I think I'm gonna just relax now and just do it.
Well, Alright. Well, John, thanks for hanging with us. And, we'll get you back for sure on on on this show or maybe maybe maybe we'll do a course on our mentor at some point. It'd be kind of fun.
I'd love to.
That'd be great. So alright.
We'll see you later. Thanks, John. Okay. Thanks, John.
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