Native Stone Age Camp- Earthen Spirituality

I’d like to share stories from our family’s summer Native Stone Age Camp. I must admit, I didn’t grow up as a Girl Scout and I’ve spent my entire life studying Tibetan Buddhism and yoga with a lot of lengthy texts and meditation practices. So much of that training was helpful, but now I’ve finally discovered what all of the interest was with native arts and shamanism. Most of the spiritual development I’ve done has been in a shrine room or in a classroom, and I now see, that I have longed more for the earth, and needed mostly to be “grounded.” I have spent too much time reading, thinking, contemplating and reflecting, rather than getting back to our roots.

However, this week I took my daughter to a rare stone age survival skills camp where we learned how live right in nature, and survive with only what nature provides. We learned how to: make fire, to create simple cutting tools called flint-napping and later the creating of bows and arrows and tomahawks, and the crafting of a handmade bow and native survival archery and hatchet tossing for sustainable and conscious hunting. Hunting and fishing generally go against our Buddhist vows of non-harming, however, I now feel that in survival settings, I think its possible for humans to consciously and respectfully use animals and animal products for nutrition and tools like the natives have done, since time immemorial. This…