A lot of people seem to want to experience better “nature connection”, perhaps in order to feel a little less stressed or insane, or because they are worried about climate catastrophe. Quite right; this is a good urge. But it’s just as usual to be too busy to act on it much;
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This is a poem I wrote when I replaced my smartphone for an old-skool phone a few years ago after a moment of clarity, when I was out for a nice jog, of how ridiculous and sad it was that I was beholden to an irritating little machine rather than just enjoying the joggy feeling.
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Are single-sex groups a healthy thing? And how helpful is it to use male language and imagery with groups of young men?
In a culture that often carries unpleasant whiffs of male-centredness and male-identification (and where many believe that oppression of women is the very nature of the system),
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It is winter, the dormant season for plants (above ground at least) – it’s the time to plant your trees. What I find interesting is that if you plant your healthy young sapling and help it to stay upright with a big stout stake and strong straps, then it is unlikely that it will grow into a mature tree;
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This is something I find I hear a lot:
“Wow – you own a wood! Are you going to build a cabin?’
I own a wood. It is great. It is sunny, rainy or cloudy in the daytime, dark in the nighttime if there aren’t any moonbeams,
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Here’s a second pattern that I’ve noticed during my time as a bushcraft instructor:
“My son isn’t keen on the outdoors – he’s just not the gnarly ‘survival’ type”
Machismo did not die after the 1980s, it just got clever. One trick it performed was to elevate itself into pseudo-aspirational but unattainable places.
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I have spent a lot of time in the outdoors with adults and kids, often with teenage lads on a string of 3-day outings together, in undomesticated environments like woods, moors and rivers. One lad recently pointed out to me that, out of the last 18 months, cumulatively he had spent an entire month with me,
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Hello again, reader. If you are reading this, then it means that at some time between 2011 and 2015 you subscribed to a blog I wrote, called ‘Chris Packe’s Freedom Blog’ back then.
The experiment has moved on a bit, and it’s now called ‘Insights from the Outdoors’.
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Decluttering has never felt so good. It really came into fashion in the last few years – getting rid of all that junk you accumulated and heading towards a life of simplicity.
Something always felt missing in that decluttering fad though. It can often be temporary and superficial,
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This year has strongly featured getting out-of-the-blue invitations from people, usually asking me to do something that makes me feel nervous, and quickly accepting.
None more surprising and uncomfortable than being asked to participate in the Clear Lines Festival, which runs from this Thursday 30 July to Sunday.
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