expedition Archives - Insights from the Outdoors

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3 excellent books to read, to explore a nature-inspired mindset

Posted on February 9, 2023 by by

Chris Posted in Insights from the Outdoors

There is a foreign land where structure, goals / outcomes, reward / punishment, measurement / return, personal development and laser-focus give way to less precise things like spontaneity, irreverence, beauty, surprise and playfulness.

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All-male events

Posted on December 12, 2019 by by

Chris Posted in Insights from the Outdoors

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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When the wind blows

Posted on December 5, 2019 by by

Chris Posted in Insights from the Outdoors

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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The woods and the womb

Posted on January 3, 2019 by by

Chris Posted in Insights from the Outdoors

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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Surviving the mainstream’s extremes

Posted on December 5, 2018 by by

Chris Posted in Insights from the Outdoors

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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Little consolation from the console

Posted on November 30, 2018 by by

Chris Posted in Insights from the Outdoors

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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Blog Archives

3 excellent books to read, to explore a nature-inspired mindset

All-male events

When the wind blows

The woods and the womb

Surviving the mainstream’s extremes

Little consolation from the console

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