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Chapter Three - Sensory Awareness
 
"Lose your mind, and come to your senses." – Dan Millman, from his Way of the Peaceful Warrior
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Eagle Soars Story as experienced and told by Chrism to be uploaded ASAP.
Sand Dunes Song by Chrism to be uploaded ASAP.
Eagle Soars music written by Leslie Lightfall to be uploaded ASAP.
To listen to these audio files, you may need the free RealOne Player if it's not already installed in your system. Inspirational Artwork by Joanna Colbert and Nikki.
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Introduction & Contents:
• Field Exercise 3A - Owl Eyes & Deer Ears
• Field Exercise 3B - Bear Nose & Snake Taste
• Field Exercise 3C - Coon Hands and the Third Ear
• Field Exercise 3D - Exploring with All Your Senses
• Chapter 3 Celebration
Field Exercise 3A – Owl Eyes & Deer Ears
Recommended reading: Tom Brown's Field Guide to Nature and Survival for Children
Note: I believe Jon Young coined the term "owl eyes" following Tom Brown's teaching about "wide angle vision."
Read these directions carefully, then go to your secret place. As always, use the bathroom, take your first aid and sanitary supplies, and get a drink of water. When you arrive, see if you can be sedentary, but if you need to move around while concentrating on these sensory awareness exercises, go ahead.
These are active meditations that you will need to use at all times in nature, moving or not. For now, try to learn them sitting still with total concentration. Remember that staying still for long periods of time in nature is a critical skill to learn, and many rewards come to those who wait. When you've slowed down into your place, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Take as many slow, deep breaths, as you want, before moving on with this exercise. Be sure to take plenty of time for these meditations of the senses, or you may not come to realize their purpose.
Owl Eyes
With your eyes open, choose an object to focus on. Without moving your eyes at all, notice everything in your whole field of vision, including what's out the corner of your eyes. Concentrate on everything in your field of vision, without moving your eyes, until you have counted, or at least taken into account, all the objects, colors, darkness and lightness in sight.
Whenever you are having a hard time holding your concentration on the things that appear above, below, and to the left and right corners of your eyes, try extending your arms straight ahead of you, right where your eyes are focused. Then separate your arms slowly, wriggling your fingers. Watch your hands as they separate, but keep your eyes pointed straight forward. See how far apart you can spread your arms before your wriggling fingers disappear from the corners of your eyes.
Deer Ears
Now relax your eyes, but keep them fixed in place. Listen to the sounds that are to the left. Wait until you have perceived them all, even the soft ones, the low-pitched ones, and the high-pitched ones. Then listen to the sounds to the right. Again, wait until you have counted them all. Now take time to listen to the sounds above you, and then below you. Listen behind you very carefully, for this is where only your ears can perceive the presence of creatures sneaking around. This is obviously a very important skill to develop, since we are otherwise blind to what may lay behind us.
Finally, try to let your ears dominate your eyes in order to perceive what lies in front of you. Can you recognize things in front of you by sound, even if you aren't looking at them? Last but not least, take time to recognize if there are any other monotonous sounds that were so regular, you didn't even notice them at first.
Appreciating Increased Sensory Awareness
Last, relax everything, and enjoy your connection to the land. Notice what the birds and mammals are doing. Are they acting differently than when you first arrived? Say your appreciations for the fauna, flora, and elements at your secret place. Afterwards, walk home with your eagle eyes and deer ears as fully engaged as possible.
Journal your experience at home. Label the visual exercise you completed as "eagle eyes," and the hearing exercise "deer ears." As always, try to spend less than half the time journaling as you did at your secret place, or it may defeat the purpose of engaging your senses. Also, briefly make the normal notes on your journaling cover page.
Field Exercise 3B – Bear Nose & Snake Taste
Return to your secret place, practicing your eagle eyes and deer ears along the way. Take as many slow, deep breaths, as you want before moving on with the exercise. Again, take your time. Concentrate on everything in your field of vision without moving your eyes. Later, concentrate on all the sounds that reach you.
Breath again deeply, keeping those eyes straight forward, but relax. Focus on the smells coming into your nose. Identify separate smells. Sweet? Stinky? Musky? You describe each one of them to yourself, and try to remember them in order to journal later.
Don't worry if you can't seem to smell much. You probably eat foods from the grocery store, or maybe your garden, but not foods that grow or roam naturally at your secret place, so your sense of smell and taste will be hampered. It would probably take a couple days of fasting before you could smell quite like an animal must in nature. In the meantime, try to penetrate through the unnatural smells you exude, and sense what is right in front of your nose. Don't sniff scat or anything that could transfer a disease, however.
Snake Taste
After appreciating the smells as much as you can, taste the full flavor of what currently lingers in your mouth. Keep your attention as best you can on what you are seeing, hearing, and smelling. If you have just eaten something, savor that flavor. Is it sweet now? Sour? Rich or bland?
Now try to taste the air. Do so by taking a mouthful in, then running it over your palate like there's something there - imagine cotton perhaps. Pretend to swallow it, and concentrate on how the air tastes. Can you identify anything lingering in the air by its taste? Remember not to ever sample any poisonous plants, or even any plants that may be only slightly familiar.
All Together Now
Open your eyes and keep your gaze fixed. Notice any birds or other animals around you without looking directly at them. What are they doing now? Again smell all the aromas around you, then take note of the sounds. Notice everything out the corners of your eyes. If anything moves that you want to positively identify, shift your gaze to focus on it. But be very careful when doing so to stay aware of everything in the corner of your eagle eyes, and maintain awareness of what's coming to your bear nose and snake taste.
Maintain awareness of your peripheral vision and your sense of smell while traveling home. Journal your experience, labeling the smell exercise the "bear nose," unless you want to name it after another appropriate animal. Label the taste exercise the "snake's tongue," since snakes identify things that way for the most part.
Also journal about your repeated experience with eagle eyes and deers ears, and note any other important points, such as how your sense of smell and taste may be connected. Spend less than half of the time journaling as you did at your secret place, and briefly make the normal notes on your cover page.
Field Exercise 3C – Coon Hands & The Third Ear
Back at your secret place, take as many slow, deep breaths as you want before moving on with this exercise. Remember to concentrate on everything in your field of vision, then on all the sounds around you. Breathe again deeply, and identify the smells. Taste the air and try to identify things in connection with the smells. Notice the birds and other animals.
Turn your concentration, though not necessarily your gaze, to the insects and arachnids that may be crawling, flying, or jumping around you. Can you perceive them without looking? Often you can hear them. Sometimes you can feel them. You might even be able to smell them, and if you want, try to taste them. If you bite them before they bite you, and they don't taste nasty, they're edible. Of course, you should cut off any glands that hold poisons, and cook the critters when possible.
Now close your eyes and feel your body. Does it feel cold, hot, relaxed in general, stiff, calm or unsettled anywhere in particular? Blow all the air out of your lungs, and take in a really deep breath before letting it out, relaxing every part of your body.
Raccoon Hands
Take a moment to feel for any parts of your body that are tender, or that you wish were stronger or more relaxed. Take a deep breath in, concentrating on one of those uncomfortable places, bringing strength into it before exhaling, and imagine the pain leaving you. Stay unattached to whether it "works." Just do it.
Keep your eyes closed and begin to feel around with your hands. Crawl on your hands and knees, or slither like a snake if you want. Spend as much time as you possibly can feeling what your secret place is like without your sense of sight. Use your skin to learn more about the things right around you.
If you are able, move all around your secret place using your 'coon hands. See if you can crawl from one point toward another destination without looking. Wherever you go, try to identify all the things you touch without opening your eyes. Each time you successfully reach a pre-determined destination using only your 'coon hands, choose another which offers a slightly greater challenge.
The Third Ear
I first heard the term "third ear" from the late, great herbalist Cha-das-ska-dum Which-ta-lum of the Lummi Nation. Many cultures refer to the heart as the "third ear," the organ that allows you to listen to the spirit that moves through all things. Many people in western societies call it the "sixth sense," or "intuition." Most people feel that this phenomenon exists, but what many do not know is that anyone can strengthen their Third Ear, making it more and more sensitive.
So far, all the sensory awareness exercises presented in this chapter have been dynamic meditations, designed to widen your awareness while engaged in active living. Similarly, the Third Ear should always be engaged while doing other activities. However, to learn it today, get as comfortable as you can and put yourself at rest with some focused breathing.
Breathing is so important. It is the key to maintaining a positive attitude, to staying warm, the most basic of survival needs. If your breathing is calm, deep, sure – then your Third Ear will be strong. The lungs and the heart ride together in our bodies, and the better your breathing, the stronger will be your intuition, your sixth sense.
Breathing Exercise
Here's what my friend Serene Stevenson says in order to breathe. First, view your lungs as three basic sections: the lower, middle, and upper thirds. After visualizing your lungs, be sure to blow absolutely all the air out and then take a deep breath. Blowing the air out first is critical. After doing so, pull air into the very bottom of your lungs by raising your diaphragm (the main muscle controlling proper breathing located just above your stomach), in effect sticking out your stomach.
Actually grab the skin on your stomach and pull it out when you inhale, and that will help you learn to breath correctly since most people do the opposite, or push their stomach in when they breathe. Singers and wind instrument musicians know that the correct form of breathing is critical for tone and stamina. The best athletes also breathe as I describe.
Next, push your stomach inward when you are exhaling, pushing the air out of your lungs from the bottom up. Continue to practice breathing like this, pulling the air into the bottom of your lungs, and pushing it out as you suck your stomach inwards. Know that the more air you take into this bottom third of your lungs means the more power you will have in any situation.
After you have taken a couple successful breaths correctly, blow all the air out of your lungs again as your stomach goes inward. Then pull another breath into the bottom of your lungs. Next, immediately stick your rib cage out, bringing lots of air into the middle of your lungs. Now you will be filling up the area around your heart with as much air as possible, feeding your Third Ear.
When you feel that you have successfully filled the lower two thirds of your lungs in the way described above, again blow all the air out of your lungs, first by pushing on your diaphragm, then swiftly pushing on the middle of your chest (getting all the air out of your heart region) and then quickly pushing just below your clavicle (the bone at the top front of your rib cage) in order to get any lingering air out of the top third of your lungs.
Inhale again normally, and practice blowing all the air out of your lungs in the manner just described – from the bottom up – first by sucking your diaphragm in, then by collapsing your chest cavity, then by pushing all remaining air out of the top third of your lungs. Only when you know how to clear all air out of your lungs will you be ready to take a correct breath.
When you are ready to take a full breath, again start by sticking out your diaphragm and pulling air into the bottom third of your lungs. Then expand your chest fully, pulling air into the middle of your lungs. Finally, raise the top of your rib cage high into the air and pull any more air that you can into the top third of your lungs, which will feed your brain, allowing you to think clearly.
Now, many people get really tense at first when they try to fill up their lungs fully, especially the top third. See if you can do it without straining yourself, without tensing up your neck and other parts of your body. Over time, you will relax into this form of breathing, and nothing will tense up.
If you are fortunate, you already breathe in this manner. But for most of us, we need to re-train ourselves to breathe correctly. Perhaps it is the way we slouch in chairs and emphasize thinking over feeling, yet we have certainly allowed something in our society to make us breathe incompletely. Practice correct breathing whenever you can, just as you will practice using your eagle eyes whenever possible.
I heard Tom Brown, Jr. say at one of his introductory skills courses that "You should make it your mission in life to never walk outside your door without using your wide angle vision." If you practice your eagle eyes and correct breathing whenever you remember to think about it, you will be amazed at how well developed your Third Ear will be next year. You will be so aware of your intuition, that a "sixth sense" will let you know what steps to take in every situation, crystallizing in your mind all correct decisions.
Before Going Home
Calm yourself after pushing the limits of your breathing capacity. Relax a while and notice if anything seems different than before you began this field exercise. Has your study site changed, or have you changed? Can you feel your secret place with your Third Ear? Is your secret place "speaking" to you?
Before you depart for home, repeat the 'coon hands exercise some more, trying to reach a destination of your choice without using your eyes. But remember to breathe this time, giving your Third Ear some air so that it can be receptive. Try finding the destination you set up for yourself by engaging your Third Ear as well as your 'coon hands.
Relax and savor your surrounding for a moment, and then go home. Label your experience of feeling things with your skin "Coon Hands," and your experience feeling things that are emotional or not physical "Third Ear." Remember to include how well your eagle eyes, deer ears, bear nose and snake tongue worked today as well. Again, spend less than half the time journaling as you did at your secret place. And remember the date, time, weather, and wildlife observations on your cover page.
Field Exercise 3D – Exploring With All Your Senses
Return to your secret place, practicing your sensory awareness along the way. Take as many slow, deep breaths as you need before moving into your study site. Remember to concentrate on everything in your field of vision, then the sounds, the smells, and the tastes. Notice the birds, animals, and creepy crawlies, using all your senses.
At your secret place, close your eyes and again feel your body. Blow all the air out of your lungs, and take a really deep breath before letting it out, relaxing every part of your body. Take a moment before feeling for the tender parts of your body. Inhale deeply again, concentrating on one of those tender places, bringing strength to it before exhaling, imagining any discomfort leaving you.
Repeat this relaxation process as many times as you need, then open your eyes and notice whether anything seems different. Count how many different species of plants are within feet of you. Enjoy their beauty while keeping your peripheral vision, hearing, smelling, and your other senses aware. When you are done counting the number of species within your field of vision, get up and explore your study site.
Explore slowly, with complete concentration, using all your senses to maintain awareness. Take note of the changing sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings. Remember them so you can journal the changes your senses perceive during your exploration.
After you have spent an hour or so exploring all the deep secrets of your study site with your six senses fully engaged, return home. In your journaling, add to your normal notes any comments on whether your secret place started to become more or less of a secret to you now that you are sensing it more deeply.
Chapter Three Celebration
We must practice day after day engaging our senses until this process becomes our continuous way of being. At first it may seem to take a lot of energy, but doing it every time you go to your secret place, your energy reserves will strengthen to capacity. Soon this way of perceiving the world will become easy, like after you finally learned to walk as a toddler.
Prepare to go to your study site as you normally do, and visit it with no agenda besides having an attitude of wandering, whether you remain in one spot or move around. Then complete a written Thanksgiving Address journal entry as described in Chapter 1.
Make a new, small scale map of your study site. You will find that you come to know your area much better after each time you map it. Perhaps a noticeably neater and more accurate map will reflect how much more beauty you perceived by using your skills of sensory awareness. And as always, add aspects to your larger wall map that you are confident you can accurately depict there.
Set goals for yourself regarding the development of your senses, goals you are confident you can achieve. Write what you wish to learn, experience, and gain from practicing these skills, and edit any of the previous goals you set for yourself. Consider making it a goal to become more and more aware of your instincts, and to become better and better at making prudent decisions based on your mind and senses.
In the future at your secret place, continue to practice your sensory awareness exercises, but keep your instinct as your focus. When you are elsewhere, such as at work, home, play, or school, keep instinct in your conciousness. Take note every time you make a decision, or follow your daily patterns. What does your mind say you should do, and what are your senses telling you to do? To monitor your progress, try to note important decisions you can remember making every time you journal, and mention whether the decision, or routine pattern, followed your mind and/or your senses.
Finally, take a look at Melva's composite drawing of the senses which appears on the following page. Can you make out the animals she used to create such a beautiful beast? The animals are not necessarily the same ones I chose to describe the senses in the field exercises of this chapter.
For example, is the animal she used to reflect "wide angle vision" more appropriate than the eagle to understand a superior sense of sight for humans? Write a few paragraphs in your journal about which animals you think best teach us how to sense nature.
Index to Wolf Journey (chapters currently uploaded)
• Introduction to Part One - Skills of the Naturalist
• Chapter 1 - Your Secret Place.
• Chapter 2 - Fears & Hazards.
• Chapter 3 - Sensory Awareness.
• Chapter 4 - Sketching & Journaling.
• Introduction to Part Two - Skills of the Tracker
• Chapter 5 - Humans and the Hidden Wilderness.
• Chapter 6 - Shape Shifting.
• Chapter 7 - Mammal Mysteries.
• Chapter 8 - Bird Vocalizations.
• Introduction to Book 3 - Skills of the Herbalist
• Chapter 9 - Caretaking Nature.
• Wolf Journey Handbook for Students & Teachers.
• Chapter 30: Glossary of Terms.
• Chapter 31: Outings Checklists.
• Chapter 32: Understanding Taxonomy.
• Remaining chapters to be uploaded asap.
Wolf Journey is available free online, although donations to the WOLF Foundation - Max Davis Scholarships for earth skills education are requested with the suggested amount of $1.00 per chapter or set of recordings you utilize, with checks payable to the WOLF Foundation, c/o Scott A. Davis, CPA, 103 E Holly #401, Bellingham, WA 98225, or by calling us at 360-799-1997 with your visa or mastercard. An alternative way to contribute is to become a WOLF Booster which gives you the additional benefits of board membership and complimentary access to the Wolf Camp property on Woods Lake. The latter alternative requires completing a property use form. Books and other resources which you will need for successful completion of field exercises throughout Wolf Journey can be purchased through our camp store once it is up and running. In the meantime, we recommend purchasing through Tom & Renee Elpel's wonderful online Granny's Country Store or simply email them at orders@grannysstore.com or call 406-287-3605 to order. We offer this book series as a correspondence course for Wolf Camp alumni and as part of our Summer Camps & School Year Classes and Residential Intensives & Training Camps curricula, but if you would like an instructor to guide you while studying these skills in your own area, we recommend clicking on PrimitiveSkillsLinks.Com to find an earth skills specialist near you who can personally review your field exercises and journaling work. Other schools and outdoor instructors who would like to use this curriculum for their own classes, mentoring, etc, are free to do so. We would appreciate donations, or having your students donate, to the WOLF Foundation as described above. As a supplement to (or instead of) completing the Wolf Journey book series, we also recommend signing up for the Kamana Naturalist Training Program through the Wilderness Awareness School which inspired many of our own field exercises. They can offer academic credit, and they specialize in correspondence mentoring no matter where a student is located.
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