Wild Ancestor cover

Live wilder · ebook & activity guide collection

Wild Ancestor

A rite of passage into the skills of those who came before

Go further. Travel lighter.

Fire by friction, carrying fire, water, shelter, natural navigation and invisibility: the skills of those who came before, ending in the ancestral challenge.

Make fire by friction, find and purify water, build a debris shelter, move unseen and navigate by sun, stars and land.

The ebook
37 Wilding activity guides as printable PDFs
Templates and charts the activity guides need

Coming soon. Jay is giving this book and its activity guides a final proofread before they go on sale as downloads. Ask to be told when they're ready.

Safety first. Outdoor activities carry real risks. Each activity guide has safety notes, but you are responsible for yourself and anyone in your care. Supervise children, get permission, never eat anything you cannot identify with certainty, and only light fires where it is allowed and safe.

Prefer to learn it outside? See course dates →

The activity guides in this collection

Uncover nature's language

Disturbance & concentric rings

InvisibilityUncover nature's language

Concentric ringsUncover nature's language

Where is the cat?Uncover nature's language

There’s a dog comingUncover nature's language

Live wilder

Hammocks

Building a debris shelterLive wilder

Fire lighting and fire lays

Using a flint & steel strikerLive wilder

Making an ember with a hand drill fire lighting setLive wilder

Building a stealthy fireLive wilder

Transporting a fireLive wilder

Gathering natural materials

Gathering plant & tree rootsLive wilder

Wooden tools

Making & using a digging stickLive wilder

Useful campcraft items

Making a bark water filterLive wilder

Cooking & eating utensils

Making a burnt bowlLive wilder

Cooking methods and equipment

Cooking in the embersLive wilder

Cooking on a hot rockLive wilder

Making & using a ground ovenLive wilder

Recipes and drinks

Making flat breadLive wilder

Cooking an eggLive wilder

Finding and treating drinking water

Finding wild water in natural spacesLive wilder

Making wild water safe to drinkLive wilder

Imitate nature

Camouflage and blending with the baseline

Wild in the frameImitate nature

Shine

Natural camouflageImitate nature

Speed

How do you walk?Imitate nature

Fox walkingImitate nature

The wild catImitate nature

The lizardImitate nature

The wormImitate nature

The heronImitate nature

Scent

Smell like natureImitate nature

Sound

Sound camouflageImitate nature

Map & navigate naturally

Mapping your place

Song-linesMap & navigate naturally

Natural navigation

Finding northMap & navigate naturally

Natural navigationMap & navigate naturally

SundialMap & navigate naturally

Finding & navigating by the north starMap & navigate naturally

Navigating by the moonMap & navigate naturally

Navigating by the constellationsMap & navigate naturally

← Back to the Wilding Rucksack

Safety, and where the activity guides come from

Look after yourself and others. Outdoor activities carry real risks: fire, tools, water, weather, heights, plants, fungi, animals and getting lost. Every activity guide includes safety notes, but you are responsible for your own safety and for anyone in your care. Supervise children closely, get the landowner's permission, follow the Countryside Code, never eat anything you cannot identify with complete certainty, and only light fires where it is allowed and safe. If in doubt, leave it out.

With gratitude to the lineage. The Wilding Practice Keys and many of the activities in the activity guides have been adapted from the core routines of nature connection in the 8 Shields approach (Coyote Mentoring), mapped by Jon Young and shared in Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature (Young, Haas & McGown).

These ways of noticing and belonging are far older than any book. They grow from the knowledge of Indigenous and land-based peoples around the world, who have lived in close relationship with the land for thousands of years and have kept that knowledge alive, often in the face of great loss. Jon Young describes 8 Shields as built on patterns of nature connection he found in Indigenous cultures around the world, and on what his mentors taught him, including the teachings passed down through Tom Brown Jr. from Grandfather Stalking Wolf. Our own ancestors in these islands once knew the land in this way too.

I offer Wilding with deep respect and thanks to all of them. It does not claim or copy any culture's ceremonies or sacred practices. It is a UK way of carrying forward simple, shared human ways of paying attention, giving thanks and belonging to a place. — Jay