So, it has been a month since we set out into the Southern Oregon Wilderness to live in a tipi. Our family has had a lot of experience with unorthodox living situations, ranging from a school bus to an old milkhouse, and this is by far the greatest of them all. It is funny to me that this way of life is seen to be as odd being that this way of life has been the
HUMAN way of life for most of our existence on this spinning ball of wonder called earth. Not living in a tipi, necessarily, but living with fire, on the ground, in total freedom is the lifeway that gave us so much for so long. Conical tents are also not only an American Plains Indian construct either. They are amongst the oldest forms of hunter/gatherer Nomadic structures. The people who came before on the land we live were in fact hunter gatherer band society known as Takelma (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takelma). The land is ideal for this way of life, staying dry and high most of the year, but enough springs to fill your canteen whenever you fancy. Our "summer" location is nestled high in cedar and pine groves, with a bounty of elderberry, wild strawberry, squirrel, mule deer, and even a few bear signs close to home recently. The area is skirted by oak savannas that are offering a bumper crop of acorns this year as well. It is as if the spirit of wildness is giving us the warmest welcome one could hope for.
The other family that lives up here in a tipi just had their fourth child, in the tipi. The kids are all loving life as there is never any place they cannot go and a thousands worlds available to them at any whim. I will have more to write another time, and hopefully some stories to share of a victorious bow. Till later, may the forest bewitch you!
