please read this article . i ask nothing more of you

[Wylden Freeborne]

Folk are certainly welcome to opinions, and I place great stock in an informed one. However, only three people eon this forum have been to Tipi Village, and none of them were commenting on it in this thread until I did. Now, on the blog. It is not my blog and, like all other issues with our village, it is an autonomous venture by one family that is not my family. I do not agree with everything that is stated in those writings, nor do I have to, as each person that holds the stick can certainly say what they will, but it will bring about effect when we do speak. I am coming off as angry in these replies, which I am a little, but mostly just hurt, I had NOTHING to do with posting the threads about tipi village that are being replied to with such negativity, and I log on to see this entire trash talking thread about my home village. Now, I personally do not talk badly about anybody's way of life on this forum, no matter how absolutely ridiculous I may find it. Your life is your choice. So, unless every other person on this thread is inviting a complete and utter roast of your life-way, I suggest we keep it bows and primitive skills and leave the trash talking about people's life-ways for another site. Just a suggestion.

[SLIMBOB]

Wylden.  I can only speak to my intent in the above comments and not others.  I don't know you except through your posts.  I find what you are doing interesting to say the least and I for one have no problem with the lifestyle you've chosen.  Follow your own path as you see fit.  Some will see your choice as liberating, others will see it as crazy.  This makes your choices no different than anybody else's "craziness".  Open yourself up to public scrutiny and opinions will run the gambit, so what.  My comment was in response the author of the blog's negativity about my way of life.  Dissing the values that I hold dear, and wishing to replace those values, my values, with ones of his own choosing.  You are free to do as you wish as am I, because we live within a system that allows us that freedom and I will jealously guard that system which allows you and your family to live in the manner you've chosen.  I enjoy your posts.

[PEARL DRUMS]

That's where I am. Live your way and Ill live mine, but don't tell me mine is wrong. And don't come asking for my money when your moneyless world stops working, that would include health care costs that will arise. Its your choice, go with it and have fun.

[Dharma]

Wylden,

  I grew up in a household where an alternative lifestyle was being practiced, so I am pretty aware of living in non-Western Civilization environments. While it gave me a much valued outlook on many things, it was far from perfect and certainly wasn't a utopia. There's a lot of "wild cards" out there my parents didn't think about and so you yourself might wish to practice deep looking for yourself. You can certainly roast what you perceive to be my beliefs, but I am pretty sure you'll be incorrect in your assumptions.

   Just to throw this out there, I served in the 101st Airborne and defended your freedom to do what you're doing. I paid a pretty heavy price for it and continue to pay decades later. I get to pay for it for the rest of my life. But there's a flip side to that coin. I paid for my own freedom and that includes the right to speak my mind. I paid the full karmic price. That's not to say a vet is entitled to "more" freedoms or so forth, because we are all equal. I'm just saying your freedom to do what you do came at a heavy price to those of us who defended it. Just be aware the society the blog tends to lampoon was defended at great cost to people who stepped forward to do so.

   I applaud your tipi village, just to be clear. I think you have some great ideas. I myself am tied to the land by tribal beliefs regarding certain Spirits. It isn't something I question, being traditional. I hold water sacred, for example, and cannot do certain things regarding natural sites or resources. Having said that, there's another flip side to that coin. My people were very warlike and not all of our beliefs were good. We lived off the land before the Europeans came, but we also raided and warred on neighboring tribes. Our bows were not just for hunting, they were weapons of war. So even living off the land has its problems sooner or later.

  Just be aware that our society has serious problems, yes. But that doesn't absolve the society you're trying to create of problems that can manifest.

[Weylin]

I'd like to throw my two-cents in here. I don't have a magic bullet comment that resolves all of these different world views but I'll try to share some of my half-baked thoughts.

First off, I've spent a week staying in Wylden's tipi and being a part of his community there. It is a beautiful place with wholesome, hard working and good-hearted people trying to make a life for themselves and for their children.

I think there is a misunderstanding about our liberty to make "out of the box choices" in our culture. We pat ourselves on the back for being so free and that if people want to they can choose this way of life if they want. They fact is that people can't really make a choice to live in a primitive, land based fashion in this country. Look at Gill's post on the other thread. It's essentially illegal to live off the grid almost everywhere. Even if you are rich enough to buy yourself a huge piece of property way out in the middle of no-where you are still required to basically live in a house with running water, sewage and electricity. He said you couldn't even choose to forgo AC in Florida! That's definitely not freedom to choose. That's government telling you exactly how to live. In the case of the tipi village, even if they had raised the money to buy the land a rich neighbor hired a lawyer who basically had the county laws rewritten to specifically outlaw living in a tipi. That is not a free society.

our modern American culture lives in a paradigm that has very specific views on how land a resources are used, how people are controlled, what constitutes "good work ethic", how we get our food, etc, etc. This paradigm is shared by almost all modern, civilized countries in a broad sense. Some of the details are different, but at the heart they all operate on basically the same premises. For the sake of this discussion I think it's pretty fair to lump them all together. And by that I mean that our modern, global, industrial culture cannot exist alongside land-based living. In every corner of the world civilized culture has relentlessly dismantled land-based cultures. It cannot abide having people nearby that interact with the land in a totally different way. Civilization will always seek to destroy and/or subvert land based people.

If everyone wanted to live in a tipi, every piece of the pristine land you love would be dotted with tipis and all the groundwater contaminated by a myriad of pit latrines. All the game hunted out. All the trees cut down for firewood. Just saying your vision works for you, but it isn't a viable solution for the planet.

I'm pretty sure no one's saying that everybody should do anything. The cold hard truth is that 7 billion people can't really do anything to live sustainably. In my opinion it seems abundantly clear that we can't keep doing what we're doing and have a great future. The train may feel like it's  chuggin' along but that doesn't mean that there's not a cliff ahead. I don't think it's fair to say that just becuase something's not a viable solution for the entire plaent than it has no value. If that was the argument then nothing would pass the test, least of all our opulent lifestyle in the U.S.

[Bryce]

Well said weylin

[Wylden Freeborne]

For clarity, I removed my last post because I received word that it offended a person the forum. If you had read that post and were offended, I do apologize. I will not be posting on this thread any further. Thank you to Weylin for your eloquent and informed input.

[rockrush69]

Wow, a lot of people really read into this wrong and got offended it's kind of weird I was just trying to help these people out that seemed like they were being kicked off this land when these I don't know 56 maybe 10 families were out in the middle of nowhere not bothering anybody making bows and arrows and sitting around campfires every night and that's the way that they chose to live now all of you guys are bringing up all these laws and talking about how their want to be Indians and all this crazy crap you guys should most of you should be ashamed of yourselfI am NOT going to name any names, however there are a few of you that straight up attacked this thread and it's ridiculous and childish and again you should be ashamed of yourselfI should have never posted this I was only trying to help them I personally was thinking about going out there and staying at the TP village and when I read into it deeper I found out that they were basically being thrown off the land and it kind of pissed me off so I tried to get them some support because I knew several of them were on this website as members but it seems to me from reading all of these posts that a lot of you kind of went off on a rant about how there a hippie commune and they're trying to beg you for money and I don't know I'm friends with a lot of you guys on here too I mean I've showed a lot of my bows and arrows on here I've made a lot of friends off this website I trade a lot of goods over the mail with a lot of the guys on this website I'm friends with several of the authors for the magazine like personal friends but I wish I knew how to delete this whole thread because I would I'm not mad at anybody I'm just kind of disgusted at the whole thing who cares if they want to live out there can raise their families and live by the earth and its EP it doesn't mean they're trying to be Native Americans I think it's really cool that they lived out their fantasy it seems to me like some of you are just straight up haters but whatever I'm sure I'm going to be at act now for saying that so bring it on attack me

[Parnell]

If you are sincere about having this discussion removed then I think you can remove it with the "remove" icon.  If that doesn't do it then just notify a moderator.

[adb]

Yup, the original poster can delete the entire thread I believe.

[mullet]

Yep!

[JackCrafty]

I dunno, I think this thread is pretty good.  Too bad it's not in 3D.

[Tree_Ninja]

Don't worry the way things are going we'll all be living in tipi's and caves again soon.

   I am happy for the advances society and science has provided but it has created a culture of complacency and waste. 

 50 years ago in my industry salmon spawning beds where routinely dug up to create logging roads. I'm sure there where 1 or 2 bleeding hearts back then thinking "this is wrong".  Nowadays its a federal offence.

  There are a few mining canaries dying as we speak. But we are too pressured by modern beliefs to heed the warnings. Commercialism, materialism, envy, are all so heavily ingrained in our culture, the future historians will think walmart was a place of worship.

   People are moving out of rural areas and moving to hip,vibrant, cities to live the dream.  If you can't go clubbing until 3:00 am and then get some pizza you are in a no-where, backwater town.

  It's all a system of control in the end. They fear those who can go out naked in the woods and come home with dinner. They don't want you to provide for yourself.

Only problem is we are routinely destroying the support system that we can fall back on once the oil runs out and the AC is turned off.  There won't be anything left to hunt.

Also, get your vaccinations.  Please.

   

[mullet]

It's a Control thing because you still read the Rule Book.If my family is hungry I don't have one. I can still do what needs to be done now. You could actually still bow hunt in Merry Old England if you had some good camo and wasn't greedy and stupid, . Your way of life is a choice.