Alone in the Wilderness – Learning to be Quiet

Stalking Wolf was very old, and he drifted into reveries that made him seem as if he might be senile when I first met him. But I realized later, when I had seen with amazement how keen his senses were, that he had simply gone inside of himself for a moment to check his perceptions against the pattern of the world. Only after he taught me how to be silent did I realize that he was stopping his own motion so he could tell the disturbances around him from his own. – From “The Tracker” the true story of Tom Brown, Jr. as told to William Jon Watkins, Chapter 1, pg. 10

When I was growing up under Tom’s watchful gaze, I often wondered why he seemed sometimes distant. I wondered at his silence as well. I didn’t know anyone who could be so quiet, so still. We spent a lot of time in the forest without uttering a word. We weren’t hunting during those times, we weren’t building shelters, or even foraging. We were just wandering, finding a beautiful place that had a good feeling on a warm spring afternoon, or a sunny glade out of the wind in the winter, where we would often just sit, lean against a tree and dream. For my adolescent, busy mind this was often too much, even though I knew that I should model this kind of stillness at my own sit area. This silence was punctuated by disturbances and sounds that caught Tom’s attention. I don’t remember what exactly caught his ear, because at that time in my life I saw no importance in anything that wasn’t screamingly obvious to me, flashy, big or bright.

There is something to be gained from silence that can be gained nowhere else. To gain the silence is another story if you came from a busy, noisy thinking place as I did. But the struggle slowly waned away as the silence took more and more of my time and attention. Ultimately, by the age of eighteen, I discovered a true treasure within myself-I had total mental silence when I wanted it, and the ability to sit still in utter focus and poise for as long as I wanted. All my stress, I discovered, only emerged when I allowed that “old thinker” to kick in again. I also discovered that in addition to hearing and detecting more when I was alone in the wilderness, I caused less alarm among the birds and animals themselves.

In my early years at my sit area, I would often be utterly lost in thought and distraction for periods of several minutes. I would fidget, dig with twigs on the ground where I sat, or bang sticks into other sticks. Sometimes I would even throw things. I would get up and move around. I would get bored and head straight for home and the television. But then I would remember Tom’s offer to take me on another camping adventure. I would also remember that I had promised to learn to sit still and listen. I wanted to learn to be comfortable sitting alone and still in all weather. This was MY challenge alone in the wilderness. For weeks and months I wandered around and explored the forest around me. I would go to my anchor point for a short time at first, but later could stay longer and longer.

Fishing helped me to slow down, too. Tom worked his Coyote Medicine even over my fishing pole. He helped me to look at fishing in a whole different and more meaningful way. He taught me to see the relationship between the way the fish read my approach to the pond’s edge, and the birds’ response as I approached my sit area. Eventually, I became so good at moving without sending off obvious concentric rings that I nearly walked into a great blue heron on the other side of some tall grass. This enormous bird took flight and let out a “CRROOOAAK-CRROOOAAKCRROOOAKK” as it lifted just above my head and banked with the wind almost directly over me.

Never had I been so close to a heron. In fact, I must admit that I didn’t even know they existed until that day! I literally fell backwards, dropping my tackle box noisily and rolling to one side to keep from breaking my fishing rod, but in such a contorted manner as to not lose sight of the great pterodactyl that was now moving away from me. I’m sure that I gasped and let out some sort of gurgling sound as I fell! My heart jumped in my chest. I was completely amazed and awed by this beautiful close encounter. To make matters worse, I forgot all my lessons, picked up my tackle box and fishing pole in somewhat of a hurry and then blasted through the tall grass to the pond edge, totally excited by what had just happened to me.

I cleared the last of the tall reeds and alighted on the sandy bank of the pond. As I did so, a second heron who-for some reason I don’t understand -had not taken flight with its friend, suddenly repeated the whole scene! This time I held my composure and just watched in silent amazement as it drifted up and over the grass and out of sight with its alarm call trailing off into the silence and breeze-singing meadow. This moment was a “shaper” for me. I KNOW that after that I forever approached both that pond, and all ponds, much more carefully. I was determined that I would never cause a disturbance like that again. In time, this same determination was reflected in the way in which I approached my sit point.

Soon, though, I discovered that even this was not enough. I eventually figured out that I needed to be careful even as I approached the forest from the paved cul-de-sac that was opposite my front yard at my parent’s house. I would stand for a while in the cul-de-sac itself and wait until the birds, chipmunks and squirrels went back to their business. Only then would I proceed up the trail into the forest towards my secret spot, just twenty yards or so deeper into the forest.

After perhaps two years at my spot, my anchor point was well established. My fire pit was well burned in. The land around had been cleared of dead and rotting twigs to provide a better view. There were some faint trails that led in at least six major directions, with minor links between them. These trails were not enough to attract anyone’s attention-Tom had already got it deep into my mind that I should not draw attention to myself or leave any trace of my comings and goings in the forest. It got so that I even took care not to leave tracks on the sand roads in the Pine Barrens, especially when others were around who might track me for nothing more than curiosity.

Sitting quietly, I began to observe juncos feeding along the ground. I began to notice the way that they sounded as they fed. I could recognize that same, soft, reassuring sound pattern over several yards in the forest. I learned the sounds made by white-throated sparrows scratching in the leaves. I could even distinguish this pattern from that of a towhee doing the same. One day, I heard the juncos scatter behind me. I heard the robins make a nervous “tut-tut” call and move to the tree tops with a tail wave and concerned look over their shoulder. Blue jays moved directly to the area from which the juncos scattered. Then they scolded. I knew that something was happening, but I had no idea what to make of it. I could almost hear the footfalls on the leaves, but couldn’t be sure.

Slowly, I arose from my seat at the base of an ash tree. I turned slowly and carefully and looked towards the east, the direction the sounds and disturbances were coming from. Nothing could be seen except the birds and bushes themselves. No hint of what or who passed  by. I was, however, left with a strong sense that SOMETHING had. Then the juncos relaxed again and began to return to the forest floor. The robins moved on. The jays just hopped down to the lower branches and down to the leaf litter upon the ground. When I walked over that way, the birds showed signs of being agitated, but my curiosity and impatience to know took over and I just moved ahead in spite of their concern.

The juncos alarmed again and moved even further off to the east. The robins also alarmed again, but it was noticeably different from the first alarm I heard. The jays simply vacated quietly. I walked quickly, though fairly quietly, over to this area, hoping to catch a glimpse of something. Where the juncos had originally been feeding, I saw a trail even fainter than my own, heading roughly north and south. In my mind, I traveled along the trail to see where it might come from and where it might go. I noticed that the trail passed under brush just under knee-height. What was using this trail?

That night I journaled the whole experience again. I made a map as if I was flying overhead and looking down on my sit area. I drew my anchor point. I filled in the four directions and some of the major land features, such as my ridge and the place where the older growth met the second growth forest. The holly tree and the spring were also featured. I realized from this session of bird’s eye view mapping that the faint trail ran parallel to one of my own trails. This trail led straight to a path that I called the “old wagon road.” The next day, early in the morning, I headed straight to the forest, ignoring all bird alarm protocol.

Once on the trail, I hoisted myself up the little hill that marked the forest edge. I turned westward (instead of following the ridge on my little “secret trail” to my anchor point), then headed northward as the trail turned ninety degrees to the right. When I got to the next corner intersection, I turned east onto the “old wagon road” and headed for the place where my own faint trail joined this well-worn bridal trail. A few yards further east, I found the second faint trail that led to the place where the juncos had been alarmed the previous day. It was here that I discovered a fox scat, and the smell of fresh fox urine in the air. So I began to surmise that perhaps the fox had passed by me, but to be perfectly honest, my journals were left with more question than answers.

It was this sort of question and my passion to solve the mysteries I found that drove my senses to be sharper and my mind to be quieter. I listened harder and harder and eventually, one by one, began to solve the mysteries and answer the questions. It took years of going to this same anchor point, alone in the wilderness, before I could answer the basic questions. But, eventually, I learned to recognize the calls that the birds of my sit area made when a fox was moving fifty yards away. In time, this was extrapolated to the recognition of the patterns associated with sneaking deer, feeding deer, weasels, people, housedogs, friends trying to sneak up on me, and all sorts of hawks, owls and other sources of disturbance common to my area.