The Tracker, by Tom Brown, Jr.

The Tracker is the true story of a white American boy growing up under the apprenticeship of nature. He is guided by his own ferocious curiosity, the camaraderie of his best friend, and his best friend's grandfather, an Apache elder named Stalking Wolf. The book reads with ease, and as a reader I am taken into every mystery and detail he himself pondered over, and feel enthralled in the powerful serendipity and magic of the natural world. I came away from this book with a feeling of humility: the world around me is more great, more intricate, and more a part of myself than I ever knew. I have heard many stories about amazing coincidences and the powers of nature, and still I am left with awe and a sense that it is accessible to me, too, if I try. Knowing nature is not some far away goal only for "good" people, disciplined people, or "spiritual" people. It is just something that takes practice. Lots, and lots of practice.

Tom Brown, Jr. grew up in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey when they were still a far-reaching expanse of wilderness rarely traversed by people in "normal" society. As a young boy he was obsessed with nature, and made it a point to spend every spare moment experiencing its wonders. I am impressed with the intensity of his dedication. Every mystery must be thoroughly sought after and unraveled to dissect the secrets inside. He bonded with his best friend Rick about their common love of nature, and they were constant companions for each other from the age of five well into teenage-hood. The book takes us through their process of maturing; we witness the struggles to learn the arts of tracking, stalking, hunting, foraging, identification. These lessons were not learned in the standard school way. He was mentored in an intentional way which subtly guided his own curiosity to just the right places. Stalking Wolf provided nudges, inspiration, and the spark that kept Tom searching for answers. He also taught a way of thinking, a lifestyle. Tom states "we learned a world view in which Nature is a being larger than the sum of all creatures, and can be seen best in the flow of its interactions." (p 14) This worldview is what the modern movement of permaculture and many earth-based spiritual traditions practice. It is best acquired through direct experience in nature; no amount of learning from books can teach one this worldview.

The goal of the book is to show the magnitude of loss that human society has experienced in being separated from nature, and the route to reconnection. This point keeps returning to me as I read, in experiences that Tom has with the "outside" world in his witness of the outright greed and ignorance with which people relate to nature.

The goal of reconnecting with nature is relevant to the work of building community in several ways. Most importantly, in the principals of permaculture, observation is the place to begin all action we take in designing our living space, our culture, our relationships. Tom Brown models observation to its ultimate. He is the master of sitting and waiting and looking at the larger flow of energy that is occurring around him. He waits in a tree absolutely still, hunting a great buck for an entire day until it passes underneath him. This is only after he has spent a week tracking the deer, stalking him, watching his habits and patterns. When the deer passes beneath the tree Tom is in, he leaps onto his back and stabs it in the chest, again and again, with his knife. The kill is made for food, and every part of the deer is used in some way to benefit the whole. This is an example of the intimacy of relationships born from humans acting in alignment with the ways of nature.

Examples of humans acting in mis-alignment with nature are easy to find; examples that sink my heart with grief for the ignorance which we have been taught. I believe the only way we as humans can act with such horror and violence toward our kin is when we experience what Tom calls "true lostness." He explains that this form of being lost has nothing to do with not knowing where you are in the woods; it is when "you have forgotten the spiritual center of your life, when your values have gotten so warped with time that you do not remember what is truly important." (p 135) At the center of his life was understanding nature. When he first experienced "true lostness", it was from greed for skull collecting between him and Rick; the greed pulled him away from the goal of understanding to the goal of hoarding, finding the best for himself. It wriggled between their friendship and caused great suffering as they lost their awareness of nature around them, consumed with the narrow focus of collecting. This greed is a common theme in the larger society; it is what motivates us to take more than we need, in a way that unbalances the whole. There are many examples of the "true lostness" of our society in the book, just one of which is the story of the beavers.

Beavers are special animals to Tom; he rarely sees beaver sign. When he finally finds his first beaver mound, he also finds the carnage of an entire family of beaver skeletons, starved to death by the ignorance of greed. Nearby, a grove of aspens used to supply the family with their most favored food source. Now, there stands a cement drainage embankment: the cause of the beaver's starvation. Tom relates, "It was the first time I felt truly helpless before the web of greed that passes for human society." (p 140) The humans were not trained to observe the place and design their impacts to fit with the flow of life there.

As an adult, Tom experienced much of the oppression of the class system. He was pressured to get a job, stop wandering around in the woods, and settle down. He felt lost in a world that did not value the web of life, or his skills in living in harmony with it. He wondered if perhaps his life "really was a waste after all." (p 213) This saddens me and makes me think about how so many people are ridiculed (or simply not supported, at best) for following their true passions. I often struggle in the dichotomy of needing to make money, and feeling like all I really care about has nothing to do with money. I want to live in a world that values life; the lives and happiness of humans, and the life of all creatures around us. The world cannot value life if it first values money, because greed will always win.

I learned a lot from this book about how to pursue the development of my awareness in nature, and little details that gave me clues about certain animals, their behaviors, and how to live in flow with them. I am sad that I was not mentored in childhood as he was, but I feel hopeful about pursuing these skills as an adult and passing them on. One critique I have of the book, and perhaps this is not so much about the book, but about the author, is: where are the women??? I don't think he ever mentions a woman, or even the idea of a woman, save for the reference of some drunk guys he was watching in the woods who were wanting to rape a woman and talking about it loudly. Tom speaks from ignorance that assumes that only men have the desire and skills of nature. Women are not dismissed outright, but simply ignored. The vacancy of any female figure or thought of a female tracker left an empty disappointing hole in the story. I also would've liked more discussion of the tribe that Stalking Wolf came from and some context of the struggles of indigenous people and how white folks can be allies and learn the knowledge of nature without co-opting culture. This, however, is perhaps not part of this young man growing up, but part of a larger story that belongs in an other book.