"I love that survival mentality; the will to solve problems…It gives you the confidence to tackle so many things…You believe in your resourcefulness and those around you."

Jason Knight is the founder of Alderleaf Wilderness College, best-selling author of The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival, a Kamana graduate, and has been teaching nature connection, tracking, and survival for more than 25 years.

In today's episode, we explore Jason's lifelong interest in survival, his unlikely path to meeting Jon, and how that led to being mentored by him and ultimately to Jason starting the first year-long nature connection immersion program for adults. We reflect on how much the influence of Jon and Jason's work has spread across the world over the past 25+ years and the hope that brings, while remembering how much there is still left to be done. We also reflect on the inspiring power of learning survival skills and the confidence we gain from them, and how our deepening connection to nature tends to lead us to be called to mentor others in these same teachings. We hope you enjoy!

Essential Wilderness Survival Skills - Online Course

What You Need to Know to Stay Alive in the Outdoors

Learn the core skills of survival - shelter, water, fire, and food - in a format that allows you to participate at home and at your own pace. Come away with practical life-saving skills, a deeper relationship with nature, greater confidence, and resources to share with your family & friends for fun and in emergencies.

In this course you will:

• Understand the survival mindset
• Learn how to build natural shelter
• Experience how to make fire from friction
• Learn how to find and purify water
• Understand how to safely forage for wild foods
• Know how to better prevent and prepare for emergencies

Jason is offering Tracking Connections Podcast listeners a special price, with Connection 1st as an affiliate partner.

The course normally sells for $397 but it's available for $97 if you sign up by March 4th. Your purchase will help support Jason's work and ours.

Learn More or Sign Up Here

About Jason Knight

Jason is passionate about helping people learn wilderness survival skills. Since 1997, he's taught thousands of people, including training hundreds of adults to become survival instructors. He has consulted as a local wilderness skills expert for the Discovery Channel and has been featured on NPR. He is a cofounder and instructor at Alderleaf Wilderness College, one of the leading outdoor schools in the United States offering courses on wilderness survival to the general public and a broad range of clients including the US Forest Service, the Seattle Mountaineers, and the cast of the award-winning film Captain Fantastic. Jason is also the author of the best-selling book, The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival.

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Our next episode will release on Mar 12, 2025.

The transcript for this episode is available here.

"It doesn’t matter how long it's been since I've had an experience with nature. As soon as I show up, nature is there for me."

Maria Buitenhuis is a host and facilitator of the upcoming online course Ecological Homecoming, based on the 8 Shields. She has extensive experience supporting people to deepen their connection to nature, including our own inner nature as part of the larger natural landscape. She is the co-founder of GIFT (Global Institute of Forest Therapy) and the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy.

In this episode, we explore how the natural world welcomes us into connection, the power of names, ways in which the trees can transform our perspective, nature's capacity to receive our emotions, and the message that the starling brings. It is a wide-ranging, magical conversation that will inspire you to go outside and find a few quiet moments to connect with the natural world. Enjoy!

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Maria's upcoming program, Ecological Homecoming, begins March 19th. Learn More

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Visit Living Connection 1st for more information about our work in nature connection and people connection.

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Our next episode will release on Feb 26, 2025.

The transcript for this episode is available here.

"Someone said to me, ‘We have all the tools and techniques we need for widespread earth repair at the moment.’ Ok, so why is that not happening then? And the answer is always about people."

Looby Macnamara leads a productive career as a pioneer of permaculture and co-founder of Cultural Emergence. She is an author, facilitator, designer, gardener, mother, and has written 4 books; Cultural Emergence, People & Permaculture, 7 Ways to Think Differently and Strands of Infinity. ​

In this episode, Looby joins us on a Design Adventure. We discuss the nature of vision, how we are all visionary, and how Looby's Design Web helps us to discover our vision in different areas of our lives and move into action in a flowing, easy way.

View the Design Web and learn all about Design Adventures here

If you're looking for a simple way to get started with Design Web, check out Looby's Design Your Week course

View Looby's bio here

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Visit Living Connection 1st for more information about our work in nature connection and people connection.

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Our next episode will release on Feb 12, 2025.

The transcript for this episode is available here.

"The message of healing you bring to attend to individual and cultural wounding is paradoxically undermined or attacked by the very same wounding you would seek to heal.”

What about deep nature connection work, and mentoring for connection, brings about this paradox? Why do we rebel against our mentors? How do our own wounds prevent us from fully sharing our gifts? In this episode, we dig deeply into these questions, inspired by the quote above, and explore it from many angles with Dr. Bill Sutherland.

Note: This topic came about as a result of a conversation Jon and Bill had, back in Dec 2024, as part of their Renewal of Creative Path process. If you want to learn more about the Renewal of Creative Path process, listen to Episode 36 - Renewal Routines for Connection.

Learn more about some of Dr. Bill's work at https://www.complexitymedicine.org/

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Visit Living Connection 1st for more information about our work in nature connection and people connection.

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Our next episode will release on January 29, 2025.

The transcript for this episode is available here.

"The vision is the journey, and the journey is now.” -Tom Brown Jr.

In today's episode, we take a look at the power of renewal routines as a tool for deepening connection with ourselves. Jon shares a process he learned from Tom Brown Jr, which he has named Renewal of Creative Path, and the benefits that process has had on his life since he was a teenager. Sarah and Aidan share their own experiences and reflections on renewal routines, and what they have gained from integrating these routines into their lives on yearly, monthly, or even daily basis.

Renewal of Creative Path can be a very in-depth process that takes multiple weeks and many hours of reflection and conversation to complete. However, it can also be a shorter process. The following is a very quick look at the steps in the process, which Jon shares in greater detail during the podcast.

1. What connects us in our lives to nature, ourselves, and other people?

2. What are the obstacles to connection in our lives?

3. Tracking patterns of synchronicity and help from nature

4. Inventory of gifts, passions, and talents

5. Backtracking the stepping stones of visions and gifts

6. Release expectations and offering forgiveness

Pause, gather from steps 1-6, and reflect. Repeat as needed until you feel complete.

7. Create the ideal scene

8. Reflections with ancestors and future generations

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Visit Living Connection 1st for more information about our work in nature connection and people connection.

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Our next episode will release on January 15, 2025.

The transcript for this episode is available here.

"My life’s work is connecting people deeply to nature, each other and themselves. Through over 50 years of mentoring, I’ve seen that deep nature connection changes us on a profound level. Deep connection rewires our nervous system and boosts our wellbeing and potential. "

In today's episode, Jon shares about the 512 Project, which is a culmination of more than four decades of research into the cultural practices that foster connection, resulting in a video series that looks closely at each of these 64 Cultural Elements and shares stories of their benefits and how we can integrate them into our own lives.

Bonus Audio - At the end of the episode, we have included the complete audio of Greeting Customs, which is the first part of the series. You can also watch it on Youtube and share with friends and family.

Click here to learn more about the 512 Project and view the 512 Project map of all 64 videos.

Our next episode will release on January 1, 2025.

The transcript for this episode is available here.

We have a special episode today, sharing two excerpts from Tracking Our Roots In Nature, the 40th anniversary edition of Jon's seminal audio series on connecting to nature, each other, and ourselves.

Free Event Dec 10th

We are hosting a free event next on December 10th, 2024 at 11am Pacific Time

The event is called The Ultimate Wilderness Skill: Awareness as the Key To Empowering your Ancestral Skills, Deepening Your Personal Relationship with the Outdoors, and to Passing Forward This Legacy to Future Generations.

Register Here

Even if you can't attend live, we will send you a copy of the recording afterwards so you can listen at your convenience.

In the meantime, stay tuned for more information about the release of Tracking Our Roots in Nature in the next week or so.

Our next episode will release on December 18, 2024.

"The stories we were hearing were of animals coming out onto the trail in front of people and knowing they were there, but not minding that they were there."

What if you could calm your nerves, notice more of the world around you, and improve your joint health at the same time? In this episode, we're exploring Foxwalking and Owl Eyes, two techniques that help you to do exactly that. Jon, Sarah, and Aidan share stories of how these techniques effect their daily lives, how to learn and teach them, and how much fun we can have when we practice them. Enjoy!

"Expanding our awareness out into our senses quiets our cognitive mind, and we have this experience of almost invisibility that can emerge where there’s a deep silence in our being."

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Visit Living Connection 1st for more information about our work in nature connection and people connection.

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Our next episode will release on December 4, 2024.

The transcript for this episode is available here.

“Mimicry has been my life. It was the easiest channel to my best teacher. For me, it wasn’t people; it was the animals themselves, and the most accessible route to that was through their language.”

What effect does imitation have on our body, our memory, our sense of connection? What if we could understand just what the Raven is saying? How do the coyotes behave differently around wolves than they do around mountain lions?

In this episode, George Bumann joins us to explore these questions, and shares stories from his lifelong journey of learning just what the animals are saying to each other. Enjoy!

About George Bumann

George Bumann (rhymes with ‘human’) is the author of Eavesdropping on Animals, and a professional sculptor living with his wife, young son, and black Labrador Hobbes, at Yellowstone Park’s northern entrance in Gardiner, Montana. George has been a life-long observer of nature and was raised in his mother’s New York sculpture studio. He holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in wildlife ecology and has worked in the fields of wildlife research, taxidermy, back-country guiding, environmental consulting and has taught art and natural history programs for youth, adult, and university audiences since 1990.

Learn more about George here

Order Eavesdropping on Animals

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Visit Living Connection 1st for more information about our work in nature connection and people connection.

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Our next episode will release on November 20, 2024.

The transcript for this episode is available here.

“I define tracking as paying attention to the movement of energy.”

What are the birds telling us and how can we learn to notice more of what they have to say?

In this episode, Dan Gardoqui joins us to share stories from his 35+ years of teaching bird language, tracking, and nature connection. We explore mentoring someone in bird language, what gets people to pay attention, and how the process of learning bird language has evolved over the years. Plus, Dan shares some of his incredible animal imitation skills with us. Enjoy!

About Dan Gardoqui

Dan is a nature-based consultant & coach, award-winning educator, seasoned guide, naturalist & bird language expert, and the founder of Lead With Nature.

As a suburban New Jersey teen, Dan met his first mentor, Jon Young, who set him on a journey as a naturalist, a mentor and a leader. That journey led him to many other mentors, students and landscapes that have taught him priceless lessons. For the past 25 years, he has lived and worked in both human and wild communities in New England. He has served as a resource for many leaders in the field of Nature-Connection, consulting and training many teams and executives in finding excellence through role modeling, mentoring and training programs.

Learn more about Dan here

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Visit Living Connection 1st for more information about our work in nature connection and people connection.

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Our next episode will release on November 6, 2024.

The transcript for this episode is available here.