Natural Navigation -- Shadow Guides

Description

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Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods,natural navigation

Video Transcription

good day today I would like to talk about shadow guides this is a natural navigation tool and although it's prudent to always have your map and compass with you if you're going way out into unknown territory in the wilderness sometimes you're not gonna have that you know the equipment that you want and at other times maybe you're gonna leave that equipment in your pack and try to do things without those extra tools here a tree while you myself and some of the assistant teachers in the forest monks there's nothing like going for just a wander in the woods and letting the wander take you wherever it's gonna go it's an amazing feeling of exploration you don't have to be locked down to any certain destination or path this tool really will help you find your way back home when the adventure is over I do want to caution that if you're gonna use this tool it takes time to integrate it and develop it so it's not going to take you out into the woods after you watch this video and just bring you back magically at first you really have to pay attention to it and use it consciously over time it's gonna be more unconscious you're just gonna be always paying attention to it and then you're always gonna have this this map in your head that's gonna tell you where you are lastly of course this tool because it's based on shadows is only gonna work if the Sun is out here's how it works all I do is as I'm walking I pay attention to where my shadow is in relation to me so here I can see that my shadow is off to my left there's my feet my shadows out there and this is drawing a little compass for me so because the Sun right now is almost directly to the south my shadow is pointing almost directly north so my feet I'm heading east here I've got a path but as soon as I get off the path this is really gonna serve to help me note where I am this technique works best if I have a line so here you can see there's a river or this could be a road anything that forms a line along you know one section of the territory that I'm exploring and usually if you look on a map before you go exploring somewhere there's gonna be a river here there's gonna be a road over here and you might know if there's a path over here and so you're you're a roughly boxed in or encircled and and that's the truth for a lot of the places that we're gonna go because usually our wilderness is pretty broken up into islands in most parts of the world here now is I'm walking I'm traveling north and then we see something cool and we're gonna move over and then watching my shadow here now I'm going to the east there's my feet so I switch direction and by just noticing looking down once in a while aware my shadow is then I'm going to start to plot this pathway and mentally I can map this so on my map I know okay I've gone north for a ways and then East and then and I always keep an idea of which way is gonna be south and that's gonna lead me back to that main river it's one thing to watch your own shadow but it's just as easy to start paying attention to the shadows of trees or rocks or plants or anything that you see is you're going along on your adventure that's gonna do the exact same thing for you know often this is even easier to know know if you're in a really wide open area that doesn't a lot of trees or things that are gonna throw shadows then you might concentrate on your own shadow but often in the woodland environment we're just watching for these shadows and these are gonna keep telling us all the time which direction that we're going there's my north/south line right there and so again I know I'm heading east as I said once you start to integrate this it's really gonna start to work its way into your consciousness and you're gonna be noticing it all the time you're always gonna have a sense of direction and that's really what this is about especially here I'm in glacial terrain here reweld you and you're going up and down hills before you know it you can feel completely lost but if you're just marking those shadows and you always have a compass telling you which way you're going

important thing to know remember that you know unless you're at the equator the Sun is going to be changing all the time so in general for me and northern hemisphere it's it's an arc here to the south and by watching it and being aware of the sun's movement every day then I have it tracked in my head and I know in the morning it's not really gonna throw shadows north and south the way right now around midday it's almost a direct North and South shadow that's being thrown same thing is the Sun moves towards the end of the day and things are gonna change a little bit in the winter we have really very you know distinct shadows because the Sun is far down south on the horizon in the summer it's closer to overhead and so you have to pay a little bit more attention because your shadows are smaller and they're not throwing this great big line across

the ground wherever you are in the world northern southern hemisphere it's going to be different for you but as long as you start to pay attention to what the Sun is doing pay attention to your shadows you will have a navigation tool that on any sunny day is going to keep you oriented knowing which way is north and from there of course you know all the other directions thank you for watching share any thoughts comments ideas other ways that you use the Sun or shadows for natural navigation there's amazing things you can do with natural navigation it's it's an endless sea of knowledge and so share a little bit of yours if you're a regular watcher of this channel you know that I only get videos out every couple of weeks there's a lot of things I'm trying to do in my life right now but I'm trying to work more and more towards full time being able to do these videos because I know a lot of you express how much they change your lives especially the emotional mental ones and so if you want to help me on that mission you can become a patron on patreon I'll leave a link at the end of the video and great appreciation to all of you out there who are currently supporting my work I am so honored so grateful thank you