# Wild Roots, Feral Futures (anti-civ gathering)/Colorado: June 2010



## hassysmacker

I may or may not be there, but seems like a great event.

http://feralfutures.blogspot.com/

Wild Roots Feral Futures 2010: Call for Workshops

The 2010 Wild Roots Feral Futures will take place for a seven-day duration, a quarter moon cycle, from June 19th-26th (from the First Quarter Moon on the 19th through the Summer Solstice on the the 21st to the Full Moon on the 26th) in the foothills of the mighty and wild San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado.

We are looking for folks of all sorts to join us and help facilitate workshops, conflict resolution and management, direct action and medic trainings, wild food walks, and much more! We will be focusing on many things, including but by no means limited to anarchist theory and praxis, unpacking privilege, decolonization, rewilding, ancestral skills, indigenous solidarity, direct action, forest defense, security culture, civil disobedience, hand to hand combat, survival skills, evasion tactics, green anarchism, anti-civ, post-civ, star watching and navigation, maps and orienteering, shelter building, and whatever YOU care to bring and provide. But we need everyone's help to make this as safe, positive, and productive a space as it can be. Our own knowledge, skills, and capacities are limited. We need YOUR help!

Roles we REALLY need filled:

• Kitchen! (we've reached out to Everybody's Kitchen and Seeds of Peace)

• CRAM team (conflict resolution and management: we need people of diverse gender/sexual orientations who know how to give support to survivors of sexual assault and to people with PTSD)*

• Medics! (especially WFRs, WEMTs, & EMTs of diverse gender/sexual orientations)

• Child care! (We will have a kids space and support parents in participating in communal child care)

*There is a need for both womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk on both the CRAM and Medic teams because many people in our communities aren't going to trust men, cis people, or heteros with their health or to help with conflicts. We do not expect womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk to do the support work, but seek to create and maintain a safe and welcoming space that allows for plenty of room for it.

We at the Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers collective feel that white dominated spaces & racism within our communities are a significant problem, & feel the need to confront that. Due to the legacy of racism within our communities of resistance we will be holding workshops on white privilege, settler privilege, & cultural appropriation.

We also feel that cis-hetero, male dominated spaces and hetropatriarchy within our communities are equally problematic, and will also be holding workshops on patriarchy and (anti)sexism.

We would like to put out a request for workshops on white privilege, hetero privilege, cis privilege, and male privilege. We recognize that it's not the job of those of us oppressed by white supremacy and heteropatriarchy to facilitate those workshops. We don't expect oppressed people to attend, but you are welcome to. While it is not the responsibility or duty of queers, POC (People of Color), and other oppressed and marginalized people to assist white, cis-hetero, and privileged people unpack, deconstruct, and confront their own privilege, these processes will be open to all.

We intend to create clinic space with some privacy provided for patient care so that the bodies of trans people (and also cis womyn) aren't on display during vulnerable moments. We will also be implementing a safe(r) space policy to keep perpetrators of sexual/physical assault out of our community and support survivors by respecting any processes of accountability they initiate.

Womyn (cis and trans), queers, and trans folk have full support of the Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers collective to establish safer spaces for themselves, including spaces that are only for people who are oppressed by sexism, people who are queer, and people who are trans. We recognize the need for those spaces because no matter how much we work on our privilege, as recovering hetropatriarchists still in the process of mental and psychological decolonization and recovery, we're still going to be bringing heteropatriarchy into the space (hopefully unconsciously and unintentionally, which does little to change its effects).

We also intend to create family/child friendly space that includes multigenerational workshops and activities appropriate (and fun!) for kids.

Camp guidelines (in progress):

We seek to create safe(r) space for all, including families and children, the sober, and those who identify as GLBTQ.

Please do not make assumptions about an individual’s gender, and if you feel unsure, do not be afraid to ask what someone’s preferred gender pronoun is. If you use the incorrect gender pronoun, you will be corrected, but it is not something to be ashamed of. We have all been raised within a gender binary culture and breaking free of these false binaries is a process of learning and growing for all. It is also appropriate to introduce your preferred gender pronoun when first introducing yourself to new people, if you feel the desire.

Due to natural circumstances and the lay of the land (rocky trails on steep hills, etc.), ableism and “disability” may hinder accessibility for some to the inner reaches of the gathering, including the hot springs. This is a reality of the natural world that is beyond our ability or desire to alter or control.

We expect everyone to observe good security culture. If you are unfamiliar with security culture, check out our security culture workshop(s), check the zine library for security culture literature, or just ask an event organizer for a basic overview. Basically, don’t talk about your or someone else’s involvement in illegal activity, and don’t make jokes, because even jokes can be used in court as evidence against you. Keep in mind that ANYONE could be an infiltrator or informant. While we must act accordingly, it is also important to not let this reality sow seeds of distrust and suspicion within our communities that leads to self-repressive restrictions on our ability to form and build relationships with one another as human beings and creatures of this Earth. Following good security culture allows us to interact and build relationships without placing ourselves in unnecessary and risky situations because of potential surveillance.

When it comes to physical intimacy and sexual contact, ASK FIRST! No Compromise In Defense of Consent!

For more on consent, attend our consent workshop(s) or inquire with event organizers.

Violence, physical assault, emotional assault, and/or sexual assault will NOT be tolerated under any circumstances and anyone who engages in such assault will be asked to leave. In instances of assault we will trust and believe the survivor and respect any processes of accountability they initiate.

For more information on how our communities deal with assault and accountability, check out our conflict de-escalation/resolution workshop(s) or inquire with event organizers.

In attempting to manifest the world we desire, we will pursue non-coercive means of conflict resolution and non-coercive processes of accountability. Decisions affecting the group will be made horizontally through the utilization of consensus process. If you are unfamiliar with consensus process, check out consensus workshops(s).

We seek to create a temporary autonomous zone which functions as an egalitarian community. In this spirit of cooperation and mutual aid, we request that people attending the gathering sign up for work shifts such as cooking meals, cleaning the kitchen and washing dishes after meals, digging latrines, doing supply/water runs, security & welcoming, etc. A shift sign-up sheet will circulate at communal meals.

We ask that people establish communal fires in the various neighborhoods within the gathering and refrain from making personal fires. Communal latrines will also be constructed in the various villages and we ask that people refrain from digging personal cat holes. This will minimize our overall impact on the land.

Drugs and alcohol are discouraged, but a rowdy zone will be established at the parking area, where we request the partying be restricted. NO illegal drugs, please. All other space, including celebratory and ceremonial space, should be considered sober space. Your personal space is, of course, your personal space, and you may do what you wish within it. Please respect others. For safety reasons, we request total sobriety when attending workshops and trainings. Unlike many similar gatherings, a space IS being designated for partying. This is more than you will find at most gatherings of this sort. So let’s have some fun!

Dogs increase our impact on the land and local wildlife, and are thus discouraged, though we understand and accept the fact many human beings and their canine companions are inseparable, and they will undoubtedly remain a part of our rewilded and feral futures upon this planet. We request that if you bring your dog, you keep it on a leash. If your dog attacks wildlife, other dogs, or human beings, you will be asked to leave the gathering. Please bury your dog shit!

Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available. Also see the information from last year as much of it will remain applicable this year as well, though there are also many changes in store to make this year's gathering a much wilder experience than last year's. See you in the woods!

May the forest bewitch you,

-Wild Roots Feral Futures crew, the Dirty Hands Collective, and the Durango cell of High Country Earth First! (Colorado)

[email protected]
http://www.myspace.com/feralfutures
http://feralfutures.blogspot.com/

Ⓐ Ⓔ ✌ ☮ ☠

What to bring (suggestions):

Personal items:

• tent
• sleeping bag
• hammocks
• food & water
• water filter (suggested)
• toilet paper
• adequate clothing for hot days, cold nights, rain, etc.
• your own bowl, cup, utensils, etc.
• flashlight/headlamp & extra batteries
• sunscreen and bug repellent if you use it
• swimsuit & towel (there are swimming holes & hot springs! who wants to skinny dip?)
• fishing gear & license (world-class fly fishing!)
• musical instruments
• your knowledge, wisdom, and skills
• your friends!

Communal items (to share or donate):

• tools (like shovels for digging shitters and hatchets/axes/saws for cutting up fire wood)
• food and water (a communal kitchen will form)
• kitchen gear (large pots, pans, water containers, etc.)
• tarps and rope
• hammocks, hacky-sacks, frisbees, etc.
• climbing gear (harnesses, ropes, etc.) for tree climbing/sitting trainings
• First Aid gear!
• climbing gear for tree climbing workshops (harnesses, ropes, etc.)
• random primitive skills supplies (you know better than we do!)
• radical environmental, primitive, and rewilding literature
• local plant and animal identification guides, etc.
• local topographical maps
• your knowledge, wisdom, and skills
• your friends!

Things NOT to bring:

• firearms and other weapons (there's a difference between a TOOL and a WEAPON)
• parasitic or predatory human beings
• a bad attitude (including racism, sexism, classism, heteronormativity, homophobia, speciesism, ageism, ableism, etc.)
• the pigs and/or feddies
• a wire (we will be holding mandatory naked security culture workshops in the hot springs. No just kidding, only with your consent!)


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## Tare

Yes! Wanted to attend this last year but, was needed elsewhere, think i might hop on out there. Last year sounded productive. I'll be in Chicago right before this, if anyone wants to entertain the idea of traveling there n small groups, like 3. I prefer hopping, but hitchhike out of neccesity, and no undisciplined shit-talking to whoever doesn't kick you down when your spangin alchoholics need apply, i'll leave you right where you stand. Thanks for the post!


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## compass

I might try to make this, even though that PC stuff can get to me sometimes.


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## Tare

Hopefully there'll be a workshop for that too!


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## compass

Ha! Maybe. I understand what they're trying to do, and it's admirable, but I think some basic respect, compassion and tolerance is more genuine and beneficial than so many definitions, divisions, isms, etc. The problems they address are mostly socially constructed, and it seems like they're trying to help the leaves and twigs when the real problems need to be addressed at the roots. When there aren't so many people, and industrial civilization is dead and gone, people won't even need to be thinking like that. It's over intellectualization by a bunch of priveleged kids. Seriously, people want to talk about rewilding, but rewild your mind and heart, life is pretty simple.


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## Tare

Truth. The majority of the american "left" is over intellectualization by a bunch of priveleged kids.How do you change a light bulb while stuck inside it? Thats why i wanted to check this out though, cause i thought it was different than most, where you do have the college rich kid more compassionate-than-thou issue. I can see the neccesity in being very clear though, lotta stupid people out there. Common sense ain't so common round these parts. If it's shite you can always leave. Then call the feds. Totally not joking...


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## veggieguy12

compass said:


> ...that PC stuff can get to me sometimes.



No shit, this super-PC part is laughable, really - from the announcement:

*• CRAM team (conflict resolution and management: we need people of diverse gender/sexual orientations who know how to give support to survivors of sexual assault and to people with PTSD)*

• Medics! (especially WFRs, WEMTs, & EMTs of diverse gender/sexual orientations)

• Child care! (We will have a kids space and support parents in participating in communal child care)=

Please do not make assumptions about an individual’s gender, and if you feel unsure, do not be afraid to ask what someone’s preferred gender pronoun is. If you use the incorrect gender pronoun, you will be corrected, but it is not something to be ashamed of. We have all been raised within a gender binary culture and breaking free of these false binaries is a process of learning and growing for all. It is also appropriate to introduce your preferred gender pronoun when first introducing yourself to new people, if you feel the desire.

Due to natural circumstances and the lay of the land (rocky trails on steep hills, etc.), ableism and “disability” may hinder accessibility for some to the inner reaches of the gathering, including the hot springs.

Dogs increase our impact on the land and local wildlife, and are thus discouraged, though we understand and accept the fact many human beings and their canine companions are inseparable, and they will undoubtedly remain a part of our rewilded and feral futures upon this planet.*

I have to wonder why anyone suffering PTSD or survivors of recent sexual assault would be coming to this (or any other event) when they are still needing counseling/therapeutic support. Might as well expect people with severe burns and ask for a burn-care clinic to be established and staffed (by ppl of various genders and orientations, of course).

We have all been raised by a gender binary culture, which seemed okay in terms of sustainability and functionality for healthy, age-old communities of a million tribes. Good thing we're calling it into question now, wouldn't want to romanticize the natives.
Also seems like foxes, whales, woodpeckers, tarantulas, and elephants (for a mere five examples) have also accepted a binary gender concept. When can we address these non-humyn oppressors?

Of course dogs will be part of our future, and so we should accept them, but will surgically- and hormonally-altered trans-gendered people? I'm not calling for pogroms against anyone trans, the individual is rarely an issue; however, there never seems to be any address of the fact that *trans*formations are enabled by technologies of Civilization and very recent to human history. Maybe there's a way to discourage this without being an asshole, which seems (to me) appropriate for a session on primitive, pre-Civilized skills.

Finally, I find it interesting that "ableism" is cited and disability is quoted like they are abstract obstacles to mountain climbing. It almost feels like psych warfare, to pretend that being wheelchair-bound or blind is mere "ableism" and not a real impediment, or that it's just a so-called disability.

I wonder if the Sioux and Apache (for examples) disavowed ableism and "disability" and defiantly told absolutely every tribe member that they could be a warrior. No, I'm sure they didn't.


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## compass

Stop over-intellectualizing their overintellectualization Cap! nah, I'm just playing, you're right on. 

There is a physical sexual binary, through culturization we have been raised to regard gender as binary, but where they want to open people's minds to gender multiples, I'm saying forget all that, it's gender grey. Life is not digital, it isn't off, on, this, that, the second you try to lock something down into a definition you immediately lose it's essence, and it escapes true understanding. Life is fluid. True objectivity is to just open your mind and take everything in AS IT IS, not how you think it is, how you judge it based on your internal dialogue based on your unique set of circumstance and experience, not how you want it to be, it is what it is, how your senses take it in, and considering our conscious experience of reality is a product of our minds, our sensory input filtered through our perception/drives, etc., even that should be regarded with a critical eye, but thats the best we can do.

There's no arguing with the function of a sexual binary in reproduction, which is the fundamental purpose of all life, but there definitely was/is a wide diversity in gender roles, sexual activity, etc. in hunter/gatherer societies all over the world.

I agree that chemical/surgical transformation should not be normalized, but nothing against the person. 

Maybe they want the trauma people there in case violence or sexual assault occur at the event? Just covering their bases I guess.

Yeah, if someone can do something, they can, if not, they can't. Move on.

There are way too many people in the world. Cilvilization has allowed us to pursue cultural tangents that are so extreme, widely varied and disconnected from the source of life, each other and even ourselves, that there is no way you will ever please everyone. Get over it. Going back to basic decency, tolerance, respect, compassion, if, in my ignorance, I step out of appropriate bounds and offend you, help me learn, but you know what, sometimes, the problem IS going to lie on your end because you're just overly sensitive. People need to grow thicker skins. It can be a tough world out there. And if we're out there living wild, working directly for our own survival, we aren't going to be worrying about this, and frankly, most of us wont be alive anyways.


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## Tare

Sounds like SOMEONES glimpsed the fabric of reality...h34r:


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## Tare

How tragic there realizations will be....


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## compass

Tare said:


> How tragic there realizations will be....



....?


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## Tare

That their PCism is as relevant and sustainable as the rest of the civilization that created it.


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## BUMJUG

word ive been wanting to check this out...colorado aint far from my plans.....im happy to hear they will be having workshops on white priviledge....


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## compass

Tare said:


> That their PCism is as relevant and sustainable as the rest of the civilization that created it.



ah, true indeed


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## slpm

Damn. I was psyched about this, but I just realized that it overlaps with the G20 in Toronto. I suppose there will be other anti-civ gatherings...


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## nickt29

compass and veggie- i know its unrelated but i really like reading both of your guys' posts. they were comforting.


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## xmaggotx

might end up attending, although i definitely havce to agree about all that pc shit. without elaborating too much, i think it's extremely patronizing to have all this pc culture in "anarchism" and "anti-civ" cultures respectively. and on that topic, i for one am totally into the idea of completely disassociating ourselves with anarchism. it's always been and always will be a leftist platform. anyways, might go. more likely to head to rabbitstick though. (no i dont have money but i also dont feel too bad about stealing from mormon organizations)


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## atomicpunk

i really would like to attend this event just for anti-civ stuff. BUT all of this talk about PC goodness makes me want to not go.


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## xmaggotx

whats funny is that on the anarchistnews.com topic about the event, everyone's essentially ccomplaining aout how its not PC enough!!


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## wokofshame

Alright i stopped by for a night as I'd just finished doing this job outside of Durango (actually only heard about it that day at Food not Bombs in Durango) and it was super-wicked fun. Loved it and the hot springs right up the creek was wonderful.
A bunch of of idealists who perhaps sometimes overthink things? sure. But, DUDES ON THIS WEBSITE, THAT DESCRIBES Y'ALL. And I've had fun meeting you guys (alright so you had your special intellectuals-only firepit when we were up in Kelly Point).

Recommend attending next year. And go naked.


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## Johnny Lightspeed

I wound up at this for the whole week. It was alrite. Kinda just turned into a party after a while. Also they had weird shit there for a primitive skills gathering like a fuckin gas powered deep fryer and they hauled in a good majority of the water when there was a river right there. But ya it was alright I guess. I had a lot of other shit on my mind that week


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## pip

I went, it was awesome and i'll probobly be there next year as well. But yeah, the fryer and similar items were a bit baffling, and camping at the bottom sucks when you realize you have to bring your gear up that absurdly huge hill with the wonders of high elevation and thin colorodo air.I do think its a bit fucked that some people on here have a problem with differantally gendered folks.The 'its not natural' argument is bullshit--plenty of fish/animals change gender.And lots of old cultures have various examples of transgender people(two spirit,for example).


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## hassysmacker

Yeah, I wanted to go. Oh well, I plan on it next year.

And the gender binary bullshit on here is just that, but I think it may mainly stem from an ignorance about gender theory and ideas of gender as social construct, and not being interested in hearing about it, or not being a critical thinker, or something.


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## uncivilize

Maybe a lack of reading comprehension on your parts? From what I read, there was actually alot of openness to varied gender, the only thing that I saw someone "have a problem with" is surgical alteration. Stop :deadhorse:


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## hassysmacker

i actually didnt re read the thread at all. Just assumed someone probably rambled in a way that expressed that making room for and respecting those outside the gender binary of male and female, aka queer, transgendered, etc., and respecting their preferred pronouns of they/she/him/etc., was stupid and pc.

and, i'm still not going to reread the thread. but the previous post still expresses my opinion of those who write off gender theory (gender as social construct) as stupid and pc.

but haven't we had long conversations about this already, uncivilize? hah.


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