Tamarack Song has spent his life studying the world’s aboriginal peoples, apprenticing to elders, and learning traditional hunter-gatherer survival skills. He has spent years alone in the woods as well as living with a pack of Wolves. In 1987 he founded the Teaching Drum Outdoor School in the wilderness of northern Wisconsin. He is the author of several books, including Entering the Mind of the Tracker.

In Honor of My Teachers

To Know Nature Is to Become Nature

A Different Approach to Connecting with Nature

Relearning the Old Way

To Know Nature Is to Know Yourself

Transformation through the Animal Mind

Step 1 Remember Nature Speak, the First Language

The Personality of Nature Speak

Why We No Longer Talk with Animals

How Nature Speak Works

Where We Get Stuck

Relearning Nature Speak

Nature Speak and Domestic Animals

What to Expect from Nature Speak

Step 2 Learn the Silent Language of Birds

How Birds Teach about Themselves

A Bridge to Nature Speak

How Birds Teach about Other Animals

From Symbolic to Direct Communication

How to Learn Their Silent Language

Rock Dove

Red-winged Blackbird

Great Northern Loon

The Anatomy of a Birdsong

Step 3 Awakening the Animal Mind

My Coming Out

I, the Animal

Our Two-Track Brain

We, the Conflicted Species

Thinking without Thought

Beware of the Rational-Mind Trap

Knowing the Experiential Mind Set

Letting Go of Goal Orientation

How to Live in the Now

What It’s Like to Be in Animal Mind

Step 4 The Time-Media Trap
Leaving Tools, Entering Relationship

A Fresh Perspective on Cultivating Relationship

Our Brains on Media

Media Creates Reality

Re-attuning Our Ears to Nature Speak

It’s All in the Mind

Seeing Is Not Always Believing

Audiovisual Material Meets the Animal Mind

Time by Dictate

Step 5 Be Where the Magic Happens

How We Live Can Help Us Find Animals

Dawn: The Place to Begin

Next, Attune to Our Body’s Rhythms

Step 6 Enter the Silence, Listen, and You Will See

The Dynamic of Silence

Learning to Listen

Listening Beyond Words

Honing Our Listening Skills with Shadowing

Big Ears: A Deep Listening Example

Deep Listening and Time

Looking Versus Seeing

The Problem with Seeing Too Much

A Lesson in Listening

Step 7 Energize and Attune Your Senses

The Awareness

Overcoming the Barriers

The Stories

The Exercises

The Answers for Step 7

Step 8 Walk and Paddle Quiet as a Shadow

Natural Walking

Shadowing Canoeing

Step 9 Turn Invisible and Instill No Fear

Seeing through Our Biggest Blinders: Prejudice and Fear

How to Become Invisible

To Stand Out Is to Blend In

Be the Landscape

Visibility: A Survival Strategy

Step 10 The Best Tricks for Seeing Animals

What to Do When We See an Animal

Step 11 Become the Animal

Imagine

Step 12 To Touch an Animal

Counting Coup: The Concept

Learning to Count Coup

When Noble Fare Is Far Away

To Touch the Soul

Acknowledgments

Appendix 1 List of Stories

Appendix 2 List of Exercises

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

About the Artists