Foraging, Cultural Wisdom, and Community

Dancing Hawk is a community-based school dedicated to bridging a Western rural culture with Native cultural wisdom. It is our humble hope to realearn our hunter-gatherer relationship to both the Pacific Northwest bioregion and our community. We connect with the earth, with each other, by learning and adaptiong the old ways from elders in our own and neighboring native communities. Learning in mentoring situations, we understand how dependent we are on all living things. We establish relationships with plants, animals, creeks, and friends. We learn which things are truly important, and how to overcome the difficulties that are placed in our paths.

We have forgotten many of the things our ancestors knew. We hope to relearn and remember these skills, to see what they teach us about ourselves and our community.

Dancing Hawk is composed of native and non-native peoples, and welcomes all with good hearts. Courses are always accessible for those in need.

March 24th, 2008 // After a year's hiatus to focus on our new internship program, our courses and workshops have returned. At this point in time, there will not be a long-term posted schedule, as I am on 'sabbatical' researching for a book on foraging and native lifeways. Please sign up on our mailing list to tune into future workshops and classes.

I am also happy to announce that we are continuing our year-long internship into 2008-2009, called People and the Land. If you are under 23, are invested in living in the bioregion that contains Portland, OR, and want to learn how to both live closer to the land and to other people, then find out more about the 2008 Internships!

April 21 , 2007 // Dancing Hawk is launching its new and revised internship program. The internship is a free-tuition, year-long program for those under the age of 22. It is based in Portland, OR, and focused on working towards re-indigenizing heart, mind and hands in communion with the Portland Ancestral Lifeways community. Find out more about the 2007 Internships.

March 12, 2007 // Our community-based website is up and running, at www.ancestralways.net. Much of the energy of Dancing Hawk's events and trips is going through the community, and you can find a current list of events and read our journal/blog about all the exciting hunter-gatherer lifeways events happening in the Portland region.

February 1st, 2007 // Dancing Hawk is undergoing significant changes in the way we run courses. We are trying an alternative model to the typical 'school' structure, where courses are listed far ahead in advance. In order to provide you and ourselves with the passion for hunter-gatherer lifeways, courses will be much more spontaneous and flexible. The result of this is that in order to find out about courses, you will have to sign up on our new mailing list. Whenever an instructor wants to run a workshop or course, he/she will send an email to the list, sometimes far in advance, and sometimes on the spur of the moment. In addition, all of our courses are now free to make this knowledge as widely available as possible.

A new website will be coming that will reflect our new experiments in lifeways education and community-building.

All workshops after the Small Game Hunting Workshop planned for February 3rd, 2007 are going to be moved, so please sign up on the mailing list to be informed of the new dates and times.

October 25th , 2006 // The Fall Hunter-Gatherer just completed! Between gifts of salmon and elderberries, clams and acorns, we did quite a good deal and learned a bunch. Nothing like a moonlight clamdig on the tidal flats! You can see photos here.

Winter Courses will be announced soon.

August 19th, 2006 // We just completed a modified Greenland kayak built partially from driftwood found on the beach at Nehalem Bay. It was a collaborative effort with Brian Schulz of Cape Falcon Kayaks. Photos and a complete description are available here.

In addition, the next Hunter-Gatherer Intensive is scheduled for October. It is slated for ten days, from October 7th to 16th. Cost is $300, with scholarships available.

August 2nd, 2006 // The walk of the Mindful Forager photos from June and July are online.You can see them here.

June 1st , 2006 // We are doing two new weeklong classes in June and July, called The Walk of the Mindful Forager. We will be hiking along the Oregon Coast, learning to forage for wild foods and increasing our awareness of the plants and creatures. You can read the full description of the class.

February 1st , 2006 // We are beginning a new set of workshops/classes called the Native Awareness Series. There are two sets of classes-- one for the general public, and one for students at Lewis and Clark University in Portland. You can read the full description of the class.

Also, as part of the Native Awareness classes, we are offering basketry classes for beginning and intermediate basket weavers. We will be weaving coiled grass baskets, twined bark baskets, and willow wicker baskets. Find out more.

November 3rd, 2005 // The Fall 2005 hunter-gatherer intensive is done! We have photos online, and a description coming. It was an extremely fulfilling experience, our bellies full of crabs, mussels and wild mushrooms. You can read the description of the class.

October 15th, 2004 // The Fall 2004 hunter-gatherer intensive has just finished, and photos are online. I think we've set a record-- we gathered more food on our primitive outing than we could actually eat, from acorns and cattails to salmon. You can read about the experience.