Survival Essentials - Shelter Solutions - Section One - Types

In this episode of Conversations with a Shaman. 
We get into episode thirty-three of Survival Essentials. 

Shelter Solutions - Always stay protected from the harsh elements.
Section one - Types

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Inside the Raven's Eye. I'm your host, Alan Mitchell. My medicine name is Raven's Spirit. This podcast is partnered with Earth and Spirit Medicine, owned and operated by Winfield Ivers. His medicine name is Coyote Thunderhawk. He is a shaman here in the state of Utah. So make sure to visit Earth and Spirit Medicine.com. In this episode of Conversations with a Shaman, we get into Episode 33 of Survival Essentials Shelter Solutions. Always stay protected from the harsh elements. Section one, types. This and so much more in this episode of Inside the Raven's Eye. Thanks for listening and enjoy. Okay, here we are, episode 33, section six. Shelter Solutions. This episode is on the types. You know, for me when I was thinking about types, when kind of briefly looking at it this morning, because in reality, might as well say it's been a long time since we recorded something, so it's kind of interesting to, you know, take a literally a I don't know, two or three month break and then get back into it. But I was thinking about, because I'm sure that you're gonna mention a lot of different types of even wilderness living types of shelters, and what types there are out there that you can create. And but every time I think of things like that, it the the bigger thing for me has always been taking it back home and how you can really create the shelter and understand because when you are trying to build a shelter and then you spend the night in it and you realize how many holes you have in it, you get cold pretty quick. That's what I realized on building the one and only one I've ever built. Was I was like, I thought this was insulated pretty good. And and it was, but it wasn't good enough. And it seems like you always have to, it's it's like you when you put a bunch of this material on it, if it sits for for a while, and if you get lazy or you get too comfortable, it starts to erode away. So it's kind of like building a fire. There's really no difference. You gotta go and get the material and put it on the shelter. So it doesn't really ever stop. And so when I think about that internal shelter and how much it really does, how much people would really learn from going in the wilderness and building a shelter. The real teaching for me is not just the information you get, but taking it home and thinking about yourself and your family and your relations and building that shelter and keeping it maintained. So that's really kind of where my thoughts were this morning about shelter.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

I like that. And the and the part about it requiring continual energy, effort, uh awareness, maintenance, whatever shelter the we live in, you know, it's somebody's gonna say, Hey, you need a new roof, you know, or something like that. Or you might notice your foundation is cracking. So when we think about shelter like home here, when we say, you know, in modern wilderness or what you're referring to, because I've gone back to some of the what I call debris huts. These are shelters that are uh put together usually for one person in a quick situation with the debris that is left upon the earth without taking down any live vegetation, per se. So uh getting the skeletal system, if you will, structured up, you know, the sticks, you know, how how are you designing it to stay in it, and then putting on all those leaves and more sticks and more leaves and more sticks and more leaves, and and you know, it's just like uh you you related it to fire making and the consistency of keeping the roof on, but also uh there's those times when you think, oh gosh, you know, I I thought I had an ember, uh like in fire making, and then maybe uh when you go to get that ember turned into a flame by placing it inside of a tinder bundle, uh uh in a nesting area where you can uh have that ember begin to ignite upon powdery substance that can begin to uh hopefully turn into a flame with proper uh nurturing, etc., in a way. You and you know this process very well. So in that part, also it's like when you said about oh, yeah, I thought I insulated it enough and I and I did insulate it well. But I've gone back to some of these debris huts as I was mentioning after a few years, and I have found on some of these that they have fallen. After a while, the weight of snow and the seasons coming upon 'em, they've collapsed. Others stayed strong, and the earth began to grow around it, and grass and other vegetation grew on it, and it became a uh home, one of the shelters of mine for some cougars, like in a uh den, like you know, with uh so it was very well structured in the landscape, in a place in which what was around it could help nourish it and sustain it even better, rather than just in a dry environment where there's not a lot of vegetation, perhaps. So, anyway, different types, yeah. I've already explained a little bit, and I really am excited to be doing the podcast again, and it has been a a good two, three months or something like that shelter to me is really the the reason we create it anytime is really just what I say, always stay protected from the harsh elements. And if I created these survival essentials, and here we are on shelter the idea behind these ways of placing oneself in a wilderness survival position and following the order, if you will, but each and every one of them have a continuum. You can't ever cease on any one of the principles. It's a it's a continual ongoing thing, just like we were saying about keeping a home insulated or the roof on or you know, shelters, whatever. It still requires work ongoing. So these shelters are important, and when we're looking to sustain some sort of temporary, I've got to get out of the rain. I uh I've gotta get out of the wind, you know. This is crazy, the storm or whatever. So out in the wilderness, uh I I need to seek immediate protection because there's an onslaught of heat, say, you know, 120 degrees in the summer in an environment with no vegetation, no shade, nothing. You know, whatever the reason was you ended up there, you know, let's just say that as a scenario, because many people have ended up in these positions and scenarios for many different reasons. So if you're in that type of environment and you know you're you're hotter than heck and you can't find shade, so what what is this thing about always keep yourself protected from the harsh elements? Well, hopefully, hopefully, one would be able to prevent that situation if indeed going back to the very first survival essential preparing and training had been going on a long time. But things happen in life, unforeseen things happen. So if we did end up there, and even if we had been preparing and training, we'd had nothing in which to work with, other than whatever clothing we had on, we're trying to find this shade. Well, one must get creative in the thinking. You know, it's like, okay, how am I gonna get out of this heat? So in in these landscapes, there are usually life, other living organisms, other animals, birds, reptiles, whatever, you know, and and things are living around. And maybe we don't see them much, and in the dead heat, maybe a lot of them are uh already keeping themselves protected from the harsh elements. And so as I'm seeking to keep myself protected from the harsh elements, maybe I see, you know, a lizard, you know, burrow down under a some sand or something, you know, and uh I maybe I can dig down in the ground a little bit and cover up and stay out of that heat and just stay down in the dirt for a day, you know, until the sun goes away and then begin to navigate. I mean, whatever it takes to keep ourselves protected from the harsh elements, if it's rain and it is coming down like no other. And, you know, so one story in a wilderness survival situation, and I was leading a group of youth, and we were going from one location geographically to another location, and we were in this kind of a higher elevation. We had some nice Ponderosa pines, and in other words, around etc. And kind of uh going over what seemed to be somewhat of a mild dirt road that we're taking through, and we're going to end up at our next camp where our food, fire, water, and shelter is. So, whatever we have on our backs is what we have. So this storm comes in out of nowhere, and everybody's wearing shorts and t-shirts, and you know, so it's and it's decent day, but it can shift really fast. See what happens in life, we have these unforeseen events or situations that take place out of nowhere, something happens. And what seems like our sacred shelter, even on a level of personal self and sacred space, when we get that phone call that says maybe a loved one has just passed, something that shocks our world is so unexpected. What kind of shelter? And what what what are we looking for? Something to keep ourselves protected from harsh elements. How prepared and trained are we for such scenes and events in our lives? So, to this wilderness survival story, here we are, and we're kind of going up, and this rainstorm comes out and temperatures drop a lot. And when you're wet and the wind comes, and even though the temperatures may not be uh by themselves in that hypothermic range, when you add wet and wind together with that, then there is a great risk. And then when you also add that we were on a dirt road that became very slippery as we were trying to go across and see the goal, the goal. Our food, fire, water, and shelter is over this hill. We have to get there no matter what. So when you're trying to root a group of 15 people on in a situation where you've got people that are 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and some other young guides with you, and and panic can set in in a whirlwind. Why? Because when somebody gets that cold and all of a sudden it's out of nowhere, you know, you get a little scared. Fear can just erode our perceived shelters, our perceived comfort. And so when fear comes, these fear storms are worse than anything. A fear storm will decay your ability to think straight. A fear storm will completely annihilate you from accessing something called divine intelligence. I want to talk about this father spirit and this mother earth and what that means for me as an individual, and how having this connection gives me uh uh a comfort, and even in very uncertain times, relying upon Mother Earth and Father Spirit, and then relying upon me. You know, I'm the one that has to do the work, I'm the one that has to put in the motion, I'm the one that has to get the group over the hill. See, I'm the one that has to say that I have to have something greater and bigger and access something greater and bigger to illustrate that getting over that hill is doable. See, shelter is a big deal, and getting hit out of nowhere is a big deal, and finding peace and solitude, and when you can finally get to where you're out of the rain and it's not hitting you, and you can begin to navigate through what hopefully dry or warm materials you have, and try and build a fire. So when you finally get a group over the hill and down to the other side, one of those kids was a real big bully, and one of them was real timid, and he used to get bullied. But when we got to that camp, you know, personalities change in those fear storms. People get hit differently, and that's sometimes why people are bullyish because that fear storm's ongoing, so they're always trying to control and threaten and do all this because they're so afraid of life already, see. So fear begins to do things to people at very, very, very, you know, these these levels upon uh this unseen place. And it is only through their behaviors that we begin to see what can really take place. So when you see a weak behavior become strong through a real rainstorm, a real threatening when you're out there and you don't have access to get out of it, and you've just got to live through it and make it happen, okay? And you don't have access to getting in a car and driving home saying, oh, it's raining, let's get out of here, you know. You know, no, you got to make it happen. And what do you have? Well, you've got some military ponchules, you've got one big group shelter, uh, I mean tarp, you know, and you've got some uh fire-making skills to work with. And what are those fire making skills? Bone drill, hand drill, things that are wood, etc., that require to be dry. So how do you keep these things dry? How do you find dry materials? How do you have a hope? How do you have a faith? How do you have any indicator that says, hey, how do we make a fire now? Because we're cold, we've got to get warm. So we've got to get over the hill. First goal. Everything's over there. Everything. Your life is over there. You better follow me and get there. Get there, that one little kid says, Hey, will you show me how to get a fire started and and find dry stuff so I can help the bully. He didn't call him the bully. That's me indicating in the story here. We've changed the names to protect the innocent. Okay. So, you know, he says, I want to, I wanna make him a fire. I want to get a fire going for everybody, but I he's he's really scared. I want to help him get warm. And that really indicated something to me on such a deep level about shelter. Because, see, shelter isn't just about us, see. Sometimes we see somebody out there and they're they're struggling, and we may not know them. They may not know us, and we offer them shelter from the storm. Maybe it's in just a few words of assurance that we feel from this divine intelligence to say, and we offer that, and somehow that brings some sort of blanket of comfort, a sheltering kind of a feeling, see, to somebody that's in need. So, see, when we can get ourselves to a place where we got our stuff going, we can begin to invite others in. That's power. That's power when it's in shelter. So when you look around the world and you see all this uh vacant space where people could be sheltered and having temporary placement, open, already open, vacant space of shelters everywhere. Buildings, homes, vacant, where people who are in dire straits could be placed and have an opportunity with the right skills and resources to get them replaced back into a functional way of living by having faith, by having hope, by having resources, access to. Because when some of these other people don't know how to make fire when things are wet, when other people don't know how to keep their things dry, even in a storm, and when you've got to insulate your dry stuff and make sure it doesn't get wet because you already have been there before and you know it might get wet and you don't want to go through that again, you got to keep track of where you've been so that in the now you can make better decisions to ensure a more promising, a more promising future, see. So shelter, the types of shelter. Wow. In the wilderness, there's there's these natural shelters, we'll say, okay. So when I'm out there and I'm and I just want to find shelter anyway, you know, at times. And some of my favorite are overhangs. Now, you know, water and wind and time have created these overhangs. And wow, when you're inside of an overhang, and and and regardless of the size in a sense, okay, you know, it can be from as small as a coyote cave kind of overhang to these very huge overhangs where you can fit a hundred people under. And, you know, in these desert landscapes, you know, these overhangs are my favorite. Now, these overhangs are usually in places where, you know, you've got some creeks because, see, the water has come through deeply before times and flash flood after flash flood after flash flood and the turns and twists, and where do these overhangs show up and how do they get carved out? And why is there so much sand and so many beautiful features around? And so, you know, these overhangs are some of my favorite shelters. They're natural. You don't get wet in them, and even in the dead heat when you have deer flies in June that are just gonna penetrate your skin and cause you a lot of pain, and they're not very comfortable, uh, they don't go in the shade, see. So when you're in the shade, when you're inside those overhangs, you know, always stay protected from the harsh elements. It's not just the heat, it's it's the deer flies and other things as well, you know. So when you think about that at home, you know, turn off the news. You know, maybe those are the deer flies, see? You know, you gotta reduce what is coming at you on a negative level, and you've got to have the ability to discern, and you've got to have the ability to know that it's not good for you. Ow, this hurts. Oh, that's disturbing me. You know, so fear continues to seek fear for some reason. Fear continues to seek chaos for some reason. Fear continues to seek anything and everything that is anything except for certainty. Certainty is the only way to walk in life and find your shelter. So you've got to have uh uh something where you're connected. And when you can't see what looks like shelter, you've got to know you're gonna be able to create it or you're gonna be able to find it, you're gonna be able to get through it, just like making fire. There's no other way. So there's these debris huts that I've talked about as well, you know, and that's just finding things on the ground and making shelter with it, leaves, you know, branches, you know, just uh using rocks, you know. There's so many things that you can use to help build yourself a structure that will keep you safe and protected from the harsh elements. And there's wiki ups, these are a type of like a tripod kind of style, almost like a teepee kind of looking thing, if you will. And and you know, so you know, uh sometimes you do use live vegetation. And you know, when your life is on the line, it is good to go ahead and access whatever resources are available at your closest proximity in order to sustain your life, see, on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual way, see, in wilderness that is raw, like you know, going camping kind of thing, but way out there, or in your uh society, wilderness where you've got Target down the road or something, see. So, however you're looking at keeping your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual faculties safe and protected from the harsh elements of this world, the harsh elements of any kind, okay, it's it's abundant. It's not hard at all to uh find pain. It's not hard at all to find complaint, it's not hard at all to find decay, it's not hard at all to find dis-ease. It's not hard at all to find chaos, it's not hard at all to find division, it's not hard at all to find all these things. What is really hard to do for a moment is switching and looking for the blessings and the miracles and seeing through the fog the illusions of what media might present, or even in wilderness, knowing that Mother Earth is in motion all the time and a living substance and is always changing. Okay, so the storms have always been temporary. Yes, there are more, okay, but during the places of the storm, prepare yourself more, train yourself more, do things during those times. Keep your mind straight because you've got to be able to find and build and create and structure these shelters. You've got to just be able to think, okay, my body needs to be protected. Oh, there's some leaves, oh, there's some sticks. Oh, you know, well, some people might just think, well, how can leaves and sticks keep you warm and dry? Well, when you see a little mouse go build his nest in there and give birth to a family and everything else, and even in the frigid winter months under cottonwood trees, when it's you know five degrees outside and whatever, you see things living, you see things being taken care of. They know already. Nature knows how to take care of nature. We, in our mindful ways, now, this mindful way I could say could go mindful to the negative or the positive. Mindful meaning in a thoughtful process. Our thoughts can go one way or another. You need to train your brain to get the results you need and want and desire in life, no matter what it is. If you need a job right now, get it. It's gonna be temporary, possibly, okay? And maybe you need to go through a lot of crap to get to the next level, to the next level, to the next level, to the next level. And who knows in three years where you're going to be. But in wilderness survival, you've got about three days, usually in harsh situations before your life could be really on the line if you were lost or stranded. So that 72-hour window is critical, okay? It is critical in wilderness survival, real time. Getting yourself protected from the harsh elements, absolutely. Knowing how to do that, you've got to be scanning, scanning, scanning. You've got to be on the lookout. You've got to be able to say, look, I can make it through this. Yes, this is tough, but I'm going to get through this. And then find something. You've got to almost think like, what would a what would an animal do out here? What can I find? You know, even getting next to a tree that can block the wind from your backside, so you can have a minute to think and and get out of the roughest part of it. But then you've got these other types of uh man-made things. Let's say that you had a trash bag, uh, a 30-gallon trash bag with you. These are things that I take with me on my trips. And and even in these primitive wilderness survival trips that I've done, a trash bag is nice because you can take out trash that you find out there and help clean up Mother Earth, even in the uh what might seem like the most barren locations, you still find trash. And sometimes that trash is valuable, okay? So even just having a trash bag can be your shelter. That can be your shelter for a moment, okay? I've sat inside of one of those trash bags right in the middle of a flash flood and water blasting all around me. I had it pulled underneath my bottom there, sitting on it, sitting on some sandstone. And so was the rest of the group, because every one of us was on a solo, and there were 11 of us in this group, and I had already placed every one of us on a solo so we could have our time alone. But everybody knew that if this storm comes in, get that trash bag out, put it on, poke some holes so you can watch the storm. It's pretty. And then you look around, and after a minute, when you're in there and you're still pretty dry, but it's penetrating that heavy-duty trash bag, a trash bag, okay, to keep you dry like that. That's crazy, but it works. You know, when you think of other things, if you have a four by six tarp, what you can do with that, what you can do with a military poncho, what you can do with some of these man-made things. If you have a tent, blessings to you, you know, in that way as well. But in wilderness survival, what types of other things can you possibly find out there? Well, sometimes you can find old beat-up tarps, sometimes you can find, you know, water bottles that are uh kind of maybe crunched or something like that. But if you can find a little water bottle out there and you don't have a container to boil water in, you can, if it has not cracked, use that to purify water, whether it's sitting in the sun for a period of time, or whether it's placing it inside of the on the coals and boiling it. And yes, you can boil water in a plastic container, right, Alan? Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, shelter is very important. There's many types. Now, when it comes to the very reality of our lives, there are many, many people out there right now that are seeking shelter and need shelter, and they're not able to find the help they need. And I'm just saying, if you're hearing this podcast right now, think of somebody in your own home front that needs some help. You know, think of somebody else out there that might be worse off than you in a position and what you can offer to them and some sort of sheltering. I'm not saying take away from your own growth and your own time and get lost in helping others. That that does not create wellness, okay? That just creates more victims. What I'm saying is when you're able to see that there are people out there that we don't know how to help, we don't know what to do. Sometimes we freeze up not knowing what to do to help other people. And there's a lot of resources. If you type in something like trauma or shelter, things like that, you get, you know, on the internet, you get these 1-800 uh lifeline numbers where there are representatives to help, you know. So there's a resource. If you need shelter, you know, if you're in a bad relationship and you need to get out, you know, then make that decision. Get out. Okay, go find somewhere, a temporary shelter. You've got you've got to do something. You know, and I say temporary because don't ever think for a minute that you're fixed into a station of life, ever. You can change it, you can improve it, you can repair yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and begin to learn how to shelter yourself on every level, whether it be out in the wilderness or anything, the best place to be sheltered is in your mind. And when you have a certain mind and you're able to secure these ways, then when you're in those other places, that makes it a lot easier. So I'm just going to say about this with shelter and always staying protected, safe and protected from the harsh elements of this world, so to speak, you know, it's it's imperative to train yourself. It's imperative to continually prepare yourself on every level, every day. Make yourself do the things that you know you want to do, because nobody else will. And if you rely on other people to make yourself do the things that you know that you want to do, to get the results that you know that you really need and desire and want, no, make yourself do it on your own. Get up, do everything that you need to do, and find your shelter. Learn how to make it, create your life the way that you want. We're gonna get on to some other episodes here and continue on with the podcast. We've got three others coming up under the umbrella of shelter here. So uh that's all I've got. What do you what do you think there, Alan?

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah, you know, and I was the my lastly, the thing that I was thinking about was for people to even think I'm I'm reading a book, it's about the Nez Perse and it's the last Indian War. And I'm just kind of reading about how they would live their life and they would always move with Mother Earth in the seasons, and it kind of made me think about wherever they went, they had their teepee, you know, they had their home, and kind of going in reference back to um your most important shelter is within yourself. So for me, I I like to always visualize a good teepee. And if there's any wounds to the to the hide, it's up to me to get some sinew and sew it up. Uh like you're saying, nobody else is gonna do it but me. It's just gonna get worse if I just leave it. So kind of no matter where I'm going, even if it's at the workplace, I like to visualize a teepee and kind of a claiming space in that way.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

So nice. Yeah. I like that in, you know, I in conversation with my son yesterday, almost fourteen years old. You know, and you you think about your shelters, if you will, your homes. You want them to be your sanctuary, you want them to be a good place, you want it to be where a refuge in a sense where you're safe, you know, safe and protected from the harsh elements of the world. You want to feel good in there, you want it to be just so nice. And and so, you know, my my son says, Well, uh the the the best temple is isn't that our our bodies, you know, this the so-called tabernacle of clay. And aren't we supposed to keep our temples clean and pure? And I said, Yes, we are. Yes, we are on every level, on every level. And so, you know, just let's take a lesson there from a 13-year-old young man that says, Hey, you know, the most important temple, the most important shelter you have is yourself. And you've got your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. Keep yourself clean and pure from the habits of this world.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

There we have episode thirty-three to survival essentials. Shelter solutions. Always stay protected from the harsh elements. Section one types. For me, one of the important points in this episode was remembering the internal shelter of self. Keep it clean, pure, and full of love and light. If you enjoy this podcast, please remember to share this with your loved ones, family, and friends. Give us a rating and follow us so you don't miss any upcoming episodes. Thanks again for listening, and much love.