“Tracks occur where the sky touches the earth” The Tracker – Tom Brown Jr
I have this vivid memory of taking a cardboard box, some string and a carrot into the woods across the street from my house. As seen in the cartoons, I found a stick, tied the string to it and propped up the box with the stick and put the carrot underneath. With the opposite end of the string in my hand, I laid in the brush several feet, watching, waiting. I don’t remember how long I laid there, but I had nothing better to do, so it was quite a while. I was feeling good about this attempt as cartoons made it very clear that carrots were a rabbits preferred food, not to mention I would always see rabbits along the edge of the woods. I was hoping one would come along and go for the carrot at which point I would pull the string and trap it under the box. To my surprise, and disappointment, nothing came and I didn’t understand why.
If only my grandfather, or even my “great” “great” grandfather had been taught the old ways of their “great” “great” grandfathers, so that my father could pass them onto me. But unfortunately, that is not my history. However I had this deep passion to learn the old ways at a very young age.
Life went on, time passed, and thanks to the skills my father possessed and could pass on, I learned the ways of being a successful “modern” man, modern awareness and how spot the predators of the city and suburbs. Then one day, thirty years ago, I read a book changed my life.
I was given a copy of The Tracker written by Tom Brown Jr. I couldn’t put the book down. Next thing I knew read his next 5 books and had a more questions about who I was and what is our purpose as humans on this earth. At the end of each book there was a note in the back saying something along the lines of “if you’re interested in learning more about these skills, contact the Tracker School…”
Without telling the long version of the story, I ended attending the Standard class (a level 1 class) at the tracker school. There I learned, with 125 others, the sacred order of survival and our basic needs to live; shelter, water, fire, and food.
During the standard Tom taught hours and hours of animal tracking, down loading enough information to fill a college credit course. I couldn’t believe how much information was stored in a single track on the ground. Throughout the week It became very clear Toms passion was tracking and he was a tracker.
Reading that book, finding the Tracker School, and attending that class filled a void within my being that I had no idea existed. Everything about my childhood started to make sense. My passions, how I learned, the things that made me feel alive all came together within my being and I began to feel complete, with a drive to learn more about who I am and what my purpose was through learning the “old ways”.
Tom said, “tracking is like reading a book, there is a story that is being told with each track being a word, The trail a paragraph, and the story ends when you find the final track.” He also said “when you’re tracking an animal, you become the animal and begin to “see through their eyes,” living their story.”
With each track you can learn so much. How fast they were moving, which way were they looking, if they were comfortable or on alert, hungry or satiated and so much more. The more you more you track, the more questions you ask, the more you ask more becomes apparent, sentences, and paragraphs of the story would become clearer. If only I was taught how to read tracks at the same time, I was introduced to the written word… if only.
Bill Kaczor – Director/Co-founder
