Fire, Forge, & Bow

Quail SpringsAncestral Skills 1 Comment

The Wild Series was honored to welcome back instructor Justin Starting to share his knowledge this past week in two beautiful, sold-out classes: The Art of Blacksmithing and The Sacred Hunt. The week began around the fire, as an intimate group of excited first time blacksmiths learned the foundations of metalworking using a primitive forge. Amidst stories of history and tradition, students were mentored in the old-time techniques of bladesmithing and tool making. By the end of the course, all 8 students had forged a beautiful knife, complete with a hand-carved handle and many other elegant finishing details. Thank you to all of the participants and to Justin, for your inspiring craftsmanship and focus!

Following these two days with fire and metal, The Sacred Hunt welcomed 16 students to learn about the art of traditional hunting. The foundation of this course was the teachings of heartfelt exchange and a compassionate approach to hunting. Along with these philosophies, students were deeply mentored in the hands-on experience of tracking, animal language, instinctive shooting with the bow and arrow, making arrows by hand, making fire, small animal processing and much more. There was a lot to learn without an actual hunt and we are grateful to the amazing men and women who came and shared so much during this course. Thank you again to our dear friend and mentor Justin Starting for these beautiful classes!

These Wild Series courses had a huge amount of interest and we are hoping to host a longer Art of Blacksmithing Intensive and another Sacred Hunt with Justin next year. If you’d like to be notified early of these dates, email our Wild Series Director, Natalie Bartlett.

Comments 1

  1. I participated at the knife making blacksmith course and was very excited about the course. Could there be a course about toolmaking? Specific tools for blacksmithing are this days unavailable, therefore the need of this course to advance in blacksmithing.

    I’m also interested in the sacred hunt. My timing didn’t allow me last year to participate, and would like to try this year.

    Keep me informed about the dates of this year. Thanks

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