Welcome

I am honored by your visit, and I'm grateful for this opportunity to share some of my life with you. Finding resonance with fellow journeyers is one of my life's sublime pleasures, so if after touring this site you'd like to share a page of your story, I'd enjoy receiving it.

What's Happening?

Storytelling. Ojibwe artist Moses (Amik) Beaver and I just finished a book project to help his people, the Northern Ojibwe, restore their storytelling tradition. It's titled Whispers of the Ancients: Native Tales for Teaching and Healing in Our Time, and it's published by the University of Michigan Press. When Moses and I first met several years ago, he lamented the missionaries who decried their traditions and supplanted their epic legends with those of another people. Now some of their stories are returning.

The stories speak of fear and hope, the path of the warrior and the journey of self-discovery. They give guidance on gossip and how to speak from the heart. And they entertain. From grand adventures and thrilling chases to stories of treachery and abandonment, you'll find a new twist with every turn of the page. To give you a taste, I recorded one of the stories and posted it here. It's about the inner turmoil a child often wrestles with and how he found peace with it.

Whispers of the Ancients is available from your favorite bookseller, or you may order it here, from the Teaching Drum Outdoor School. If you'd like to know more about the book, you can listen to an interview here.

With the help of editors Leah and Rose, I am wrapping up another book of stories titled Song of the Track: Adventures Tracking Man and Animal the Old Native Way. You can download an interview about the book here.

For reviews,we sent manuscripts to some of the world's most renowned naturalists, trackers, and primitive skills instructors, including Aboriginal trackers in Africa, Australia, Canada, and Sampi (Lapland). Responses are starting to trickle in. What touches me most is comments such as these that accompany their reviews: "Normally I would skim through a book and write up a quick review. But I am thoroughly enjoying the book, and I want to read the whole thing,” and "I couldn't put it down -- I was taking way too much time reading it when I was supposed to be doing other work." After all, this is a book of stories; and if they are going to impart anything, they have to grab readers, sit them down, and keep their attention.

Click here for an archive of Tamarack's updates.

Current Writing

Blossoming the Child: Native-inspired Ways of Unparenting and Encouraging Childwisdom

Parents: you do not have to buy into the business of parenting. Children are fully capable of raising themselves -- all you have to do is step back and allow it to happen. This book gives a new look at this old way of raising children--one used by our pre-agricultural ancestors and virtually all natural-living people. It is based on the awareness that children are already fully actualized individuals, complete with inner wisdom and a connectedness with their own destinies. Its methods are guidance and support, rather than the now popular steer-and-control. The results are nothing but miraculous: self-fulfilled, happy, and socially conscious individuals.

Blossoming is also geared to a second audience -- adults who have lost touch with their inner child. This includes almost everyone who has been raised by the accepted methods of today's society.

Upon the completion of Blossoming, we'll be working on a direct communication book, a traditional story primer for teachers and storytellers, and a book on matedness.

Forthcoming Books

Song of the Track: Adventures Tracking Man and Animal the Old Native Way

Did you know that you are tracker? Even if you never had training or followed an animal’s trail, you use your tracking skills every day. Whether you’re out shopping, keeping tabs on a child, or looking for something you misplaced, you’re tracking.

“If that’s so,” some will say, “why do I have so much trouble tracking animals?” or “Why can’t I find my keys when I lose them?” There’s only one thing that keeps you from being a good tracker. No, it’s not that you haven’t taken some special course, or because an expert tracker hasn’t passed his secret knowledge down to you. And no, this book won’t give it to you.

Because you already have it.

You could spend years studying animal tracks and gaits, but if you could also awaken your intuitive inner tracker, you’d be able to read animals’ minds. Imagine watching a fox walk by because you knew he was coming. It’s done by sensing the subtle cues the author calls the song of the track. The stories in this book can help sharpen your innate tracking abilities. You’ll learn how questions make you a better tracker than answers and why spiders and hawks make better tracking teachers than humans. You’ll join in tracking adventures with people similar to you who yearned to track like their hunter-gatherer ancestors. And then, the next time you take to the wild side of life, you might see and hear and feel in a deeper way.

Song of the Track will appeal to amateur and professional trackers, those wanting to connect more with nature--and their inner nature--and anyone who just plain enjoys a good story.

So come sit around the campfire and join in as we track a bird across the sky and learn tracking tricks from Bears. You’ll be transported into a world where everything leaves a track, and where every track has a story to tell. Listen closely and you could learn how to hear it.

Early praise for Song of the Track

"With a tracker’s mind— his own and his students’— Tamarack brings us into the magical North Woods where all creatures and phenomena are intricately related; we learn that the depth of understanding an ecosystem is, simply, proportional to the passion and heart of our questioning."— Jim Lowery, founder of Earth Skills, author of The Tracker’s Field Guide

“Real stories from the real world, simple and complex at the same time, and well worth pondering!”
— Bill McKibben, author of the bestsellers The End of Nature and Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

Classical China was a melting pot for Asia's religious traditions. Shamanism from the north, Buddhism from the west, and regional Taoist practices cross-pollinated and birthed a sacred verse titled Song of Trusting the Heart. Its haunting lyrics express the essence of Eastern philosophy: the Buddhist's peaceful asceticism, the Taoist's poetic sensitivity, and the Shaman's sage wisdom. Tamarack Song's clear and accurate text restoration, along with C. Casey Gardener's engaging classical artwork, makes Song of Trusting the Heart easily accessible to all seekers.