| Today we live in a highly dependent society that has | | | | put it into their bodies, because in the end they |
| traded expedience for simplicity, self-sufficiency and | | | | understood that these two actions had the same |
| purity. Most Americans jump into their fossil fueled | | | | result. A Native American of old, could travel across |
| vehicles and drive to the local grocery store to buy | | | | this continent with nothing more than his handcrafted |
| raw and prepared foods. These foods have been | | | | loincloth, knife and bow and want for nothing. He |
| grown using fossil fuel based pesticides and fertilizers. | | | | would not want for shelter, water, fire, clothing or |
| Additionally, other unnatural preservatives, antibiotics | | | | loneliness. He was a natural part of his surroundings. |
| and now genetically engineered organisms have been | | | | Modern man has lost his familiarity and intimacy with |
| introduced. The components and end products at the | | | | nature. In Robert Heinlein’s classic novel |
| grocery and pharmaceutical industries are more often | | | | “Stranger in a Strange Land,” intelligent |
| than not shipped thousand of miles in fossil-fueled | | | | sailboat-like Martians raise the main character on Mars |
| conveyances before reaching their point-of-sale. This | | | | from a baby until adulthood. He returns to Earth as |
| all adds up to gross inefficiencies of energy and | | | | an adult with all of his mental references from the |
| devastating environmental damage. Admittedly | | | | Martian society. He is truly an alien to earth. Modern |
| everyone cannot become a forager, but just as | | | | man is also a stranger in a strange land when it |
| many individuals do their small part by recycling, | | | | comes to his natural place on Earth. Most of the |
| responsible foraging can also play a vital role in | | | | body of natural knowledge is alien to modern man. |
| contributing a small part to improving our little planet. | | | | Fortunately there has been a recent popularization |
| Native peoples had no dependence on any societal | | | | and rekindling of nature awareness. The earlier |
| infrastructure. They lived as an integral part of nature | | | | pioneers of this movement included such notorieties |
| in which they viewed themselves as an inseparable | | | | as Euell Gibbons and Bradford Angier. More recently |
| part of a whole. They felt water, which flowed | | | | many others have joined in the fight to preserve this |
| through their streams, was no different than the | | | | knowledge. It is not too late to reclaim our forgotten |
| blood that flowed through their veins. They would no | | | | legacy and rekindle our relationship with the Earth |
| more dump waste into the rivers than they would | | | | Mother. |