Our guest blogger is Bill Marple an instructor at the Tracker School in New Jersey. He gives classes on tracking animals and humans in the wildereness and on the streets. I’m so glad he is allowing me to add his post to our site and share his expertise with you. Now without further ado Bill Marple (Applause!)
Hi Magda,
Well, I suppose I should
begin by apologizing for not
sending a whole lot out
on the Tracking Update recently.
We’ve just finished about 3
weeks of classes in the primitive
camp which left me with
little time to get myself to
a computer. But, what a three
weeks of classes they were!
I must say, I’ve been working
at Tracker for awhile now,
and every year, all of us on
the staff look forward to the
Scout class. It’s a great
time of booby traps, “awareness
devices,” stalking, camoflage,
and a whole lot more! Just the
cameraderie that develops during
a class as the students make
their way through the curriculum
is a blast!
This year, however, taught me to
look deeper into the more
fundamental truths of Scout
philosophy, and how it relates
to the overall teaching presented
at the Tracker School, particularly
with regard to tracking and
pressure releases.
If you’ve been to any of my
workshops, you often hear me read
passages from Science and Art of
Tracking. One of my favorites is
a beautiful quotation about the Way
of the Scout and how it relates
to tracking(there are several,
actually). But, just to pull
out a few tidbits of it, Tom writes,
“…it was the Scout’s awareness
that kept their people safe…
If the tracks were the Scout’s
cathedral, then the pressure releases
were the voice of the Creator.”
I wish I could pull out the full
quote for you, however, it’s quite
lengthy. But wow, what a quote,
even for just a few lines,
eh?!?!? These two sentences, when
looked at “from the belly of the
coyote” contain so much knowledge
and information!
First of all, consider to yourself:
Who was Grandfather really?
What was Grandfather really? A shaman?
A healer? An herbalist? a master
survivalist? Yes to all of the above,
but as Tom will tell you, Grandfather
was a Scout first. He usually goes
further with it, explaining how Grandfather’s
Scout training underscored everything
he learned and passed on to Tom.
As you know, for Grandfather, there was
no difference between tracking and
awareness, so, anytime you hear Tom
mention the word “awareness,”
you can think to yourself, “tracking.”
When considered in this way, you begin
to see how tracking, or the ability
to expand your perception, is central
to what Tom teaches. In my opinion, when
Tom writes “it was the Scout’s awareness
that kept their people safe,” he is
referring to tracking as the underpinning
of all the other teachings!!!!
Hey, I’m not trying to tell you just
because you know something about
tracking, you know something about
healing, or herbalism, or whatever else.
What I’m saying is that if you know
how to track, you’ve automatically
trained your mind to think in the
proper way so those other pursuits
become easier.
Remember, in many ways, tracking is
the process by which we search for
and study the truth about things.
So, if you’re a tracker, you’re training
your mind in the right way to be
able to study and perceive things many
other people might not ever distinguish!!
Pretty good argument for
tracking, huh?
Well, that’s not even all of it.
Tom goes on to write that the
pressure releases are the voice of the
Creator in the track. Well,
I’m not going to trample on your
“religious or philosophical toes”
in an email by trying to tell you what
you should consider to be the “voice of
the Creator.” I just know from what
Tom has written here, and from some of
my own personal experiences, pressure
release studies have a monumental amount
of knowledge to teach us.
If you have trouble swallowing pressure
releases as the “voice of the Creator”
just think of them as a language we have
to get to know and speak if we ever hope
to truly understand what the Earth
is saying to us. As trackers, we are
constantly seeking to be in
dialogue with Earth Mother, but we can’t
do that if we don’t speak her language.
Trust me, a study of pressure releases, any
study of pressure releases, will be worth
your time.
When I really consider it, it’s amazing
to me what the Scout societies
accomplished, and, in my estimation,
pressure release is one of the crown
jewels of that accomplishment. All
during the Scout class, I couldn’t stop
thinking of just how important
pressure release tracking is.
Particularly when I stop to consider
just how much of a difference it’s
made in my own life, I’m amazed. I hope
you take some time to consider this as
well, and think about what tracking
means to you, and how its affected your
perceptions.
Are your own people safer now that you’ve begun to
study tracking?
Talk to you later, and I hope you’ve had a great few weeks!
PS-I’ll catch back up with you in a few days with a complete
breakdown of my upcoming class schedule. So many people have been
asking for it, I thought it would be worth it’s own broadcast so
you can find out the scoop! Classes are filling up quickly, so if
you can’t wait, take a look for them on the Tracker Schedule at
www.trackerschool.com!
Regards,
Bill Marple
Tracker School
928 Main Street
Manahawkin, NJ
08050
Contact Bill at
trackerupdate.marple@gmail.com
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