Checking off my Bushcraft Bucket List

Tic, tic, tic… The sound of steel against flint… However, you may be surprised to learn that the face of this budding bushcraft instructor in whose hands these tools were located was screwed up like Dot Cotton sucking a wasp! The reason for my gurning was fear – pure and simple. Flint is just so super slice-y and, since I’ve got no lymph nodes left to look after my left arm, I have to be very careful to avoid cuts, scrapes and, most especially, thorns. Plus, I enjoy having functioning knuckles just because they make holding sandwiches and playing the piano a whole lot easier! That said, it’s been a long standing ambition of mine to put aside my trusty ferro rod and start a fire using flint, steel and natural tinder. It’s such a primal thing to start a fire using the tools that our ancestors relied on for century upon century, the tic, tic, tic having been part of the soundscape of every home, from cave dwelling to ploughman’s cottage to mighty castle for millennia, and, since I’m currently supporting my bushcraft journey by taking the two year Woodland Wayer course, and since I found myself on a weekend dedicated entirely to setting various things alight in all sorts of interesting ways, I thought that this was the perfect time to grasp the nettle – especially those little fluffy bits that catch alight so well… 

Now, this isn’t a how to blog post – there is such incredible depth of knowledge and talent within our wonderful company of instructors that I’ll leave the teaching posts to them (for now!). No – this is a blog about overcoming your fears – or at least putting them aside for a while so that you can achieve a long held ambition. So, with some guidance from the instructors and patient practice, keeping my flint stationary and bringing my swinging steel towards it gradually and at the right angle, it wasn’t long before the sparks were flying reliably, but flying the wrong way. My charcloth was aglow, but my imagined bushcraft bucket list scenario called for sparks falling downwards onto my imagined natural tinder. This is where it got extra nerve racking as, in order to send the sparks downwards, I had to keep my steel still and bring the slice-y sharpness ever closer to my left hand – the left hand and arm where I store a great steaming chunk of my post cancer anxiety. The left hand and arm where I have to keep remembering that cancer was a thing in my life rather than just letting it go. The left hand and arm where I have to take extra care and always remember and avoid risk and wrap myself up in cotton wool, just in case… 

Or maybe I could just… not… 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in any way suggesting that you, or I, or anyone else, reading this should take risks that potentially endanger their wellbeing, but sometimes the boost to your wellbeing that you gain by allowing that cotton wool to fall away. Even if it’s just for the time it takes to drop a spark onto some charred inner pith from the soft rush that you collected in Scotland. Even if it’s just while you coax those smouldering rushes to pass their heat and light onto the waiting layer of reed mace seeds. Even if it’s just while you breathe those sparks into a flaming bird’s nest and, for the first time, start a fire using methods and materials from so long ago that you can’t wrap your head around it. You might just find that what you gain in that moment is worth the risk as a clear and shining path of fire, light, stories, food, safety and countless other blessings opens up between you and the distant, distant past. 

Gathered and prepared natural tinder. 

Used it to start a fire using flint and steel. 

Passed on what I learnt to my son. 

Tick, tick, tick…