PATRICK'S
ORIGIN STORY
“NYeeeHEEeee.” The dull, yet somehow piercing, whine of an insatiable mosquito skips by my ear. My eyes dart after the sound with laser-like focus and eventually land on the foe now perched on my thigh. A murderous smirk creeps along the crevices of my baby face.
Smack! Gotchaaaa! My 13-year-old mind gleefully thinks.
A woman with dark hair and big doe-like eyes, sitting across the circle from me, cocks her head curiously in my direction. I smile weakly.
“What’re you going to do with that?” She quietly asks.
“The mosquito?” I question, before stammering, “Uh flick it onto the ground.”
“If you kill it, you eat it,” she responds with startling placidity.
I gulp audibly and look down at the mangled, gray-black carcass glued to my fingertip. I cannot imagine having to put this thing into my mouth; it looks like a tiny piece of gooey charcoal with wings. I look back up at her and see that she is waiting expectantly.
Slowly, I raise my trembling finger toward my mouth, becoming more cross-eyed each second as it approaches my now dry lips. Normally I would dismiss her demand, but I have only just arrived for my first week of Wolf Camp and I do not want to make a bad impression.
“I tell you what,” she says just as I am about to consume the dietary oddity typically reserved for a delicatessen. “I’ll let you slide this time, but next time, if you kill it, you eat it.”
20 years later, this moment still jumps out as the beginning of my journey. It challenged my assumptions about the world and my place in it, urged a shift in perspective and helped me realize we have a role in the realities we create and promote. After all these years, I am still just as excited today as I was then about the wilderness; and I look forward to forming connections between people and wild spaces by pushing the limits of human potential, resilience and meaning in the pursuit of shared cultural experiences.
LIFE VENTURES
- M.S. Conflict and Dispute Resolution with graduate research on implications of Social Psychological theories for Washington State Wolf Policy and Management
- Rubbed sticks together and made fire at age 14
- 3-time panelist at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference discussing Social Psychology in Wildlife Management and Wilderness Education
- Spear-hunted bullfrogs by torchlight, harvested and consumed them at age 15
- Two decades directing, developing, and teaching Wilderness Skills and Wildlife Education
- Track and Sign Evaluation Level 3 with CyberTracker International, the world’s foremost trackers
- Storytelling & Presentation Mastery through NLP Pacific
- 2+ years outdoor living in canvas tents exploring human-landscape relationships and honing my skills as a wilderness adventurer
- Qualified Mental Health Professional and therapist for incarcerated young men
