Diary of a Forest Monk

By Kenton Whitman

In a land of towering pines, wolves, and secret lakes, people leave behind the trappings of society to become forest monks, delving deep into meditation, martial arts, tracking, foraging, and the skills of our ancient ancestors.

This is the story of one such forest monk.

Kenton Whitman has woven together an account that, though fiction, is pulled from the experiences of the forest monks who attended ReWild University. From being charged by bears, suffering through Lyme disease, finding peace with mosquitoes, and discovering their inner wisdom, the extraordinary adventures of the forest monks have been blended thoughtfully together to give the reader a rare glimpse into what happens when modern humans venture into the wild.

For everyone who has dreamed of escaping into the wilderness to find themselves, Diary of a Forest Monk brings you along for four months of adventure, learning, facing fears, and discovering who you really are.

Other books by Kenton and Rebecca Whitman include Chasing Turkeys and Becoming Dungeon Master.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kenton
• Release date: Sep 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215549780

Kenton Whitman

Kenton Whitman is an author and life adventurer living in Wisconsin, USA. Along with his wife and daughters, he runs ReWild University, a life transformation and nature immersion school that has changed lives around the world. From their Forest Monk program, where people lived in the wilderness for up to 11 months, to their ReWild University YouTube channel, to the Becoming Dungeon Master YouTube channel, they deliver life-changing wisdom in a spirit of love and compassion. You can learn more at rewildu.com, and discover the Becoming Dungeon Master YouTube channel at rewildu.com/becomingdungeonmaster.

Book preview

Foreword

Hidden in the northern forests of Wisconsin was a wilderness school unlike any other in the world. Indeed, one might have called it a monastery. It was a monastery constructed of living trees and mossy boulders, its floor sculpted by glaciers that once covered the land under a mile of ice. Its sacred texts were written not with pen on paper, but with paw on soil, in the language of tracks. Its hymns and chants were sung night and day by loons and owls and wolves. All monasteries exist to guide people toward a unity with whatever God they worship. This temple in the northern forests did not worship any specific deity, but rather sought to unify humans with the natural world, and with the Nature inside of them.

People came to these forests to uncover an ancient legacy of which we are all heirs. Your ancestors hunted mammoths with stone-tipped spears. They lived among predators like saber-toothed cats and bears that dwarfed modern grizzlies. They had no guns, no smartphones, no 911. And yet, every single one of your ancestors lived to have children. If they hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here. You come from a long line of pretty bad-ass relatives.

At our school, people rediscovered their ancestral heritage. They re-learned the skills that their relatives used every day. They ate wild foods. They learned to read those track-scribed texts, and they re-shaped their bodies to regain some of the strength, balance, and agility that was normal 20,000 years ago.

Most importantly, they stepped into the mind-set of their ancestors. Fear was replaced by curiosity and inner strength. Insecurity was transformed into confidence. The monkey-mind was stilled into a state of clarity and deep consciousness.

In this forest monastery, a few people each year became Forest Monks, immersing themselves in nature so intimately that they went back in time, discovering inside of themselves a new (old) meaning to the phrase human nature.

This is the journey of one such forest monk.

Introduction

In composing a book such as this, there is a delicate balance between staying true to the experiences of the forest monks who devoted so much of their time and energy to their personal quests in the forest, and preserving the privacy of those individuals.

To achieve that balance, I used no names of any forest monks who have ever attended our school, and based the three characters herein not on individuals, but on amalgamations of traits from different students. Although some of the experiences recalled are unchanged from real events, most are compiled in the same way that I created the individuals in this story, by mixing ingredients from a number of events and arranging them into one. In a few cases, I took artistic liberty and created events that never occurred, but in each of these cases I stayed true to the spirit of a real experience reported to me by one of our students.

One particular record deserves special note. The character of Krissa shares a very personal and traumatic experience, but relates how she transformed her experience through forgiveness. Although this may come across as dealing with a serious issue in an overly idealistic way, especially coming from a male author, this came from the real experience of a forest monk, and I directly involved the monk  in writing the scene to make sure it captured the essence of the experience. Although I realize it might trigger some powerful emotions in some readers, I felt it had to be included. This monk, in may ways, set the trajectory of the Forest Monk program. They actively lived out the unorthodox yet powerful technique of loving our enemies. This technique went on to help countless forest monks to transform their own traumas, challenges, and fears in similar ways.

The stories in this journal were compiled from the experiences of about twenty of the forest monks who attended our programs at ReWild University from 2007 to 2019. Some took part in the previous incarnation of our program, the 11-month Metamorphosis journey. Others were involved with the 4-month Forest Monk program. Still others came for shorter periods, or were students who came for a day here, a weekend there, over a period of years. Some I am still connected with, but many have gone their own ways, and I haven’t heard from them in years.

My hope is that former forest monks enjoy seeing their stories here, wrapped in different settings and circumstances, and that the reader gets a glimpse into a life-altering experience that most of us will never get to have in person. More so, it is my hope that these glimpses might bear fruit, so that in a greater or larger way, we all might be inspired to begin our own journeys into self-discovery, or use the ideas in this book as tools for deeper exploration.

Although I asked forest monks to call me Kenton, some chose to use the honorific sensei, which can be translated as teacher. For the sake of my own ease of writing, where I found it odd to refer to myself in third person, I chose to use the title of sensei. The character of sensei is more than myself—  it also incorporates personality elements and experiences from my dedicated assistant teachers.

A special thank-you to all the forest monks who have come to ReWild University over the past years, who have shed blood, sweat, and tears, who have endured endless days of mental pain as their minds slowed down, who have weathered rain and snow and soul-shaking storms. By immersing yourself in nature for such prolonged periods, you not only made changes in your own lives, but have taken part in something unique in our world, giving the rest of us a chance to see what happens to our minds, bodies, and spirits when we step out of our modern world and return from whence we came. Your courage, compassion, and love of life are a daily inspiration to me. I hope that this narrative can do justice to your experiences.

May

May 3rd

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The most dangerous animal in this woods weighs less than a grain of rice.

Those are the words in my head as I sit here writing my first entry. Right where a bear, last year, charged one of the forest monks. The poor guy stood there, his feet frozen to the ground, staring as a three-hundred pound mass of muscle and teeth charged toward him at thirty miles per hour. Right before the bear was about to hit him and tear his flesh from his bones, it veered to the side and barreled off into the woods.

And I’m supposed to be scared of a tick.

The guy didn’t wet himself, like I would have. He just stood there for a long time, barely breathing, his whole body trembling. He couldn’t move his arms or legs, but something was happening inside of him. He didn’t know how long he stood there. It could have been ten minutes. It could have been one. But suddenly life sprang back into his limbs, and he started running. He started running after the bear. He told everyone later that something had bust loose inside of him, something he’d never felt before, and he became alive. He ran after that bear as fast as he could. The bear, of course, was long gone. But he ran until his legs gave out, and then he fell on the forest floor and he laughed like a madman.

Am I going to go crazy out here too? Just like that guy?

Sensei sat us all in a circle after we arrived. There’s Krissa, who is kind of low-key pretty but has something in her eyes that I can’t figure out. Kind of a fierceness. And there’s Vincent, who is everything I want to be, which just reminds me of everything I’m not. He’s built, and he’s handsome, and he’s confident. He asked us to call him V. Sensei claims he chose the three of us carefully for this four-month program because we fit together.

Whatever. I’m not looking forward to four months with V.

Mostly, Sensei just talked with us today. He told us about the monk and the bear, and showed us the map of the lands around us, and talked about fire safety and food and taking a crap. He said we’re all going to miss home, and go through culture shock. He told us about the ticks, and about how we’d get Lyme disease if we didn’t make a new religion out of checking every crack twice a day.

Then he asked us to surrender our phones. V handed his over without a word, though he looked uncomfortable. Krissa didn’t have one, because she works on organic farms and hangs out with hippies and says she never wanted one. When I handed mine over, I felt like I was giving up my lifeline to the world.

Gratitude. Sensei says our biggest transformative tool out here will be gratitude. So I’m going to give it a try. Thank you, Mom, for making this possible. I know you wanted me to go straight to tech school, but I just don’t know what I want to do with my life. It doesn’t make sense to spend all your hard-earned money on school if I don’t even know where I’m going yet. But I do know that I need to find myself. I need to get out of the depression that sometimes colors my whole life. I need to know I can fend for myself. I need to learn how to be part of a team.

I need to not feel so alone.

Here in the woods, maybe I can find all of that. Away from everything I know.

I’m here to become who I am, but mostly I just miss my mom. I miss my sis. I miss my friends. I miss my video games.

I miss my phone.

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May 4th

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I think this was the worst day of my life.

It probably doesn’t help that I didn’t sleep last night. I set up my tent and got in my sleeping bag after a long campfire talk with Krissa and V. Krissa’s actually cool. She knows some of the wild plants around here, and knew how to start a fire. V is a jerk. He’s so overconfident it’s disgusting, and I hope it comes back to bite him out here. I’d love to see him take a good fall on his ass.

Anyway, like I said, I couldn’t sleep. Who said that nature was all peace and quiet? Must have been someone who never slept out in the woods.

There was an owl hooting right overhead, and some creature in the woods that kept calling over and over and over. Then there was that thing that was walking around my tent. Maybe it was a bear. Maybe it was a deer. It was probably V trying to scare me. Or it could have been Sensei. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. The real noise was in my head. Too many thoughts going around and around. Too much adrenaline. I was worried about our first training session with Sensei. Worried about trying to live in the woods with V. Worried about Lyme disease. Just . . . worried.

Then I had to take a piss. I mean, I’ve been camping before. You just get out of your tent, walk over into the woods, and take a piss. It’s easy.

But it wasn’t easy. I was scared shitless. What if that thing wasn’t V or Sensei?

So that was my night. Awake until dawn holding my crotch because I was too scared to take a piss.

At least Sensei gave us a really great breakfast.

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Chia Pudding:

1 Can Coconut Milk

3-4 TBS. Chia Seeds

Nuts, berries, and cacao nibs

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Pour the coconut milk into a bowl. Stir in the chia seeds. Leave overnight. In the morning, the chia seeds have gelled the coconut milk into a pudding. Put nuts and berries and nibs on top. Delicious! And so filling.

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After breakfast, we gathered in a circle and did a gratitude practice. We all closed our eyes and tried to feel gratitude for something. Then we opened our eyes, and when we looked around and saw everyone had their eyes open, it was time to share our gratitude. Sensei said we could just be silent if we wanted, or we could share out loud. Krissa said something mystical about how she was grateful for the forest and how it spoke to her. V was grateful for the chia pudding. I said I’d be silent. I don’t think I could have said anything without breaking down. I was just thinking of how much I missed my life and wanted to go home.

I don’t understand why I can’t be put together like everyone else in the world. I’ve only been here a day, and I’ve already decided I can’t take it any more. I want to talk with Sensei about it, but he’s so kind-hearted that I’m afraid I’m just going to hurt him. How am I going to tell him? Or maybe I could stay, but have my phone. If I could call my mom, talk to Sis, check the weather and my gaming forum, then maybe I could stay a little longer.

Training was cool, though. It started with wilderness skills. We walked out into the woods to find sit spots. On the way, Sensei showed us our first edible wild plant.

Taraxacum

officinale, 

Dandelion

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A multi-purpose food plant that most call a weed. The root can be harvested, chopped, lightly browned in a dry cast iron pot to the roast of your preference. Boil and you have a coffee. The entire plant is edible, from the leaves to the flower. If it’s too bitter, you can boil the greens to make them milder. Filled with vitamin C, A, and K, which I never even knew was a vitamin!

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How crazy is that? The most common weed in the world, and it turns out it’s packed with nutrition. Too bad it’s so bitter. I ate the yellow flowerhead, which was actually kind of sweet. Krissa ate the whole thing, stem and all, and said she eats them all the time. V spit it out and said he doesn’t do bitter.

My sit-spot is a place I found underneath a huge pine tree. It looks over a valley, and there’s a big boulder nearby. Krissa and V found places further down the valley. We sat there for an hour, and Sensei just perched on a fallen log and waited for us. Apparently we’re supposed to go to our sit-spot every day and spend some time there. Just look around. Notice things. Well, the only thing I noticed is that an hour is a very, very long time if you’re just sitting there.

Then we had to run to the ninja camp for our martial arts training. The run sucked, but the martial arts was awesome. At first, we did some weird stuff where we pushed on each other and tried to yield to the pressure. I don’t think that would work in a real fight. But then we did wrestling, and I got to see how it really worked. Sensei wrestled each of us in turn. First he resisted us, and it was kind of easy to push him around. Then he yielded, and it was like I was trying to wrestle water. Krissa, V, and I ended up laughing and laughing at how ineffectual we were at trying to pin Sensei down. Sensei says that all of our training here will be woven together with thread made of surrender. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it was cool to see that it actually worked when V, who is bigger and stronger than Sensei, was helpless in Sensei’s hands. I have to admit it was good to see V humbled a little, but unfortunately V didn’t seem bothered by it. He’s one of those perfect people I just love to hate.

I really liked the martial arts. And I liked learning that I can eat a weed. It’s too bad I can’t keep doing this. It’s just too painful to be away from my life. Maybe I should ask Sensei if I could just have an hour on my phone each day. That would make a difference.

I think if I had my phone, I might be okay.

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May 5th

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Well, I leave the day after tomorrow. I’m going to get my phone, call my mom, and have her come pick me up. It was a short adventure, but a good one. I learned what I needed to learn.

Today was a free day, where we’re supposed to practice what we learned the day before. Krissa made breakfast out of lentils and some weird grain that sounds like keenwa but is spelled quinoa. It looks like miniature eyeballs. She added nuts and wild greens that she swears won’t poison us. Definitely a far cry from pancakes. I won’t say it was gross, but I had to force down the last bites. She also told us that she likes to write poetry. I kind of like her poems. Here’s one she recited to us.

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Food tastes so good

when you’re hungry

So awful

when you’re stuffed.

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Even though Sensei said he usually won’t come and see us on these days, he appeared and asked if we wanted to play woods tag.

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Woods Tag –

You need at least two players, but more is better. One player is it. When the game starts, it counts to three and then gives chase.

Unlike regular tag, the idea isn’t to run away as far as you can. Instead, you try to stay as close to the person who is it as you can, using the terrain and agility to elude them. Because of this, players of diverse athletic ability can all play together.

When someone is tagged, they become it as well, making it increasingly difficult for the remaining runners. When the last person is tagged, they freeze for three seconds and then the game continues with that person becoming the new it.

That’s how it is supposed to go. The reality is that after a round or two, everyone is on their backs, exhausted and laughing.

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A half-hour later we were all gasping and laughing so hard that we couldn’t play any more. It got my mood up really high. For the first time since coming here, I felt good. Was it just distraction? Afterwards, we sat around the fire making lunch, and we all told stories. Sensei told about a 275 pound pig that got lost on a farm and how he tracked it out into the woods and caught it with a lasso. Krissa stuck to the barn-yard genre and told how she was a WWOOFer at a farm in Nebraska, and one day she came home with her host-family after a shopping trip, and the front door was open. When they went inside, they saw a horse standing in the living room. And V told about when he found a cockroach in a take-out pizza and how he should have sued and become a millionaire but he just picked the cockroach out and kept eating.

By the end of the stories, I was feeling the heaviness coming over me again. I got up the courage to ask Sensei for a walk.

I think I need my phone, I told him as we wandered down a trail. I have to call home.

It’s hitting hard and fast, he replied. It hurts, doesn’t it?

I didn’t cry, even though I could feel my throat and chest almost bursting with the tension. But I stopped there on the trail and turned toward him.

I thought this would be awesome, I said. And it is, in lots of ways. But I just need to go home. I had been so afraid to say this to him, because I thought he’d be hurt. But he just looked thoughtful.

What do you miss most? he asked.

I stood for a long time, holding back tears. There was so much I missed. Where would I ever begin?

When he saw I wasn’t going to answer, he spoke again. There’s shame, too, isn’t there?

I’ve only been gone two days! What the hell’s wrong with me? I’ve been away from home way longer than this before, but now I can’t even last a couple of nights!

It’s more than just being away from home, he said. It’s entering another world. It’s being separated from your technology. Your whole life, you’ve been able to connect with your friends and family within seconds. Now you won’t talk to them in four months.

I nodded, my throat so tight I could hardly breathe.

Nothing is holding you here but your own decision, he said, smiling softly. But maybe you just give it one more day?

I shook my head. I have to go home.

He put a hand on my shoulder. I understand. Let’s get your phone back in your hands tomorrow, and you can make arrangements.

I couldn’t look Krissa or V in the eye when I got back to camp. They must have known something was wrong, because they didn’t press me. Krissa made another tasteless meal, and conversation was sparse. The whole time, I felt a thick shame that seemed to clog up my mind, my muscles, and my heart.

I remember when I first read about the forest monk program. How I had thrilled at the idea of a four-month adventure, living simply, free of the technology that kept me glued for hours every day to screens.

I remembered the time I left my phone at home when I drove into town to get pizza with my friends, and I drove twenty minutes back to my house to get it. Why had I done that? My friends all had their phones. If I needed to text someone, I could just borrow theirs. But I needed my phone. I felt almost desperate without it.

Here, I had promised myself to break free of my phone. It would become my servant, instead of me its slave.

What do you miss most?

I wanted to say it was my family, my friends. But that was a lie. That’s not what was calling me back. I just wanted my damn phone. I wouldn’t even have to call anyone! If I could just hold it, I’d know it was there, at my command, that I was connected again.

I can’t wait to get it back tomorrow.

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May 6th

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This morning I woke to an orc attack. Sensei had