Daniel Vitalis & Arthur Haines

For ten years Daniel Vitalis has lectured around North America and abroad, offering workshops that helped others lead healthier, more nature-integrated lives. A successful entrepreneur, he founded the nutrition company SurThrival.com in 2008 — and as a passion project — FindASpring.com in 2009. Most recently he hosted the popular podcast ReWild Yourself.

He’s a Registered Maine Guide, writer, public speaker, interviewer, and lifestyle pioneer who’s especially interested in helping people reconnect with wildness, both inside and outside of themselves.

Find Daniel on social media: Daniel Instagram: @danielvitalis
Daniel on Facebook: facebook.com/danielvitalis
WildFed Instagram: @wild.fed
WildFed on Facebook: facebook.com/wildfedshow

Arthur Haines is a Maine hunting and recreation guide, forager, ancestral skills mentor, author, public speaker, and botanical researcher.  He grew up in the western mountains of Maine, a rural area that was home to swift streams known for their trout fishing. He spent most of his childhood in the Sandy River Valley hiking, tracking, and foraging.  Arthur now runs the Delta Institute of Natural History in Canton, Maine, where he teaches human ecology, focusing on the values of foraging, wildcrafting medicine, and primitive living skills.  He continues to spend a great deal of his free time practicing his skills as a modern hunter-gatherer.  In 2017, he authored “A New Path”, a comprehensive work on nature connection and rewilding, detailing how to incorporate ancestral practices into modern living.  As a research botanist for the Native Plant Trust, he completed an inclusive flora of the New England region titled “Flora Novae Angliae” and has authored over twenty publications in peer-reviewed journals and books, including naming species of plants new to science.  His series of YouTube videos has inspired thousands of people interested in foraging wild edible and medicinal plants. Learn more at www.arthurhaines.com.

Patrick, Daniel, and Arthur discuss how we’re losing our connection to the natural world.

Daniel and Arthur are wilderness enthusiasts who both live in Maine. They are advocates of humans returning to biological norms.

Mankind will “goeth the way of the passenger pigeon if we’re not careful,” according to Daniel.

We’re interdependent with all species, not angels above it. We are embedded in Nature, not controlling it from above.

What about the forces that are doing the opposite of becoming aligned with all species?

“It’s hard to make a lot of money out of people who are aware and self-reliant,” says Arthur.

What does it mean to be a part of Nature?, Patrick asks, He reads the definition of “nature” from the “Dalai Lama of dictionaries,” the Oxford Dictionary — “the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.”

Isn’t atomic power “natural”?

Daniel differentiates among art, artifacts, and Nature. “Many of the problems we’re having are late-stage domestication problems.”

We’re at war against our own evolution. “In our hubris, we think we’re the smartest we’ve ever been.” What is the actuality?

In millions of years we’ve gone from wild foodists to agriculturalists. Are we reshaping the environment, or are we in a collision course with our culture?

Do Daniel and Arthur belong to the very last wild people on Earth? Is it time to build an ark like in the Biblical story of Noah?

Daniel talks about his WildFed show on the Outdoor Channel. It’s about “hunting, fishing, foraging, and turning wild ingredients into delicious meals.” He financed it “on his own dime.”

Patrick has been handling Daniel’s products for over ten years — Colostrum, Pine Pollen, Elk Antler, Chaga & Reishi Superfoods, Digestive Bitters, etc.

Patrick asks about 5G. “It’s not about faster phones. It’s about communication between machines.” Why are we empowering machines and downplaying human cognition?

The coronavirus “media event” is discussed.

Have we switched our Savior from God to machine technology? We’re more like astronauts scurrying around on the top of the planet.

“Some people are waking up. Some people are ‘woke’ up,” says Daniel. We don’t need jailers because the inmates won’t let us escape.

Are we degenerating physically by not spending enough time outdoors?

Are there any “isms” — Communism, Capitalism, Fascism, Authoritarianism — that will give power to the people?

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel or are the lockdowns and social distancing a generational phenomenon? Have rolling blackouts become our new normal?

Will risk be made illegal? Will a parent be prosecuted for letting a child climb a tree?

Are we going to be terrorized by the Millennials till their kids grow up? “If we can’t go upstream, we CAN go cross-stream,” Arthur says.

Have we abandoned the wisdom of the Elders? Are we getting our experience from watching YouTube?

Daniel and Arthur warn about urban living, and talk about survival in the country. Adapting and being in the flow of the daylight and seasons and being physically active are beneficial for us.

Emily asks, “Can you rely on well water? Arthur relies on a fresh brook on his property.

David asks about fresh colostrum. Should it be cooked?

Arthur has apprenticeships at Wilder Waters Community, where people can “embed” in seasonal activities — hunting, fishing, foraging, clothes-making, etc. This strategy has helped Wilder Waters survive the current small business debacle.

Our survival in the 21st Century will depend on having a homestead and being self-reliant.

Daniel Vitalis and Arthur Haines with a fun and fascinating talk on our World today and how we fit in on many levels, March 31, 2021