Aware. Awake. Alive.

What is the number one things people say on their death bed? Possibly, I wish I’d had more time, I wish I had done more? I guarantee it’s not I wish I had worked more. Maybe I wish I’d seen Japan/Australia/ the moon, delete as applicable.

Psychologist William James said that consciousness isn’t simply existing and we must have an awareness of our being. It follows that that stems to wherever we are at the present moment. When we are completely aware of our surroundings we are truly alive, and for many that is most profound when we are outside. Whether it is having our faces beaten and bodies being knocked off balance by mountain winds, the roar and smell of ocean waves crashing around us, or the simple beauty of sitting in the garden on a summers evening, it matters not. ‘Without awareness we are not truly alive.’

Returning to our death bed thoughts, how about I wish I’d spent more time with my eyes open, enjoying what was around me? I wish I’d lived more in the moment. Time goes slow when we’re bored and also when everything is new. Apparently this is why your childhood summers seemed to last forever, because every experience was a new one, and now as cynical jaded adults we feel like we’ve seen it all.

Now as adults we sleep walk through life. We are on auto-pilot. We can drive to work after having dropped the kids of at school, after getting them all ready, after making them breakfast, and we do these things no problem, without even thinking because it’s what we do. How often have you caught yourself three minutes from work thinking, ‘I’m actually driving here’, and have been for half an hour? We haven’t realised because we’re coasting through life. Every morning is the same routine, but routine is good, organisation is key, organisation is freedom, thanks Jocko.

But I’m advocating awareness here. Active awareness of oneself and looking in on oneself, regardless of what it is that we’re doing. By all means be reflective, assess, journal, whatever it takes for you to be successful, but let’s try to do this for the majority of our lives. Can we be aware of our surroundings at all times in this world of constant distraction and a million advertisers competing for your attention? Think of an Australian Aboriginal on walkabout. Or a tribesman hunting on the Namibian plain. Awareness is everything. It leads to being alive and not sleepwalking through existence. And may even halt a few death bed regrets.

Live deliberately.

Barry

Currently listening to: The Pale Riders: L’Appel Du Vide

A quick internet search shows me the top answer is I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life others expected of me and, yup, there’s I wish I didn’t work as much straight in at number two.

Reimagined: Military range

The latest in the Reimagined series, a set of military shirts, sometimes commonly known as army surplus. Everything is surplus. Almost everything we own is surplus to our requirements and survival. It’s nice to have a wide variety of shoes to choose from, but how many can a human being wear on their feet at one time. A collection of twenty guitars would be great. But how many can we play at one time? Food, water, shelter, warmth, companionship, exercise, mental stimulation, clothing that is going to last, air; do we NEED anything else?

Here at Last Wolf we are interested in exploring ideas for a more sustainable and ethical existence. Reduce, reuse, recycle are words commonly used when talking about reducing the impact on our environment.

We have added Reimagined to this lexicon. There are others too.

Reinvigorated.

Re-envisaged.

Reawakened.

The Last Wolf Reimagined range. Our message, slogans, words to live by, mantra if you will, Rewild Your Soul, Live Deliberately and the Last Wolf runes emblazoned onto quality army shirts of differing origins and histories. Perhaps yours even saw active duty. Maybe it has a story of its own to tell.

This is more than reusing, this is a re-awakening. The opposite of fast fashion, this is eco-fashion.

Bespoke military shirts, each one unique.

Rewild your wardrobe.

Last Wolf Reimagined: Military range available now here.

Where the Giants Live

On a heather mattress sits the peaks; distant and drastic, momentous and unyielding, unworldly. I laugh, remembering those who say a walker’s path destroys the mountain, like the mountain even notices or cares. It is but a hair landing on ten thousand years. I cross this boulder field and it feels like Mars. Or perhaps it’s Tattooine and we are in search of the Jawas who sold us R2 and 3PO.

Ever mindful of the dryness on the dogs paws but he’s far more careful and balanced than I am. Its humans who come to injury here, not animals. The tors, if that is what they are, rise up like misplaced giants, though this is exactly where giants should be. The places where giants live.

But why are they here? Is this Arizona? It sure looks like a John Ford movie. I can’t recall a mountain top as enjoyable as this before.

I climb, the stone on my hands and under my feet. How many people have stood up here? Four or five today, maybe the same tomorrow. Into the tens at the weekend. Then maybe none for a few weeks depending on the weather. How many people have stood here in total? 10,000. Less. More. No one could possibly know. I am at least seven miles from a road and more like 10 or 12 from one that isn’t a single track. This is the way I walked, who knows how far the other way.

This is why I do these things.

Live Deliberately

Barry

Currently listening to: Volkolun: Only Trees Remember Centuries, black dark/pagan metal from Russia.

https://volkolun.bandcamp.com/album/only-trees-remember-centuries

Clothing with Stories

New clothes feel nice, but I’m willing to bet that your favourite items of clothing are the ones you’ve had the longest; the pieces that have stories to tell, the items that hold the memories.

I predominantly wear band t-shirts. In the music world, and specifically the land of heavy metal, these stories are obvious. Go to a gig, buy the shirt, support the band. Have a favourite band or album that you want to show off, wear it. Want to show how kvlt you are? Wear a t-shirt by a band who released a cassette only demo of 666 copies. This is a uniform that instantly puts you in the same club as many others wearing something similar. We are a tribal species after all.

The t-shirt you bought the first time you saw your favourite band takes you back to that magical time every single time you put it on. The hand stitched battle jacket has your sweat, blood and beer on it soaked into the patches of all your favourite bands, showing your allegiances to the world.

And it’s not just metal. I remember seeing a worn-out original My Bloody Valentine t-shirt on a boy I knew, still getting an airing despite it being almost in tatters. The guy in front of me last time I saw AC/DC was wearing a shirt that looked like he got it when he was 15. It was actually hanging off him, but you’ve never seen anyone enjoying a concert as much as this guy who was well into his fifties.

Speaking of AC/DC, I have a shirt from the 1978 Highway to Hell tour. It’s so gnarly and old it might even be original. The hardened arm pits certainly have the weight of the work of a sweaty European tour roadie.

Outdoor brands do not inspire the same love and loyalty, the same commitment but there is no reason stories of memory and feelings of affection can’t apply to outdoor branded clothing. Maybe there is just not the market or the forum to share it in.

But I’m also willing to bet you think similarly about certain items. For example, I’ve had the same shirt that’s done at least 100 Munros with me. I still wear it now, though more out of loyalty as its…well getting a bit wee. It’s the shirt honest. Throw it away? No chance.

I still wear the same salopettes I bought 25 years ago with my first credit card though, in all honesty I haven’t been snowboarding in a long time. I had to buy a new pair of waterproof trousers recently so I bought the exact same ones as I had before. I tore the arse out of my previous pair sliding down quite a steep hill in the snow, holding my giggling two year old. Every time I wear those trousers I think of that moment and the fun we had. That is worth any money.

And so we have come to our Reimagined range. Our slogans, words to live by, Rewild Your Soul and Live Deliberately emblazoned on vintage heavy duty flannel shirts. This is more than reusing, this is reinvigorating. These shirts are custom made, they are one of a kind. They exist as seen, possibly with imperfections but mostly not. They have been fully professionally cleaned to an extremely high standard before the reimagining process begun.

Let’s face it, outdoor clothing is fucking boring. It does not have to all look the same, from mountains to movie theatre, from the woods to work, these shirts are versatile and stand out in an ocean of banality. Reawaken your wardrobe and wear it your own way.

Re-invigorated.

Re-awakened.

Re-imagined.

Live Deliberately

Barry

Currently listening to Olhava, some cool blackgaze/drone from Russia.

https://olhava.bandcamp.com/album/frozen-bloom

Sustainable fashion

Western attitudes towards clothing is finally changing, and it has to. The fashion industry is the second largest polluter of the earth, taking that dubious silver medal only after the oil industry. The impact upon the planet some 80 billion products produced per year is staggering. It is especially notable that the majority of these items are being worn on average 7-10 times before ending up in landfill. Only an estimated 15% are recycled or donated.

Fast fashion brands continue to pollute not only our world but the minds of our young and susceptible people into thinking they get everything they want, instantly and cheaply. Make no mistake this is connected to the social media derangement and must have now culture that has erupted in the last twenty or so years.

This throwaway culture is changing as we find alternatives to damaging our fragile planet for instant gratification.

Outdoor wear is a bit different, but still part of the same industry. Most brands shun fast fashion and make quality products that while maybe not organic or eco-friendly, are well made and built to last. We need products that walk the walk. It’s no good proclaiming an item of clothing is waterproof when it isn’t, or that a sleeping bag will reach minus 10˚C when it won’t. This type of claim has its obvious dangers.

Here at Last Wolf we are interested in exploring ideas for a more sustainable and ethical existence. Reduce, reuse, recycle are words commonly used when talking about reducing the impact on our environment. We aim to add to Reimagined to this lexicon. There are others too.

Reinvigorated.

Re-envisaged.

Reawakened.

And so we present the Last Wolf Reimagined range. Our message, slogans, words to live by, mantra if you will, Rewild Your Soul, Live Deliberately and the Last Wolf runes emblazoned onto vintage heavy duty flannel outdoor shirts. This is more than reusing, this is a re-awakening. The opposite of fast fashion, this is eco-fashion. Bespoke, vintage shirts, each one unique. Rewild your wardrobe. Last Wolf Reimagined range available now.

Live Deliberately

Barry

Currently listening to Hymn to the Woeful Hearts by Pure Wrath, atmospheric black metal from Indonesia.

https://purewrath.bandcamp.com/album/hymn-to-the-woeful-hearts

Rewild Your Soul

Last Wolf is an entity of our own making, and this suits us best. We are therefore perhaps in a privileged position to discuss some of the more esoteric or mythical aspects of the outdoors and not necessarily the need to follow science or current opinion. For this article we shall be exploring the outer fringes of current buzz word ‘rewilding’. Rewilding is important, essential even. But perhaps it begins within us all and is a far more spiritual manoeuvre than we first thought. Bear with me here, and for anyone not wanting any Game of Thrones plot spoilers, cease reading now.

Certainly one of the biggest cultural phenomenon of the 2010s, George R.R. Martin’s novel series A Song of Ice and Fire has shifted some 90 million copies worldwide and the ensuing TV series was a staggering success, despite its staggeringly shite ending. This was watched by millions of people who would have normally scoffed at watching a fantasy series, let alone read something from the SF/Fantasy section of the local Waterstones. Orcs and goblins may be out but plenty of human genitalia is in.

Any excuse to reuse this picture!

In the world of Westeros and beyond, those who live beyond the wall are called ‘wildings’, meaning ‘savages’; the uncivilised. They are to be feared and kept out, whilst all amount of debauchery goes on at Kings Landing, the centre of civilisation. Royal lines are kept by an incest so secret that everyone knows about. But as we know, the real battle was never against the feared wilding invasion, or the wilding of the civilised world. It was against the white walkers, the Others, vacant deathly spirits whose only motive is death and the real ‘rewilding’ of the known world.

Over a thousand years before Game of Thrones, though part of a similar literature, came Beowulf, the hero of the Old English poem named after him. Beowulf kills Grendel, a monster local to the great hall Heorot, home of the Danish King Hrothgar. Grendel keeps eating the king’s warriors because they are partying too much and enjoying themselves far too often. Beowulf hears of this and leaving his home Geatland, goes off to help the Danes purely to further his own personal mythos and reknown. When they eventually meet, Beowulf tears off Grendel’s arm at the shoulder and Grendel subsequently dies from his wounds.

Picture by Eileen Budd

Quite rightly, this angers Grendel’s mother. Seeking revenge, the next night she attacks Heorot and kills a favoured warrior. Beowulf again hears of this and finds the monsters family cavern deep underwater where they battle fiercely. Grendel’s mother is a much trickier foe but Beowulf eventually chops off her head with a giant’s sword. He finds the corpse of Grendel and removes his head from his shoulders and presents both to King Hrothgar.

The ‘wild’ has been suppressed; the meres and marshes are safe. Strong bonds between the Danish and the Geats are created. Heorot becomes an actual refuge rather than a symbolic one, where light and warmth and culture can continue. The Danes are free to go about their business without this horrendous outside threat and party like its 999. The story is not over for Beowulf though. He becomes a king himself in his own land and fifty years later from the Grendel story, he battles and kills a dragon. But Beowulf himself dies as a result of their encounter.

“The world period of the hero in human form begins only when villages and cities have expanded over the land. Many monsters remaining from primeval times still lurk in the outlying regions, and though malice or desperation these set themselves against the human community. They have to be cleared away. The elementary deeds of the hero are those of the clearing of the field.” Campbell. Pg. 285.

But dragons do not exist. These fantastical ones anyway. More importantly what about real animals that have suffered the most at the hands of man and the death of the wilderness. It is hard to argue against the suffering of the wolves, enemy of man for centuries, if not longer. I wonder where dogs actually evolved from because even going by tales as modern as Disney’s Frozen, beady eyed wolves roam the forest waiting viciously for any passing traveller to harass and presumably eat. Or a snowman with a sausage for a nose.

What are traditional tales really about? Could they really be about the taming of the forest; the loss of the wild. The wild becomes a civilised place for little girls to walk happily to their grandmas. Whilst evil old wolfie will even go as far as wearing grannies clothes to lure the hapless girl who clearly forgot her glasses that day to her doom. Why he has to go to such subterfuge, we’ll never know, but he’s clearly hungry. Is it possible that when the woodsman hero of the story isn’t chopping of wolves heads, he’s busy chopping down the trees, ridding the wolf of its natural habitat and forcing it into the human domain? Sound familiar?

The wolf is the ultimate bad guy. He is devious and manipulative, he attempts to outsmart the humans. He is a threat, and this mind-set has continued into the present day. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, the boy who cried wolf, The Big Bad Wolf. The fear of nature. The fear of the wild. Fear is our natural defence mechanism developed over millennia to ensure our survival and the fear of animals is still in our genes.

I believe we still have a genetic hangover about our very human attitudes towards rewilding. Imagine living in a world in the not too distant past where being prey for a bear, a wolf, or a lion was a reality and being lost in an unknown, pathless forest a likely possibility. Have these Hansel and Gretel type stories made us fear the woods and the wild more than we should?

So learn from this

and understand true values. I who tell you

have wintered into wisdom.

Beowulf. Pg. 119.

#rewildyoursoul

Campbell, Joseph. “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, Abacus: Sphere Books, 1975.

Heaney, Seamus. “Beowulf: Bilingual Edition”, Faber and Faber, 2007.

Live Deliberately

Barry

Currently listening to: Sentenced’s first album, ‘Shadows of the Past’, 1991