Steven Knopp - Wise in the Ways of Nature

STEVEN: I have traveled all over the world. And, yes. I do research on the natural medicinal plants used by cultures in all these different parts of the world, and I either bring them back here or I do biotech research with them. Or, I get them to people who are doing biotech research, because there is a tremendous effort to find all the known medicinal plants and native original food plants before these environments, and the rain forests, or whatever parts of the world are gone.

We are losing some of these medicinal plants extremely rapidly.  For instance I just returned from Ecuador and I brought back palo santo oil.  Palo santo oil grows on a certain kind of tree in coastal Ecuador that is seven to eight hundred years old.  That is the only place in the world it grows.  If this last little part of the coast is developed, and there are many things threatening to develop it, we will lose this treasure in the whole of the world, and it is the most powerful medicinal healing oil I know of on the planet with many, many diverse uses. 

LOUISE:  What is it good for?

STEVEN: Everything to do with skin and the healing of anything that can afflict the skin, whether that is sun damage, skin cancer, rashes, outbreaks, insect bites, poisonous plant things, burns, anything to do with healing skin tissue.  I have never seen anything quite so remarkable. 

It's a natural insecticide.  You can burn the incense or the oil and it keeps mosquitoes and flies and bugs away.  It can be used internally for dozens of uses.  It induces the alpha state in the brain and changes mood so it can be used as aromatherapy.  It can be used for nasal and bronchial conditions and asthma.  It is one of the most versatile, natural healing substances I have ever run across.

LOUISE:  And is it available for people?

STEVEN: Absolutely it's available.

LOUISE:  You have lived a life of choice and diversity that has stayed very close to nature and the voice of those deep places.  It is obvious to me.

STEVEN: I have always had a very large bag of interests and I have pursued them. I pursued them all very passionately.  In all the things I have studied and learned I sought out the greatest, most knowledgeable teachers and learned everything I could from them, and added that to my knowledge base and my experience and kept moving.

LOUISE:  I understand that you help a lot of people in this way.  You provide a lot of input and consulting to people who want, or are beginning to think about sovereignty, are halfway there or in various stages along the way.  You can provide them with lots of information and consult with them on a host of things.  Can you talk about that?

STEVEN: I have a consulting service that I provide for people to help them wherever they are at in the process, to overcome feeling overwhelmed, to overcome the fear factor, to overcome the resistance factor, to overcome the lack of knowledge, skills, tools, all aspects of preparedness.  I prefer to see it in terms of preparedness for thriving for a simple, elegant, self-sufficient life that evolves into the future and makes known the unknown.

I have had experiences in shelter building, long-term food storage, biodynamic gardening, homesteading, craftsmanship, survival training.  I've lived all of these things and I have taught all of these things, so I offer it now.  

What I want to do now is help people with knowledge, information, planning and the ability to move further along with their plan regardless of where they are in it, to help people do that as I continue also doing it myself. This is an important point. I don't care who you are, what you know or what you have done.  There is always more you can and should be doing, and I am doing that as well myself.  There's always more knowledge, always more skills, always more preparation, and I am still as diligently at it now as I was more than twenty years ago.  It's not like you do certain things and it's all done.

This is a living process and a change of attitudes, life style --and how you do everything. I have learned so many things over the years by trial and error and I changed concepts I once had after trying them in many different circumstances and in different places.

LOUISE:  So how would you do your consulting.  How would people approach ...

STEVEN: Contact me.  I meet with them.  I find out where they are in their process, what they have accomplished, what they have not accomplished, where they are in priorities and help them come up with a plan, because what I want people to see step-by-step.  If you take it step-by-step it doesn't seem overwhelming or insurmountable.  And I want to help move them through those phases and then see where their fears are, see what they are lacking in knowledge, experiences or supplies, or preservation, or construction.  Wherever they are at in their process I think I can help move them to their next steps in a way that is helpful.  I have so many people recently ask me to do this.

LOUISE:  Because they know that you have had the experience, the wisdom.

STEVEN: They know I have lived it, and I'm still living it.

LOUISE:  What would you do if someone was in the fear mode?  Do you feel that if they are prepared the fear will go away?

STEVEN: Well, it helps.  What you do with people's fear is you first find out where the fear is coming from and you show them something they can do now with their given situation, their resources, and show them how that leads to the progression of it.  And then they go, "Ah!  I can relax a little bit.  I may not be able to do that right now, but I can do this right now."  Whether that's buying ten dollars of supplies, groceries and seeds, anything that you want to have as your supplies. If you can only buy ten bucks at a time you will get there if you are diligent, persistent and focused about it.  I've seen people do this.  I've done it this way myself and that relieves the stress, anxiety and fear a lot.  There is a lot to do and that is one thing.

The second thing I really want to do is help people work together better.  Obviously all these things can be done better if people support each other instead of compete with each other.  If people help each other out like the Babes in Belts thing.  Fabulous idea, brilliant idea, I'm sure it will be incredibly successful.  The Survival Center and their programs, different builders who are working on things.

LOUISE:  Everyone, there are so many voices in this community.  There are so many gifts in this community from various aspects of it, and not to be in competition.  I think that's really important.  Because that's the survival mode, first seal stuff.

STEVEN: It's also America -- the rugged individualist, everyone for himself, everybody competing, dog-eat-dog.  That has to end individually and collectively, because I assure you, one of the great lessons I have learned through all my experience is you cannot do this alone.  I don't care who you are, how skillful you are, how knowledgeable, how big and bad, it is not going to work alone.  People need to do this together.  Nobody ever did it alone in the past.  They had tribes.  They had families.  They had communities.  They worked on this stuff together.

If people don't work together, they don't do well.  I want to help people see how they can start working together, whether it is as a couple, a family, a neighborhood, a region, a community, whatever.  This has to occur or we are not going to do well.

Everybody is on their own learning curve.  Everybody is on their own journey but we do, I think, need to come together and work it as a process, all together.  You know that old saying, "Two heads are better than one."  Well, two hundred are definitely better than two.

LOUISE:  Yes, yes.

STEVEN: Another one of the main things I would try to help people see is that technology is wonderful and the equipment is wonderful if you have it, but you better have a plan B and a plan C if you don't.  So the backup plans are a very important part of that.  That is essential -- Plan A, B, C and D and maybe more.

"You can do it."  Everybody can do this and they can all do it more than they might believe they can do it, if they become serious about it, focused about it and start working together.  Thank God, we have time.  We should be using that time as best we can.

LOUISE:  So be it!

 
Steven can be reached at 360-458-6777 x228 and by Email Here

Steven's next traditional bowmaking workshop is September 29th and 30th.