Mick Dodge, a former marine, left modern civilization and a family 25 years ago to live “off the grid” in the Pacific Northwest’s Hoh Rainforest. He is 62 now, yet walks barefoot through streams and between trees. What prompted Mick to go to the forest in the first place, and why doesn’t he wear shoes?
“My feet hurt. I had hammertoes, plantar fasciitis, deformed feet. They hurt so bad that I could barely walk and I had always used my walk and run to handle the stress of modern living, make sense of the modern world story that I was living in, and the Hoh is home for me. So I went home to heal my feet. In following my feet I found myself stepping out of the insulation of the modern world and landing in the earth. The results came quickly. Not only were my feet healing, but my back pain, neck pain and most of all my heart pain disappeared, and in no time at all I was back into a dead run, stepping out of the sedentary, stressed, sedated and secured living of the modern world. I was dancing as the fire, running as the wind, strengthening as the stone and flowing as the water within, by the simple act of touching with my bare soles and allowing the Earth to teach. It is a simple matter to follow your feet, but is does not come easy. The Earth will eat you if you are not paying attention,” he told Zen Gardner in 2014 after he agreed to be the subject of National Geographic Channel’s series “The Legend of Mick Dodge”.
What does he eat to survive in the forest? “I am an omnivore, able to eat a wide variety of food, which also means that I learned how to become a scavenger and allowed the hunger in my belly to guide me into discovering all kinds of food. For example, I would come upon an elk killed by a cougar. When a cougar kills an elk, the entire forest moves in to eat. So I do the same. I often come upon road kill. Many people are scared of such food and yet they eat jerky … and jerky is nothing more than sun-dried meat. So what I eat during a normal week changes depending upon which one of the three terrains that I am footing my way through. But there is one highly spiritual food that I try to maintain in my stashes and storage places and that is chocolate-chip cookies. My grandmothers got me hooked on them,” he explained.
Is Mick crazy? Is he an Isolationist? Not really. He spends his time with a community of mountain dwellers. He has formed strong brother-and-sister relationships with the men and women he has met. Dodge doesn’t miss civilization, but he doesn’t shun it either. He’s connected with nature, yet he also lacks the self-righteousness normally associated with off-grid naturalists.
“By getting some distance from the comforts, habits, physical structures like shoes, machines, walls, electronics, I find myself seeking out what makes sense, what fits, and integration of the wild and tame make sense. So l learned to hunt and track the middle path, the middle way. It is not easy at times figuring out the middle way between the modern world and the Earth. But it is fun and adventure,” he concluded.
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It says he left his family,….not cool
Judge not lest ye be judged. You do not know the full back story.
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
In other words, don’t judge unless you’re ready for the kind of measure of judgement to be used on you. It doesn’t mean you can’t judge or cast doubts or criticisms, it just basically means to get ready for people to judge you and call you out when you do it. The more you know!
God doesn’t exist, stop being a miserable cunt.
You don’t know his family, neither do you know him. Who are you to judge?
Be true to yourself FIRST. At what point is it okay to live for your own happiness?
that would depend on his family won’t it??? Mine have screwed me over, cheated me and left me, I would NOT feel sorry to leave them behind, there are records in history of brothers killing brothers over power, read some more, families are not always the greatest of people, I have friends I would happily die for, but no family of mine makes me feel that way, I’m sorry, I don’t want to sound a smart ass, maybe you have a great family, sadly not all of us do.
Eso es un extremo, pero creo que todos deberíamos vivir de manera mas humilde y en conjunto con la naturaleza.
the photo with him carrying the log, looks like he is wearing shoes… complete bullshit
Okay… I lived in forks Washington. I know people there still. This guys show is a joke. He lives with someone in the winter and frequents the local stores in forks. Lives in the rain forest. Yeah probably a couple days a week he’s fully out there but he doesn’t consistently survive like a wildman. Total misconception and you can tell by the way he learns new things on the show that he truly isn’t 100% living in the wild. His visit to the Indian tribe all secret and seeing a medicine woman was also a big joke. It was exaggerated beyond belief.
As much as I loved some of the shows for National Geographic, I stopped watching when I did some research. I was very disappointed. This particular show was one that hit the skids with me.
No he has not. It is just a TV show. Staged. He drives a dodge van and takes his surfboard everywhere with him.
I love this show it’s awesome. I think its fascinating that he has left the modern world to live in the woods.
Of course it’s all show, it’s television!
A ´wild man´ eating ´highly spiritual chocolate chip cookies´? Something doesn´t fit here 🙂 Reminds me of this wannabe hippie I know that pretends to eat only exotic fruits and mostly bananas, until he secretly goes to MacDonalds to eat french fries.