What does this have to do with anything other than entertainment? Well, it has to do with awareness. It has to do with self-awareness and environmental awareness. Oh, do tell me how? Well, first, as our protagonist he ventured into territory that was hostile and unknown to him regarding rules and scripts that govern tribes, animals and the actual environment of the wild country he moved into.
It is about how a novice who ventured out of his comfort zone assuming many things due to his history and beliefs had to make changes in order to survive. When you leave your home and neighborhood along with work environment where you know all the rules and scripts you cannot take those with you to different environments and expect them to work because …. it’s different.
Then take into consideration the hostility of the new environment he had to learn. That is a valuable lesson in and of itself, you have to be open to understand that what you came from may not apply to where you are going - a type of self-awareness. If you blindly go and assume your rules and scripts and beliefs are apropos to the new place you could end up hurt or killed. Jeremiah had to learn this about the wildlife in the wild country and along the way the various rules, beliefs and cultural requirements, rules and scripts of various tribes, tribes as in Indians.
Add in all the trials and tribulations of all these variances that would result in conflict, violence and even death you have to admit that his knowledge, mind-set and awareness (Self and Environmental) were survival skills and through luck and good fortune he learned from others and by his own efforts.
This is similar in self-defense. When we venture out into spaces and places that are different we have to either know or we have to learn about those areas and leave our personal culture, beliefs and scripts at home. I believe, although a movie and drama, that this brings about a symbolic representation of what is meant by awareness and most of all environmental awareness.
You also will notice that when the opportunity presented itself Jeremiah remained calm and polite. He watched and listened to perceive, register and retain the knowledge that at the end favored him with survival and deep respect of the Indian tribe who sent warrior by warrior after him to take revenge. This also brings up those awarenesses necessary to know and understand who, what, when, where and HOW they would hunt him down and try to get revenge for is discretions against their beliefs and cultural especially when it occurred against their dead.
So, when you are asked how to be aware you can at least provide some symbolic connectedness with this example to help students and fellow practitioners what it means to have environmental awareness. It is more than simply knowing the locale where you are but all those various seen and unseen, heard and unheard, recognized and not recognized issues, beliefs and scripts that will be encountered.
Actually, I feel that one or two of the characters that befriended Jeremiah Johnson in the movie kind of remind me of an author and professional I am aware of …. kind of.
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