Raven Gray is an experienced primitive skills practitioner and experimental archaeologist, also trained as a naturalist, ecologist, and permaculture educator. She has traveled extensively, learning from Indigenous Peoples and some of the world’s top primitive skills instructors. With over 25 years’ experience in wilderness living, land-based practices, and ecological design, she is committed to shifting the cultural paradigm from industrial instability to wild resilience.
After teaching Ecovillage Education in India, Raven became a founding pioneer of Transition Towns, and the founder of Transition US, an international sustainable community movement. She has been featured in publications such as the New York Times and Elle magazine, interviewed on national television and public radio, and given presentations at conferences and events on both sides of the Atlantic. However, after having a child in 2008, she left this career path, and instead dedicated herself to rewilding her son and becoming a primal parent.
Raven has since taken her son with her on a 14-year journey of learning traditional skills and deep nature connection. This path included several years of mentoring in a residential program with Jon Young, in the lineage of Tom Brown, Jr., that was a profound immersion in tracking, bird language, primitive skills, and the art of mentoring. Raven and her son have participated in numerous survival programs such as Lynx Vilden’s Stone Age Winter Immersion in the mountains of Washington, and the Coastal Hunter Gatherer Bushcraft Course with Fraser Christian in Dorset. Every year Raven and her son have attended primitive skills gatherings in California, Idaho, Oregon, and Arizona where they have expanded their skill set and connected with a community of like-minded people.
Raven is a dedicated lifelong learner with an MSc in Culture and Ecology and an MSc in Experimental Archaeology and is now undertaking her PhD in Experimental Archaeology at the University of Exeter. She is committed to honouring the lineage of her mentors and ancestors, and keeping the old ways alive through teaching, writing, and speaking, with the knowledge that primitive skills and ancestral traditions are vital pathways that lead to personal and planetary health and empowerment. She is particularly passionate about teaching these skills to women. Raven and her son recently moved to the far west of Cornwall, where they plan to teach and share what they have learned with others.
She can be reached on social media @ravengray3 or email raven.gray@rocketmail.com