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How wild, untamed and free do you dare to become?

The first time that I encountered the term ‘rewilding’ was in Peter grey’s very insightful and important blogpost called Rewilding Witchcraft. It follows the idea that Witches and Pagans have sort of forgotten their roots and their purpose which are connected to engaging with and protecting the wild. It challenges the respective audience to open up their eyes to the current ecological crisis of the planet and most of our local environments. It asks us to revisit our spiritual practices and question them.

Do they really connect me with the wild inside and outside of myself?

Do my actions build connections with, acknowledge and protect the non-human communities I live with?

These are some of the guiding questions which have walked with me since I first read Peter Grey’s words. It’s what started my own rewilding journey.

small boy at the edge of a lakeI have always felt a very intimate connection with plants and the spirits of nature. I spent a lot of my childhood and teenage years in the garden and the forest. I talked to trees and faeries.

At the same time I was socialized like most of us. I was told how to sit, eat and behave. I was told that there are no spirits in my room at night. That the natural world was not really dead, but below human consciousness. That there was no actual way to talk to trees or rivers. That God had blessed humans with unique mental capacities which allowed us to condition, control and rule the wilderness outside of us as well as our body and animal nature.

These teachings were given to me by my parents, but also the other kids I played with, neighbors, school, etc. These were some of the collective assumptions about reality that I had to accept (at least officially) to become acceptable. Unacceptable beliefs and actions were laughed at or punished.

Add to that all the emotional and physical abuse I experienced by family and ‘friends’ as a child and teenager for being different than expected. For being other(worldly?).

As a result I forgot how to see and talk with the faeries and other beings for a while. It took me years of dedicated spiritual practice to get them back. Some of my clairvoyant abilities are still not nearly as evolved as they were when I was 5 years old.

statue of a druid in front of treesThe kind of spirituality that had always spoken to me and was instrumental in my emotional healing process and self-empowerment was Witchcraft.

When I discovered this alternative to Christian beliefs and doctrines when I was 12 years old I was so excited! It felt like coming home. Like I’m not weird for experiencing the world a certain way, but gifted.

Witchcraft and other shamanic, Pagan and polytheist practices and beliefs continued to inform me since that time.

I loved especially how these beliefs and practices seemed rooted in nature and emphasized how to live in ‘harmony’ and ‘balance’ with the natural world.

It wasn’t until I started learning more about ecology, nature conservation and sustainable agriculture that I noticed how removed many of these (modern) beliefs and practices actually were from nature.

I believe that the same can be said about a lot of teachings and beliefs within the ‘New Age’ and ‘spiritual’ community.

I am no exception to probably being a little blind-sided by growing up in a relative urban environment within Western civilization. How could I not be?

I did run through fields and forests as a child and we still grew at least some of our food in our garden. We foraged mushrooms and herbs for tea. We used natural medicines. We were probably more attuned to the land and that kind of ancestral knowledge than most of our neighbors.

And I still never shot a deer or killed a chicken. The amount of food we grew in our garden was minimal. We foraged for entertainment, not for survival.

Which means that there was a lot of knowledge and understanding about how nature works that I didn’t get. Some of which I could read about, but a lot of which can only come from first hand experience. What I like to call body knowledge.

What does all of that have to do with spirituality?

Yoga pose in the middle of a street in a cityMost of our spiritual beliefs and practices in the West – especially within the New Age community – have been conceived outside of a natural environment or have been adopted (and modified) from more ‘exotic’, Eastern cultures which themselves were and/or are divorced from nature.

How can these beliefs and practices liberate and empower us if they continue to deepen the divide between ourselves and the natural world? Between our mind and our body? Our soul and our flesh?

As I have written before: These lies of separation are the root of all evil. It is this kind of estrangement from ourselves and the natural world which gives not only rise to war and terror attacks, but also the ecological crisis we find ourselves in.

Which is why I believe that all of our spirituality must be centered around coming back into connection. Intimate connection with our body and sexuality. Intimate connection with other humans in their diversity as well as with the non-human worlds we are part of – especially the natural environment around us.

This is why rewilding spirituality is important.

Which is why I want all of us to really question not only the origins and purpose of our spiritual beliefs and practices but also their effects on us and the natural world.

How does your spirituality re-connect you with nature?

How does it estrange you from nature?

And what purpose do you choose your spirituality to serve and why?

No teacher or book can answer these questions for you. Observe your own experience. The choice is yours if you dare to choose. The time is now to make a change.

(And I have specifically designed this online class for men who choose rewilding.)

Man in suit sitting on a rock in a forest

I originally wrote this post in August 2015 for an old blog project of mine. Given the almost daily news of homophobic, racist and other violence we find ourselves confronted with right now I felt a need to re-share it here with you today. The post itself initially focuses more on the reality of human-made climate change, but the basic advice for spiritual self-care in challenging times remains the same.
May we find meaning. May we find strength. May we continue to co-create what is desired without turning a blind eye on what’s not, but which is still happening.


There comes a time every couple of months or so when I start to wonder how it’s possible to stay sane. Watching the world around us crumble to pieces in what has been called and is expected to become the sixth mass extinction of organic life on this planet is hard. It’s not just worrying, but frightening. How are we supposed to survive that? Can we start taking climate protection seriously for a change? Will our interpersonal conflicts keep us from transitioning into a future worth living for? Is it time to give up? Or are we just in the middle of labor and need to keep pushing just this little while longer?

With all of these questions and the things going on it’s hard to stay sane. It’s hard to not give in to depression and desperation. It’s hard to keep believing in our own power and humanity’s potential for rapid change. It’s hard to believe that there is any God at times.

Well, we can obviously use our spiritual tools to directly engage with the Gods and spirits. That’s part of what they are there for. We can tune in and listen to them. They can give us direction and help us make sense of the external and internal struggles and changes. There is this path. And there are several others.

For people who have trouble trusting in their own psychic abilities or who haven’t developed these abilities to a degree which allows them to get direct counsel and direction from the ‘Otherworldly’, it’s helpful to remember that you don’t need these abilities in order to understand or give your life purpose. All you really need is your mind.

Crow with key in its mouth stands on a collection of beautiful flowers (Spiritual Self-Care)One of the tools which I have found to be highly efficient in certain circumstances is the tool of positive focus. Essentially this tool is all about choosing where you focus your attention most of the time and directing your attention towards the ‘positive’/desired. This doesn’t mean that we should neglect or ignore the ‘negative’ (more on that in a second). It means accepting, though (or at least pretending at first), that not everything is in fact negative. There are not just bad and dying people out there. There is hope. There are beautiful activists. There are amazing landscapes. There is beauty all around us. Permaculture gardens, rewilding approaches and intentional living communities are spreading. Wolves are returning to landscapes who haven’t seen them in decades and longer. There are several examples. Desired change is in fact already happening. The transformation of society which we seek is on it’s way. The media aren’t always telling us so since ‘news’ are usually centered around the negative. It’s a conscious choice for them to tell just this side of the story. We are free to make a different choice. Acknowledging and spreading information about beautiful and inspiring people, places and initiatives is actually helping them. It’s more than just focusing selectively. It’s actually helping to build a better world in tangible as well as intangible ways. Starting with the fact that giving yourself and others hope reduces stress levels and allows us to act more compassionately and loving with each other and ourselves. Just one of several positive side effects we might not think of at first but which are at play regardless. Something worth considering, right?

martin-luther-king-25271_1280If everything else fails it helps me to remember how far we have already come in such a short time. Look back at the beginnings of social justice movements, feminism or the environmental movement. Look at what they protested against in the beginning and what has already changed since then. For example a couple of decades ago the term ‘animal rights’ wouldn’t have made any sense to the ‘ordinary person’ on the street. The idea of opening marriage to same-sex couples seemed far fetched at best and completely unrealistic at worst. Look at how far we have come! This doesn’t mean that there are no longer things to work on and improve, but it means that our fighting is worth it. It means that tangible change is actually possible.

That said, it’s alright to be sad, frustrated, angry and depressed about the state of the world as well. Pretending like we already live in paradise doesn’t make it so for at least the majority of beings on this earth. Species are still going extinct. Police violence and structural racism still happen on the streets. People still get molested, raped and abused. Looking away doesn’t help any of them.

What I propose instead is that we make a commitment to watch and listen. Not in spite of, but fully embracing all the emotions that this might bring up for us. We need to let our anger burn us to ashes before we can rise from the flames like a phoenix. We need to let our sorrow and pain consume us. Our tears will cleanse our eyes and hearts. However we might feel, it is OK. Our emotions are there for a reason. Accepting them will keep us sane. Once we stop running away from the way we feel we can begin to look Apocalypse in the face and still remain sane and able to act.

I agree, this is the work of a Warrior and it takes practice, but I believe it’s where we need to go next in order to deal with what is. I believe in our ability to do it in self-loving ways.

Remember to laugh. Drink enough fluids. Eat healthy food. Spend time in the sun and outdoors. Exercise a little. Meditate. Seek out beauty. Fundamental self-care will bring you a long way with this.

Much love to you during our shared journey! May we keep each other sane.

Open hands offering beautiful violet flowers (spiritual self-care)