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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

Some of you might know that besides being a professional psychic and spiritual teacher I work part-time as a counselor and youth group facilitator at the local LGBTQ center. Nothing like regularly working with kids and young adults who suffer from serious depression, PTSD and dissociation to keep you and your spirituality grounded. It regularly makes me reevaluate what works and what doesn’t in terms of spreading awareness, health and empowerment through my teachings and perspective. It makes me perceive my own privileges better – and challenges me to figure out how to let this understanding inform my spirituality and my work.

See, I’d love to just sign up for ‘positive focus’ as the feel good drug of choice at any time. The problem is that is doesn’t work for most people on earth, because being able to maintain positive focus for even a couple of minutes isn’t as much about commitment and will as it is about privilege. Most people on earth aren’t that privileged.

Privilege means that you are given certain rights and can expect certain benefits and treatment in life which aren’t available to most other people. Especially not for other people who don’t look , love and pray as you do.

circle of different shoes in various colors, but of the same size (diversity)In most cases privilege is so commonplace among the members of a privileged group that they don’t even realize the benefits they are granted as special. They simply assume that having these things, being treated that way and finding yourself represented in the media and government is a normal experience for everyone. They don’t perceive a variety of perspectives because their friends, family and social circles are made up of people who look, love and pray at least similarly to them. They don’t really experience the ‘others’.

Like in agriculture this kind of cultural monoculture is not only cost intensive and requires a lot of resources and restrictions to maintain – it actually created ‘pests’.

Isolating a piece of land from the natural diversity surrounding it as is done in conventional agriculture is creating a rift in the Web of Life. Nature always promotes diversity and will be trying to close that rift. Which is why pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, walls, fences and plain force become necessary. They are weapons against nature. Weapons used to defend the rift. Weapons which have been shown again and again to create only more resilient pests. In the end Nature will always get Her way.

Even though we have been brought up to believe in a distinction between the human and the natural world this is just another lie of separation. In truth no such distinction makes sense. Our buildings are build out of wood, stone or metal. Even the chips in our computers require crystals to work. We can built walls and come up with ‘new’ materials in our labs – but we only have this natural world to depend on. We still depend on the resources and abundance of Mother Earth. We still depend on the Sacred Elements of Air, Fire, Water, Earth and Ether/Spirit to survive and thrive. Trying to push them out and reject the laws of nature did never work in the past, isn’t working now and never will. We are part of this fabric no matter what.

honey bee sitting on a pink flowerGiven that we are part of the Web of Life and therefore subject to the laws of nature above everything else the question arises what that could mean for the ways we life, love, pray and built our life. Do we continue to fight the laws of nature? Or will we try to figure out how to respect them better so that we can begin to live in harmony with them and being supported by them as a result?

For this post let us just focus on one law for the moment. The Law of Diversity.

Nature strives for diversity always, because it thrives on it. The more diverse an ecosystem ends up to be the more resilient it gets and the more diversity it can sustain. A meadow always strives to become forest. A true forest is always chaotic and diverse.

Bringing that back to human society we can hopefully see now how trying to maintain a cultural and spiritual monoculture is as futile and as harmful to the earth (and human beings as part of the earth) as an agricultural monoculture. It will be impossible to maintain it without violence. Violence against the ‘others’ on the outside of our walls, fences and neighborhoods. Violence against the ‘others’ in our own midst as well. Violence which in most Western cultures is directed against the feminine, the queer, the transgender, the Black, the brown, the indigenous, the ‘oriental’, the dis_abled, the poor, the Pagan, the Witch. Essentially everyone who looks, loves or prays differently than we do.

It is worth mentioning that the constant threat of violence has caused those of us who find themselves at the receiving end of the lash to build our own walls and castles in self-defense. It is our way to cope with ‘minority stress’ and surrounding danger.
While this is understandable and the establishment of ‘safe spaces’ necessary we need to be careful not to create and nourish the rifts that divide us further in the process. We, too, have to leave our own castles regularly and start to listen to the ‘others’ more. Usually we will find people who have even less privileges than we do. We need to listen to their stories. We have to stop assuming that the stories we keep telling ourselves are more correct and worthy than those of the less privileged. Usually the outsiders are the ones who can take a better look and have deeper insight particularly because of their ‘otherness’.

We need to visit those who have more privileges as well. They need to see us. They need to hear our stories. We need to make our stories heard by them.

Looking at our spiritual communities we need to stop condemning those who pray differently than we do. Especially when their reality has been shaped by violence and structural discrimination beyond the scope of what we are able to perceive and believe yet.

We need to stop judging their practices, emotions and goals from a place of Ego. Instead we need to approach them with genuine curiosity and respect.

Why do they curse? Why don’t they? Why do they kiss the floor? Why do they light candles? Why do they pray to demons and angels? Why are their ethics different from mine and what can that teach me about my own position in the world, my own blindness and my (in-)sight?

We need to come with an open mind and listen. We need to come with the intention to learn in order be able to mend the Web of Life. Only then can we gain understanding and develop true compassion.

If we truly want to live in peace with the earth and each other, then this is the only way I see that happening. Even though we might need to redefine what that ‘peace’ should look like based on our new-found diversity of perspectives.

hands of a black person greeting the sun

In light of recent events in Orlando I wasn’t sure what to write in today’s blog. I wanted to write something inspiring which gives you a better picture of who I am and what I am about. At the same time I wanted to write something respectful that doesn’t pretend like there isn’t still a lot of pain and suffering in our LGBTQ family going on in the wake of the shooting. I certainly am not ‘over it’ and I don’t expect others to be ‘over it’ either. In my mind that would be cruel and uncalled for – and I experienced enough of that during the last week myself when I dared to express my sadness and my anger.

I’m not much into pretense. I don’t see a point in calling for positive focus while my leg is bleeding. I don’t want us to ignore our emotions or suppress them. Quite on the contrary.

heart-energy-767928_1280It is my firm believe that everything about the human being is true, correct and beautiful. This includes all of our emotions, our wounds, our minds and our souls. It’s when we start denying and disowning parts of ourselves that we actually get into trouble. Evil enters into the chasm of separation – inside and outside of us. Which is why I’m spending so much time teaching about how to become whole again and how to learn to live with true compassion. It’s because love truly is the glue of the universe. It’s the only thing actually able to overcome hate, violence and the evils of this world. You essentially can’t shoot or consciously hurt someone who you consider to be part of yourself. The same goes for a tree, the ocean and all life on earth. If we truly start to get that all the separation we see is just created in our minds by an insecure and dominant Ego that wants to run the show, we can start not only to heal ourselves, but all the worlds. We can even begin to love our Ego back into wholeness. Like the rest of our parts it serves a valuable purpose if aligned with the rest of our being.

At the same time we shouldn’t pretend either that a gunshot wound can heal just fine as long as the bullet is still inside. Likewise we have to suck the poison out of our wounds sometimes before the real healing can begin. Love is the ultimate cure. And sometimes we need to create a space for love first by removing the poison. That’s the alchemy of transforming lead into gold. Inside of us that’s sometimes called shadow integration. Outside of us it can mean everything from compassionate listening and political activism to the complete arsenal of self-defense. Given the circumstance different tools serve best.

flower growing from a crack in dry earthWhile sitting at the local river today I was reminded of another truth, too. Between all the trash that had been washed on the shore there were still beautiful wild flowers and proud plants with their branches held high. The trash is a concern to the Fey, the nature spirits watching that place. At the same time, though, they remember, too, that nothing that’s true can ever die. Life is unbeatable.

In our Western society it’s easy to get lost in the thought that death is final and a threat to life. That given the state of our world everything is going to end up in some horrible kind of apocalypse and that’s that. Given all the stories that we have been told for the last couple of hundred years it makes perfect sense to feel that way.

At the same time I think we should start to understand that all of these stories and thoughts were born from place of separation themselves. That there is another truth which is revealed in connection.

When we take a look at nature and let go of our cultural conditioning we will see that nothing truly ends there. Everything lasts forever. Matter and energy can’t really be destroyed. They can only be transformed into something else. That’s all what death and decay really do. They are the flipside of birth and growth.

Another thing we can observe is that nature fills the void. Nature itself doesn’t really accept separation. Cross-pollination is more like it. Turning an empty lot first into a meadow and then into a forest is more like it. The more diverse an ecosystem ends up to be, the stronger and more resilient it gets. That’s why nature always advocates diversity.

Likewise the powers of life Themselves will always be on the side of interconnectedness, interdependency and creative self-expression. They will always work towards closing the gaps. They will always be on the side of love in diversity.

It is a tragedy that 49 of our sisters, brothers and siblings lost their life as the result of (self-)hate. They became dispensable to the attacker because in his mind what they represented was evil. Something that he needed to see as something separate from himself and therefore dispensable. Evil flourished in his attempt to widen the chasm of separation he was told and believed was necessary.

In a way that’s all homophobia, sexism, heteronormativity, transphobia, xenophobia etc. are about: The idea that separation is necessary. The idea that what is different from us needs to be worse than us and therefore can’t be a part of us, because we need to be ‘good’.

From a spiritual perspective nothing can be further from the truth, because we contain everything. We contain the same-sex attraction. We contain the desire for genderqueer expression. We contain the homophobia and xenophobia, too.

So my advise would be to take a really deep look at ourselves and face the ways in which we still define ourselves as better or fundamentally different from “those people”. We have to face the reality of who we are. Only then can we begin to heal the wounds. Only then can we really begin to integrate our shadows and love our wholeness into being.

man looking down from a mountain