Dear soul,
There are places within you that long for the wild,
To touch upon the free,
That carries the deepest expression of truth within it.
Your body was created by this free,
Untamed,
Unsilenced,
And intuitive part of nature.
Your limbs bend where you once carried yourself through this wild life.
Your emotions formed so that you could connect with others and care for others and communicate with your environment.
Your bones still know the name of plants and animals that once initiated you through rites of passages and formed the cornerstone of your health and well-being.
You were made by a mother who wanted you to be conscious of the beauty this world has within it.
She made you of the same components as the cosmos and the oceans and the salt.
The earth a being of extraordinary power with the potential of a mind that could bear witness to this extraordinary planet.
You were made in harmony with everything you would ever need to thrive within you.
You were made balanced,
Self-healing,
Regenerative,
Creative,
And forever able to learn from the environment you conversed with.
But now we have reached the Anthropocene,
An era where our impact on our environment is so profound that we have become severed from the very source of our purpose and schooling.
We cannot evolve without nature,
And ultimately nature is the bedrock of our existence and the key to our human resilience,
Stability,
And well-being.
And yet nature is not the only place we have tamed for our convenience.
We too have urbanized our minds,
Harnessed our hearts,
Placed the mind as an authority,
And now feed off the fire that burns eternally for our attention.
We seek validation and worthiness in spaces not made to contain the fullness of who we are but the fragments of who we become once we buy into the belief that we are not already whole.
Your way forward,
Dear soul,
Is to balance your potential with your past,
And that means to consciously rewild yourself through those small acts of rooted remembrance that are still held within this body.
As exists in the world,
So exists within you.
You too have places within you that have been tamed and silenced and domesticated.
These feel like resistances and controls that have been placed upon you and that conflict with your natural state of ease.
It's every time you choose compliance over creativity or silence over using your voice.
There are wild parts within you that are being kept small,
Kept in excuses,
Kept in apologies,
Kept in confinement,
And the body becomes a cage instead of a conduit for this courageous life force to move through you.
You are,
In your most wild and natural way,
Worthy,
Loved,
And free to be yourself.
You were made with large spaces of freedom inside of you that were left intentionally for spontaneous blossomings of the unknown to occur.
You do not have to pave over your need for slowness,
For stillness,
Because it makes you more efficient.
You can be left alone to grow like wildflowers,
Rather than have parts of yourself farmed off for the needs of others.
Your body in nature is a body at home within itself.
The natural frequency of the earth and your bare feet dance in harmony.
Body is made to be held and healed by the earth as it holds and heals every other living thing.
Rewilding is a mindset and a way of living.
Even if you live in the heart of a city,
You can be wild to your bones.
You can choose to live more naturally,
Intuitively,
Courageously,
Making decisions from that intuitive space that always considers how best to stay close to the earth.
You cannot only find your wild while you are amongst nature,
Because the city too is a reflection of who you are.
You don't have to demonize your culture or attempt to hide from it,
But you can,
With awareness,
Learn what aspects of it is affecting your physical,
Your mental,
And your emotional well-being.
You can reclaim those parts of you that long to be untamed,
To speak your needs,
To dream of impracticalities,
To move more slowly and intentionally through this world,
To define your own success,
To live embodied and whole and believe in your completeness.
This is the way of the wild and the way of evolving from the best parts of who you are.
Because the wild body is a moving body.
It's an expressive body.
It's an empowered body.
It's a giving body.
It's a regenerative body.
It's a heart-centered body.
And it's a self-healing body.
The heart needs places in you that have not been tamed by the hands of men and a willingness from you to not behave in ways that are expected.
Rewilding is the ultimate reclamation and protection of a wilder life that allows you to thrive in your own unique way.
Let us take a barefooted walk into the mountains and discover those places within you that have been tamed unwillingly and return our bodies to the wisdom of the wild.
Close your eyes now and come back into the body.
Take a few mindful breaths and feel yourself settle into this body that has been shaped to move and feel the way it does by abundantly wild landscapes.
Roll your neck gently up and down.
Open and close your palms or bend your arms a little.
Rotate your ankles or even stretch from side to side from your waist,
Just feeling what these bends in the body were made for.
Come still again and use your senses to connect you further to your natural perceptions.
What can you smell?
Can you sense the energy in this room,
Whether it is light or heavy?
Cold or warm?
Is there any kind of threat in your vicinity?
Take a deep breath all the way into the belly and release through the mouth now.
I would like you to imagine that you are barefooted and walking through a soft meadow filled with poppies and yarrow,
Wild grass and daisies.
It looks like a tapestry of patchwork in bloom and it smells of sweet earth.
Renowned and then,
You notice the small wing of a butterfly snap open and then flutter off.
You are on your way into the mountain's forests,
Where you will sleep by an open fire under the stars.
Your body is at peace,
Rested in harmony,
Walking gently across this meadow and towards the foothills.
Every footstep feels like a conversation with the earth,
Like a connection being made with the divine.
You can smell the warm pine air rolling in towards you and the sun's lingering warmth rests upon your face,
Even as it begins to set over the mountain's ridge.
Suddenly you find yourself standing at the start of a black road that leads directly to the foothills.
Unlike the meandering slopes you have been walking on,
This road looks quicker and that means you can get to your camp before dark.
But this road is covered in broken gravel and black granite shards.
As soon as you step onto it,
It cuts your feet and so you shift your weight so you can walk upon it,
Hobbling a little,
Walking on the balls of your feet to save your heels for a while.
It feels painful to take this road.
It's slower even though you know where you're going.
It feels restricting even though you can see your way ahead.
Every step is agonizing and the body begins to respond to this pain by bending over a little,
Pinching at the shoulders,
Clenching the palms and tightening the jaw.
What in your life makes you feel this way?
In what part of your life do you feel like you have to walk the paved but splintered road rather than the wild and open field?
Could it be that this road represents your silence,
Your inability to speak your needs?
Or is it your job?
Or your role as a parent?
Is it that part of you that needs to please others?
What part of you is being censored by yourself or your culture?
This road represents an unbearable limitation that has been created in your life.
And instead of stepping off,
You find a pair of shoes beside you.
And so you sit down on the cracked road and put them on.
They are far too small,
But you squeeze them on anyway,
Folding your toes over on themselves just to squeeze them on.
You stand upright and begin to walk again.
These shoes save your feet from being torn by the road,
But they are even more painful to wear.
It's almost impossible to take a step because they cripple your feet with every movement.
There cannot be a connection felt in this state,
No speaking to your environment when you are just concentrating on taking the next step.
These shoes represent how we all tend to face our limitations.
We tend to cover them with something even more destructive and disconnective like anger or self-hate or self-judgment.
They represent something we do to ourselves in order not to feel the cage that is this sharp and splintered road.
What do you do to yourself when you feel unable to express yourself naturally and in a way that is most authentic to you?
What do you cover yourself with in order to make this censorship bearable,
Even though it tends to hurt you more?
Notice how it feels to live in this body,
Not only walking an oppressive path,
But in shoes too small to ever feel free in.
What can be manifested from this kind of body that is never truly at ease?
How does this body meet the world and anyone that passes by?
How much energy is spent on just trying to make yourself comfortable instead of looking up?
It is time to rewild yourself,
To reclaim your deep need to walk your life barefooted.
Imagine untying these shoes and removing your feet from them,
And then stepping off this jagged road and onto the soft grass.
Feel with all your senses what it feels like to free not only your feet,
But the entire body from this restrictive path.
As you stand here with your feet unbound,
Walking the path towards the unknown,
There is a sense of deep inner bliss and ease.
The daisies below your feet grow between the gaps of your toes,
And feather grass wisps itself around your ankles.
You walk onwards towards the trees,
Your lungs filling once more with warm air,
And a syrupy smell of pine needles brushes over you.
The black and rocky road is still there,
As it will always be.
It will always call you to walk its faster,
Seemingly easier,
Straight path towards the mountain.
It will always call you by showing you others that are taking its path and getting to their destination quicker.
It might even lure you fancier shoes to make that walk a little more bearable,
But they will always feel too small for your wild and wandering feet.
The more you focus on your wilder meadow,
The more that rough road will be taken over by its surrounding nature.
Soon,
You might not even be able to see it through the tall grass.
Keep walking,
Even as the night falls.
Keep walking this wild and meandering path.
The less you interfere with this inner landscape,
The more you will learn about it.
So listen to the night owl,
To the wolves that have now returned from their exile.
Watch how your body falls into a natural attunement with these calls and inner guides.
You leave the meadow behind now,
And into the deep and beautiful forest you go.
Quickly breathe in the last light of this night,
And follow the smoke towards your camp ahead.
You can now open your eyes.
Your body is already wild,
Dear one,
In whatever shape or form it is,
It longs to express itself in alignment with its deeper and undomesticated needs.
Rewilding yourself begins small,
By simply noticing where you are paving over yourself in order to fit in or comply with standards that keep you convenient.
It begins by asking yourself what areas in your body and in your life do the wolves need to return to,
Or which part of you is being over farmed and famished by the hands of other people's opinions and desires.
When you start to remove yourself from those trained roles,
Thought patterns or compliances,
Your wild will naturally overgrow into those open spaces.
If you wish to free your voice,
Begin by taking off those two small shoes of self-judgment,
And then listen to the wolves of empowerment begin to howl again.
If you wish to free yourself from loneliness,
Begin by taking off the two small shoes that keep you separate and then smell the smoke fires being burned for you.
All that is left up to the unrestricted nature within you will free you.
So re-wild yourself,
Even if it's just a small patch at first.
Let yourself grow over and spill into corners that have missed the shape of your soft animal body.
Start small,
Just one step at a time,
And let your natural instincts grow unhampered by external influences.
And remember that your wild and bare feet have never been the problem.
You just needed a different place to walk.
