We need a spiritual and cultural transformation...

 ‘We need a spiritual and cultural transformation’, said founder of the World Resource Institute, Gus Speth, ‘And we scientists don’t know how to do that.’  Maybe scientist don’t but it’s possible that WO/MEN who’ve reconnected with WILD WAYS do? 

What does it mean to return to Wild Ways?  What are the implications for future generations and our 

planet if we choose to live this way?  

My blog is a search for answers to these questions.  It’s also about my quest to live WILD WAYS 

‘being in nature’ in a small, stone cottage in rural France, my practice of creative writing, mindful dance, yoga and the people I’ve met along the way.  

Welcome to the first post on this journey...

To live WILD WAYS we need to rewild which is not about going back in time, it’s more about being in touch with the intuitive part of ourselves, our primal natures, by reconnecting with the natural world and the rhythms of the seasons.  It involves ‘taking care of the land’. (Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Kimmerer, p. p9.) rekindling a respect for the planet, wishing to become part of its stories, mysticism, enchantment, ancestors and memories. 

Many women are in touch with their roots through myths, symbols, ceremonies, rituals, making pilgrimages to sacred spaces to reconnect with goddesses and holy places.  

I’ve been on journeys too, many memorable: Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland and The Chalice Well in Glastonbury, with the amazing yoga teacher: Jill Amison.  Who shares her practice so generously inviting us to unlock our potential with myths, ritual and sacred practice by singing and fashioning crafts, as well as yoga and meditation.  I’ve been to lots of Jill’s workshops, meeting lovely women: Issy, Lesley, Marie, sharing our journey, leaving inspired and enriched by the experience.  We are members of a Wild Woman Moon Circle.  And have ventured to Wales and the Peak District, thriving in the landscape.  

I’ve also rewilded with Francesca and Andrew at Casale Pundarika in Tuscany, spending silent time, practising yoga and walking in the wood early morning.  Sadly, not hearing any songbirds due to poaching!  

What incites people to poach songbirds, destroying ecosystems?  

We’re living through bewildering times.  Post-truth, fake-news, political unrest, angst about social media, climate change and the meaninglessness of celebrity and consumer culture.  Many eople are uprooted, displaced, homeless. We’re worrying about our carbon print but travelling all over the world anyway.  Ticking places off our bucket list: Cuba, India, Peru, Thailand: Been There, Done That, Got The T Shirt. Wherever we go leaving rubbish and waste.  Gorging on fast-food living at a fast pace, addicted to gadgets, exploiting the Earth’s resources, polluting our oceans with plastic. 

As the Pulitzer-winning author of eco-novel The Overstory , a novel which explores questions of activism and conservation, says ‘We’re at this watershed moment where our destruction of biodiversity and old ecosystems is accelerating.  At the same time, it’s also clear to anyone who’s paying attention, that we’re in a moment of slowly transforming consciousness.  What’s not clear is 

whether that moment has a chance of becoming more than a moment, whether we are now moving towards a new relationship with the neighbours with whom we share the planet.’ 

(Observer, 12^th May, 2019)

I’d like to think that by returning to Wild Ways, becoming guardians of the land, rediscovering the mysticism, magic and sacredness of our living planet, enjoying its stories, practising rituals, ceremonies and our creativity, this transformation of consciousness ‘has a chance of becoming more than a moment’.