A Note on Personal Rewilding
The term personal rewilding has not yet been formally defined, but will be described here as a reformation of self and realignment towards the natural processes of Earth with the intention of cultivating relationships with other-than-human-life (Hardin, 2001; Fisher, 2013; Snyder, 1990). This “re-inhabitation of original form” (Taylor, 2008) represents a call to restore relationship to not only the lands, but our own ecology, recognizing that humans are inherently embedded in nature.
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (Taylor, 2008) describes personal rewilding as “mending our individual ecologies, the connections between our bodies and souls, hearts and minds… learning to express every aspect of our essential native selves… a finding balance in our lives, and in our relationships to the more-than-human world” (p. 1). Personal rewilding is a re-formation: the act of simply being. The process begins with a re-immersing of self in the sensorial field while engaging with the environment, and nurturing present moment awareness. The senses offer a pathway into our internal ecology and our primal mind, restoring awe, and nurturing relationship to the environment.
Not only is the rewilded person more present, aware, resourceful, and engaged in lived experience, but they also harness an ignited sense of responsiveness to the natural world. For hundreds of thousands of years humans lived interwoven with the rhythmic elements of wild Earth, and it is suggested that humans were “blissfully” engaged in the sensorial field when they were not hungry or being actively preyed upon (Ives, et al. 2018). Humans once were natural elements of a well-functioning whole, and a part of the natural rhythms of life.
