"Wild is..." - A Prologue

"Wild therapy... is an attitude of mind, rather than a bag of tricks, and this may express itself in a great variety of ways, including sitting in a room and talking" - Nick Totton.

It’s a mistake to assume wild therapy is simply an outdoor practice. Sometimes it unfolds beneath open skies, but just as often it arises in unexpected places. The ‘wild’ in this modality is far richer than location. It resists being defined or contained.

During my training, I began exploring how the wild revealed itself to me. What I discovered wasn’t a definition, but a doorway, an opening into something fluid, unpredictable, alive. In a session, you might encounter elements of this wildness, or perhaps none at all. The story is yours to write... the chapters belong to you. So here I begin. This is an open invitation to wonder alongside me... what is WILD ?

PART ONE

After wandering the city streets and carrying the wild into the seeming confines of indoor spaces, I let my red ink spill across the page, tracing the stirrings of tension, release, and restless energy.

WILD IS ...

The unravelling of what has become domesticated.

Taking risks to see what else is there.

Edges... the places we feel discomfort, fear, avoidance, deep sadness.

The things we never allow ourselves to say, speak of, take up, try, do, become... but want to.

Something layered with interpretations.

Disruptive.

A person disrupting public space.

Not doing as told, according to your own self limiting belief.

A container for knowing yourself more deeply.

The facilitator of more meaningful connections, with yourself, others, and the world around.

Deeply personal.

A unique relationship within every individual.

Within us and outside of us.

A part of us.

An attitude towards living.

Culturally and socially inscribed.

Seen through the eyes of the individual... and the collective.

Shaped by personal experience and encounter.

The attempt to unshackle oneself from expectations and norms.

A calling.

Multispecies - human, more-then-human, and other-than-human.

A sensory and embodied experience.

Being seen, held, and witnessed.

Being open to surprise.

Getting comfortable with the unknown.

Diving deeper.

Finding new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing.

Knowing where you begin and end, but sensing the tendrils of connection.

The frustrated friend of tame.

For everyone.

A choice.

An attitude.

A way of moving through the world.

Speaking to me daily but sometimes feels subdued.

Where I am not alone.

An invitation.

Inconvenient.

A river that flows inside you.

Nothing without the rest.

Searching for what you need, and finding it being met.

Naturally supportive.

A provocation.

A disturbance.

Hard to ignore.

The place of re-storying who we are and the life we lead.

What is important and what is not.

Yearned for yet often abandoned.

Not just somewhere out there, but cultivated within.

Preserving what is most needed.

Is both quietly curled inwards and loudly expressed outward.

A continuum not a polarity.

Ageless yet ageing.

What emerges between the cracks.

Is about what we give ourselves permission to do and be.

The spaces we keep of limits.

Taking unknown journeys and pathways not knowing where they'll lead.

Letting go of control.

Listening deeply.

Where I go when I am desperate.

A place of refuge for my weary bones.

The friend I have known the longest.

The mountains, forests, rivers, and cities.

No stone left unturned.

For the brave and the courageous.

The endurance to continue.

PART TWO

After a day long sit spot in a lush valley by the river, words tumbled out again, carried on the gentle gurgle of water and the hush of leaves, stirred by the rumbling in my belly and the deep, ungraspable sense that wild therapy is far vaster than I had first imagined... alive, unpredictable, and flowing... through both concrete streets and untamed landscapes alike.

WILD IS...

Seeing and being seen, knowingly or not, by a multispecies plethora of beings.

It is the knowing of the time from the movement of the sun across the land. From the shadows of the morning where the molluscs munch in shade, to the midday sun where flies coalesce just above the water's seal, to the sacred chorus of dusk which rises as night draws in, quietened then by the owl, whose still half-living meal, screeches under the moon.

Howling whether you think you can or you can't, the sound of your voice uncensored and exposed... as you are... bringing all of yourself.

The remembrance of that long forgotten song, summoned from the depths of a time gone by.

The resurgence of a you that once danced by your side, held your hand in hard times... you know the one.

Endings that are tended, not left to bleed out, still messy, but held with care and thought.

Finding magic in the mundane, small miracles, the taste of wood sorrel, and primrose. Delicate beauties carried inside.

A world of fairies, where Tinkerbells flicker beside the ancient fae, the bright and the terrible, all born of the Dark Mother.

The violent eversion of the buccal mass, the held in tension, the urgent surge, the expulsion, and the slow return to form.

The heady dance of ceremony and ritual, where energy plays tricks, pulls the ground from beneath you feet.

The steady call of Earth reminding you where you stand.

The whisper beneath it all.

Waiting.

Always waiting for your return.