Pine Siskins are all around our home, at least two hundred of them. We have multiple feeders set up and these magical birds abound. Interspersed within them are Evening Grosbeak, various Chickadee species, and the occasional Stellar Jay. Every so often, a brave squirrel darts overhead on close by branches, attempting to reach the far-hung seed.

I find myself so enraptured by them all. In the morning, as I sit on the south deck for my meditation, I cannot help but be with their wild aliveness, their wing-ed way of moving on and off the feeder, in and out of the branches, all the while a togetherness as flock but each a solo actor in the dance.

Time in a wilderness environment can often return us to our embodied way of being alive (Williams, 2019). The weather, the landscape, the wild ones, the way the water moves, all become aspects of aliveness which call to and echo outward the depth of our vibrant animal bodies and transpersonal potentials.

One particular way of being in the wilderness is to take an intentional walk, what some have called a soul walk, or a medicine walk, or a day Quest. Stories of sacred and intentional walks in nature show up across many threads of our culture, current and historical. As Williams (2019) said, "In wilderness, time is not measured in money but in miles, in the hours spent walking on a trail. The wealth of a day in wildness is measured in increments of awe" (p. 40). Such embodied time of cultivated solitude can be a salve for the hectic busyness of modernity.

Alchemy of Prana guides often invite participants to spend solo time in nature, to take a soul walk. While this might seem difficult, in fact, it can be explained quite easy and done almost anywhere.

The basic steps are as follows: 

• pack a small daypack with anything you might need (e.g., the ten essentials, layers, rain/sun protection, at least 1L of water, etc.)

• set aside at least a few hours, and let someone know where you are going

• commit to the three taboos: go empty, alone, and exposed (no food, no company, no shelter)

• if possible, consider going to a less urban, more wilderness-like setting

• make a threshold: this is a physical marker on the earth which you can use to mark your entry and exit from the liminal time

• suspend disbelief: intentionally step beyond the hypervigilant world of structure and form and invite in an openness

• consider a question or intention of what you are going to walk with

• step through the threshold and into a soul walk (which almost always includes sitting, lying down, smelling the trees and flowers, skipping rocks in the water, climbing a tree, talking with birds or animals, and so forth, and could also include swimming, canoeing, skiing, or any other outdoor immersive wilderness experience)

• return, a crucial step! at the return, step back through and close the threshold

• if possible, share your story with a dear friend or intimate

  
  

In their 1989 seminal book on rites of passage, Foster and Little articulated that an intentional, ceremonial walk in and with nature can be a "microcosmic life story (p. 38). This walk becomes a mirror for the initiate (p. 38). Signs and symbols are often everywhere (p. 38). The expansion of the walker's awareness is vast, and the invitation is to also notice how nature notices you (Foster & Little, 1992, p. 35). In many ways, this reciprocal engagement with the more-than-human world is paramount.

This intentional time is less about an objective, less about the walking, and more about opening toward the vastness of the lifeworld, taking time with whatever arises. Spending time like this—even if the terrain available is only a city park or a small yard—can open in us a return to a less structured way of being and knowing existence.

The incorporation of nature and wilderness-based practices within various fields of psychotherapy—what is now labeled collectively as eco-therapies—is burgeoning, including intentional walking, sitting, talking, and other varied explorations in wild landscapes. However, as ecopsychological scholar Dobud (2021) explained, "ecotherapy is not just using nature in therapy" (p. 35). Such a foundational understanding is crucial so that we, as participants and practitioners, do not unconsciously reenact a paradigm of anthropocentric and human exceptionalist thinking.

As I sit these spring mornings, watching these birds dance in their play, I see them seeing me. After a while, as I am still, they come closer. Some brave ones even dare to come right up close to me and into the large clay bird bath that is just feet away. I whistle to them, and they tilt their heads, curious.

One thing to remember is to talk to the animals. If you do, they will talk

back to you. But if you don’t talk to the animals, they won’t talk back to

you, then you won’t understand, and when you don’t understand you will

fear, and when you fear you will destroy the animals, and if you destroy the

animals, you will destroy yourself.

Cree speaker, attributed to Chief Dan George (Nelson & Shilling, 2018, p. 189).

These are my morning walks, though often I am sitting. At other times, I take that step into the threshold, and then I am just walking, my tracks being laid like those I can see in the now dry mud: a community of feet, crossing in time, on earth, in life. That feels like natural magic, potent and refreshing.

The question invites me on, beyond any answer, and into the return of my wild animal soul.

Enjoying these? Please drop us a line and let us know.

And/or please sign up for our occasional newsletter at the bottom of this page :)

In kindness, tbird

References

Delaney, M. E. (2021). Ecopsychological approaches to therapy. In N. J. Harper, & W. W. Dobud, (Eds.), Outdoor therapies: An introduction to practices, possibilities, and critical perspectives (pp. 30–41). Routledge.

Foster, S., & Little, M. (1989). The roaring of the sacred river: The wilderness quest for vision and self-healing. Prentice Hall Press.

Foster, S., & Little, M. (1992). The book of the vision quest: Personal transformation in the wilderness (Rev. ed.). Fireside.

Nelson, M. K., & Shilling, D. (2018). Traditional ecological knowledge: Learning from Indigenous practices for environmental sustainability. Cambridge University Press.

Williams, T. T. (2019). Erosion: essays of undoing. Picador.