What if the seasons told a story of belonging?
“It's all a question of story.”
~Thomas Berry
Where did the relationship break between humanity and the living world? Somewhere along the way, the stories we told ourselves changed.
The ancient stories our ancestors knew—stories that understood our wholeness as bound to the wild world—were replaced by tales of separation and superiority. The Judaeo-Christian creation story, when interpreted through dominance rather than kinship, led to a model of stewardship rooted in hierarchy. This Great Forgetting severed our sense of belonging and birthed a culture of control and extraction.
Two Sacred Stories
Within the Celtic stream of Christian spirituality, another story has always been told: that there are two sacred texts. One is written in Scripture. The other is written in Creation itself. Both reveal the Divine; both are sacred. The natural world is not inert—it is divine revelation, alive with holy wisdom, waiting to be read by those willing to see.
Sacred Phenomenology & Bioregional Belonging
To know our place within this sacred milieu is to practice sacred phenomenology—to attune to the presence of the Divine as it manifests through the living landscape. It is to practice presence within our sacred bioregions, a relationship with what poet Gary Snyder called the “Spirit of a Place.” As John Philip Newell writes, God percolates up from beneath the surface of things. We come to know the Divine within a place by coming to know our bioregion—the land, waters, winds, and beings that sustain us.
The stories we tell dictate whether we will be in solidarity with the land, or in separation from it. Mythologist Sharon Blackie reminds us, “When we lose our relationship with the land and the other creatures around us, then in the deepest sense, we lose ourselves.” This loss lives not only around us but within us. Our inner landscapes—our soulscapes—bear the same wounds of separation from which our natural and more-than-human world suffers.
Rewilding the Soulscape
To rewild the soulscape is, at its heart, an act of remembering—remembering that wildness is not something outside of us but something that lives within. It is to recall that we are not separate from the world, but deeply woven into its living fabric; that our own unfolding, our becoming, is intertwined with the becoming of the Earth itself. To rewild is to remember and return to this truth of this sacred and ecological belonging, to the pulse of life that moves through all things, including us.
The Practice of Remembering
We can practices this remembrance through ritual, story, and the sacred rhythms of nature. We listen for the mythic voice of Earth, mark the turning of the seasons, and participate in rituals of belonging that root us in place. Through sacred phenology—the practice of attuning to the outer and inner seasons—we cultivate a profound sense of emplacement.
Each season offers its own storied teaching:
the fertility of spring,
the fullness of summer,
the harvest of autumn,
the rest of winter.
Through these cycles, we learn to live the story-codes of wisdom hidden in the natural world. We grow in solidarity with Creation—a kinship that reveals connections once unseen and opens our hearts to the shared flourishing of all beings.
Why Knowing Your Place Matters
Knowing your place reweaves the torn fabric of belonging. It restores the sacred relationship between soul and soil, human and holy, story and Earth. It reminds us that our lives are chapters in a far older story—the story of a living world that longs to be remembered. Let's remember this story together.
What does “rewilding the soulscape” mean?
Rewilding the soulscape is the inner work of remembering our ecological belonging. It reconnects us to the wildness within and restores our relationship with the living Earth. It draws from the ecological rewilding project where conservation of wild places requires the re-introduction of alpha predators, the removal of dams, and the creation of land bridges. If we can restore (“rewild”) ecologic systems through these mitigations, and if the outer world is a mirror to our inner soulscape, then so too could our souls benefit from welcoming in the Wolf; allowing our spiritual watersheds to flow freely; and to restore ways for our wildness to roam across the cultivated areas of our lives.
What is sacred phenomenology?
Sacred phenomenology is the practice of attuning to the Divine as it reveals itself through the land, seasons, waters, and beings of our bioregion. It understands that through the seasonal round of the year we are being offered divine wisdom and sacred presence.
How does Celtic spirituality view the natural world?
Celtic spirituality teaches that Creation is a sacred text—alive, animate, and filled with Divine presence. Earth is a source of revelation and wisdom. It’s through this spiritual stream that we are able to reconnect to an indigenous and earth-based spirituality that honors all of creation as sacred.
Why do stories matter in spiritual ecology?
Stories shape our perception of belonging. Ancient tales rooted in the land remind us of our kinship with the natural world and help repair the rupture between humans and Earth. These stories tell us how to restore the wasteland, the mythic result of when we break relationship with the wild ones. Reconnecting to myths and stories is a form of restoration (re-story-ation).
Join the 2026 cohort: A 12-month learning journey to gain meaning & mystery through the Earth’s rhythms, sacred phenology, applied mythology, eco-spirituality, and the power of the feminine circle. The course runs from January 2026-December 2026. 12-Month Payment Plan: Payments start at registration and continue for 11 consecutive months. Your plan may finish before the course ends, depending on your registration date.