The Lost Names of God: A Solstice Reflection

I come to this pinnacle of the solar year, this hot and heightened sun, with a posture of vigilance, a stance that might not be all too surprising given our times, but one that is consternating all the same. Already in our Pacific Northwest part of the world, the fires are burning. Smoke cloaks the sun's intensifying rays, amplifying the heat. Seattle's urban streets are buckling under the sweltering strain. Gun violence is already intensifying (the corollary between inescapable urban heat and social tensions is a studied reality). While children may be enacting the summer rituals of swimming and sandal-wearing, there is a sense that the adults are diligently looking over their shoulder, or even up at the smoke-filled sky, discerning when to return to the relative refuge of home.

Not the picture that you might have expected to kick off this quarterly newsletter offering, I'm sure. And not one that I necessarily want to write about either, and yet.... And yet, it speaks to the grief that I know I am not alone in experiencing as each consecutive season brings with it more suffering change, so markedly different than the perception of the assured rhythmic seasonal changes in which I grew up. And yet, even that which I knew was its own iteration of shifting environmental degradation that had become its own version of an accepted and normative existence. This psychological and sociological phenomenon is termed shifting baseline syndrome (SBS), which is increasingly recognized as one of the fundamental obstacles to addressing a wide range of today’s global environmental issues. When one forgets over the course of a couple years, decades, or generation what once was, or who once was, it becomes near impossible to advocate for those places, people, or other remarkable forms of existence. Do you remember the Passenger Pigeon? Probably not, and if you know about its one time form of life, its likely you don't stand around missing it.

We are a forgetful and fickle species, us humans, and if we continue to not remember, we will end up forgetting what has been lost. But even in our forgetfulness, there is something deeper still that remains, a cellular memory that longs for what once was; a longing for a home that no longer exists.

While working at the University of Newcastle in Australia, ecophilosopher Glenn Albrecht coined a word that seeks to describe this feeling. 'Solastalgia’ – a gladstone of the words ‘solace’ and ‘nostalgia’ – is used not just in academia but more widely, in clinical psychology and health policy in Australia, as well as by US researchers looking into the effects of wildfires in California. It describes the feeling of distress associated with environmental change close to your home, and speaks to growing unease around what this loss portends for the future of all life on our planet. 

The magnitude, rate, and extent of the changes that humans have made to the Earth’s more-than-human world are hard to grasp. What is easier to grasp is the idea that it has always been this way. And yet, we find that we are awaiting the fist summer sight of the Monarch butterfly flitting through the wasting away Sword ferns, but the waiting is endless; or we realize that the ache in our eyes is do to the relentless searching for the nesting pair of Red tail hawk that have been in the Big leaf maple down the hill for twenty years...but they are no longer there. The solace found within the dynamic constancies of one's environment is waning as the "lived experience of negatively perceived environmental change to one's 'sense of place' and existential well-being is increasing" (Glenn Albrecht Murdoch, 2010).

The human caused degradation to our home planet is causing massive species extinction. Indeed, we are within the Anthropocene Extinction, or the sixth mass extinction, which is one of the most significant events in the history of the Earth. Every day there are unique and particular life forms that are closing their eyes to the hope of a future. And with each eye lid shuttering, I would maintain that we are losing embodiments of the sacred. Every species that becomes extinct is a lost name, and form, of God.

Ecotheologian Sallie MacFague's seminal work has been around our metaphoric language and symbols used to describe and define the divine. In our era of global heating and climate catastrophe, she urges us away from metaphors that describe God as separate from the world and creation--words and resulting paradigms related to monarchy, kingdoms, hierarchies, dominions, etc. Instead, she advocates for the mindset shifting metaphor of seeing the Earth as the Body of God. Sit with that for a moment. The Earth: The Body of God. How does this land with you? If we lived within this worldview, how would it change how we are presenced upon this planet? This understands the world, and its host of wild and wonder-filled life, as sacred, every aspect and being a numinous element. So when the Passenger Pigeon, Monarch, and Red tailed hawk no longer exist in the air, or when the Salish Sea resident Orca population rings the death knoll at the brink of their extinction, we are literally witnessing a diocide, the killing of God.

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What do you do when you lose something? You ponder its whereabouts, and then go out to look for it, and sometimes you end up recovering that which was lost in places that surprise you. We have lost the knowing that the earth is sacred, that we are surrounded by hallowed presences who bear witness to our lives, as well as express their own inherent divine qualities. Grief is a handmaiden to loss. Studies show that within the realm of environmental grief and anxiety, practicing nature-based rituals and ceremony can help one be resilient in these grief-filled seasons, and be a way to respond to feelings like solestagia.

Seek through the practice of ceremony. Find a recovered and reconnected way of understanding that the holy is Here. And hope beyond hope, may your ceremonial search yield the surprise of the divine ground of being that is within your particular place.

May something within this Summer season whisper to you, beseech and beguile you, rooting you deeper into the places you call home. Or perhaps you haven't yet found your way home, and this is why you are here. May you be invited into a ceremonious way of living that seeks to recover the sacred within the wild.

Waymarkers' mission is to bear witness and act as a guide to your journey, to your rooting and to your rising, and to your pilgrimage journey of belonging to this wonder-filled and wild world. May the wisdom-seeds that were planted this past Spring be about the critical work of differentiation and particularity. May that they become the wild and precious fruit that only you can bear and bring to the world. May something in the potent summer heat and long, light days ripen in you your purpose and your belonging. May that the sun, present and demanding, remind you that it is time to become; for it is now time to allow Summer's heat to transform the seed into an offering. And in this work, may you observe and be guided by waymarkers~ones from the wild who will accompany and apprentice you, reminding you of the way back to the belonging we have within the sacred reality that we live within an ensouled world.

God on a Wing: Winter Rewilding Nature Altar

Our family keeps a nature altar, a way to not only bring the out-doors in, but to also attune our senses to the phases of the seasons, the beauty of the natural world, and as a portal to the deep wisdom that resides in the wild. This sacred space has taken up various iterations in the years we have done this practice. When the household was generally filled with very little people, these silks were piled high with sticks and stones; every item outside was a treasure and little hands begged that every one was brought indoors. To an uneducated heart, this space would have looked like a random pile of rocks, but to us it was our Ebenezer. Our collection of nature was our stone of help—a waymarker that provided direction and clarity to our sacred belonging to and with the Earth community. This pile dynamically grew through the year, representing so many different journeys and encounters with awe and wonder.

Now that half of my children have their toes in teen-hood, this space is taking up more thoughtfulness and creativity. Furthermore, we are using this altar to mark our seasonal journey through the Rewilding Wheel. This has given a bit more focus and direction, and invites our family to pay attention to particular theophanies (God-showings) within the natural world.

The Rewilding Wheel is a sacred circuit that seeks to locate the wisdom of universal nature symbols with one’s particular homescape and spiritual formation. By locating the psychospiritual patterns found within the natural world to a particular place, the ancient wisdom inherent in the cardinal directions and elements takes on a practical shape and invites a focused seasonal practice. In this way, the Rewilding Wheel is unique as it invites a sacred process of remembering and recovering relationships within various ecosystems throughout your bioregion. This is a practice of sacred bioregionalism—where the particularity of our place educates our soul and brings us closer to Spirit that resides there as well.

The Rewilding Wheel was developed to be an integration of critical aspects of the cycles and seasons of nature that would bring one into a deep sense of belonging within their particular bio-regions. This is a move from an ego-centric posture on the planet to an eco-centric one where one’s whole identity is rooted and interconnected with all of creation. This posture requires sensory participation and deep paying attention to the phenomena that is going on about one in their surrounding landscapes.

“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”

-Simone Weil

For those of you practicing this sacred circuit, we know that the season of Winter is associated with the cardinal direction of North, the element of Air, and the bioregion of the Mountain or High Place. This is a time of deep darkness that is held in tension with the lightness of breath, bound to the found-wisdom that is associated with mountain tops and high places. A symbol for this season is that of the bird, a being who rides the wind currents and alights in high places with ease. This is the season of the work of the Spirit, who breathes inspiration and insight into our souls.

This wheel invites seeing the Sacred with sensuality, an embodiment through the elements that gives form and shape to that which has been traditionally transcendent. The Spirit is air. The Judaeo Christian cosmology tells a story of when God breathes air into the lungs of the first human being (“then the Lord God formed adam from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and adam became a living being”; Genesis 2:7). The Hebrew word for this primordial breath of life (ruach, or pneuma in Greek) also means Spirit. God’s Spirit is God’s breath, signaling the sub stratosphere itself. All that we and all other beings need for survival, is the animating power of the Sacred in our midst—God swirling and whirling around us, making all things live. The research and study of ecotheologian Mark Wallace in his book When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World (2018) looks at how the Spirit is generally figured as a winged animal, a bird. His claim is that within this tradition is an animistic understanding of God, that the divine actually is visible, enfleshed, incarnate even through the more-than-human world. This idea of a winged bird God is something I am meditating on and allowing to work on me in this Winter season. Pair this holy avian form with the mystery of the mountains during these dark and dormant months, and my goodness! There is a treasure trove of wisdom into which to huddle.

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We have been putting together our Winter Nature Altar slowly following Epiphany last week and the closing of the Christmas season. Guiding this practice are the thematic elements found within the Rewilding Wheel. We have all been making these stone feathers—what a fun way to play with the form of mountain and air!—and wanted to share this seasonal altar craft with you.

I’m grateful to the artist Marisa Redondo for this inspiration within the pages of Nature Art Workshop (Quarto Publishing Group, 2018). This was the seasonal wild-craft offered to registrants of the Winter Rewilding Retreat as well. Such beautiful stone feathers were created!

This simple stone design reminds us of the primordial presence of the mountains and high places in our bioregion, and how this location is often associated with wise-people and sages. Pairing it with the intricate beauty of the feather is a mediation on God as a feathered bird and the belief that all beings, including more-than-human animals, are imbued with divine presence.

Feather Stones

1. Go outside and find a rock that seems to speak to you. Ask the rock permission to take it home. This is a great reason to intentionally go out to the mountains or local high place to find a rock or stone!

2. Gather your materials: stones, craft paints, matte varnish, paint brushes and paint pallet. We chose white, light blue, light green and a gorgeous gold (a precious element found deep within mountains!) for our paints and love the use of wax paper for our palette. While you work, listen for birdsong outside your window, or the sound of the wind in the trees. See this as a sacred presence around you while you create this item for your seasonal altar.

3. Apply a thin and even layer of varnish to your rock. Once dry, paint a thin line centered on your rock with a small round paintbrush.

4. Paint a feather tuft outline around the centerline.

5. Paint V-shaped lines to divide the feather into sections.

6. Fill the tip of your feather with fine lines.

7. Create a triangular shape within the feather by painting two lines in each section.

8. Fill the area outside the triangles with fine, feather-like lines.

9. Add dots or embellishments along triangular border.

White-Eyes

BY MARY OLIVER

In winter

    all the singing is in

         the tops of the trees

             where the wind-bird

with its white eyes

    shoves and pushes

         among the branches.

             Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,

    but he's restless—

         he has an idea,

             and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings

    as long as he stays awake.

         But his big, round music, after all,

             is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.

    In the pine-crown

         he makes his nest,

             he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,

    I only imagine his glittering beak

         tucked in a white wing

             while the clouds—

which he has summoned

    from the north—

         which he has taught

             to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall

    into the world below

         like stars, or the feathers

               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,

    that is asleep now, and silent—

         that has turned itself

             into snow.

My Rewilding Year

The past four seasons have been an intentional journey of re-membering—rewilding—myself to my bioregion and to the landscapes that create my home. This has been a year of sacred eco-awakening, a reconnecting to an integral communion with the sacred wild. Through a practice with the Rewilding Wheel, I have intentionally sought after relationships and wisdom inherent in the energetic associations between seasons, directions, and elements within a particular bioregion. The scientific world would describe a bioregion as a region defined by characteristics of the natural environment. I like poet and environmental writer Gary Snyder’s understanding of a bioregional consciousness much better—a bioregion is a “spirit of a place.”

When one is actively engaged in relationship with their local landscapes, there is a profound connection to the spirit of that place.

This is beyond the scope of relational recreation (although recreation and play are critical aspects of relational development). I am talking about sensing into a place so deeply that you encounter the Sacred, almost like the experience of digging for a well and finding the wellspring. Soon after beginning this practice of attunement and bioregional apprenticeship, I began to form a core question that stayed with me the whole round of the year. Essentially, I had to recover the answer to the intersectional question of whether I had access to the spirit of a place. As a white woman with settler ancestry, did I have admission to the depths of spirit that resided within my bioregion? Could I dig deep, root deep, and find the Sacred Well-spring that I sensed was present in the very ecosystem of my homescape?

Last January I was in conversation with Celtic scholar and theologian John Philip Newell about this search for the spirit of a place. In response to the question I carried he replied with a perspective that was enormously helpful and wise. He said that “the Spirit of God is like a subterranean stream that percolates up in particularity.” John Philip would understand that one’s bioregion is evidence of this divine particularity and further evidenced by the vast diversity of human and more-than-human life that emerges from particular bioregions. Furthermore, and in answer to my question, he said yes, I have access to that Spirit, for it is the same Spirit that I have come to know in a particular way through my faith tradition, but this invites an engagement with local understandings, stories, and myths that understand the Sacred through again, the particularity of a bioregion.

Good answer, right? Indeed yes and that wisdom carried me around the wheel and through the seasons. And then I had the opportunity to bring this question to another wise elder. You might remember that I spent a few days this past summer at Eloheh Farm with Randy and Edith Woodley. Over the most hospitable cup of never-ending coffee one morning, Randy asked me directly why I had come to see him, why I had come to the land he co-sustained. I brought my question about accessing the depth of a spirit of a place and my thoughts around sacred-bioregionalism.

I was preparing for a dissertation of wisdom that would take days to talk around and through. I received it, but in a word and with the promise that this will take the whole of my life to unpack. Permission.

Permission. Had I asked permission to have that access? Had I asked permission from the land, from the bioregion into the spirit of its place? Had I asked the original inhabitants of the land permission to tap into this deep and sacred soil? Permission.

Permission is the fundamental posture of a practice of sacred-bioregionalism, and it is one that is counter and contrary to the Western mind. It is a humble and vulnerable posture as it assumes that the other has the right to answer, and perhaps contrary to your hope. It is a question that is opposed to the self-entitled position of steward, a role and effort heralded by the Western (especially Christian) mind; a steward doesn’t ask permission but one who is in solidarity does. What would happen if we asked the resident orca whales of the Salish Sea permission to dam the rivers for hydropower, depriving them of the salmon needed for their survival? What if we asked the large marine mammals in the Atlantic permission to allow seismic blasting for oil surveys? What do you think they would say? And how would their response cause you to act and advocate differently? This is the kind of permission-asking that will not only result in the requisite posture shifts to attune to one’s bioregion, to commune with the spirit of a place, but will ensure that the Sacred within and with-out this holy world can continue to speak in full depth into a flourishing future.

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish in the sea inform you.”
-Job 12:7-10

Spring | East | Fire | Forest

Summer | South | Earth | Field/garden

Autumn | west | water | Watershed/sea

Winter | North | Air | Mountain

Spring Rewilding Retreat: Rising Up Rooted Like Trees

In May I went away on my personal Spring Rewilding Retreat out east in the lowland forests of the Cascade Mountain range. This was a set-apart time to lean into Rainer Maria Rilke's wisdom when he said,

“If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.”

What wisdom, what sacred intelligence lay rooted within the soil and with all of the forest community? What guidance might I receive from Creator through the meant-for-ness of this place? This is what I sought after as I made ready for time away in the woods. 

Its important to note that this practice is not just all prayers and serene postures; it is just as much about play! So, with this invitation to play in mind, I found a little treehouse I could book and play I did! Simply climbing up into the holding and nesting branches of the tree that held my lodging reminded me of my child-self. Equal to the wisdom sought in the interconnections of the Spring season; Eastern cardinal direction; and the element of Fire (correspondences which find their alignment within the ancient Celtic tradition), was the curiosity of my child-guide. I have discovered that this internalized version of my girlhood-self has become a guiding voice that speaks to me in the way that she so longed to be spoken to so many years ago. It is her that says, "Climb that tree! It will be fun and you are strong and brave and can do it!" She is also the one that deeply remembers the transformative power of the woods, for she is the one who drank the nourishing milk of the faerie tales and myths and reminds me of their powers. So, I followed her when she excitedly invited me into the transformative power of the trees with the rallying cry, "Into the woods!"

For three days I was immersed within the folds of the forest. I stayed within a little treehouse at Tree House Point. Unbeknownst to me, there is quite a following of this place due to its popularity gained through a reality television series on tree houses. So, when I was asked at registration if I was there because I was a fan of the TV show, I said no, "I'm here on a rewilding retreat!" I think we all were refreshed by new perspectives! In spite of its niche popularity and fan base, this was the perfect location to lean into the glory and magnificence of this particular bioregion.

“The corresponding symbologies that are in play during this Spring season are ones that invite one into their birth and their becoming. Ancient Celtic wisdom associated creativity and new life with Springtime, East and Fire.”

These themes of emergence are strong within the sacred meanings within these associations and invite one into a soulful journey that leaves the hearth and home of the Winter Quadrant; this quadrant is an invitation into the powerful transformational qualities of the forest, the location where all the nature symbols become embodied. This is the landscape where conversion occurs and those childhood faerie stories began to work their magic on me once again. Within their mossy and tendrilled tales were characters who were transformed by the woods and all who they encountered there. I was in need of renewal, the imaginal, the creative force that sparks up new life. Within this forest I would find the flame of sacred inspiration! 

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My treehouse was aptly called "Nest," and here I felt held up high above the forest floor, able to watch and witness life from the overstory. Birds beckoned from within the walls of my small woodland dwelling and without; I was eye to eye with blue jay, robin, wren, and chickadee. Within these walls (and throughout the Spring season) I read, and such glorious writers and works align with this bioregion! John Muir, David Haskell's The Song of Trees, Sean M. Conrey's The Book of Trees, Dr. Qing Li's Forest Bathing (the Japanese art and science of shinrin-yoku), Richard Power's The Overstory, and Peter Wohlleben's amazing work, The Secret Life of Trees all acting as my guides, coming alongside the deep indigenous wisdom that understood the sacredness of trees, affirming their place within cosmologies, with the emerging science that shows how truly intelligent and sentient these beings are. This To the Best of Our Knowledge podcast on The Secret Language of Trees was also a delight I    listened to several times. Other writers were more akin to a soul-guide for me, leading me into my inner-terrain and teaching me how my soulscape would grow from encounters with grief, especially when confronted with ecocidal evidence of colonialization and conquering mentalities and histories. Bill Plotkin, Francis Weller and Mary Reynolds Thompson all offered language to infuse the this landscape with sacred meaning and soulful growth. From this arbored place of learning, reading, and writing I would emerge; descending to the adventure that awaited on the forest floor as I followed the metaphoric crumbs through the woods towards my longing and belonging

“In the forest much is sensed and not always seen.”

— Mary Reynolds Thompson

I took long walks in the woods, these wanderings inviting solitude and aloneness. This time was completely different than being lonely or alienated from everything else. This was a time to allow my senses to tune in to the relationships that surrounded all of me fostering connection. For beneath me was the vast networks of mycelia, roots reaching to form familial connections that pass nourishment, information, and care along. Above me were the family trees: branches and trunks that told of storied and wise mothers, offspring, and the deep desire to be and behold. And all around me was the feeling of literally being transfused with veriditas, the greening power of God. This bioregion began working its deep and rooted truths on me. Within the wooded canopy you stay with questions, not the quick answers. Its not about racing through the trees to a finish line for there is no straight forward way in the woods. These timbered halls echo with the meaning of the journey, offering circuitous paths and passages, the wandering the value, the walking revealing universal truths. An authentic life will not travel the well-worn road traveled by many. Here a different worth is weighed. Eco-spirituality writer Mary Reynolds Thompson talks bout how the forest teaches that "No longer is  expediency, efficiency, and uniformity most prized." Rather, here in the the wild our soul awakens to the creative impulse and power that resides within the Spirit of a place, "a place that thrums and thrives with creativity, authenticity, and diversity." 

Once one begins the journey of wild soul discovery, there is a distinct divergence from popular paths; the trailhead allures and assures of something more, something deeper, something transformative. An authentic life leads to the woods and one's metaphorical red cape and basket of goods for Granny become the very things that ensure radical change. 

Beside all of this vibrancy and evidence of new life there appeared a shadow-side. There was a demand to remember the past that cut and clawed, crushing the indigenous life that flourished here for thousands of years before white European settlers laid their severe and severing claim. Beside every second generation old growth tree was the old growth one that was cut down, viewed only for its value as a resource; seen not as something sacred, but as a storehouse of wealth and power. I felt deep sorrow for the ancient groves that no longer stood and grief for the leveled and logged life, felled by the axe and saw. Hear me well, I did not move through these woods with disdained judgment and pious partisanship. No, this was a tension I held and attempted to stay in. A tension held between two poles, one hand holding the pole of indigenous wisdom and traditions, and the other the pole of Western modernity and capitalist claims of unlimited growth. Between these two places, within this tension, is the high seat of Spirit, that holy presence that can look to the past with discernment and empathic wisdom and to the future with a hope for flourishing and regenerativity. By staying present to both the past and the possibility, I felt I was able to tap into the place, growing roots that tapped into listening to the sacred and holy intelligence of this forestscape, leaning into the historic complexity of the recent history here too. My hope became an enflamed imagination for what this second growth forest could be if allowed to grow undisturbed for 200 years, allowing the tree canopy to grow and increasing in biodiversity. The nurse logs and decaying stumps, while evidence of a slaying, also are the nourishing sites for life!

I traveled through the forest valley, created and carved by the ancient presence of the lower Snoqualmie River, which cascades in a flurry of 276 feet of sacred force known as the Snoqualmie Falls. Snoqualmie Falls is a nationally significant cultural site of great spiritual importance to the Snoqualmie Tribe, whose people traditionally inhabited this valley, hunting wildlife and collecting plants and fish. For the Snoqualmie Tribe (sdukʷalbixʷ), the significance of Snoqualmie Falls can be understood through the cosmological legend of Moon the Transformer. The story was recorded by anthropologist Arthur C. Ballard (1876-1962) in the early 19th century, as related to him by Snoqualmie Charile (sia'txted) (b. ca. 1850). This story was formed from this place, the earth manifesting into language and legend in unique particularity. Confronting the violent history of conquering colonialism comes unbidden as the commercializing of this sacred falls into a utility and recreational source cannot be ignored. This is complex and intersectional, I understand. However, what happens when we strip away the sacredness of the Earth is a removal of personhood, the essence that gives a being rights, voice, and story. I'm not advocating for appropriation of indigenous stories; I am asking that we learn from these stories that percolated up from this landscape. Listening to the numinous within native tales is to give the land its tongue again, and then it is our work to listen and learn from her language. 

“Remember the earth whose skin you are...”

— Joy Harjo

We weren't placed on the earth, we emerged out of the earth. Indigenous cosmologies, creation origin stories, emphasize the interrelatedness between our natality and the nourishing and numinous topographies of Earth. The Hebrew Bible creation story within Genesis chapter two is no different. Even in this indigenous Christian myth there is an explicit connection to humanity being formed of the earth: "then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7 New Revised Standard Version). This is not mere dust, this is humus, the nutrient rich dark soil created when leaf litter (duft) covers a forest floor, creating a thick layer of humus. In addition to the plant material in leaf litter, humus is composed of decaying animals, such as insects, and other organisms, such as mushrooms. These ancient myths capture something of vital importance: the landscape is our ancestor, our kin. Mary Reynolds Thompson says it this way, "Four billion years of Earth's wisdom are embedded in your cells. It is time to awaken to the whole magnificent geography of your soul."

We are formed out of the earth and our bodily composition mirrors the interrelatedness. Not only do our physical forms find mirroring traits and characteristics of the earth, but we discover that these topographies image something of our soul too. Ecotheologian and cultural historian Thomas Berry says, "Beyond our genetic coding, we need to go to the earth, as the source from when we came, and ask for her guidance, for the earth carries the psychic structure as well as the physical form of every living being upon the planet." (Dream of the Earth, 195). There is a psycho-spiritual connection we feel in various landscapes. This resonance informs where we are actually from (our own indigenous heritage); what may be the location of our current soul formation; and it may also inform an inner-landscape that is our actual soulscape, our inner nature that mirrors features of the outer world, or outer nature. Within this sacred and soulful ground is where we and Earth meet, expressing ourselves to one another and offering amplification for one another as well. The forest not only teaches me not only about itself, but even more about me. There is an inherent connection between not only our physical bodies and the earth, but also our psyches. These bioregions restore lost or exiled aspects of ourselves and in the rediscovery of ourselves, in our re-membing of ourselves to Living Earth and the great community of things who make up life on this planet, we begin to participate in restoring the earth as well.

I have discovered that while all Earth's sacred landscapes speak to and through me, I resonate most with the woods. I find I long for the shelter of the woods over the comfort of other bioregions. Within the towering timber I find myself deeply at home, able to express myself in my meant-for-ness. The forest is not just external or extrinsic although I literally love to be in the woods. It is also archetypal. The forest is a place of being lost, finding one's way, roots, emerging strength, creative and nourishing energy, and sometimes (most times) it involves the process of even being found. I have come alongside Dante in the famous opening lines of his "Divine Comedy":                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

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“In the middle of the journey of my life,
I found myself in a dark wood;
for the straight way was lost”

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Forest Rewilding Practices 

Within the 140 pages of the Waymarkers Rewilding Workbook, you will find many invitations to prayers, practices, rites and rituals that will assist in your tuning into the natural world. This sacred setting is no less than our soul's resonance with the natural rhythms and seasonal movements found within the natural world. I find that as every new quadrant of the Rewilding Wheel begins, I am more than ready to learn and lean into the lessons contained within the corresponding bioregion. This Spring I delighted in all things Fire, Forest, and Flowering. It truly felt like the embers of the anima mundi were catching the tinder of the forest duft, sparking my creative imagination and inspiring me to walk into the metaphorical woods, wandering into the mythopoetic text of transformation. There have been many new ideas that have been birthed in this season, sacred life being formed that will begin to take on shape in the requisite work and production time of the Summer quadrant of the Rewilding Wheel. I look forward to sharing these in the season to come!

Following are a few of the personal practices I engaged with to deepen the forest mood in me, and cultivate a daily awareness of how this particular landscape expresses the Holy and becomes a sacred messenger as well. 

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With the sacred symbolism of Fire within this Eastern Springtime quadrant, I wanted to play with fire this season. I engaged the challenge of learning how to make fire with a bow-drill, an ancient fire-starting method that is more about relationship and rhythm than ever even getting a fire started. Again, even in this act, I was learning about how this season and bioregion is about holding the question not rushing towards the answer. My son, an eager and natural carver, willingly assisted me with the creation of the bow-drill. We are grateful to the good folk at Taproot Magazine who provided a very helpful and meaningful tutorial on this practice.  

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A thread that binds together the energy of the Fire and the Forest is found within the idea of inspiration. Forests help the world breath, and they have the capacity to inspire us as well, a word that comes from the Latin spiritus-breath. We use our breath to bring an ember to life and to live as a flame. We talk about a spark lighting up our imagination. Both the imagination and inspiration are the fertile ground in which new ideas emerge, a forest floor full of seed life and nourishing root systems, awaiting the light of the most primal life force, the sun, to awaken it and it bring it into form. Within the forest we witness the universal truth that we rise only when rooted. 

By bringing these seasonal and nature symbologies together into a bioregion, the Rewilding Wheel, the sacred circuit that guides these practices, aims to reroot oneself back into the rhythms, wisdom, and patterns that create this planet and our own flesh, feelings and ways to connect to the Sacred. 

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This past season I loved the sensual experience of cedar. By infusing my lava stone amber necklace every morning with cedar essential oil, I was offering myself the blessings of the trees. This scent carried itself with me all day so no matter where I was, I had an unconscious connection and access to the health benefits of being within the forest. I would even add a drop to my face cream ensuring that I was anointed with this woodland oil!

I also would light a tea candle in my essential oil diffuser (this copper oil diffuser is the one I use daily for my morning rituals), adding cedawood oil while facing East, saying prayers of gratitude for the emergence of a new day and for that great big flaming fire ball that is the origin of all life. It really became a favorite time of the day to gather in my senses and orient them to this season and bioregion and attune my senses to how God speaks through these elements. 

When I  placing the oil within the beads of my necklace or my oil diffuser, I    would offering up this simple prayer:

Creator God who makes yourself known through the tall and resilient strength of the cedar tree, bless to me this day. May my life be like medicine to those who are hurting, nourishment to those who are hungry, and warmth to those who may need shelter and clothing. May I grow rooted in your wisdom, like the cedar grows rooted in the soil, so that I too may rise within your strength. Amen. 

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Drinking delicious cups of fir tip or source tea became another meaningful ritual this past Spring. Bright lime green and tender needles burst with new life and amazing nutrients, truly what my body appeared to be desiring after the cold and dark winter. This cup of liquid vitamin C and electrolytes was medicine for the Coast Salish peoples, and is still enjoyed today for its vibrant characteristics. There are many ways to enjoy fresh fir or spruce tips, but truly mine was in a steaming cup of water with lime and my dad's honey. I am fortunate that I'm able to forage these tips locally within my homescape, and I hope that you too can engage in this practice that demands a knowing relationship with your forest friends. Please do forage responsibly and honorably; do no harvest tips from trees that have been sprayed or treated with herbicides and honorably harvest with a deep sense of gratitude and reciprocity. Take the time to introduce yourself to the tree and express gratitude for the gift of food and medicine she is providing.

You can prepare a hot tea by taking a handful of spring tips per 3-4 cups of boiled water.  Cover and let steep about 10 minutes. Add lime (or even a stick of cinnamon!) and honey to taste. 

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Rewilding as an Act of Remembering

Author, mary dejong, heading west from the mainland across the salish sea on the autumn equinox

When we lose our sense of belonging to the world, our lives can feel empty and meaningless. This hollow feeling is a result of a disconnection from the nature to which we have forgotten we belong. Too many stories and cosmologies have distanced humanity from the very earth from which they were created. Mythologist and psychologist Sharon Blackie states, “…when we lose our relationship with the land and the other creatures around us, then in the deepest sense, we lose ourselves.” Consequently, when we recover our relationship with the land, when our soul-life is nurtured by it, we find our interrelated belonging. A deep sense of responsibility and solidarity is awakened and becomes our primary posture on the planet.

How do we get to this place? The answer resides in ancient categories of thought and perception. This is the stuff of rites and rituals. This is about growing to the edge of life as we know it and discovering that there is a world beyond that wild hedgerow that is drawing us into its feathers, fronds, and fur.

Getting up and moving to the parameters of our life, to the absolute edges, is where we re-engage our senses and re-awaken our souls to our sacred meant-for-ness.

The archetypal framework for this kind of journey is meaningfully conveyed through the ancient practice of pilgrimage, which an embodied quest for the soul, a deep seeking after the self. The rewilding of our inner-soulscapes is a pilgrimage journey of finding ourselves back into a whole relationship with the wilderness. It is a re-framing of a story that told us the cultivated garden is where we should grow, instead of the wild yonder beyond the gate. What is out there in the hinterlands? What story of interrelatedness has been waiting for us beyond the tales that told us to stay put? 

I see rewilding as a process of remembering: remembering that we carry wildness within; remembering that we are related to other plants and animals who inhabit Earth with us; remembering that we are on a common journey upon our common home with the whole of creation.

Rewilding eschews the forward-facing imagination of the frontier, where rugged individualism and plundering dominance are trumpeted. This is a return to the wild, a reconnection to the worshipping assembly of the wild world with whom we belong. Wildness depends on an internal balance for security, its own ecological harmony dependent upon its codependent synergy. We cannot live balanced, whole, and integrated lives if humanity continues to view itself above and over the natural world, attributing value insomuch as it is a resource to support and advance humanity. 

Rewilding wheel retreat weekend on lummi island, wa

While I have loved well my garden and all the growth that has occurred through the process of cultivation and design, I have found in recent years a deep and demanding need to leave the order of the garden, to see it as a threshold inviting me beyond to the forested fringes or the wisdom found within wild waters. I have desired prayers and practices, rites and rituals that would remind my bones that I am related and dependent upon beaver, bluff, and bird, and how their faring becomes a litmus for my own wholeness and wellness. This kind of wholeness, which balances on an ecosystem approach, can only be gained by a journey that takes one deep into the woods, through fields, tracing watersheds to the sea, and climbing up to the high climes of the mountains.

This is a deep dive into the wilderness where storied landscapes offer up wizened myths spoken in the ancient tongue of creation, but which can only be opened with a clever claw, heard with a moth-en'd ear , and spoken with a raven's craw-craw.

And so I responded to the call of the wild and began a journey this past Autumn Equinox that would lead through lands and legends, reminding me of how numinous nature is, that each wave upon the water's surface was a sacred script, writ large with the wisdom of the One who created the assembly of belonging. I began a journey that would take me around my bioregion, reconnecting me to the revelation that rests inherently within these landscapes and watersheds, reminding me of the great community of life of which I am a part.  

The Rewilding Wheel was developed to be an integration of critical aspects of the cycles and seasons of nature that would bring one into a deep sense of belonging within their particular bio-regions. This is a move from an ego-centric posture on the planet to an eco-centric one where one’s whole identity is rooted and interconnected with the lands upon which one lives.

westward facing Labyrinth on Lummi island. Just beyond the LABYRINTH and the fringe forest is the salish sea.

The Rewilding Wheel is a sacred circuit that seeks to locate the wisdom of universal nature symbols within one’s particular homescape and spiritual formation.

By locating the psychospiritual patterns found within the natural world to a particular place, the ancient wisdom inherent in the cardinal directions and elements takes on a practical shape and invites a focused seasonal practice. In this way, the Rewilding Wheel is unique as it invites a sacred process of remembering and recovering relationships within various ecosystems throughout one's local landscapes. 

The Rewilding Wheel becomes then a way to begin the practice of rewilding our inner soul-scapes through the intentional relationship with the wild landscapes of our bioregion and seeking sacred wisdom through the rhythmic patterns that exist in the seasons, elements and cardinal directions.  This becomes a life-orientation journey, a circular path through which the sacred can speak within the various associations of nature symbology and archetypal human development within our very own locatedness.

The Wilderness Will Return You Home

This morning I sang an ancient song that reminded me that the tree's of the field clap their hands and that the hills break forth with singing. Today's lectionary reading from Isaiah 55 invited an empire-orientation to remember the wilderness and to return. For the ancient Hebrew people, there was a critical connection between who they were and where they were. In the wild was a place of wholeness and belonging. Is the wilderness still calling to us? Are the forests clapping (or burning?) and mountains singing (or moaning?) for us to return and re-member our selves and understanding of the sacred? 

Wilderness is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving beings flourishing accord to their own sorts of order. This is the is-ness of a place; where what one is intended to be, is. In ecology we speak of “wild systems.” when an ecosystem is fully functioning, poet and writer Gary Snyder says that “all the members are present at the assembly.” 

To speak of wilderness is to speak of wholeness. 

Rewilding is a term that is used in ecological circles to describe the processes of large-scale conservation efforts aimed at restoring and protecting natural processes and core wilderness areas. This is a way of restoring and returning a landscape to its natural, uncultivated state with the reintroduction of species—both plant and animal—that have been driven out or exterminated based on human behavior. I have been about this ecological restoration work in Seattle’s urban forests since 2007. Restoring the forest is one thing, can this practice also lead to human restoration? 

There is a movement that seeks to apply similar rewilding principles to human beings. And in this approach the definition of wilderness, wildness, wilding, or rewilding spans a spectrum with the most general definition seeing rewilding as a process that takes us out of our human-centric selves and into an on-going ecological relationship with the natural world and becoming respectful co-inhabitants of a place.

Rewilding then becomes a process of becoming whole once again. 

I apply this ecological, conservation term and framework to the soul-scape, understanding that the human spirit has been largely domesticated and hemmed in by various religious traditions and teachings, as well as commercial and capitalistic belief structures. These traditional systems affirm humanity as the apex of creation at the cost of the rest of creation. As a result we have cultivated a disconnection, to the point of a collective amnesia, from how place forms and shapes us culturally, personally, and spiritually. Our empire orientation has caused us to forget the wilderness; we have forgotten the revelatory voice and sacred song of creation.

We are being called back to the wilderness to become whole with the Sequoias, with the pines, finding our completion in the patterns of the seasons and songs of the mountains.