rewild
verb
/ˌriːˈwaɪld/
to return to its natural state
Rewilding doesn’t just have to be about the environment around us – although that is, of course, an important part of it. For me, it is more of an internal, psychological level of rewilding as much as an external, physical one. Maybe I’ve listened too much to Russell Brand and his talk of shared consciousness and getting back to our core, or maybe I’ve been reading too much by George Monbiot on the rewilding of our surroundings, many of which now appear a little too barren and devoid of life to me.
Regardless, there’s something that the daily grind of work can’t quite fulfil. What that is I don’t exactly know but where that fulfilment lies, feels like it lives comfortably around nature and the natural, as well as people, relationships, community, and family.
“Nature surrounds us everyday…To reclaim the wild, to rewild, is to notice and acknowledge it. It may take time to acknowledge it fully but we were all born wild, we all have it within us.”
Rachel Corby, Rewild Yourself: Becoming Nature
This is probably the point where I become vegan, buy space on an allotment, pick up a cheap old camper van and run off to the Scottish Highlands with my family to build a cabin in the woods.
Sadly, life is not quite so straightforward. Instead, I’ll be exploring ‘rewilding’ in the context of a normal life. In what ways can you rewild, in between going to work and spending time with friends and family? I have no idea, so let the adventure commence. This site then will be a sort of ‘travelogue’ or journal of my own personal rewild, let’s see where we end up.
the rewild 