Rewilding Your Life: Returning to Our Ancient Connection with Nature

The Rewilding Series

The Wisdom Keeper

The mist hung low over the oak grove as Brion crouched by the stream, his weathered hands moving with practiced precision. Dawn had barely broken, painting the forest in muted grays and pale ambers. At sixty-two winters, his beard now carried more silver than rust, but his eyes remained sharp, missing nothing as they scanned the forest floor.

He placed the crushed yarrow leaves onto the young hunter's wound, binding it with strips of linen bark he had prepared the previous full moon. The boy—no more than sixteen summers—winced but did not cry out. Brion nodded approvingly.

"The forest gave us what we needed, as it always does for those who know how to look," he said, his voice low and graveled with age. "Remember, Nechtan, the yarrow speaks to blood. When you see its white flowers in summer, remember it calls to wounds, asking to heal them."

Around them, the ancient oak grove breathed with life. A pair of ravens called from the high branches—a good omen. Brion had been a feared warrior in his youth, leading raids against neighboring tribes and even Roman scouts who ventured too far north. Now, in the autumn of his life, he had become something perhaps more valuable to his clan—a keeper of knowledge, a bridge between the people and the living world that sustained them.

The young hunter stood, testing his bandaged arm.

"My father says the Romans bring medicine in clay pots and metal tools for cutting the sick," Nechtan said hesitantly. "He says their healers wear white robes and can cure anything."

Brion's laugh rumbled like distant thunder. "Perhaps. But their healers cannot hear what the oak whispers in autumn, or read the coming winter in a fox's coat." He gestured to the forest around them. "They separate themselves from this. They build walls against it. And what man can truly heal when he has forgotten he is part of the same body as the deer and the hawk?"

As they walked back toward the settlement, Brion paused to show the boy a set of barely perceptible tracks pressed into the damp earth—wolf, female, hunting alone, passed by at first light—reading the forest floor as easily as others might read the expressions on a loved one's face.

"This is the wisdom that matters," Brion said. "To remember that we are not apart from this living world. We are woven into it, as surely as the oak's roots grip the earth."

The settlement appeared through the trees—smoke rising from cooking fires, the sound of children's laughter carrying on the morning air. Brion smiled. Even after all these years, he preferred the company of the forest to the bustle of humanity. But he understood his purpose now: to be the bridge, to carry the old knowledge forward, ensuring the thin thread connecting his people to the wild remained unbroken.

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Finding Our Way Back

Brion's world may seem impossibly distant to us now. We live in an age of climate-controlled buildings, digital screens, and prepackaged food. Many of us can name more corporate logos than local plant species. We navigate by GPS rather than by sun and stars. We have gained much, certainly—but what have we lost in our rushed exodus from the natural world?

This is the question at the heart of rewilding—a movement that recognises our profound disconnection from nature as a source of many modern maladies, from depression and anxiety to ecological destruction. Rewilding isn't about romanticising the past or abandoning modern comforts. Rather, it's about remembering and relearning what Brion knew instinctively: we are nature.

Throughout this series, our fictional 4th century BC Celtic guide, Brion, will walk with us, offering glimpses into a time when humans lived in intimate, reciprocal relationship with the living world. His wisdom—drawn from what anthropologists and historians tell us about pre-modern European cultures—will serve as both counterpoint and complement to contemporary rewilding practices we can integrate into our modern lives.

The Science of Rewilding

What Brion understood intuitively, modern science now confirms: humans need connection with the natural world for optimal wellbeing.

The Psychological and Physiological Benefits

The evidence for nature's impact on human wellbeing is compelling. In her groundbreaking book The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, Florence Williams documents the measurable physiological changes that occur when we spend time in natural settings. Studies across multiple countries show that time in nature reduces cortisol (stress hormone) levels, lowers blood pressure, improves immune function, and enhances mood. Williams follows researchers in Japan studying "shinrin-yoku" or "forest bathing," demonstrating that even brief immersion in forest environments produces measurable benefits, including increased natural killer cell activity—crucial for fighting cancer and viral infections.

These effects aren't surprising when we consider human evolutionary history. For 99% of our existence as a species, we lived in direct, daily relationship with nature. Our brains and bodies evolved in response to natural environments—not concrete, screens, and artificial light. As biologist E.O. Wilson proposed in his "biophilia hypothesis," humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life, and that these connections have a positive influence on our wellbeing.

This biological need doesn't simply disappear because we've built cities and digital technology. Instead, our disconnection from nature creates what author Richard Louv calls "nature-deficit disorder"—a collection of physical and psychological issues stemming from insufficient contact with the natural world.

Rewilding Landscapes and Minds

In his influential book Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life, George Monbiot explores how the ecological concept of rewilding applies not just to landscapes but to human experience. He writes about his own "ecological boredom" living in a tamed, domesticated landscape, and his subsequent awakening when encountering wilder places. Monbiot suggests that rewilding—both of ecosystems and of human experience—is not about recreating some specific historical baseline, but about allowing natural processes to reassert themselves and find their own dynamic balance.

For Monbiot, the rewilding of human experience is about reawakening our dormant senses and relearning how to engage with the natural world as active participants rather than passive observers. He describes how tracking animals, learning to identify plants, and simply spending extended time in less managed environments can transform our relationship with nature and, by extension, with ourselves.

A Hidden World of Connection

Peter Wohlleben's bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees reveals another dimension of rewilding—the recognition that what appears chaotic or untamed in nature often contains complex communication networks and social structures invisible to the casual observer. Wohlleben documents how trees communicate through underground fungal networks, share resources, nurture their young, and even warn each other of dangers.

This perspective offers a profound shift in how we might approach rewilding. Rather than seeing rewilded areas as simply "letting nature go wild," we can understand them as allowing natural relationships and communications to re-establish themselves. For humans engaging in personal rewilding, this suggests a practice of not just being in nature, but learning to recognize and participate in these complex webs of relationship.

When we begin to perceive the intelligence and communication happening in natural systems—whether it's trees sharing nutrients through fungal networks or birds alerting each other to predators—we develop what philosopher David Abram calls "perceptual reciprocity" with the more-than-human world. We begin to understand ourselves not as separate observers but as participants in a vast, complex conversation.

My Rewilding Journey

I never knew I needed rewilding until the wild was gone from my life.

Growing up in rural Australia, nature wasn't a place I visited—it was the context for daily life. My childhood unfolded against a backdrop of tropical rainforests and coral reefs in Far North Queensland. Weekends meant camping, fishing, and spearfishing. Holidays were for extended expeditions: island hopping, hunting trips, or multi-day hikes through the bush.

Nature wasn't a concept or a cause—it was simply home. The transition away happened so gradually I barely noticed. University studies in marine biology still kept me connected to the natural world, but increasingly through the lens of science rather than direct experience. When I shifted to more practical training as an auto upholsterer and then to concrete work in Western Australia's red deserts, nature became backdrop to labor rather than a relationship in itself.

My two years, traveling alone through India, Nepal, and Latin America, briefly rekindled that connection. But then came nursing school and emergency department work—all demanding schedules that relegated "nature time" to the category of luxury rather than necessity.

The final separation came with our move to Vienna—a beautiful city, certainly, but still a city. Concrete, schedules, noise, artificial light. For the first time, I found myself living entirely within human constructs, with nature reduced to decorative trees along streets and carefully managed parks.

The effects weren't immediately obvious. But gradually, a sense of disconnection grew—a vague but persistent feeling that something essential was missing. It wasn't homesickness exactly, but something deeper, more cellular.

This feeling became acute during the pandemic lockdowns. Confined to our apartment, I began experiencing what I can only describe as a kind of sensory starvation. The symptoms were subtle but real: increased anxiety, difficulty focusing, a persistent sense of something important slipping away.

As the lockdowns ended, my wife and I saw no other option than to move our family out of the city center and into the outskirts where the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods) backed directly onto our apartment. It was painfully obvious that being surrounded by concrete buildings and traffic was causing real anxiety for me. This relocation was my first decisive step toward rewilding—an acknowledgment that proximity to wilder nature wasn't optional for my wellbeing but essential.

The view from our apartment window

It was during this period that I began deliberately exploring rewilding practices. Not as a rejection of urban life, but as a necessary complement to it. I started with small steps—learning to identify the birds visible from our apartment window, then expanding to regular excursions in the Wienerwald at Vienna's edge. I began tracking seasonal changes in specific plants, documenting them through photography. I learned to forage for wild edibles, and identify local wildlife tracks.

What began as a coping mechanism has become a central part of how I create a beautiful life here in Vienna. These practices haven't just given me "nature time"—they've fundamentally changed how I perceive the world around me. The city itself has become more alive as I've learned to recognize the wild that persists even here: the sparrowhawk nesting in a church spire, the edible plants growing on the hill behind our apartment, the ancient seasonal rhythms still visible if you know how to look.

Most importantly, these rewilding practices have transformed my children's experience of growing up in an urban environment. Through regular forest days, foraging expeditions, and simply learning to move through our neighborhood with senses awake, they're developing the nature connection that was my birthright in rural Australia—albeit in a different form.

What This Series Will Explore

Throughout this series, Brion will be our companion as we explore specific rewilding practices that anyone can integrate into their lives, regardless of where they live. Each post will begin with a vignette from Brion's world, followed by practical techniques you can apply in your own context.

We'll cover:

• Sensory Awareness: Reawakening our innate capacity to perceive the world through all senses

• Birding: Using birds as a gateway to deeper ecological awareness

• Naturalist Skills: Basic species identification and nature observation

• Foraging: Finding wild foods in urban and suburban environments

• Cooking in Nature: Simple techniques for preparing food outdoors

• Natural Navigation: Using natures signs to navigate

• Forest Meditation: Practices for deepening presence in natural settings

• Nature Photography: Using cameras as tools for heightened awareness

• Seasonal Rhythms: Tracking and aligning with natural cycles

• Plant Medicine: Basic traditional plant wisdom for wellness

• Animal Communication: Understanding the languages of birds and other wildlife

• Tracking: Reading the stories written on the landscape

I'm not an expert in any of these practices. This series documents an ongoing journey—one I'm excited to share with you. My hope is that by exploring these rewilding techniques together, we can each find our own pathway back to the knowing that Brion carried: that we are not separate from the living world, but an integral, interdependent part of it.

In our next post, we'll join Brion as he teaches a young member of his clan the art of of birding—one of the most accessible and rewarding ways to begin reconnecting with the natural world, even in urban environments. We'll discover how the seasonal migrations and awakening birdsong can serve as doorways into deeper awareness of the ecosystems around us.

Until then, I invite you to simply step outside, wherever you are, and notice one thing you haven't noticed before: a bird call, a plant growing through a crack in the sidewalk, the quality of the wind. This simple act of attention is where rewilding begins.