Remembering Wildness: A Rewilding Ritual for Men

Buried within all of us is an ancient lineage, a deep connection with nature, with all beings, with the animate forces of the world, with wildness. This wildness has been buried under miles of comfort, convenience, consumption, mass media, schools, technology, trauma, bad parenting, learned helplessness, etc. We are now largely domesticated drones, obedient consumers and workers. Our people are asleep. We’ve forgotten who and what we are.

However, if we look back only a few thousand years or more, we can start to see that this deadening layer is actually quite thin. Just below is a latent potential for tremendous wildness and aliveness, a deep creativity and a connection to a larger intelligence than our own. This is the living animate world and it’s everywhere, right now.

I’ve been dreaming for several years of a ritual practice to help me and others connect to our wild ancestry, our pre-verbal animal selves. The spirits of the land are now calling us in. This first ritual will be for men this winter at Sacred Groves, February 24th.

We will gather to remember and practice reconnecting to our wild animal ancestry. Whether that lineage is 20, 200 or 2000 generations old, it is there. This ritual is an experiment and an exploration and we will be learning together. In this day-long ritual, we will just be dipping our toes into these ethereal waters.

Please join us for an opportunity to support each other in the process of excavating our wild selves. We aim to free our wildness from its captivity, for the good of all. To embrace our wild ancestry is an act of defiance and rebellion. And it’s a chance to feel alive again.

Ritual Tools:
Some of the tools we will likely use in this ritual to help quiet our addictive brains, drop into our animal bodies and journey into the spirit realms are as follows: breath, gratitude, being outdoors in nature, being alone, slowing down, silence, hunger, exertion, fatigue, tuning into our senses, listening, smelling, feeling, paying attention, nakedness. We will work with exposure to the sacred elements: cold water, cold air, hot fire, earth, soil, compost, darkness, ash, mud, plants, wild things, shadow, truth, spirit. We will play with noise and sound making, drumming, movement and dance, emotional release, being seen, heard and honored in community.

About This Ritual:

• This ritual will be clothing optional. Be partially or fully naked as you wish and for as long as you wish. Nakedness is not a requirement and we honor each man’s choices for self-care.
• This is a visceral, somatic, embodied ritual. This ritual is not for every man. Not every man wants to drop the comforts of being an industrial human for a day and drop into his animal self. Be with us if this calls to you.
• This ritual involves risk, confrontation, challenge and discomfort. Men will be self-directing their own work and will be honored for whatever they choose. Each man is responsible for his own experience. We ask that men only participate in this ritual if they are in good physical health, resourced and able to challenge themselves safely.
• I encourage each man to find his own edge and stay on it. This is not about punishment or cruelty. We are seeking a conscious self-care to break from the known and comfortable as spiritual medicine.
• This is not a contest, competition, nor a place to judge other men. This is a place to honor yourself, honor the community and honor the land. Each man chooses how to spend his time. For instance, caring for the ritual fire will be a sacred role in this ritual.
• I am interested in the impacts of living in a culture of pervasive comfort and convenience, living nearly constantly warm and indoors, relentlessly wearing clothes, sitting for most of the day, every day, and staring for hours at glowing boxes. We live in an industrial culture that values money and the accumulation of stuff over almost everything. It seems like we are cursed by our privilege and abundance. I want to create an opportunity for men to have a break from comfort and play with discomfort, exertion, hunger and exposure to the elements. We will have an opportunity to get down and dirty, be cold, and be hungry. Each man will choose his own edge and pathway without judgment. Most of all, I want to help men get a break free from their incessant minds and drop into the wisdom of their bodies and connect with the deeper wisdom of nature.
• I call on the archetype of the Wild Man and the Green Man. I call on the archetype of Sasquatch. February 24th is the Full Moon. I call on the archetypes of the werewolf and the lycanthrope.
• This February moon is sometimes called the Hunger Moon. It’s the lean time of winter when food is scarce and hard to find. Our wild ancestors often had to fight to stay alive during this time. This is not so different from our present spiritual challenge. I call on our healthy ancestors to be with us in this vital work of reconnecting to them.
• There is an animal inside of us that longs to be free. And children of various ages, and many characters and spirits. And beyond these is a potential connection to the miracle of unmanipulated nature. A deep wisdom and intelligence beyond human comprehension. This is what we gather for. This is what we are seeking.

Please Bring:

• Please bring items for the ritual altar representing your wild selves, your aliveness, your inner animals or your inner child/children.  
• Please in particular bring offerings to the spirits of the land (this could be ritual food for the nature spirits and/or something beautiful, a stone, a piece of wood, etc.).
• NOTE: Please take home with you all items that are not intended to be sacrificed in the fire or gifted to the land.
• Please bring pads and sleeping bags if you wish to sleep over saturday night.  There are also be limited beds available for sleeping inside.  First come, first serve.
• Bring clothes that can get wet and dirty.  And clean clothes to change into at the end of the ritual.
• Feel free to bring primitive body coverings if you have them. If you have animal skins suitable for wearing, this is a good place to bring them.  Or you can adorn yourself with items from the forest (for instance, we have plenty of english ivy!).  
• Bring a couple towels for cleaning yourself up at the end of ritual.
• Bring food for yourself and/or to share for dinner, including food to cook over the fire.  We have pie irons and kabob sticks.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Sacred Groves, 9255 Holly Farm Lane Northeast, Bainbridge Island, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

Get App