Another Year Rewilding

Finding nature within and a path forward

BGCL Newsletter invites you to heal and transform through slow, intentional living. Each week, take this moment to pause with me and recall what is essential. 💚

Hello friends,

This week marks my 35th trip around the sun, my second year of rewilding, and one of the most intense years of my life. The year has been dense with experiences that reshaped how I see myself and the world. A career left, loved ones lost, and mental / physical illness battled. I looked eye-to-eye with some of my shortcomings and experienced my own dark night of the soul. Just when I thought I was getting a grip, another tremor would remind me to remain seated because 2022 was still in motion.

Identity death after identify death left me questioning who I was, my purpose in this life, and how I wanted to spend what precious time I have here. There were moments that called me into deep stillness, introspection, and oneness with myself and this earth. Other moments compelled me to expand outwards, create connections, and grow in ways I didn’t know were possible.

Through all that life has served up this year my connection to nature has kept me grounded. It has given me a more complex understanding of my own rewilding. Just like the forces that bring balance in nature, I've witnessed that same energy at work inside of me. The push and pull I once labeled as good / bad, right / wrong—I've come to learn that it simply just is.

Rewilding began as an idea of me returning to nature. But the further I journey on this path, the more I realize that the dichotomy between myself and nature is entirely arbitrary. I now see that the need to be outside or “in nature” in order to rewild is mistaken because we ourselves are nature. This year of rewilding has shown me that I am merely a reflection of the outside world around me. That all of the wonderful and mysterious qualities that exist in the outside world also exist within me.

In the year ahead, I am excited to put my energy into creative pursuits and community building that reflect this new understanding. This newsletter is going to evolve to include a broader range of stories and experiences about how we relate to nature. My goal is to reflect the limitless beauty that we see in the world around us. And, spoiler alert—it will include a hotline. More details to come next week.

Thanks for taking time to slow down and be present with me this week. Take care, be kind, and we'll talk soon,

Hillarie