"...I felt a sense of wildness as process, something continually at work in the world, something tumultuous, green, joyous"
Rewilding is a return of Sovereignty to the Land, and to ourselves within it.
The Old Stories tell of Sovereignty, the spirit of the Earth, of life itself, self-determining and wise, to which all people of the land deferred and depended upon.
The New Stories tell of Rewilding, the process of restoring Nature, to be self-sustaining, functional, resilient, to take the lead; for we have remembered how fundamental the living Earth is to our very survival.
Perhaps, these stories are not so different.
I recently stumbled across just one such story, of Sovereignty, perhaps you know it? It is the tale of Sir Gawain and Lady Ragnall, of how a noble knight returns something taken from the lady, of how, when she gives him a choice, he offers it back to her, and in doing so breaks a dreadful curse. That to me is Rewilding. Returning qualities lost or stolen, returning Agency and Sovereignty to Nature within our Culture, for she, within herself, never lost those things. If we can do that, then we break the curse we have placed upon ourselves and the Earth and receive beauty and bounty in return.
For that is the true nature of Rewilding, a restoration of bounty in our ecosystems. It is the Great Return and the ultimate project of Abundance.
ask yourself: what is it to be wild? to restore wilder-ness to our world?
My approach to Rewilding or Nature Recovery is holistic and ecocultural, and combines these Old and New Stories. Land itself is the interplay between people and Earth, containing some layers that are purely ecological, others that are entirely cultural and others that exist somewhere in between. How we relate to Land, how we see ourselves in Nature is foundation of all that we do; holistic Rewilding operates with the aim of restoring humans to our ecological roles within ecosystems, whilst ecocultural Rewilding considers the cultural, historic, native and traditional ways in which we have built relationship with the Land, and seeks also to rewild our nature-culture connections.
In my practice, I aim to offer the Land to return to her natural state of Sovereignty through the processes of Nature Recovery, informed by my ecological training, learning and experience, but also to return Sovereignty to the people who inhabit, visit or steward that Land.
A Beithe Rewilding Plan aims to consider all of the layers of the Land using multi, beginning with inquiry into what can be done to improve the ecological functionality to ecosystem, then incorporating the needs and desires of the humans who steward or inhabit the area, and finally considering how all can be in relationship.
If you would like TO DISCUSS A Beithe Rewilding Plan, pLEASE GET IN TOUCH VIA THE LINK BELOW
I look forward to getting to know you and your land!