In the Land of the Gods

Plant Yourself in Nature

Sunrise over the La Plata Mountains in Southwest Colorado

The sunrise over the La Plata Mountains wakes me. As snow glistens over the Pinion Juniper desert, I walk outside. A large Juniper tree exploding with berries captures my attention. She offers me one, and its sharp taste fills my mouth. Her thick trunk rises high above the ground. As I hug her, my face rubs against her bark, and I hear:

Enjoy each precious moment.

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Welcome, I’m Rebecca Wildbear, author of Wild Yoga: A Practice of Initiation, Veneration, & Advocacy for the Earth and Soul guide at Animas Valley Institute. My newsletter, Radical Dreaming, invites readers to listen to their body, nature, and dreams while unveiling power imbalances & other root causes of ecocide. Almost everything I publish is free, but I occasionally offer some deep imagination journeys for paid subscribers.

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Her message lands in me, momentarily dissolving my worries and reminding me of what I love. My greatest love is nature: the rooted forest, rivers carrying water to the sea, mountain wildflowers, and the crimson sky at sunrise and sunset.

I visit the Juniper tree each morning. I love being in her presence and receiving her wisdom. I am grateful whenever I am in nature. Each place is sacred, a land of the gods. My Scandinavian and Celtic ancestors considered nature divine and spoke with the land. They held an animistic view of the world, believing every aspect of nature is alive and ensouled. My Norse Pagan and Celtic ancestors worshipped many gods and goddesses and experienced these powers as part of the land.

Earth and Spirit are interwoven: wind dancing with trees, crickets making music with the night, and ancient red rock walls rising into the desert sky. As a guide, I bring people into the wilderness and invite them to listen to the song of the planet, track the images in their dreams, and court their souls. Nature is the lead guide. I’m the midwife of what she wants to birth.

Our souls are linked to the Earth. The more-than-human world wants us to be our truest selves. Each encounter with our soul reshapes us, reconnecting us to our deepest essence and weaving a multifaceted tapestry over our lifetime. We can intentionally and humbly engage. A tree and a bird can be fully themselves while attuning to the planet. Humans long to listen and merge with the Earth’s beauty. We are meant to live in connection to the Spirit and soul.

Return to nature, whether you’ve listened for years or are beginning. Go outside and connect to the land. Notice what messages, images, or experiences come. Connect to the more-than-human world. Speak to trees, rain, or rocks with words, song, movement, or silence. Do not expect a response, but leave space for the possibility. Listen with your senses, feeling, and imagination. Replies may appear through synchronicities, dreams, visions, memories, or emotions.

Living in partnership with the Earth is imperative for the survival of humans, the biosphere, and all life. Speaking and listening to the Earth is foundational, and our imagination helps us. Imagination links us to intuition and an innate emotional affiliation with all living organisms, activating biophilic love for the wild and catalyzing a yearning to be close to and care for nature. We can ask the Earth what she wants and be curious and willing to be surprised.

We are not machines; we are life-breathing. Returning to nature restores our aliveness. The world is an ecology, not a hierarchy. We can feel the life force moving inside us when we step outside and sit in a forest, away from distorting projections and stories. We reclaim our power when we return to our bodies and the truth of our experience. More than any ideology or path, I believe in our bodies in communion with the land. This is a relationship I trust.

Nature is loving. She can hold and help us. I know people who have had powerful experiences relating to nature, even in a city. Kabir lives in Mumbai, India. He had walked by the lone tree in his area without paying attention. Then, for the first time, he decided to sit with her. Looking and listening, he felt drawn to put his hands on the trunk. The tree enchanted him so much that he stopped worrying about what others think. He returned each week, walking several blocks to sit with the tree and listen.

Being in a wild place is ideal. I was on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica in January, where the river and rainforest meet the sea, leading a Wild Yoga program. We began each day with a gentle yoga asana while listening to birds and howler monkeys. We shared dreams at breakfast and held a council in the river at the ocean’s edge. Spider monkeys played above us while a tall Osprey stood in the surf. Red macaws flew by.

Later, I lay in a hammock, watching the crashing waves and feeling embraced by the salty sea’s moist, warm air. Once, it was like this everywhere: humans living within nature, the natural world permeating us. The Earth’s body is an extension of our own; listening to her, I ask how I can be a reciprocal and loving partner.

How our soul relates with others with whom we are linked matters – the souls of the world, one another, and of bear, salmon, and moon. I guide on rivers and mountains, in the forest, and on the ocean, inviting our bodies into a visceral relationship with the land. Each place has different things to share. Join me in listening.

Upcoming Online Program (Register by March 3rd and save $100)

Tending Our Hearts & the World

An Exploration of the Confluence of Soul and Trauma

March 25th – May 20th (Six Mondays for two hours),

With Rebecca Wildbear & Joseph McCaffrey

This online immersion will take a mindfulness-based, nature-centered, resource oriented, and non-regressive approach to trauma. We’ll highlight organized, coherent, and functional aspects of ourselves while bringing awareness to disorganized and dysfunctional parts. We will focus on strengthening each person’s capacities for self-regulation, attunement, trust, and building healthy relationships.

Upcoming Animas Valley Programs in NATURE:

Soulcentric Dreamwork: The Secret Alchemy of the Nightworld

Aravaipa Canyon, Arizona, March 12 – 16, 2024, with Rebecca Wildbear

The soul yearns to dream itself into the world. Every dream emerges as an opportunity for our conscious self, our ego, to be further initiated into the secret stream of our deeper life. On this 5-day immersion, you’ll learn to enter dreams as mysteries, to boldly and vulnerably interact with their dreamscapes, to be moved by the deep intelligence of their living images, to open to non-ordinary ways of perceiving, and to experience the under dream of your everyday waking life.

Courting the Muse-Beloved

Redwood Country on the Smith River, Northern California

May 30 – June 3, 2024, with Rebecca Wildbear

The natural world is a mysterious and alluring love dance. Opening our hearts allows us to fall in love with anything—an idea, the ocean, a human, or a tree. We may turn our entire world upside down and be plunged into both ecstasy and devastation. In this rocky place, we are made profoundly vulnerable, sometimes shaken to our core, and we begin to see glimmers and hear rumblings of a greater story. We begin to ask deeper questions about who we are in our depths, bringing our attention to something newly emerging and awakening our deepest creativity.

Upcoming Wild Yoga Programs in NATURE:

A Wild Yoga Journey: Dreaming with Mountain, River & Forest

Breitenbush Hot Springs, Oregon

June 6 - 10, 2024, with Rebecca Wildbear

Align with the rhythms of nature during this five-day immersion set amid Oregon’s stunning Cascade Mountain Range. Leave behind the fast pace of modern culture and rest beside the peaceful Breitenbush River. Witness how your body wants to move each morning in a gentle vinyasa-style yoga asana practice that welcomes you, whatever your level. Listen to your dreams, court your soul, and converse with the wild world. Whisper your longings and heartbreaks to the stars, ask your greatest questions to the whirling water, and receive visions from the wise elder trees in Willamette National Forest to guide you home to your heart.

Dreaming with the Ancient Mountains: A Wild Yoga Journey

Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina

Sept 20 -24, 2024, with Rebecca Wildbear

Align with the rhythms of nature during this five-day immersion in North Carolina among the Blue Ridge Mountains. Leave behind the fast pace of modern culture and soak in the beauty of red spruce and Fraser fir forests. Witness how your body wants to move each morning in a gentle vinyasa-style yoga asana practice. Whisper your longings and heartbreaks to the stars, ask your greatest questions to the gurgling creeks, and receive visions from the wise elder trees to guide you home to your heart.

Reverence in the Cave Womb of the Dreaming Earth:

Awakening to the Visionary Power of Nature & the Deep Imagination

Helderberg Mountains, NY, Sept 27 - 29,

With Rebecca Wildbear & Susanna Raeven

Join us for a weekend of yoga and dreaming in the enchanting Maple-Basswood forest. We’ll gestate in the Earth’s mystery and cherish the night world’s power. We’ll courageously submit ourselves to the atmospheres, landscapes, and characters of our dreams and wander in the mysterious terrain of our souls. We’ll engage in ceremonies and conversations with the animate world and call on medicinal dream plants like mugwort to strengthen us. We’ll begin each day with a Wild Yoga asana practice as a prayer, connecting our inner landscape with the spirits of the surrounding land.