To The Wild

"If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.

Interbeing is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix "inter" with the verb "to be", we have a new verb, inter-be. If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are.

And if we continue to look we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger's father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist."

— Thich Nhat Hanh

How it works

One person holds a ball of string or thread and names a living thing they depend on — the sun, the rain, a bee, the soil, the ocean, a tree. They hold their end of the thread and throw the ball to someone else.

That person names another living thing that depends on — or gives life to — something already named. They hold their thread and throw the ball on. And so it goes, each person adding a strand to the web: a forest, a river, a fungal network, a cloud, a whale, the wind.

Keep going until the web is strung between you all — visible, held, alive. Then: the facilitator names one element and removes it from the web. Everyone who feels a tug on their thread raises their hand. What else moves when one thread is pulled?

Works for any group size. 8–12 minutes. Standing in a circle or seated. No large-group debrief needed — the web speaks for itself. You'll need a ball of string, wool or garden twine — if you don't have one, use a cushion or any throwable object and ask each person to remember their connection as the object travels around.

A practice from Nature Connection · Jon Young / Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature

Before the wild can be sung about, it helps to sit in it — even briefly, even indoors by a window.

How it works

Find a spot — ideally outdoors, but a window or a quiet corner works too. Sit alone in silence for 10–15 minutes. No task. No output. Just attend to what is alive around you — sound, light, movement, stillness. If all you have is a houseplant, give it your full attention. Is the soil still wild? The cells in the leaves that take your breath and transform it into flowers?

Is this something you can integrate into a daily practice? Natalie Fee sat under an oak every day for a year and the album 'Daughter of Nature' appeared, along with a book of poems. You never know what will emerge as you deepen your re-connection with inner and outer nature.