Rewilding in 2022: 2nd Progress Report - Touching the Wild

This season, I went vegetarian. I'd been kicking the idea around for a while, and my close friend Alice stopped eating meat after working in packing for an online food shop over Christmas and being slightly freaked out by the vast scale of naked, shrink-wrapped poultry she was faced with night after night. I'd tried to cut down my meat for a while, but found that, in a bid to prove to Dai that I wasn't 'depriving myself', the consequence was that I actually ended up eating more meat.

Then I took the Spud to visit some farm animals. The Spud has this real thing about sheep, and after a morning of watching him cuddle the lambs and brush their soft baby fleeces and feed them a milk bottle... Well, I was ruined for the Sunday roast, that was for sure. It's not been an easy adjustment in a mixed household where we generally all eat together, but I just can't eat meat any more, so we'll have to get to grips with it.

It could be argued that a vegetarian diet doesn't work well alongside a plan to rewild. Our ancestors, and many indigenous peoples around the world, of course eat meat, and any attempt to hark back to a less artificially complex, less industrialised lifestyle would surely involve some sustainable meat or game? I can see the logic in this argument, but even if I wanted to keep eating dead creatures for my own sensory pleasure, which I don't, we are also facing a looming climate crisis, and as an environmentalist I really can't justify personally eating meat either. So. There we go. I guess it's a modern, millennial kind of rewilding that I am doing here. But I'll take it!

Leena Norms has an absolutely fab, entirely non-judgemental, non-pushy video which sums up a lot of my reasoning around choosing this diet - here it is. 

One conflict I had this season was fairly laughable. In general we're not a daytime TV household, but I found that when I wanted to roll out my yoga mat in the morning, the best way to avoid being maimed by a toddler trying to "help" me into my poses was to flick Bluey on for half an hour. Except, when I then wanted to turn Bluey off again so we could get on with our day, all hell broke loose. Navigating the storms of tantrums and tears each morning made the yoga practice much less relaxing than it should have been (and the sound of Bluey and Bingo chirping away in the background was surprisingly hard to tune out during savasana), but I had noticed a difference in my strength and flexibility after only a few weeks of fairly disciplined home practice, and really wanted to keep going with it. Attempts to encourage the Spud into the garden or sandpit instead were met with dismissal on all but the sunniest of days. I'll let you know if I ever find a solution to this one!

On the topic of the garden, my feral approach to gardening was providing some interesting results. In the spring we discovered that our garden was full of bluebells, and I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn't just gone blundering in and weeded away everything in sight. It was also full of stinging nettles, but I was quite reluctant to pull those out, much to the confusion of visitors, as I had read that they're an important habitat for caterpillars and butterflies.

Our bird feeder had finally caught on amongst the local bird community, and we were welcoming blue tits, robins, blackbirds, and a variety of little brown guys that I'm not quick enough to tell apart. Unfortunately, the birds also ate our peas and beans, and the feeder also attracted a sleek, golden-brown rat, who at time of writing has taken up residence under our shed and can often be seen sitting beside our humane rat trap with what I'm certain is amusement. I know rats in the garden aren't ideal, but I'm reluctant to introduce poison into the environment, especially with my child around. It's also not the rat's fault we don't want it there, so we're persevering with humane traps and deterrents for now. We also have a resident hedgehog, which really surprised me as we live quite centrally in town and border a busy road. And a squirrel who races through the trees every morning as if commuting to work. 

Unfortunately we also have a large number of field mice, who set up camp in the house (and ate my husband's Easter eggs, much to his disappointment) - we tried catching them and releasing them far away, but they bred faster than we could trap them. Eventually we found ourselves adopting two lovely cats from someone who couldn't keep them any more. Dai mainly wanted a rodent deterrent, as sweeping up mouse poo is no one's idea of a good time. The Spud and I were excited to have family pets to stroke and fuss over. So everyone wins.

Social media has been my biggest bugbear lately. I've now got two different apps on my phone to try to help me manage my usage, and I find that I'm either turning them off, uninstalling them when they prove inconvenient, or simply opening social media in my tablet browser. This is such a big step backwards and I'm really not enjoying it. I don't want to be the kind of person who chooses their destinations by what will make the best photo. I don't like courting followers, and in all honesty I'm slightly alarmed by my propensity for oversharing. A lot of my close friends have recently stopped using Facebook and Instagram, just as I'm probably the most active I've ever been, and I'm steeling myself to follow their example. I might lose followers. I might lose book sales. But if I carry on on this trajectory, I feel I'm losing a lot more than that.

It's not all bad news though. The defining event of this season for me was my long-anticipated wedding. It was a glorious day, made even more special by the people who came together to share the celebration with us, and on a very personal note it was really the first time I was able to see how far I've come since starting this blog. I never realised that reducing my consumption was going to be a personal development project more than a financial one, and yet over the last couple of years my confidence has skyrocketed. I've learned that no one is watching and judging me because everyone is busy judging and monitoring themselves. I've learned that perfection is overrated and boring. And I'm lucky enough to be surrounded and loved by people who are supportive, open, free-spirited and kind. 

When I realised I couldn't dance in my wedding gown I changed into a vest top and harem pants. My bra had carved red divots around my ribcage, so I decided 'sod it' and took it off. I then spent the evening dancing with my friends, or by myself, without fear or self-consciousness. At one point, on my way to the toilets, I heard the throb of music from up a flight of stairs and followed it to find a live band in the building next door, where I danced with strangers on a floor strewn with golden stars.

On the weekend of our wedding, I walked barefoot on new territory. I worked a lock on the canal. I stood atop a long barrow and felt the wind stream through my hair. I saw my friends' faces bathed in firelight; I felt the prick of bird claws on my hands and legs; I drank mead with Druids; did yoga in a yurt; danced the Macarena with a flock of Goths.

I have tasted the wild. I have found the bigger life that waited on the other side of my inhibitions. 

Dai's interest in history has helped me widen my horizons, connect to the landscape, and begin to see my home country in new ways. Parenthood has changed my sense of self and taught me the breadth and depth of my endurance and strength. Growing older has taught me about seizing the moment and forging memories with those we love. Trying to reduce my consumption has led me to an animistic worldview and re-engaged my creativity.

Now that I have touched the edges of the kind of life I want to be living, I am more determined than ever to get there. I love the person I am becoming, and I am so excited to see what comes next.

Inspirational reads this season:

Strong, Calm and Free by Nicola Jane Hobbs

Dandelion Hunter by Rebecca Lerner

Going Zero by Kate Hughes

Sustainable Minimalism by Stephanie Marie Seferian

The Planet-Friendly Kitchen by Karen Edwards

Rewilding in 2022: A Progress Report

So, we're now around a third of the way through the year. This feels like a good time for me to lay my cards on the table and talk about how things are going. Buckle up, this is going to be a long post.

The reason I started this blog in the first place was to stay accountable during my year-long shopping ban. As I'm sure you know by now, despite multiple attempts this was not a challenge I have yet been able to complete - however, one incremental lesson at a time I was able to get a better grip on my finances and reorient myself in the world, rebuilding a life that didn't revolve entirely around shopping.

In the process I somehow ended up writing a book, discovering the practice and philosophy of Druidry, making efforts to live a more sustainable life, and reconnecting both with myself and the natural world. So it wasn't exactly a wasted effort.

This year, I decided not to try to force myself through another twelve months of trying not to shop at all. I'd tried three years in a row, and it just wasn't working, despite the positive changes I had made. Each time I seemed to stick with it long enough to begin to see a difference, and then something would come along that was just so special I had to have it. And after that first purchase, it becomes much harder to stop yourself from the next, and the next.

And the thing was, as I've said many times, now that I wasn't panic-buying and binge-shopping all over the place (that stereotypical image of Woman In Mall With Fifteen Shopping Bags And A Skinny Latte really did used to be me), I was choosing better. Not perfectly, not every time, there were still things that didn't look right when I got them home, nail varnishes I never wore and gave to friends, the occasional regret - but overall, I did manage to develop a smallish but functional wardrobe of things I love. So, not completing a shopping ban turned out not to be the worst thing in the world.

Rewilding

This year I decided instead to put my focus more on what I wanted my overall life to look like, guided by the single word: rewilding. 

One of my last purchases of 2021 was an almanac, the Way Back Almanac by Melinda Salisbury. I purchased it without seeing a sample or any inside pages, based purely on the blurb. And on New Year's Eve, I sat up in bed and read the January chapter while fireworks blossomed across the sky outside. 

 "You'll notice all the things we're supposed to acquire and become all fit a narrow and artificial, wealthy, white and western bandwidth of what 'good' lives should look like. And they don't factor in the natural world at all. [...] I'm giving you permission not to succumb to media and brand demands to change yourself. These dark days are ideal for nurturing and soothing, for resting and recuperating. However, we're not entering total hibernation. We need to remind ourselves there's life behind walls and computers. We must begin rewilding ourselves."

I think the hair stood up on the back of my neck when I read that. It was just so precisely what I needed to read. I wanted to climb into my almanac, with its recipes for soup and natural cosmetics and gentle, earth-loving, wholesome advice, wrap myself up in its pages and live there. I immediately ordered the first of Salisbury's #WayBackBookClub books.

Very early in the year I felt myself flailing around a lot, bouncing from one social media app to another, neglecting my sit spot, forgetting about watching the sunset. But unusually for me, I wasn't shopping, or even browsing very much. I kept getting the old twinges of comparison if I spent too long online, but as soon as I closed the apps I seemed to come back to myself.

Oddly, I kept having this recurring image floating to the surface of my mind in quiet moments - just myself, meditating. But this image gave me such a strong sense of peacefulness and calm - a rootedness in my being. It felt like an invitation, a starting point. It kept drawing me back, over and over, to the concept of simplicity, of letting go of all the frantic nonsense of the overculture. It grounded me in the conviction that actually, not banning myself from shopping seemed to be the right approach at this time.

When my garden started to come alive again in spring, I approached it differently. Instead of immediately eradicating my weeds, I tried to learn about what was there. Dog's mercury is poisonous, so had to go, but possibly indicated that an established woodland may once have existed where my house now stands. I gathered cleavers - which like me you may know best as 'stickyweed' - and chopped it into my scrambled eggs for breakfast - eating my weeds made me feel like a bit of a badass, not going to lie. I've read (in Rewilding the Urban Soul) that wild foods are more nutrient-dense than cultivated foods, so I possibly gave my health a boost too.

However, this was the bright spot - over the winter I realised I had become almost completely disconnected from nature. Since the Spud started nursery and we moved away from the nature reserve we had less time for our walks, and for a while I had a bunch of mega stressful life stuff going on (at one point a section of my hair turned grey overnight, which I thought was just a TV trope). The weather was cold and horrible, and our new house lost so much heat through its ancient windows that I was loath to go out and get chilly knowing I'd struggle to get warm again. Our daily walks dwindled to a once-a-week adventure, but then after the Spud came down with one bug after another from nursery, these too faded away, and by March I felt less 'wild' than I had to begin with.

Shopping

So what you may now be wondering is, how's my shopping actually doing without those self-imposed limits and restrictions?

Well, it's been a mixed bag. At the beginning of January, I felt so uninterested in shopping that I thought I might fly through the year without buying a thing, that perhaps all these shopping bans had been a case of barking up the wrong tree. In mid-January, however, digging up old photos from my goth years reminded me that I used to have a lot more fun with style, and I felt some regret that in many cases I'd replaced beautiful items with prosaic ones. Acknowledging that I need my clothes to be somewhat practical, I started keeping an eye open for a few more items that were really stunning. However, I knew I had a trip to Glastonbury booked in April, so I didn't throw myself headlong into online shopping. Happily, I've stopped craving a quick fix to any perceived wardrobe dilemma - I'm more able to proceed slowly and build on what I already have rather than purging half my stuff and panic-buying a ton more every time I have a change of heart.

I've observed before that my urges to buy are often synced with certain times of the month; I noticed this time around that the moon also plays a part. At full moon I am more likely to feel dissatisfied with my appearance, and have a sense of restlessness which can lead quite easily to acquisition. Now that I'm not trying to eliminate purchases altogether I'm not demonizing these tendencies, but it's useful to have an understanding of when I might find it hardest to stick within my budget.

In February, one of my dear friends was taken shopping to celebrate a milestone birthday, and I was caught off guard by the nostalgia - and, I'll say it, envy - this provoked in me, remembering teenage trips to the mall, giggling in the changing rooms, the glory that was the sheer variety and affordability of cheap brands. I really wanted a 'proper' shopping trip, and I lamented to Dai that I kind of wished I could go back to a time when I didn't really know about the scale of the damage that fast fashion is doing. When it was just a pleasure. 

After a few days of feeling really deprived, isolated from my friends (I know there's some sexism behind the suggestion that shopping is a women's pastime and that's a whole can of worms I haven't really even peeked into yet, but in my circle there are only one or two others who are cutting down on their consumption for environmental or ethical reasons and it's definitely considered a bit niche and eccentric), and demotivated (I hadn't really considered that it takes energy to keep setting yourself apart from what everyone around you and society-at-large considers 'normal'), I compromised. I took a trip to TK Maxx, which I had previously considered off-limits. 

Since reading Consumed by Aja Barber I learned that discount stores, while not ideal and, in an ideal world, unnecessary, perform a sensible function in that they sell end-of-the-line items that would otherwise be destined for landfill. I tried on anything and everything that caught my eye. I really made a day of it. I exhausted myself and had to stop for a protein bar. And I bought two items - a summer dress (I only owned one other at this point) and a smart top made from recycled polyester. Perfectly anticonsumerist? Definitely not. An improvement over years previous? I think so.

I noticed that Instagram use definitely corresponds with increased shopping, or at least an increased desire to shop, which is a bit unfortunate. Perhaps I'll have to give serious consideration to putting my account back into hibernation, as by April I was kind of hammering through the clothing and cosmetics budgets I'd laid out for myself this year, although it's not critical yet.

Inspirational reads this season:

The Way Back Almanac 2022 by Melinda Salisbury

Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

The Wheel: A Witch's Path Back To the Ancient Self by Jennifer Lane

The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

The Way Home: Tales from a Life Without Technology by Mark Boyle

Consumed by Aja Barber

The Guide to Eco-Anxiety by Anouchka Grose

Afloat by Danie Couchman 

The Feral Gardener

Sitting in my garden this morning with my fleece over my dressing gown and a lovely, steaming mug of coffee, I smiled to myself wondering what my neighbours must think of my approach to gardening. My method can be described as a combination of thrift, ecological-mindedness, a fair amount of total ignorance about gardening, and a bit of laziness too. I like that the most ecological approach to gardening often seems to also be the easiest.

I did work hard last summer getting a lawn area seeded for the little one to play on, and planting our first vegetables. Then I was a tad disheartened when the lawn grew in patchy and we lost most of our radish crop to pests. The weeds, however, grow with abundance - I kept meaning to borrow a hoe and tackle them, after a few afternoons spent digging out each and every one with a trowel. Then I discovered books like The Forager's Garden (Anna Locke) and Letting in the Wild Edges (Glennie Kindred) and realised I could be digging out plants that were useful or beneficial. I decided to stop weeding indiscriminately and instead to learn what exactly I had growing. I also choose not to use chemical weedkillers or fertilisers, which sometimes feels like I'm stacking the odds against myself, but I'm adamant it's the right thing to do. 

One of the few things we bought new when we moved in was a compost bin, which is happily doing its thing. Dai's dad has offered us his old water butt, and we've made pathways out of rubble we found in the garden when we moved in, and planters for herbs out of whatever we could find, such as an old sink and a beer keg. Currently I'm saving up Amazon vouchers (one of the survey sites I use pays in Amazon vouchers rather than cash) for a bokashi bin set, so that we can turn our kitchen scraps - including those that can't be composted in a standard compost bin, like meat and dairy - into fertiliser.

The first frosts came around before I was ready, and we lost many strawberries and a couple of tomato plants. At first the colder weather drove me indoors, but after deciding to resume my morning sit spot regardless of the weather, I began to spot more and more wildlife in our weedy, scraggly patch. Robins are apparently partial to the three tangled elder trees that I had gingerly separated and gently pruned in the hopes of helping them avoid disease. There were blue tits in the bare-branched apple tree that reached over our fence from nextdoor. Once or twice we spotted a squirrel racing through the yew trees just behind our fence.

My neighbours on the left have the most velvety and pristine lawn you can imagine, which is nursed by sprinklers dawn till dusk, April till October (I've never seen their children in the garden - though I've seen them gaping at us from the bedroom window!). Comparatively, last year I decided not to mow my lawn, to help it establish itself, and since I haven't weeded it either what I have now is a small and bedraggled meadow (I will mow it in the spring!). I also didn't rake up the leaves from the neighbouring sycamore - I can't quite get behind the idea of raking a biodegradable, soil-nourishing product into plastic bags, so I'm hoping it will work as a kind of free mulch.

The result of all this is that right now, my garden looks a terrible mess. The clematis at the bottom of the garden has evidently been left unmanaged for several years, and has swarmed up the nearest yew tree with parasitical fervour to form a green wall between us and the cemetery. I'm not sure what I can do about that - I tried hacking it back last year but it has simply shot straight back up with undiminished enthusiasm. But in the spring we will have nettles for tea and soup, and in the summer we have blackberries - though Dai would rather plant a thornless variety. We were able to decorate our house for the winter solstice with holly and ivy from our own garden. 

As well as our three elders and nextdoor's apple we have a beech tree, a conifer and a small aster of some description. We've also tried planting a cutting from a friend's fig tree, and should soon find out whether or not that has been successful. So the ingredients for a forager's forest garden (and a small, handy grove) do seem to be in place, and I'm hoping that my job this year will amount to steering it in the right direction, and adding more and more edible plants. 

Finding the Urban Wild

In June we moved house, from our grey council estate further into town. In many ways it was a relief - the new mortgage was cheaper than the rent, and finally we could put our own stamp on our dwelling without worrying about the landlord. Living closer to town was convenient for visiting friends, family, and helpfully our house is on the same road as the nursery the Spud will eventually be going to. The house is smaller, but it's a 1940s build with a fireplace and a beautiful archway between the kitchen and living room. It desperately needs redecorating, and we're trying to sell a lot of our furniture on Facebook marketplace in order to actually fit, but it's a brilliant house and I love it.

The garden is quite big, but it hasn't been tended in some years and is made largely of weeds and mud. This means I'm out there from dawn til dusk digging madly and putting down lawn seed, as about every two minutes the Spud traipses dirty footprints all through the house. I've given up on keeping anything clean in the meanwhile, so the downstairs is slowly becoming a swamp. I have also started a small herb garden and a vegetable patch, and my first crop of beetroot is coming along nicely. (I did, however, discover that we have an infestation of chafer grubs, which kill lawns - d'oh - so I'm going to sow clover seeds as a cover crop, which will also be good for the butterflies and bees.)

However, there have been some downsides to moving into a more urban area. Firstly, I no longer have easy access to woodlands and meadows for my walks with the Spud. We are within half an hour's walk of two brilliant nature reserves (the one we have made our territory for the last couple of years, and another, which is Green Flag rated and rather splendid), but it's not quite the same as having the river right on the back doorstep. I was surprised by how adrift and disconnected I have felt, not having quite such easy access to green space. We have been exploring the scrubby patches of trees and greenery around the edges of urban life, and I am learning that this kind of hardy, defiant growth has a very different spirit. It's harder to feel that strong sense of connection that I had been experiencing, but I'm hopeful that I can adjust and learn from this. I have Claire Dunn's Rewilding the Urban Soul and Tara Sanchez's Urban Faery Magick on my reading list to help me get acclimated!

Pentagram graffiti under a bridge. 
This is the same river that runs through the nature reserve where the Spud and I used to walk, but the vibe here is very different!

A more worrisome discovery is that living two minutes from the high street has kicked my consumerism into high gear. I've gradually been getting this back under control, but it wasn't an outcome I'd considered and it caught me rather by surprise! Sometimes it was obvious - hey, I'll just go browse this artisan market and the local independent shops for some home decor bits... yes, I definitely need another candle holder... - and sometimes less so - hey, a Nepalese takeaway, I'll just stop for some momos... hey, a Waitrose, I really fancy some sushi - but I quickly noticed that my finances were feeling the pinch and started avoiding the shops (and takeaways) unless I actually needed something.

The Spud wasn't immune to this either! He's well aware that shops are large repositories of toys, sweets and other things he doesn't have yet (on our last foray into the local independent shops he wanted a lucky waving cat and some crystal tumblestones... that's my boy) and has taken to hurling himself on the floor screaming if he is not bought Things! Immediately! I don't mind withstanding the hurricane of a toddler tantrum and will sit on the street and wait him out rather than cave in and buy a new toy from every shop we happen to pass, but avoiding the high street for now is probably the best strategy for both of us...

Another manifestation of the consumer trap I've noticed since we moved is that now I live on one of the main thoroughfares into town and am seeing lots more people every day, my anxiety about how I present myself also kicked up a notch for a while, and I had a few weeks where I wanted to waft around in flowy skirts and lots of jewellery to present a suitably alternative and Pagan appearance (although if questioned I'm quite sniffy about adopting a Pagan uniform, go figure). Looking a bit mysterious and witchy is far from being a problem in itself of course, but in my case it meant wanting to buy lots of new clothes, and also a tendency to stop doing the actual work in favour of spending a bit more time on my eyeliner. Style over substance is something I can easily slip into, and it's really not worth it.

This phase luckily came to an end when I was out on the new (to us) nature reserve and realised that I felt a bit conspicuous in my outfit. It was easier to switch off from the everyday and get connected when I was in my usual t-shirt and jeans or leggings. As I'd realised before, what feels great on Glastonbury high street or at the local rock bar doesn't always work well in other situations, particularly when my focus needs to turn outwards instead of inwards. I've not given up on my flowy skirts and jewellery for occasions when I know I'll be comfortable wearing them, but it was a reminder that, boring though it might seem to blend in, it does help me stop worrying about the surface stuff and writing shopping lists in my head and actually, y'know, do some Druiding.

Other than regularly visiting the nature reserves and spending lots of time in my garden, I have some other activities planned to help a) with being an effective student of Druidry and b) my transition to less consumerist living. Firstly, on my street there is a town museum, with a strong focus on the Iron Age, and I must pay a visit. I really want to get to know the history of this area, its folklore and - yes - its ghost stories (because I'm nerdy about spooky tales!). Secondly, I'm going to explore local shops of a different kind - I'm talking local produce and our excellent plant nursery. Thirdly, if time allows (which admittedly it may not) I'm considering getting involved with the group that runs conservation activities on the nature reserves as well as at other sites up and down the river. And lastly I've signed up to write infrequently on environmental issues for a local paper. I've also been asked to run a yin yoga class and guided meditation session for a dear friend's mental health support group - this is a bit out of my comfort zone (speaking? In front of humans?!) but when I thought about it, it seemed like a good way of supporting and being of service to my community. None of which require me to buy new clothes!

But I think the most important thing I can do is the same as it's always been - keep going outside!