Nature Connection

Hominids have had a relationship with plants for more than 1 million years. The methods for processing plants have changed little in that time. Shredding, stripping, retting, carding, thrashing, winowing and grinding. The technology and plants have changed, but the process remains the same.  Learning with a few plants, their properties and the primitive forms of processing are the skills and knowledge which bring us into a closer relationship with nature, when this is learned as part of a cooperative learning group in nature on an overnight which includes food, campfire, observation skills and a walk in ancient an ancient landscape with commentary on the history of ancient woodlands, coppice, hedge laying and the history of coppicing in Britain and Europe, which dates back to the earliest stone-age farmers. From processed plant materials, we begin to understand that skills are not compartmentalised and learned in isolation from one another. Processing fibre ...

First Published 23/12/2025 Survivalism or Bushcraft? Both terms are interchangeable, however there aee aspects of survivalism thar are not found in Bushcraft. Initiation Cultures in the Postmodern Collapse We don't really have coming-of-age ceremonies in the Industrialised world. These transitions seem more important to cultures that have either not been fully assimilated into capitalism or that have maintained their more ancient traditions. Some Sufi sects still practice an initiation rite that bestows responsibility and requires the initiate to lead a simple life of devotion, peace, and compassion. The Sufis are the peace and love hippies of Islam.  My Asian family are followers of Jalaluddin Rumi. But their Sufism is markedly different from Western Sufism. I do periodically hear Core Shamanism practitioners podcasting about initiation culture and trying to found one. Just to be clear, whatever they do in their initiation, it will be unlike anything I might suggest from a su...

Go Bags? (UK specific) The 1st question I ask is where are you going with your Go Bag ? At the moment in the UK, primary risks to life are severe weather (heat, cold, and wind) flooding and sea level rise. Wild fires are increasingly becoming a risk. The location of your home will dictate your risks. Buildings and contents are at risk in certain conditions This article is a response to this XReadiness   High risk homes : Flooding and Sea Level Rise Homes on low lying coastal land 1-2m above sea level at the moment. Homes on river flood plains Wildfires Homes in woodlands with vegetation coming up close to the house.  Flooding and wildfire risks are often communicated via alerts to our phones. Advanced warning is a signal to leave your home, where you are planning to go will dictate what's in your Go Bag . My suggestion is to go to friends, a hotel or relatives. Your Go Bag only needs to contain clothes wash bag and towel and maybe take sleeping bags and camping mats. Ignorin...

Originally Published December 19 2025 Edited January 17 2025 Sit Under a Tree & Ask it What it Wants of Me. This is the impossible question because humans don't speak tree, so any answer is a projection.  "Shamanic Practitioner" is a Modern New-Ager from the industrial Capitalist world who imagines or projects themselve to be a Shaman, without the trials and connection to nature that indigenous shaman go through or learn. Most shamanic practitioners reject the learning of any type of skills that indigenous shamans may have learned prior to being chosen by the tribes elders to go into the wilderness and be apprenticed to a shaman, because they don't think we are going to hunt & gather in the future. Anyone could be excused for believing that wilderness survival is just a case of reading a few manuals. Reality, however, is very different.  I don't think these LARPing shamanic types can be blamed for thinking survival skills are easy to just pick up. Connecti...

First Published December 6 2025 Edited January 17 2026 Connecting to Nature I write extensively about how we are connected to nature through the limbic system. This is based on actual psychological and medical research around stress and my own experience as a Nature Therapy project designer for an NHS psychiatric hospital. Nature is good for you. The Restoration of Cognition Theory coupled with at the very least gardening and at the very best prosocial wilderness survival skills training in nature. Paired with the Stress Recovery Theory. Nature slows us down to its pace, which is glacial. When we fully understand how we are already tuned into nature. The "Turn On" as Timothy Leary says, is not LSD, Ayahuaska or psylocibin, these give us glimpses but no route.  The Turn On is Nature connection activity, We are born tuned in already.  Dropping out is easy if you are not constrained by capitalism. Fire making is the core starting skill, from which all others flow, becuase we...

There is a large body of research that indicates contact with nature is good for your mental health. I have direct experience, witnessing how conservation activities directly impacted patients in several acute psychiatric wards. A patient who had been struggling with acute anxiety disorder, and who was nearly catatonic became animated when digging, and after 20 minutes said that for the 1st time in his life, his anxiety was gone! Now called Eco-therapy, more formalised approaches to leveraging the special qualities of nature, forest bathing, or as it was first coined in Japanese,  shinrin yoku , have started to grow in momentum in the American and British cultural zeitgeist as a passive consumer product . The practice is to surround oneself in nature, mindful of sight, sound, and smell. It is a passive activity requiring zero interaction with the environment. Climate Anxiety Climate anxiety may become one of the major drivers of anxiety disorders and depression, and is full...