I loved this movie in many different ways. And as any good story that deals with primal archetypes and archetypal dynamics, it can be interpreted at many different levels.
It can be seen as a metaphor for how humans treat each other, including how the English have treated the Irish. It can be seen as a more literal story about how humans treat nature and the wild. And it can be seen as a mirror for dynamics in ourselves, and how we civilize ourselves at the expense of the primal aliveness in ourselves.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIP WITH THE WILD
It’s easy to imagine a history of the human relationship with the wild, and it will – by necessity – be somewhat speculative when it comes to the early history.
Before agriculture and civilization as we think of it, people lived in nature, with nature, and from nature. They may have had more of a partnership relationship with nature and the wild, and they likely respected nature out of necessity. They had a more nature-oriented spirituality. They didn’t have much property so they didn’t have much hierarchy. They may have had a more matriarchal culture. The inevitable damage to nature was limited since their numbers were small and their technology simple, and they also moved if they needed to which limited their impact on the areas they were in.
With agriculture, this all changed. We could accumulate wealth. We had more division of labor, tasks, and skills. We developed a hierarchy. The ones higher up in the hierarchy developed a wish to control others and the general population. We got culture as we know it. We got more removed sky-God religions. We got a more patriarchal culture.
We lived in tamed landscapes or towns and cities. With agriculture, we depended more on tamed nature. We lived more distanced from the wild. We depend much less on the wild. The wild became “other” to us. For those higher up in the hierarchy, it became in their interest to also tame the population.
We learned to tame nature and ourselves, and find this comforting and the wild scary and unsettling and perhaps even evil.
Our human relationship with the wild shifted. We went from living in and from the wild to becoming distanced from it and viewing it often as something scary and suspicious. We learned that taming ourselves and nature was safer.
WHAT DOES TAMING OURSELVES MEAN?
We know what it means to tame nature. It means to make the wild into agricultural land, towns, and cities. Replace wild forests with planted forests. To kill any animals – typically large predators – we see as competitors or any danger to ourselves. And so on.
But what does it mean that we tame ourselves?
In one sense, it just means that we learn to live with others and in civilization. We learn to express our feelings with words instead of through actions that may harm others. We learn to cooperate. We learn to take others into consideration when we make our choices and live our life. This is natural for us since we are a social species and it doesn’t necessarily come at much or any cost.
In another sense, it can mean that we tame ourselves at the cost of our aliveness, sense of connection and meaning, and authenticity. This happens when we take taming ourselves in a slightly misguided way. We may deny our emotions or needs, wishes, and desires instead of acknowledging or expressing these and finding ways to get our needs met. We may disconnect ourselves from our body and nature and feel disconnected, ungrounded, and aimless. All of this tends to come as a consequence of believing painful beliefs and identities and perceiving and living as if they are true. And these painful beliefs and identities tend to come from our culture or subculture. They are passed on and shared by many if not most humans in our culture, and some may be common across cultures – especially in our modern world.
HOW DO WE REWILD OURSELVES?
Rewilding nature is a popular topic these days, and very much needed for the health of nature and ourselves and our culture.
But how do we rewild ourselves?
There are several approaches, and what works best is probably a combination of the ones that resonate the most with us – and that may change over time.
We can connect with nature through spending time in nature, gardening, spending time with non-human species, learning about nature, spending time in the wilderness, learning to survive in the wilderness, spending time at a bonfire, looking at the stars, and so on.
We can connect with our body by walking barefoot, receiving bodywork, doing different forms of yoga, learning to recognize and take seriously the signals from our body, and so on.
We can engage in nature-centered spirituality and rituals, including the Practices to Reconnect from Joanna Macy.
We can shift our worldview from one of separation to connection and oneness, for instance through deep ecology, the epic of evolution, the universe story, ecospirituality, system views, integral models (AQAL), and so on.
We can engage in actions on behalf of other species, the Earth, and future generations. These may be small and “invisible” everyday actions or more visible in the world. These may be actions to stop damage, change our culture, or envision and implement life-centered alternatives.
We can learn to notice and acknowledge our emotions and wishes, needs, and desires. We can find ways to express this and meet our needs in a kind way. We can find a more authentic way to live that’s kind to ourselves and others.
We can identify fears we have of rewilding ourselves. What’s the worst that could happen? What does my culture tell me could happen? What do I find when I examine these stories? What’s more true for me? How is it to meet and be with the fear and allow it as it is? How is it to find love for it?
We can find healing for any emotional issues that create a sense of separation and lack of connection, aliveness, groundedness, and meaning.
We can identify and investigate the views and beliefs that create a sense of separation – with ourselves, others, nature, and the universe as a whole. We can identify beliefs passed on through our culture. We can find them in ourselves and inquire into them and find more freedom from them and what’s more true and honest for us.
We can connect with and taste the wholeness we are at a human level, through a combination of meditation, body-centered practices, emotional healing, and more.
We can explore what we more fundamentally are in our own first-person experience. At one level, we are a human being in the world. And what do I find when I explore what I am in my own first-person experience? I may find I more fundamentally are capacity for the world as it appears to me. And what the world – this human self, the wider world, and anything else – happens within and as. I may find myself as the oneness this human self and the wider world happen within and as.
This is not only for the benefit of ourselves. It benefits our culture. It may help our species survive. And it will likely benefit other species, this living planet, and future generations.
Note: This article itself is an example of rewilding ourselves. I saw the movie three or four weeks ago, made a few notes, and allowed it to rest. Today, I was moved to write the article and it came out easily and naturally, without much if any effort.
When I saw the movie, I noticed I wasn’t ready to write the final article. I knew that pushing it would be uncomfortable and likely wouldn’t give a good result. So I allowed it to rest and digest on its own, and I waited for it to come to fruition in me and move me to write it.
I planted the seed, waited, and it sprouted in its own time in the form of this article.
INITIAL OUTLINE
- Movie
- Full of powerful archetypes
- Beautiful, moving, important
- In the world
- Fear of wolves, the wild, want to tame, get rid of
- Especially today, irrational,
- Identity
- Are needed in nature, are needed for us, important they are here,
- Today, almost no wilderness left, almost no untouched nature, even more needed than ever before
- Within us
- The wild within us
- Civilization, Christianity, want to tame or get rid of
- Have tamed almost all nature + ourselves
- Illnesses of civilization, lost the wild
- Lack of sense of aliveness, feel lost, lack of sense of meaning,
- Lack of power,
- Lack of going outside of convention in a healthy, mature way (often immature)
- Removes power, the wild, aliveness (deadens, miss sense of meaning)
- When reconnect, find power, healing, healing abilities
- How reconnect? How rewild ourselves?
- Many ways, (life)long process
- connect with nature, the body,
- Rituals, fire, nature
- Mythology, stories
- Deep ecology, universe Story
- explore blocks,
- Find our nature
- What it means? To refind the wild within us
- What it doesn’t mean? To abandon civilization, maturity, kindness, wisdom etc. (gives life to it)
….
- human relationship with the wild
- from natural relationship, embrace it, innocent relationship, more matriarchal (?)
- to civilization, hierarchy, rules and ruled, culture, ideas, Christianity, more patriarchal
- wanting to tame it, wanting to control people/nature, asking people to tame the wild, subdue
- casting dispersion on the wild, making it into something sinister, dangerous, evil, etc.
- do the same with ourselves as nature
Human relationship with the wild – from natural relationship, embrace it, innocent relationship to civilization, hierarchy, rules and ruled, culture, ideas, Christianity, wanting to tame it, wanting to control people/nature,
…
Human relationship with the wild in nature
Human relationship with the wild in ourselves