Wild Visions: The Healing Power of Wilderness
It all begins with an idea.
Welcome to the Wild Visions Blog, a space where ancestral skills, stories, and personal insights converge to honor the living spirit of the wild. Rooted in the same mission as our upcoming podcast, this blog explores wilderness not just as a place, but as a guide. From tracking and foraging, to myth and memory, we offer grounded practices and timeless teachings to help you reconnect with nature and with yourself. These are the skills and stories that remind us how to live in rhythm with the land, fostering both self-reliance and deep reverence
More than wilderness survival, Wild Visions is about transformation. Here we share how time in wild places brings clarity, healing, and renewal. The wilderness challenges, but it also restores, reflecting who we are and revealing what we can become. Whether you come for practical knowledge or the deeper questions, it stirs. This blog invites you to engage with wildness as both a mirror for the soul and a window into a more rooted way of being. Let the vision begin.
Windows and Mirrors: How the Wilderness Reflects and Reveals the Path of Transformation
The wilderness is not just a landscape; it is a state of mind. It is not simply where we go to hike, camp, or get away. It is a living, breathing presence. One that listens. One that sees. Out in the quiet where the wind moves through sage and stone, where the birds fall silent and the sun leans low, the land begins to speak. Or, more accurately, it begins to reflect and reveal.
You don’t just enter the wilderness. The wilderness enters you.
When the walls of your ordinary life fall away, no schedule, no phone, no name badge, no one watching, you start to remember something ancient. You begin to feel what it means to be fully human again.
This isn’t a place where you study nature from a distance. It’s a place where nature studies you. Not with words but with shadow scent and wind. And if you’re paying attention, it doesn’t just show you the outer world, it turns you inward. It shows you who you are.
The Mirror: Seeing Ourselves Clearly
When we strip away the noise of civilization, something unexpected happens. We find a mirror, but not the kind we hang on walls. This one is made of still water, broken twigs, startled birds, and the hush between our own breaths.
In this mirror, you begin to see the stories you carry, Stories you didn’t know were still shaping you.
I am not enough?
I must be strong at all times.
I don’t belong.
These thoughts rise up not because the wilderness puts them there, but because it gives them nowhere to hide.
And then comes the most humbling part: the land reflects all of it. Not with judgment, but with honesty. Your fear, your impatience, your grief, your longing, they show up in your breath, your posture, your pace, the way you meet the wind.
This is where the work of inner tracking begins.
Inner Tracking: The Art of Witnessing Yourself
Just as a skilled tracker reads the story of a deer in the dust, hooves splayed wide, stride shortened, a sudden shift in direction, you begin to track yourself. You begin to notice what’s under the surface. Not just the thoughts in your head, but the currents flowing beneath those thoughts.
Inner tracking is the sacred practice of observing your inner landscape, the way a tracker studies the Earth. You watch for patterns. Where does your mind go when you feel vulnerable? What emotion flares up when the wind picks up or the sun begins to set? What do you reach for when there’s no one else around?
This isn’t about self-analysis. It’s not about judgment or fixing. It’s about presence. About learning to read the trail of your own soul. It’s about coming into relationship with the parts of yourself you’ve ignored, forgotten, or cast aside.
In this way, the wilderness becomes a teacher, not of facts or field guides, but of truths. It teaches you to see what’s real.
A Vision in the Wild: Meeting the Medicine Bear
Years ago, during a wilderness fast, a traditional vision quest, I had a dream unlike any other. I had gone out seeking guidance, alone, without food or water, wrapped in the stillness of the desert.
In the deep hours of the night, I was pulled into a vision.
I found myself at the entrance of a small cave, a den. As I stepped inside, it opened into a tiny room where a small campfire burned, and sitting by the fire was a massive bear, not threatening but observing. I felt no fear, only recognition. In that moment, it showed me bones and roots, grief and wisdom. It didn’t speak a word, but its presence carried deep meaning.
That bear, the Medicine Bear, was not simply an animal of power. It was a mirror of my deeper self. A reflection of the part of me that knows how to heal, how to endure, how to carry the sacred.
That vision changed me, and it continues to guide my work today.
When we fast, when we go without, when we listen, really listen, we don’t just find clarity. We find contact with something greater. With the part of ourselves that knows.
The wilderness doesn’t just reflect, it reveals.
The Window: Seeing What Lies Beyond
And just as the mirror shows us who we are, the window shows us what is.
The window is the opening into a world we usually ignore. The interconnected world. The one where everything is alive and aware, Raven, Cloud, River, Rock. All participants in a sacred conversation.
In daily life, we are walled in not just by buildings but by beliefs. We insulate ourselves from mystery, from discomfort, from wonder. But in the wilderness, those walls fall away.
When we step outside, truly outside, we enter relationship. We stop being observers and become participants.
The wind doesn’t just pass us by. It carries memory.
The track of a deer in morning frost doesn’t just say “an animal was here”. It asks:
Can you be this aware?
Can you walk with this much care?
Crushed sagebrush underfoot doesn’t just release a scent. It stirs something old in your bones.
These are windows into the unseen world, a world where transformation is not abstract but embodied. Not a concept but a felt reality.
Practices of Attention
To receive these teachings, you must slow down. You must stop trying to get somewhere and let yourself arrive.
Slowness is the first language of the Earth.
Here are a few practices I teach and use myself, simple, rooted, and powerful.
Sit Spot: Choose one wild place and return to it often. Sit. Watch. Listen. Over time, the land begins to recognize you. You become part of the pattern.
Five Senses Awakening: When you arrive, engage every sense. What do you hear beyond your thoughts? What moves at the edge of sight?
Journaling and Reflection: Write about your experiences after each outing. Not just what you saw, but what you felt. What did the land show you about yourself? What new question arrived?
Gratitude: Begin and end every visit with thanks. Offer something: a sip of water, a song, a strand of hair. Speak aloud. Treat the land as you would an elder.
These practices don’t help you learn about nature. They help you learn from it.
Encounters with the Unseen
The wild doesn’t always speak in words, but it speaks. And when it does, it often bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the Soul.
Sometimes the message arrives like thunder. A bald eagle appears overhead just as you whisper a prayer. A tree that has been showing up in your dreams reveals itself around the bend of the trail, its bark textured like a memory. A sudden downpour cuts your plans short and leaves you soaked, humbled, listening.
But more often, the wilderness speaks in whispers. A subtle shift in mood. A quiet knowing that wasn’t there before. A strange sense of peace or presence that comes from nowhere and stays with you for days. You might not be able to explain it, and that’s the point. These are not puzzle pieces to be solved. They are seeds. Seeds of meaning are planted in the dark soil of your being.
Like any seed, they may need time. Weeks. Months. Maybe years. Not everything revealed in the wild will make sense right away. That dream, that animal, that emotion, don’t rush to name it. Let it rest. Let it grow. The land doesn’t hand out clear answers. It invites you into a relationship with mystery. And the more you trust that mystery, the more it will trust you in return.
The Initiation of Discomfort
If you spend enough time in the wild, it will test you.
You may get cold. Wet. Lost. You may feel fear rise in your chest as night falls. You may face the kind of silence that stretches wide and deep and uncomfortable. And in those moments, you may want to turn back. But don’t. That’s where the threshold lies.
The wilderness doesn’t punish. It initiates.
When things go wrong, when the map doesn’t help, when the path disappears, when your confidence crumbles, that’s when the real work begins. You’re no longer operating from the script of daily life. You’re not in control, and there’s no one to blame or perform for. You meet yourself raw and real.
This is the forge of transformation. The place where what is false burns away, and what is essential comes forward. You find patience not because the world gives it to you but because you have no other choice. You find strength not in bravado, but in staying present through your fear. You learn to listen when there is no sound. You learn to trust when there is no path.
Discomfort is not the enemy. It’s the doorway. And what it leads to is not always comfort, but clarity.
Returning to the Village
The wisdom you gather out there isn’t meant to stay out there. You go to the wilderness to remember, but you return to share. That’s how the old ways work. The one who leaves comes back bearing gifts, not always in the form of words or teachings, but in the way they walk, in the way they listen, in the stillness behind their eyes.
You may return from the mountains, desert, or forest without a single dramatic story to tell. That’s fine. You’re not coming back to impress. You’re coming back to integrate. To embody. To live what you’ve learned. You might carry a deeper stillness, a clearer gaze, a quieter urgency to live more aligned with your values. You might become the kind of person who notices things, who pauses before speaking, who walks a little more gently on the Earth.
And that in itself is a teaching.
We need more people who’ve been changed by the land. Who carry its presence into their homes and workplaces, and relationships. Who don’t speak for the Earth, but speak with Her, through how they live. You become a mirror for others, a window into another way of being. You become, in your own quiet way, the wilderness walking.
Before You Go: A Field Note
Next time you go to the land, remember this.
Offer thanks before your feet touch the trail.
Set an intention, but let it breathe.
Bring water, a journal, and wonder.
Listen more than you speak.
Don’t try to make something happen; let it happen.
You don’t need to hike ten miles. You don’t need to fast for four days. Even a few hours in a pocket of wildness is enough.
The Earth is not silent.
She’s waiting.
For you to slow down.
To open.
To remember.
Go often.
Go humbly.
Go alone sometimes.
Let the wilderness mirror what’s true.
Let it show you what’s possible.
And when you return, return changed.
The Intersection of Nature Awareness and Spirituality
It all begins with an idea.
How the Senses Become the Gateway to the Sacred
Two Paths That Meet at the Same Trailhead
Two areas I return to again and again are:
Nature awareness,
Spirituality and the unseen world,
At first glance, these may appear to be separate trails. One teaches us how to observe the patterns of birds, wind, and weather. The other invites us to explore intuition, dreams, and our relationship to the Creator.
But the longer I walk in awareness, the more I see how these two paths are really one. Nature awareness, when practiced with reverence, awakens something ancient within us. It finetunes the senses, and those senses, when fully alive, become the very tools we need to see into the sacred.
This article is about that intersection. About how slowing down and paying attention doesn’t just keep us safe or informed. It opens the door to the holy.
Awareness Is a Spiritual Discipline
Let’s begin with a simple truth:
Awareness changes you.
It is not a neutral act. When you learn to notice the wind shifting direction or the sudden silence of birds or the way light softens before a storm, you’re not just gathering data. You’re stepping into a relationship with the living world.
And relationship is the root of all spirituality.
In the old ways, awareness wasn’t just a skill for hunters or gatherers. It was a way of staying in conversation with Creation. Every footprint in the snow, every flick of a deer’s ear, every breeze carried a message. Not metaphorically literally.
So the first truth is this:
Nature awareness is a doorway to the sacred.
But not the kind you find in stained glass windows. This sacred breathes. It watches. It waits for you to notice
The Supernatural Is Natural If You’re Paying Attention
When I speak of the supernatural, I don’t mean ghosts or fantasy. I mean the deeper, subtler layer of life which our ancestors simply called Spirit.
It’s the sense of being watched in a silent forest, but not in fear. It’s the dream that answers a question you never spoke aloud. It’s the deep knowing that rises from your gut before your mind can catch up.
These aren’t superhuman powers. They are original human abilities. Our birthright as humans.
Your body is wired to notice things modern culture has trained us to ignore. When you spend time on the land with intention, your senses recalibrate. The world quiets. The finer frequencies begin to hum.
Call it intuition, sixth sense, or gut feeling. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s real and it’s a skill you can remember.
Ancient Skills Modern Soulwork
Many spiritual traditions speak of cleansing the doors of perception. That’s exactly what nature does, one sense at a time.
The scouts, healers, and seers of old didn’t just know the land. They listened to it. They fasted, they prayed, they watched with stillness. They didn’t separate survival skills from spiritual ones. Tracking a deer and tracking a dream were two sides of the same coin.
That brings us to a key practice in this path:
Inner Tracking
Inner tracking is the art of following your thoughts, emotions, and dreams, the same way you’d follow animal tracks in the mud, or across a snowy meadow.
It asks questions like:
What am I feeling right now
Where did that feeling come from
What is it pointing me toward
By learning to read the outer signs in nature, you sharpen the tools needed to read the signs within. This isn’t metaphor. It’s method.
The Bridge Between the Seen and Unseen
Here’s how I like to frame it:
Nature awareness sharpens your ability to see the visible.
Spiritual practice sharpens your ability to sense the invisible.
And the bridge between the two is attention.
Attention is sacred. It is the currency of presence. Where you place your attention determines what becomes real to you.
Try this the next time you’re out on the land:
Sit quietly without expectation.
Let your breath sync with the wind.
Soften your eyes and listen with your whole body.
Ask silently, “What am I not seeing?”.
Then wait….
You may feel nothing. Or……
You may feel a subtle presence rise around you. You may hear something without sound. You may receive a wordless answer.
That’s the mystery.
And that’s the gift.
Practicing Reverence in Everyday Life
You don’t need to be a spiritualist, shaman, or wilderness expert to walk this path. You only need to be willing.
Willing to listen.
Willing to slow down.
Willing to believe even for a moment that the forest is speaking to you.
Because it is.
Nature awareness isn’t just about paying attention.
It’s about paying respect, offering gratitude.
It says:
I am not above this world.
I belong to it.
I am not alone.
I am in communion with wind, water, wing, and root.
That’s real spirituality!
Returning to the Sacred Conversation
So the next time you step outside, don’t just look.
See.
Don’t just walk.
Listen.
Let your senses become the gateway. Let awareness pull you back into the sacred conversation between Earth and Spirit.
It’s not far.
It never was.
The deeper I go into the old ways, the more clearly I see this truth:
The supernatural isn’t out there.
It’s right here.
In the rustle of leaves.
In the rhythm of your breath.
In the knowing that rises when you slow down enough to listen.
And in that stillness, we remember who we are.
The Wilderness Fast: Remembering the Ancient Way of Seeking
“Whoever you are no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” - Mary Oliver, The Wild Geese
For thousands of years, cultures worldwide have ventured into the wilderness alone to seek guidance, renewal, and purpose. They've done this not out of novelty but out of necessity. In times of transition, such as adolescence, grief, calling, or crisis, a person would often go out to fast. Not to escape the world but to return to it with new eyes.
This practice has been known by many names, in many languages, but at its root is a simple truth: solitude, fasting, and time on the land open the heart to deeper knowing.
Today, this practice is often referred to as a vision quest. While the term is widely used, it can be vague and sometimes misleading. In certain cultures, such as among the Lakota, it refers to a very specific ceremonial rite with defined protocols, responsibilities, and sacred teachings. Using the term loosely risks blurring important cultural boundaries and missing the depth of what this rite truly is.
At the same time, the core elements of this practice, fasting alone in nature to seek clarity and connection, are not exclusive to one people. They are found in many cultures worldwide. Whether it's a boy becoming a man, a person grieving a loss, or someone yearning for direction, the wilderness has long served as a mirror, a teacher, and a threshold.
This is what we call a wilderness fast: a time of intentional solitude often lasting four days and nights, where one brings no food, no distractions, and no comforts, beyond what's essential. There is no fire. No phone. No tent. Just the self, the land, and the sky overhead. It is a time to listen deeply to what the wind has to say, to what the body reveals, to what the soul has been waiting to speak.
Preparation matters. This is not a casual hike or a camping trip. Those who undertake a wilderness fast are often supported beforehand by guides or elders who help them clarify their intention, understand the symbolic nature of thresholds, and prepare mentally and spiritually. Afterwards, the return is just as important as the going out. One must return not only to reenter daily life, but also to share what was received, whether it was a vision, a shift in awareness, or a deepening of responsibility.
Not everyone sees visions in the way we might expect. Some receive dreams, symbols, or signs from the land. Others face their fear, or sorrow, or confront a truth they've long avoided. And sometimes there is only stillness, what seems like nothing, but even that "nothing" changes them. What matters is not the drama of the experience but the depth of the listening.
In this way, a wilderness fast is not about chasing after visions. It's about becoming ready to see, to remember one's place in the circle of life, to hear what's been speaking all along, and to walk back into the world carrying something of value. Something rooted. True. Hard won. A gift not just for oneself but for the people.