I’ve been experimenting with various forms of what I term ‘rewilding’ or you could call – withdrawal from modernity. The over-comforting blanket of everyday life which has coddled us to the point of postured pain, diabetes and chronic illness.

Rewilding means different things to different people and there are other blogs and books out there which outline some solid ideas for rewilding practice. Some hit on similar themes, others are more vague. Personally I think a blend of personal physical, mental and collective practice is essential. Its not supposed to be a ‘lifestyle’ choice.

I suppose I’ve cultivated a kind of disgust at certain features of modernity. One of the most repugnant to me are labour-saving-devices – cars, electric toothbrushes, kitchen gadgets etc. Saving labour makes sense when our time is constrained by market forces, but it doesn’t make sense from a human scale perspective – what if the power goes out or the device breaks? Could you do the activity by yourself if needs be? It also offends my sense that the world shouldn’t be an ‘easy place’ to be. We need challenges to thrive and become stronger.

Another feature is our domain dependent acceptance of physical exertion. If you pay x amount to go to a gym every week, then people often exhaust themselves doing curls and spins, but ask the same people to walk to work instead of drive and they complain furiously. Same goes for carrying luggage, standing up for long periods, going without a screen or music or waking up early.

Cultivating a non-squeamish attitude is another essential skill to rewilding. Many city dwellers today are terrified of mud, shit, blood, bugs, worms, gristle and bone in their food, dirt in their homes, hair, spit etc. We have become overly sensitised to even the most ordinary phenomena – a dog shedding fur is a cause for concern, and out comes the hand-gel and the vacuum cleaner! Learn to make common cause with the spiders and the wasps, don’t be so scared of dirt, dirt is good! Mud under your fingernails is a sign of someone who works with their hands.

We have altered our perception of hard work in recent decades and what seems realistic and reasonable changes. Walking very great distances to get somewhere was once the norm – it was not unusual for Irish labourers to walk from Kilkenny to Dublin to find work! Even telling someone that I prefer to walk an hour rather than get the bus elicits strange and horrified looks, but walking is a baseline activity, we should be walking everywhere all the time, but we don’t. Walking today means a head-down earphones-in eyes avoiding people A to B experience, but walking should be mellow and a time to observe different plants, birds and weather patterns, a time to practice species identification or memory games, a time for contemplation.

Heat and cold exposure are two well discussed aspects of rewilding, and they come in many different forms. Exposure to the cold could include – wearing less layers outside, being bare chested or in shorts more often, having windows open while you sleep, using less blankets on the bed, taking cold showers or cold baths (a personal favourite), holding your face in cold water, soaking your hands and feet in ice water, wild swimming, swimming in the sea more often and so on.

Fasting is another overly discussed idea so I won’t add too much, other than to say that feeling hunger and battling through it is a great feeling!

There will be a part two, and probably three to this article…