Move Back into Belonging

Inspired by a recent workshop I gave at Yale University, this essay invites you to rediscover movement as a doorway into kinship with trees, stones, wind and place. What becomes possible when you step outside and re-awaken your relational awareness with an animate world? How can you meet the more than human world as participant, and let the land move you in return?

In recent years, ancient practices such as forest bathing, nature immersion, cold water swimming and barefoot walking have found their way into mainstream activities. Scientific studies confirm what you may already sense intuitively, that being outdoors reduces stress, improves mood and regulates the nervous system. These developments signal a cultural shift, a longing for reconnection with something meaningful, perhaps as an antidote to relentless productivity, efficiency and constant mental churning.

In earlier times, walking the land, sensing the wind, tracking animals, gathering food, watching the sky, adjusting to terrain and season were simply part of being human. They were not ‘additional’ practices or activities to engage in, but a profound and embedded way of knowing. Knowing, shaped through the body in relationship with the living world.

Our survival depended on reading subtle changes in weather, light, sound and animal behaviour. Our muscles learned from climbing, crouching, balancing, reaching and travelling across varied ground. Attention was informed by birdsong, flowing water, shifting clouds and the presence of other beings.

I don’t mean to write this from a place of nostalgia for a romanticised past, but to remember a sense of deep continuity, and a recognition that being human evolved in ongoing dialogue with landscape. Can we ‘regain’ our humanity, by returning to what we’ve collectively shunned for centuries, thinking we were ‘above’ or ‘better than’ nature, surgically dissecting us from our natural kin?

“Nature deficit disorder” is a relatively recent phrase that captures psychological and physiological effects of reduced contact with natural environments. It’s not a clinical diagnosis, but names a certain loss with serious consequences. Living primarily in abstractions, mediated by screens and ideas rather than in direct relationship with the living world, can lead to increased anxiety, fragmented attention, lack of cyclical awareness, and perhaps even a numbing of the senses (do any of those sound familiar to you? Let me know in the comments below!).

Now the good news is that your connection with nature has never disappeared, even though you might have disappeared from it, temporarily!

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to share this theme at Yale University, in my workshop Tuning the Body as Antenna: Somatic Pathways to the More-Than-Human. The premise was simple. Instead of approaching nature as something external, I invited participants to explore the body as an instrument capable of perceiving subtle information in the environment.

Of course we did some Qi Gong to awaken the body. We entered into a Goethean dialogue with stones and shells, to ask for their perspective on healing with nature. We even went outside to a majestic oak that had seen centuries, to sense its energy and see what happened when we beam love to it… All these invitations enable different modes of perception. We listened through the body, rather than analysing through cognition alone.

This way of working draws on animistic and ecological perspectives that recognise humans as embedded within a wider field of life, rather than separate observers. In such cosmologies, healing is often understood as restoring relationship, within the body, within community and with the environment. When disconnection is part of the problem, reconnection becomes part of the medicine. I particularly focused on what’s called ‘participation consciousness’, also called ‘mystical participation’, and ‘learning through absorption’.

People reported that the stone reminded them of being rooted in the body, of slowing down, of a connection to their ancestors. A shell spoke of coming home. The tree had a sense of humour, or people felt a loving caress on their brow. This is what I call ‘calibrating the body’ - getting to know the language of your unique body, as it is responding to the natural environment around you. It’s about reawakening your relational awareness. If you like to read more about my concept of Calibrating the Body, you can freely download my detailed academic paper here).

Now if you know me, it may come as no surprise, but movement is particularly suited to this task of reawakening relational awareness. A gentle sway of the spine may echo branches moving in wind. Walking slowly across uneven ground invites awareness of balance. Standing beside a tree reorganises our sense of verticality. These are small shifts in perception, yet they gradually restore a sense of belonging. We remember that as we flow out into nature, nature flows into us. There is no separation!

I would love to invite you to experience this with me, in my upcoming Move with Nature Week! With 7 gentle prompts you can explore your kinship with the living world wherever you are. You don’t need pristine wilderness. In previous iterations of this course, people participated from cities! Your body can enter into dialogue with a single tree, a patch of grass between buildings, a flower growing in a crack in the wall. Urban environments hold their own rhythms, textures and presences that equally respond to attention. We also have 2 zoom meetings at the beginning and end, to explore this in community together, connecting from wherever we are…

For me, this has become a lifelong practice. Moving with trees, water, wind and open sky has shaped how I understand belonging. I’ve sometimes moved in nature every day for three months, and once even for an entire year!

Even this one-week invitation is a stepping stone to cultivate ecological literacy and belonging. It is not something you can think your way into. You grow it through repeated encounters. Through stepping outside with your awareness switched on (instead of your phone!), sensing, meeting, asking questions, and moving with nature as a dance partner. Your wild kin is curious to meet you!

Join Move with Nature Week

Thank you so much to Emilie Pierini and her co-conveners from the HEAL Network for the Ethnography of Healing for dreaming this symposium into being, and to Yale Institute for Sacred Music for funding it and hosting us!

If you’re yearning for conscious movement in community too, here are some Wild Soul Ways:

Move with Nature (exploration week to rediscover your kinship with the wilds)

Wild Soul Qi Studio (4 classes weekly, live on zoom and via replays - 14 days free!)

Avebury Summer Solstice Retreat 22-26 June 2026, UK, in person (women only)