Alternative Healing
Rewilding
CJ Liu interviews Micah Mortali, author of “REWILDING: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature.” Today, we live mostly urban lives and our vital wildness has gone dormant. Micah Mortali is the founder of the Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership. He leads sold-out retreats teaching participants how to have a closer relationship with nature. This helps people revive a vital part of a happy, healthy life by reigniting our primal energy. As a result, people experience lower stress and anxiety.
Children and Nature
Micah shares his early childhood experiences living off the land in a rustic cabin. He was allowed to roam the forest with unstructured time and space. As a child, he experienced both the magic of nature and the experience of going to church. He learned that the the miracles he read in the Bible could be experienced everyday from being outdoors in nature. And that these miracles could be simple and not have to be grandiose. Micah shares how Richard Louv’s idea of nature deficit disorder in his book, “Lost Child in the Woods,” influenced his experience as a parent. Adults and children both have large amounts of screen time that results in directed attention fatigue. The antidote is fascination attention, where all 5 senses are stimulated in a natural way.
Connecting to Nature
Midpoint during the interview, Micah shares how you can connect with life force at your desk by staring out the window or even closing your eyes and connecting to your breath through a desk meditation. A listener asks when to have open and closed eye meditations. Micah explains that while open eyes help you connect through visual senses, if you are overstimulated that it may be nicer to close the eyes. During the holidays it’s very easy to get over stimulated by the rush of buying, and all the parties. This is in stark contrast to natural surroundings of quiet, darkness, and peace. Micah shares that instead of Christmas shopping with his wife, he took his son out to the woods, started a fire, made peppermint hot chocolate, and whispered his wishes into a log.
Nature’s Lessons
CJ shares her experiences walking in nature and how she still struggles to understand what nature taught her and the transformation that occurred. Micah cautions to not try and rush into making sense or understanding nature’s lessons. When Micah was sitting in the forest, a black bear sat down next to him. It took ten years for him to make sense of this experience. Lastly, Micah shares why it’s so important to get back into our roots and establish a dialogue with nature.
Rewilding: YouTube Video
More on Micah Mortali
Micah Mortali, MA, is the Founder of the Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership. In addition, he is a Mindful Outdoor Guide and a certified 500-hour Kripalu yoga teacher through the Kripalu School of Yoga. He holds a master’s degree in Health Arts and Sciences from Goddard College, and is author of Rewilding: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature.
Micah has been leading groups in wilderness and retreat settings for almost 20 years. He is passionate about sharing the life-affirming gifts of yoga, Ayurveda, nature, and mindfulness with others. He is dedicated to the idea that there is a power and a limitless possibility within every human heart. The purpose of life is to awaken and experience that possibility. He lives with his wife and children in the Berkshires, where he enjoys getting out into nature and sitting by a crackling fire or a laughing brook as often as possible. You can find his books here.
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