The 15 Practice Keys

Each Practice Key is a simple, repeatable way of spending time with nature. Some will call to you straight away; others will make sense later. There is no right order.

← All 15 Practice Keys

Practice Key

Enjoy your sit spot

Sit quietly, often, in one place, and let the wild come to you.

Sitting quietly by a lake on a summer day

A sit spot among the pines in the New Forest

A sit spot is a place outdoors you return to again and again, simply to be still and quiet. It only has to be outside and feel safe. A corner of the garden or a bench in the park will do. Stay put for long enough and the birds and animals stop treating you as a disturbance and get on with their day.

So much of the rest depends on this. It's where you learn what's normal in a place, practise patience, and slowly turn from a visitor into a neighbour. Over time, nature starts to feel less like somewhere you go and more like home.

Try this week

Pick a spot within five minutes of your door.
Sit there for ten minutes, three times this week.
Note one thing that was different on each visit.

Explore 11 Enjoy your sit spot activity guides Back to the Practice Keys

Safety, and where the activity guides come from

Look after yourself and others. Outdoor activities carry real risks: fire, tools, water, weather, heights, plants, fungi, animals and getting lost. Every activity guide includes safety notes, but you are responsible for your own safety and for anyone in your care. Supervise children closely, get the landowner's permission, follow the Countryside Code, never eat anything you cannot identify with complete certainty, and only light fires where it is allowed and safe. If in doubt, leave it out.

With gratitude to the lineage. The Wilding Practice Keys and many of the activities in the activity guides have been adapted from the core routines of nature connection in the 8 Shields approach (Coyote Mentoring), mapped by Jon Young and shared in Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature (Young, Haas & McGown).

These ways of noticing and belonging are far older than any book. They grow from the knowledge of Indigenous and land-based peoples around the world, who have lived in close relationship with the land for thousands of years and have kept that knowledge alive, often in the face of great loss. Jon Young describes 8 Shields as built on patterns of nature connection he found in Indigenous cultures around the world, and on what his mentors taught him, including the teachings passed down through Tom Brown Jr. from Grandfather Stalking Wolf. Our own ancestors in these islands once knew the land in this way too.

I offer Wilding with deep respect and thanks to all of them. It does not claim or copy any culture's ceremonies or sacred practices. It is a UK way of carrying forward simple, shared human ways of paying attention, giving thanks and belonging to a place. — Jay