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

Tell your story

What's the story of today, and who could you share it with?

Writing in a journal, sitting quietly in the woods

A woodland ride glowing orange in low evening sun

A fox glimpsed at dusk, a shelter that held through the rain, a bird alarm you began to understand: Wilding gives you experiences worth sharing. This Key is about shaping them into stories, built around one specific moment rather than a summary of the whole day.

Telling a story doesn't just follow the experience, it extends it. Choosing what to include and finding words for a feeling sends you back over the moment, often to things you missed. And it passes on knowledge of a place to everyone listening, as people have done since we first sat round a fire.

Try this week

Pick one moment from today and tell it in two minutes.
Ask someone, 'What was the best bit?' and really listen.
Tell the story of a walk from the path's point of view.

Explore 7 Tell your story 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