The Web of the Wild

You sit at the centre of a living neighbourhood. The Web of the Wild is a way of noticing the eight communities around you, and the relationships between them.

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The Web of the Wild

Motivational species & elements

Whatever gets you off the settee and out of the door.

A small newt resting on an open palm by a pond

An orange fritillary butterfly feeding on a white flower head

Blackberries ripening from green to red to black

Two red and white spotted fly agarics on a forest floor

A mayfly resting on an open hand beside a stream

This community starts with whatever makes you want to go and look again. For me as a boy it was the chance of catching a newt; years later it was a buzzard soaring overhead. For you it might be butterflies on a bramble, a spider's web strung with dew, or frogspawn in the pond at the end of winter.

Motivational species and elements are the things with pull. Blackberries to pick, fungi popping up after rain, fresh badger tracks, a stream to hop across stone by stone, a tree to climb, a sunrise worth getting up for, a waterfall at the end of a walk. Motivation belongs to you, not to a fixed list of exciting species. Follow it and it leads into every other community, bringing energy, play and a wish to explore. Wonder doesn't depend on a dramatic encounter. And remember: food interest isn't proof of edibility, so identify fully before you eat anything.

You might meet

Newts
Frogspawn
Common toads
Grass snakes
Butterflies
Dragonflies and mayflies
Ladybirds
Spiders and dewy webs
Blackberries
Wild raspberries
Fly agaric and other fungi
Fresh badger tracks
A stream to hop across
A tree to climb
Sunrise and sunset
Waterfalls

Find activity guides Back to the Web of the Wild

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