Retreats | She speaks with Nature

An initiation is a threshold moment.

A crossing from one state of being to another. It is not something that can be forced or manufactured; it is a process of surrender, of being met by something greater than yourself.

Across cultures and time, initiation has marked the turning points of human life; birth, coming of age, loss, transformation, death, and rebirth.

Through the lens of nature, initiation becomes a living experience.

The river teaches us about letting go. The fire teaches us about transformation. The mountain calls us to rise into clarity. The silence of the wilderness strips away illusion and brings us face to face with truth.

When we step onto the land with intention, nature responds. She becomes both mirror and mentor, constellating around us to show us exactly what we need to see for our path ahead.

On these trails, initiation is not symbolic alone. It is lived, felt, embodied.

Each threshold a person faces is held in ceremony, ritual, and in direct communion with the living world.

It is an honour and a privilege to walk beside you. We look forward to meeting you in the wild places!

This moment was caught at the tail end of my first wild walk in the bush in the Kruger Park.

A walk that stirred deep emotions within me, deep waters that I didn't understand at the time.
Feelings that just had to be felt, not rationalised, not placed.

The land asking me to just feel, to just be present,
to move through what was being stirred within me.

One step at a time.

The memory of the land, of the elephants of that place, of the ancestors who've walked that land before.

Navigating this wild terrain, not just under my feet, but within me.

These ancient rocks that I felt drawn towards, these ancient rocks that I greeted with reverence and remembering, were home to Indigenous peoples long, long ago.

And in this moment, greeting these ancient rocks, what was felt and experienced through this first walk in the African bush, this wild African terrain,
shifted and moved all of the hardness, fear, and grief that I felt, and dropped me into softness, into love, into acceptance.

In this riverbed, these ancient rocks, where I found a tiny sleeping bat, softened my heart,
soothed my nervous system.

They brought me home, deeper within myself.

Walking in the wild is wildly transformational.

The land will teach you.
It will show you your inner landscape,
where you are holding fear, grief, where you are not breathing, where you are not trusting.

It will teach you to allow what you feel, to trust what it shows you, to listen deeply,
to walk with nature, to walk with the land, not just on it.

And when we see, and acknowledge, and feel what that place is feeling, showing us,
it is not just transformational for us.

It is healing for the land, too.