Walk With Micah Mortali: Rewilding as Remembering
Episode 2 Summary: Micah Mortali, founder of the Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership, introduces the concept of rewilding—not as running off to live in the woods, but as reclaiming lost connections with our natural habitat.
In this conversation, Micah shares the idea of nature as "the green mirror"—a counterbalance to the black mirrors of our phones. When we look into the green mirror, we see who we actually are, not a curated artificial version.
Susan and Micah explore how rewilding addresses root causes of disconnection, why simply being outside shifts our nervous system in ways no app can replicate, and the accessible practices anyone can use to begin—no wilderness required.
This conversation will help you see rewilding not as something extreme, but as remembering what's been there all along.
Episode Length: 48 minutes
SHOW NOTES
Episode Description
Modern life has quietly domesticated us. We move between screens and schedules, often far removed from the land that shaped our nervous systems and our species. Burnout, fragmentation, and disconnection are often treated as personal failures — but what if they are ecological symptoms?
In this conversation, I sit down with Micah Mortali, founder of the Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership, to explore rewilding not as a trend, but as a process of remembering. Together, we examine how mindfulness in nature, attention practices, and outdoor leadership training can begin to heal what Richard Louv calls “nature deficit disorder” — not just in children, but in adults, leaders, and organizations.
We talk about domestication, habitat, belonging, and the quiet power of paying attention outside.
If wellbeing is rooted in relationship, this episode invites us back into that relationship — with land, with place, and with ourselves.
Key Themes
• Rewilding as a process of remembering, not escaping
• Nature-based wellbeing and the healing of modern disconnection
• Mindfulness in nature as nervous system regulation
• Nature deficit disorder beyond childhood
• The role of outdoor leadership in cultural regeneration
Key Takeaways
• Rewilding is not about rejecting modern life — it’s about restoring relationship with habitat.
• Attention is ecological. Where we place our awareness shapes how we belong.
• The wellbeing crisis mirrors our disconnection from the natural world.
• Leaders are not separate from ecosystems; culture functions ecologically.
• Reconnection requires practice, not inspiration alone.
“Rewilding is a process of remembering.”
Connect with Micah & Resources from This Episode
Micah Mortali
Website: micahmortali.com
Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership: kripalu.org/content/school-mindful-outdoor-leadership
Rewilding: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature: [link to book]
Instagram: @micah_rewilding
LinkedIn: Micah Mortali
Also Referenced
GMB.io — a bodyweight movement program that draws on natural, animal-based movement patterns (mentioned as one accessible way to reconnect with how our bodies are designed to move)
Prefer to read? The full transcript is available below.
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Susan Bailey: Alright, well, hello, Micah!
Micah: It's crazy.
Susan Bailey: to connect with you.
Micah: Yeah, it's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Susan Bailey: I, ever since I, attended the Rewilding Summit last, fall, I've… I've known that I wanted to have more conversation with you, and I'm excited that it's a part of this podcast. So looking forward to this conversation today.
Micah: Yeah, me too.
Susan Bailey: All right, well, so let's just dive in, with a little bit more about you. You, as I said, I met you through attending the Rewilding Summit, which is connected to the School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership at Kripalu.
Susan Bailey: So, can you talk a little bit about the school, the summit? I'm curious.
Susan Bailey: Tell people what that's all about.
Micah: Alright, well, I guess I'll start with Kripalu. So, Kripalu is the largest yoga retreat center in North America. We're in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, and we sit on about 120 acres overlooking Lake Mahkeenac, and
Micah: It's a beautiful place with a lot of history, and I've been here for 21 years.
Micah: And, started off, came here to get my yoga teacher training certification, and then, was a volunteer, and washed dishes, and, just was very interested in spiritual practice, you know, in my mid-20s, and…
Micah: Found Kripalu and, you know, came up here and found a… I kind of fell in love with the land.
Micah: the Berkshires themselves, you know, the hills here, the land here, and Kripalu was a really special and unique organization that, you know, I kind of always felt like a bit of a misfit, and I kind of felt like I kind of… things made sense for me when I found this place, so…
Micah: Had a whole bunch of different roles here over the years, but back in 2018, I launched, a new school here at Kripalu. It's called the Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership, as you said.
Micah: And it was, basically an amalgamation of all of my deepest interests.
Micah: Mindfulness practice, the outdoors, bushcraft, ancestral skills, naturalist studies, and really, the school…
Micah: Was made to try to help facilitate a healing of the disconnect between modern humans and the natural world.
Micah: tried to address what Richard Louv calls Nature Deficit Disorder. And I always found that
Micah: Paying attention outside, practicing mindfulness, watching.
Micah: Cultivating awareness, whether it's through mindfulness practice, or through yoga, or through prayer, or, you know, many different ways we can cultivate awareness and being present.
Micah: Just made, it facilitated that reconnection.
Micah: with, with Habitat.
Micah: So the school, has been great. We've trained over 500 Mindful Outdoor Guides since that time. And, I also wrote a book called Rewilding, which came out in 2019.
Micah: Along similar lines, kind of addressing the fact that humans are domesticated to a large extent in the modern world, we kind of… of the house, and rewilding is this
Micah: Process of remembering, of reclaiming, And so the Rewilding Summit was an event that I was…
Micah: iterating on for a number of years, and just wanted to bring together folks from a whole bunch of different facets of the rewilding world, and so…
Micah: First one was in 2024.
Micah: And, and then the one you attended was the 2025 Rewilding Summit. So, it's been a lot of fun, amazing to be able to meet some of my heroes and bring some folks together who are, you know, real trailblazers in the rewilding space, and I'm so glad you got to be there and experience it.
Susan Bailey: The heroes piece is, yeah, Richard Louvre, hearing you mention him, you know, I was a middle school teacher, science teacher, for four…
Susan Bailey: Long years, long… Not quite for me, not the, the venue for me in teaching, but,
Susan Bailey: I had, I had, his book, Last Child in the Woods. That was a part of the philosophy that I wove into the work that I did, and so it was super cool that he was a part of the, conference.
Susan Bailey: And, you know, it's interesting, as you were talking, I was thinking about the remembering piece, and so part of the reason that I started the podcast
Susan Bailey: Is because, I mean, you know, I've been connected to science and nature for a long time. I was a science teacher a long time ago. But, I was… and I've always spent time in nature. It's… it's how I…
Susan Bailey: recharge.
Susan Bailey: I think for me, it was…
Susan Bailey: I'm realizing lately that it was more of a… A to-do versus…
Susan Bailey: Something I was leaning into in relationship.
Susan Bailey: And my remembering happened when I, was on the Camino last May, walking, you know, day 3, outdoors all day.
Susan Bailey: No AirPods, no headphones, just me in nature, and it really sunk in for me that, you know, there's a different way to be
Susan Bailey: with nature?
Susan Bailey: And, that's what I heard a little bit in what you were talking about. I'm… I'm curious, was there something that led you, like.
Susan Bailey: We need to do a, you know, what led you to say, yeah, we need this, we need more of this, and I need to create structure for it?
Micah: Yeah. Well,
Micah: Yeah, I mean, I think for me, it was always there, you know, from my earliest memories.
Micah: you know, nature was always speaking to me. I always felt super, super close and, fascinated by…
Micah: everything I experienced outside, you know, I just always felt most comfortable.
Micah: Out there, most like myself, and
Micah: So, you know, after… after high school, when I went to college, I studied religion, and then after that, I was a wilderness, therapeutic wilderness counselor for average youth for 3 years, so I lived out in the Smoky Mountains for 3 years, lived outside all year, led trips.
Micah: And then, you know, got into… really got into yoga and meditation and spiritual practice, and…
Micah: After that, or through that whole time. So, that was always there. You know, for me, what it was, was when, I became a dad, my son was born, and
Micah: I started to… really notice… the change that the iPhone had brought into culture.
Micah: I started to notice the, the ubiquity of screens and the shift in attention onto screens. You know, particularly with the iPhone. It was like, that seemed to be a pivotal moment in culture.
Micah: And, I start by just… as a father, I felt this…
Micah: Strong, impulse to… to take some kind of action.
Micah: you know, I felt like I want to do… it wasn't like I need to, it was like, I want to do something about this, and it felt… very much felt like a calling. I have always been a generalist, so I'm interested in a lot of different topics, you know, science, spirituality, like, economics, social trends, like, I'm interested in everything.
Micah: And so I'm… I think I'm just one of those people who sort of scours, and then I try to integrate things.
Micah: And so for me, like, my offering, the thing that I felt like I could give was this, observation of the moment, and this offering of, helping to address one issue with the moment, which is, nature divorcement. And,
Micah: So, and I happened to be in a good position at Kripalu, where at the time I was running all the schools here, so it was our yoga school, and our Ayurveda school, and our yoga therapy school, so I was kind of in a position where I could pitch
Micah: something. And fortunately, the moment was ripe, and I got the green light to go ahead and create the school, so I went back, I got my master's degree, and I wrote Rewilding, and I created the KSMO curriculum, and launched it, and yeah, it's just been…
Micah: you know, I think it did meet a need. We've had a great response, and, clearly folks,
Micah: you know, are interested in the same thing, and feeling drawn to do the same work, so, I feel pretty lucky I get to do this.
Susan Bailey: Yeah, yeah, I… I… listening, it's… we talked a bit when we were at the summit, but listening and…
Susan Bailey: And being immersed in,
Susan Bailey: being back outside more often, as I had been a long time ago, in a… in a space where there's… there's teaching and learning and experience hap… experiencing happening, I was… I was feeling very drawn, you know, sort of this, like, okay.
Susan Bailey: Do I need to just leave my corporate life and get back out there? And, you know, maybe that will happen someday.
Susan Bailey: But one of the instructors that you brought in, Daniel Vitalis, Talked about that three-layer world.
Susan Bailey: And that… that was just… I was like, that's it. You know, that's… and you talking about the iPhone, it's sort of, like, the reality of the world we live in?
Susan Bailey: is… is… is a three-layered world, you know? It's… it's nature, it's the built world, and it's the artificial world, and…
Susan Bailey: We can't escape it. And so, you know, rewilding can help us with that, you said, nature divorcement. That's a new way of saying it, but rewilding can be a tool for that.
Micah: Yeah, that really landed with me, too, when Danielle talked about those three worlds, you know, as you said, the natural world, the built environment, and the digital world.
Micah: And, you know, he was right, you know, for most of us, we have to be able to navigate all three.
Micah: Right? Here we are. Like, we're on Zoom. We're navigating the digital world right now, you and I, right? And we're in the built environment at this present. We're both… I can see the walls, we're inside right now, right?
Susan Bailey: Yeah.
Micah: We're doing those two.
Micah: But… The majority of people are primarily existing in just those two worlds today.
Micah: Right? And, like, I think the statistic is the average American spends more than 90% of their lives in a building.
Susan Bailey: And more than 11 hours a day on a screen.
Micah: So, in a very short period of time, we've gone from being people… I mean, just 100 years ago, 90% of America was agrarian.
Micah: you know, the vast majority of people lived on farms, or, you know, homesteads, and that's… in just, like, 2 or 3 generations, it's now, like, that's… I think that's, like, 2% of the.
Micah: Right? Or something very, very small.
Micah: So, everything is turned upside down and changed so quickly, and the need today.
Micah: we've, you know, when I…
Micah: have people come and do retreats with me. One thing I'll say to folks is, raise your hand if you feel like you don't get enough screen time.
Micah: And everybody laughs, right? Everybody laughs and say, okay, cool, so this might be a good opportunity for a digital detox, you know, this weekend, or for this week, and everybody says, yeah, definitely.
Micah: Right, so everybody's getting enough screen time. Everybody's getting enough indoor time, but we're not getting enough time in our natural habitat
Micah: outdoors, you know, and richard Louvre kind of made the point that it's a one-to-one ratio, in his opinion.
Micah: You know, we want to have as much nature time as we do screen time.
Susan Bailey: Mmm.
Micah: That's a pretty hard one to get for most folks, but, you know, what I try to do is…
Micah: Inspire and… and instruct and support folks in, starting to build as much
Micah: nature time into their day as they can, because most folks can't just, you know, quit the corporate or the job, and most folks can't just move off grid and, you know, unplug completely. It's just not really possible for 99.9% of people.
Micah: So we have to find ways to integrate rewilding into our real lives.
Micah: And that's what I'm really passionate about helping people do.
Susan Bailey: Yeah. Yeah, so rewilding, so for… for those, you know, we're hitting on it, right? It's not about…
Susan Bailey: you know, leaving the society and going and living in the woods, although that's certainly a version of rewilding. But what does it… what might it look like? What does that mean when you… when you write about it, when you teach about it in the school?
Susan Bailey: What's the basics?
Micah: Well, let's talk about the word a little bit. So there's two main streams of rewilding. One is ecosystem rewilding.
Micah: And so examples of that are, you know, reforestation, you know, the reintroduction of keystone species like wolves or beavers or woolly mammoths into environments. That's ecosystem rewilding.
Micah: Human rewilding is the process of reclaiming lost connections with habitat.
Micah: And I like to think of it… there's a really cool world… word from the Akan people of Ghana, it's called Sankofa.
Micah: And it means that there's nothing wrong with going back for something that you've forgotten.
Susan Bailey: Mmm…
Micah: And I think… that's a great description of rewilding. You know, I think right now, our…
Micah: Culture has transformed so quickly over the last hundred years.
Micah: In, sort of, the developed world, I mean, all around the world, you know, anywhere where you've got electricity.
Micah: You know, and, sort of…
Micah: trade and sort of an elevation of the standard of living, however you want to call it. You know, we've all sort of migrated indoors, we've lost all these connections with habitat, we've become sort of disconnected from our natural habitat.
Micah: So, that's how I kind of, I think about rewilding, human rewilding, is, you know, things we can reclaim. It might be for some people.
Micah: like, I'm gonna get a garden going this spring, I'm gonna plant some herbs, right? So that's one little bit of it. For other folks, it might be, hey, I'm walking barefoot, like, I'm gonna get my feet back on the ground, I'm gonna do grounding practices.
Susan Bailey: For other folks, it's gonna be… I'm gonna be doing my sit spot. I'm gonna spend time every day just sitting outside, near the bird feeder.
Micah: That's my rewilding. For other folks, they might be like, I want to hunt. I want to, like, start learning how to remember how to get food out of the land again, and do these things that my grandparents used to do, like canning.
Micah: It can be all those things. It can be a lot of things for a lot of different people, but it's part of just getting back into your natural habitat, in ways that are really, like, life-giving, you know, life-affirming, restorative.
Micah: So, that's kind of how I think about it, and
Micah: ways that people can do it, you know, I just gave a few examples there. Through the School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership that I do here at Kripalu, you know, we train people to lead a particular kind of an experience called a mindful outdoor experience.
Micah: So that involves taking a folk… taking folks out.
Micah: Telling them a little story about the land.
Micah: you know, introducing them to the land. Every place you go has such deep history.
Micah: So we start with a little… a little orientation to place.
Micah: And we also like to orient people in time.
Micah: Where are we in the year? You know, what season is it?
Susan Bailey: You know, things like that.
Micah: And then a little mindful movement, a little bit of breathwork, so the idea is just to help people
Micah: Transition into their parasympathetic nervous system, you know, so that when we go on our walk, you know, people are calm, they're centered, they're present in their bodies, their senses are kind of there, they're paying attention to what's around them.
Micah: Usually we walk quietly for a little while. We do different things to help folks awaken their different senses.
Micah: And, always have a sit spot, time for folks just to sit quietly and observe, and then always have a share circle or a council practice to just integrate the experience. So, that's one method, you know, that we use.
Micah: And, you know, for me, what I do with folks that I coach and I work with, individually is, I just call it A or B.
Micah: A is your sit spot, fox walking, some nature connection practice, right?
Micah: grounding, A whole… getting a little fire going.
Micah: bushcraft skills. That's my A category for folks. I say every day, you either do an A category, like a nature connection practice, or you do a B category.
Micah: And B category is, I'm gonna embody, I'm gonna start to reclaim the fact that I am a human being with physical capacities in my natural habitat. So that might be, I'm gonna go for a jog.
Micah: I'm gonna run through the woods. I'm gonna hang from a tree. I'm gonna try to do… hang for 30 seconds, or for a minute.
Susan Bailey: Or I'm gonna do push-ups, I'm gonna do pull-ups, I'm gonna do squats, I'm gonna do some…
Micah: yoga outside. So, I kind of think that, in one sense, we've got practices that connect us with environment.
Micah: And then B, we've got practices that kind of get us back into shape.
Micah: Because as human beings, when we were…
Micah: Living outdoors, when we were more involved in where our food comes from, we didn't exercise, because our lifestyle just had us moving, and we had to lift things and climb and move, and travel, and gather, and, you know, that kept us fit.
Micah: And today, we don't have that, so we actually have to bring some willfulness in and actually do things that help us reclaim our vitality, our strength, our flexibility, in our bodies.
Micah: So, I always encourage folks, hey, every day just pick one thing. It's either A or B, and I have, like, an online school where I just coach people in rewilding transformation. Every day, we just do one or the other.
Susan Bailey: I like… I like the simplicity of that.
Susan Bailey: Yeah, thinking about, you know, what you shared…
Susan Bailey: I think that… oh, there's so much there. You know, one of the… one of the things going all the way back to take… just taking the shoes off and going outside, which, here in the Northern Hemisphere in the United States.
Susan Bailey: We're probably not going to do that in our region of the U.S. right now, but maybe, he could go out there and do a little bit of, cold feet walking in the snow.
Susan Bailey: But I think, there's something there about the idea of…
Susan Bailey: getting back to the… to the basics and remembering, and reconnecting in different ways, and I think that… I like you had called out the senses, just engaging the senses as a start.
Susan Bailey: You know, what does it feel like to touch this? What does it feel like to smell? What do I hear? You know, I think a lot of times we think about grounding as… grounding is that I'm taking my shoes off and I'm walking on the ground, but…
Susan Bailey: Grounding can be energetically just…
Susan Bailey: being present to the space you're in, what do you hear? I did my sit spot this morning in honor of this conversation.
Susan Bailey: I find… I find it's hard for me not to get my phone out sometimes to pull up the Merlin app to see which bird I'm hearing.
Susan Bailey: So I often will not bring my phone with me, but it's, you know, it's… for me, it's fun, and it's a different way I like to connect with nature.
Micah: I'm guilty of that. Sometimes… sometimes I'll do that, for sure, yeah. Not every time, but yeah, no shame in that. That's… the Merlin app is such an amazing…
Susan Bailey: Ugh.
Micah: technology. I mean, it's… it can be used in a way that's really positive.
Micah: Yeah, yeah.
Susan Bailey: Yeah.
Micah: That's great.
Susan Bailey: Yeah, for those not familiar, the Merlin app is from Cornell created it so that you can have your phone listen to the sound of birds and identify the birds, so.
Micah: It's incredible.
Susan Bailey: Yeah, it is, yeah.
Micah: Star Trek, you know?
Susan Bailey: It… Well, that's funny. It's funny that you said that, because this morning, one of the birds was…
Micah: a dark-eyed junko, and… Yeah, I've got a ton of those in my backyard, yeah.
Susan Bailey: I crack up every time I hear them, because I…
Susan Bailey: When I'm sitting there, I feel like their little… their little, chirp sounds they make sound kind of like, you know, 80s, you know, maybe Star Wars,
Susan Bailey: You know, little shooters, like.
Micah: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Cardinals, too, they make that laser sound, like, pew, ping, pew, pew! Yeah, yeah.
Susan Bailey: So, you know, so it's… this is a great example, right? So we're out in nature, we're enjoying it, it's bringing lightness to my heart as I hear these tiny little birds, make those sounds, and then it's kind of fun, because I know now what kind of birds are those? And,
Susan Bailey: And yeah, spending time out there. And then the other piece that I… you hit upon, I love the idea of the…
Susan Bailey: the… I'm gonna… you know, what comes up for me is sort of the strength of the animal concept, right? Like, we are animals. We… we are human… humans, we are animals.
Susan Bailey: In the built environment, unless we're intentional about it, spending as much time as we do with screens and indoors.
Susan Bailey: I, you know, we can, very easily lose our natural, strength, or the capacity for that natural strength. I,
Susan Bailey: I actually, you follow a,
Susan Bailey: program that is… it's GMB, it's gold… it stands for Gold Medal Body, but it's not about that. They've just focused on GMB. But it's, it's all about natural body movements, so it's, like, bear crawl, and crab walk, and all of these, and…
Susan Bailey: That is fun for me, too, because it sort of reconnects me to nature as I'm doing those exercises in my basement.
Micah: It's great. Yeah, no, it's really important, and
Micah: it grounds us, you know, strength training, movement training, grounds us in a really important way. It gets… and so does the nature connection work, because, you know, one of the things I think it does is it…
Micah: It gets us back into relationship with what's real.
Susan Bailey: Mmm.
Micah: And, like, this is a big theme for me lately, something I think a lot about is,
Micah: You know, the screen-based lifestyle, gets us interacting with images on a very flat surface.
Micah: And… we can sort of get lost in that, and…
Micah: Kind of lose our ability to navigate physical reality.
Micah: And… and I think that's led to something that's called neoteny.
Susan Bailey: Which is this interesting word, and it refers to the.
Micah: The holding onto of adolescent traits into adulthood.
Susan Bailey: Mmm…
Micah: And…
Micah: And I think it's a real consequence of domestication, where if you get enough people who spend most of their lives indoors and on screens navigating abstract reality.
Micah: When you get folks out into the real world, they…
Micah: Kind of are not… they haven't developed the capacity to really work with real-life risk-taking.
Susan Bailey: Mmm.
Micah: So there was an example of this I did a video about a couple weeks ago. On New Year's in Switzerland, there was a fire in a club. I don't know if you heard about.
Susan Bailey: But there was…
Micah: It was, kind of like a rave that was happening on New Year's Eve.
Micah: And a fire broke out in this club, and it was mostly young people.
Micah: And what happened, tragically, was while the fire was spreading across the ceiling of the club.
Micah: The music was playing, and people had their phones out, and they were taking video of the fire.
Susan Bailey: Hmm…
Micah: And kind of partying with it. Like, wow, that's amazing. Like, look at that, you know, these flames were covering the whole ceiling.
Susan Bailey: Oh, boy.
Micah: And 40 people died in that fire.
Susan Bailey: Mmm…
Micah: And… it really, I mean, it's a tragic example of… A lack of… understanding of
Micah: Living in the physical world, and what kind of risks are present.
Susan Bailey: And so for me, you know, part of the rewilding is helping people to…
Micah: Build an actual fire. Like, you can learn so much about life.
Micah: From building a fire and hanging out with a fire.
Susan Bailey: Right? How does a fire…
Micah: What elements are needed to birth a fire, to sustain a fire, to keep a fire safely, to put a fire out?
Micah: Right? What happens in you? What do you notice?
Micah: The… although it may not seem apparent at the outset, working with a knife to process your kindling teaches you responsible tool use, and grip strength, and all of these things that
Micah: are actually really important as humans for navigating the world. And our education system and modern life really doesn't prioritize these fundamental skills of being a physical human, an animal human.
Micah: In a real world.
Micah: And we've had such a transition to iPads for kids, and no recess, and all this stuff.
Susan Bailey: Hmm.
Micah: you know, we're seeing the effects of it, and I think rewilding is an important part of addressing some of that.
Susan Bailey: Yeah.
Susan Bailey: Yeah, knee… neotny, that's the term.
Micah: me out in the, yeah.
Susan Bailey: Yeah, I heard,
Susan Bailey: heard Michael Mead, talk about that in December on his podcast. He didn't use that word, but…
Susan Bailey: he was talking about just sort of the society that we evolved into, especially here in the States.
Susan Bailey: Where we've removed some of the… the milestone opportunities in life.
Susan Bailey: to learn skills and grow up a bit, you know?
Micah: rates.
Susan Bailey: Yeah, especially in the States, to do hard things, and
Susan Bailey: And survival skills is, you know, is definitely a part of that, and it reminds me, as you were talking, I remember I read in
Susan Bailey: A year or so ago, I read The Bear. Did you read the fiction book, The Bear?
Micah: Gosh, I know.
Susan Bailey: It's a, it's a… it's a sheer delight, for people like us. It's a sheer delight. It's… it's an easy, short read, but it's, it's,
Susan Bailey: You know, it's a little disturbing, but the topic, but it's… it's, you know, it's a real revelation of, it's end of times, you don't know… you don't know what era it is, or… but it's modern times, and it's a father and daughter who are…
Susan Bailey: who are… who are live… you know, living, they seem to be the last two, and he's teaching her how to live and sync with nature, and eventually she learns
Susan Bailey: From nature, how to live in sync with nature.
Micah: Hmm. I'll definitely check that one out. I mean, one of my favorite books of all time is The Road.
Susan Bailey: Oh, no.
Micah: McCarthy, which is kind of like a similar father-son story, but
Micah: That's what I'd recommend to everybody. It's a very dark book. It won the Pulitzer Prize.
Susan Bailey: That's funny.
Micah: greatest books ever written. But I'll check out The Bear.
Susan Bailey: Yeah, the bear of the road.
Micah: I've got a deep connection with bears, so I…
Susan Bailey: Wow.
Susan Bailey: Oh, yeah, you… I can't wait to hear what you think of it.
Susan Bailey: Well, I, as we… we've talked about a lot, and we talked specifically about,
Susan Bailey: Some of the practices that folks can engage in, you know, I think…
Susan Bailey: as I think to my work, as I work with organizations for 25 years to help individuals and organizations thrive and be well.
Susan Bailey: create space for that. You know, and one of the most traditional ways is, you know, we see we're… well, Biophilia in the office, right? I… we're not gonna… we're not gonna go there today. That's a conversation for somebody else in another day.
Susan Bailey: But I think that, you know, what we've talked about is just that simple disconnection from nature.
Susan Bailey: And one of the things that came up for me as I've processed through this and sort of finally realized, okay, I'm ready to talk about it on a podcast.
Susan Bailey: was I think that there was a part of me that was… Feeling incomplete?
Susan Bailey: And I… I couldn't name it.
Susan Bailey: And I maybe hunted for it in various places that seemed logical, whether it was, well, new habits I was gonna form, or relationships with humans, or whatever that might be, but…
Susan Bailey: you know, for me, it was when I got out, and I was on… in nature for 6 days straight, walking and being present,
Susan Bailey: that I realized, For me, my hypothesis…
Susan Bailey: I think that part of what we're all missing
Susan Bailey: Is it disconnect from nature and lack of that awareness?
Susan Bailey: Leads us to do all sorts of things that maybe aren't helpful for our well-being.
Susan Bailey: But I'm curious if, for you, when you think about That connection, and… how this can…
Susan Bailey: help someone who maybe feels like something's missing? What comes up for you when you hear me talk about that?
Micah: Yeah, well, it's funny, like, I kind of go to myth as I'm hearing you talk,
Micah: So, you know, one of the things that Tolkien sort of talked about in his writings was, like, when he described Sauron, you know, and the rise of Sauron in the book, which is, like, this dark, very malevolent force, is cutting down of the trees, and this mechanistic, materialistic.
Micah: energy, you know, that's coming, that's sort of devouring.
Micah: And, you know, and sort of the Hobbits are this, example of, this idyllic…
Micah: Situation. Like, with these people who live this very simple life, and they… they're close to the land, and they have, like, this abundance, and this community, and this little lifestyle there.
Micah: And that's… so that… that's… that just comes to mind as you're talking, because I think,
Micah: what… what I see happening is…
Micah: That there… we are coming into this time right now.
Micah: Where the power of technology is accelerating so fast.
Micah: And, of course, we're all aware of the exponential growth of artificial intelligence right now.
Micah: And everything is changing so quickly, right? We can't keep up. I mean, the pace of change is just so dramatic from a technology standpoint. It's like a runaway train right now.
Micah: And…
Micah: That is happening, and that's real, and we are, you know, most of us are tethered to these devices now that have really bombarded us with so much information.
Micah: Some of it helpful.
Micah: But we're in this moment right now where
Micah: when we look into our phones, which I call the black mirror.
Micah: We don't know if what we're seeing is real.
Micah: You know, text-to-video technology is now so advanced that Any video we see online.
Micah: Of whoever it might be.
Micah: We really can't know if it's real.
Susan Bailey: Any hmm.
Micah: Right.
Micah: So… That's very, that's… that's different, that's new.
Micah: You know, consensus reality is breaking down.
Micah: Right? That we can all agree that something is real.
Susan Bailey: We're seeing it.
Micah: our collective.
Micah: through these devices is… is over. Like, it's already gone and we're past it, even though we don't realize that is what's occurred, maybe.
Micah: So, what I'm getting around to is that, for me, I think what I see as the antidote, or the medicine, is what I call the green mirror.
Susan Bailey: Mmm.
Micah: Okay.
Micah: And I think everybody, Could benefit from making time to… Get off the black mirror.
Micah: And get onto the green mirror.
Micah: Like, whatever your spiritual, religious orientation is, It can be, It can be revitalized.
Micah: Through time in the green mirror.
Micah: And my… the way I see the green mirror is that when… when we look at nature, when we look at a tree, when we look at a mountain, or the ocean, or we look into the eyes of another human or an animal.
Micah: We are seeing something that human beings did not make.
Susan Bailey: Hmm.
Micah: Something else made all of that.
Micah: Right? You might call it God, you might call it the great mystery, you might call it the universe, but a great intelligence and order is responsible for all that we find in the green mirror.
Micah: And I think if we want to recalibrate to what's real and true, that's the place to go.
Susan Bailey: Hmm.
Susan Bailey: I, I, yeah, yes, yes, I agree. Not surprisingly. I think the other thing that comes up for me is, is, is I was…
Susan Bailey: Reflecting as you talked is about,
Susan Bailey: I think a lot of folks that are gonna listen to this are, you know, some of them are people who've followed me for years. They know that I talk a lot about well-being and self-care, or taking care of yourself.
Susan Bailey: And, all that you just talked about is part of that. I think the other thing that bubbles for me is the idea that when I spend time
Susan Bailey: Intentionally looking in the green mirror.
Susan Bailey: I am reminded of a… steady… constant… force.
Susan Bailey: that is…
Susan Bailey: I mean, for lack of a better description, timeless, right? There's a… there is… not everything is changing rapidly.
Susan Bailey: And…
Susan Bailey: it, you know, it sort of… it's just being… looking over there, so to speak, at, you know, the green mirror and spending time with that. It does something… it does that for me, it sort of reminds me, like.
Susan Bailey: I, I think it, helps me feel like… We're gonna get through this.
Micah: Whatever this change is, whatever it looks like.
Susan Bailey: We're gonna get through this.
Susan Bailey: Just like this tree that's been here for, you know, 25, 30, 50, 100, you know, we don't have super old trees here in Michigan, because they all got cut down years ago, but anyway…
Micah: It's, you know, that's one of the gifts of, I think you're right, I mean, I think it's one of the real beautiful gifts of time spent in nature, is perspective.
Micah: You know, and the timescale of the more-than-human world is so big.
Micah: You know, that when we spend time out there, so many people
Micah: experience that shift. It's like, oh, okay.
Micah: Yeah, my worries of today, like, you know, what's going on with me, it's like, right, when I put it in perspective, when I look up at the night sky, it's like, hmm…
Micah: Okay, pressure's off me.
Micah: It's big. It's so big, you know, and okay, I can take a deep breath and feel like, yeah.
Micah: It's gonna be okay.
Susan Bailey: Yeah, so we've talked about a lot of practices for folks to just begin to rewild themselves.
Susan Bailey: I want to be inclusive of folks who are listening that,
Susan Bailey: I want to include two humans, and I would love your perspective on this. The individual who lives in…
Susan Bailey: in the city, right? So they don't have access to the gorgeous Berkshire Mountains that you live in, or the park that I have around the corner from my house.
Susan Bailey: And then the other folks I would love to hear your perspective are, in terms of getting started, are those,
Susan Bailey: maybe who have, just a little bit of fear, you know, sort of like the ones who haven't taken their shoes off in 25 years. Right, yeah.
Micah: Yeah, so I think, for folks living in an urban environment.
Micah: there's a lot of things that you can do. So, you know, we talk… the practice I recommend most to folks, and that I lean into the most is the sit spot. And you can do a sit spot on your fire escape.
Micah: You can do a sit spot by an open window. You know, you can do a sit spot, in a pocket park.
Micah: You know, so…
Micah: you know, I think, too, if you have a window, you're in an urban environment, you can put a bird feeder at your window.
Micah: And in fact, I would say, of all the things you could do, if you're in an urban environment, you want to connect with nature.
Micah: Put a bird feeder in your window, or on your fire escape.
Micah: the amount of joy and connection that comes from hanging out with birds is off the charts. I mean, it's so much more fun than Netflix sometimes, it's amazing.
Micah: And that's something you can do anywhere.
Micah: And, so I would highly recommend that.
Micah: And, you know, for folks who are, a little bit nervous about getting out there, or feel overwhelmed by the wall of green, it's just, like, so much stuff I don't know, I don't know where to begin.
Micah: I would just say, start with places that feel safe for you.
Micah: just start with something that does feel safe. And so maybe that is literally, like a little park in your town, or on your block.
Micah: You know, a place that has a bench, or benches where there are people.
Micah: Where there are some trees, or some plants, or a water feature.
Micah: It doesn't have to be anything extreme. I think the thing is that, can you hear the wind blow through some trees?
Susan Bailey: Hmm.
Micah: You know, can you, can you smell the grass, right?
Micah: You just want to go…
Micah: And then just keep working that edge, you know? Get comfortable with that, and then push it a little bit, you know? Push it a little bit. Go put your feet in that stream that's there, right? Just to start with.
Micah: Or get to know just one tree. You know, I like to encourage folks, I know it can be overwhelming, right? But in your park, I bet you could identify one tree.
Susan Bailey: Just start there. Get to know that one tree.
Micah: Maybe there's one weed in the yard. Maybe you start with a simple dandelion in the springtime. Get to know the dandelion a little bit.
Micah: You know, and then just start building from there. It takes time, and I think today, sometimes it can feel, for myself and other folks, like.
Micah: you know, I think with the internet, there's… we can find out information so quickly.
Micah: But building real connection with place, takes time.
Susan Bailey: It takes…
Micah: It takes a whole rotation around the sun.
Susan Bailey: Mmm…
Micah: another whole rotation around the sun, and another, and it deepens slowly, but those are real roots. And so it's not something that you need to rush, it's something you should savor, and go slow, and start small. You know, one tree, one plant, one animal.
Micah: Build from there.
Susan Bailey: Hmm… I love that.
Susan Bailey: I feel like we could talk for hours. We do not have that option today, so…
Susan Bailey: So, as we begin to wrap up this conversation, I would love to hear from you
Susan Bailey: Is there anything we didn't talk about today that you think…
Susan Bailey: Folks need to hear based on what we talked about today.
Micah: I guess I would just leave it, with this final message of simply saying, if you don't feel good.
Micah: Right, if you don't feel good.
Micah: And you haven't tried going outside.
Susan Bailey: Hmm…
Micah: Try going outside.
Micah: You don't feel good, and you haven't gone outside.
Susan Bailey: Just try going outside. I love it. I've… I've… I've…
Susan Bailey: been doing that more often myself, even. You know, if you have the right gear, you can go outside any time of year.
Susan Bailey: And… or if you just put on enough layers. And so, you know, just… even just a few minutes of fresh air is a game changer.
Susan Bailey: So you mentioned some of your work,
Susan Bailey: If folks want to get to know you better, and, get involved in some of the work that you do, what is the best way for them to find you?
Micah: They can go to my website, which is micamortale.com. You can also find me on Instagram at micaewewilding.
Micah: And so those would probably be the first two places to go. Yeah, mica.com, MicahRewilding at Instagram.
Micah: Yeah, yeah, put, put Micah Rewilding in your Instagram, follow him so it improves your algorithm, so you can…
Susan Bailey: So if you do go on there, you will see, I've loved some of the messages you shared. What was the thing you… you built a little snow… it wasn't an igloo, but it was a snow something.
Micah: called a Quincy, yeah. It's a snow cave, a survival snow cave, and I do at least one every winter, so we had this huge storm last weekend, so I built one, and yeah, it was super fun.
Micah: Yeah, Quinzies are amazing.
Micah: they're… When you get inside of a snow cave.
Micah: It's so incredibly quiet.
Susan Bailey: Mmm.
Micah: It's amazing, and if you light a candle in there, it's a very special space, and yeah, so that was fun. That's what I did the other day.
Susan Bailey: Wow, I love that. Yes, I had the… the opportunity to sleep in a snow cave,
Susan Bailey: Forever ago, in my teens, it's amazing how well they can hold heat!
Micah: Yeah, you had a sleeping bag, I hope.
Susan Bailey: I did, got a little melty in there.
Micah: You definitely… I mean, they can hold heat, but they are not warm, so you do want to have the sleeping bag if you're going to spend the night in one.
Susan Bailey: Definitely, definitely. Well, thank you so much for your time today. It was a pleasure, to connect with you, and I'm excited for folks to… to, to learn all they did from this episode and get out there and rewild.
Micah: Thanks a lot for having me on, Susan. It's great to talk with you, and appreciate it very much.
