Out of the Wilderness into the Wild

A survey of 17-18 year olds in today’s Sunday Times revealed almost two thirds of those surveyed have stayed home from school due to anxiety.

Our children and young people are chronically fraught. What can we, as parents, grandparents and decent grownups, do about it?

I don’t want to blame it all on a phone habit or the internet. I’m resilient enough for it not to damage my well being, and placing all the blame on technology it is a cop out, although Mark Zuckerberg and his cronies do have an awful lot to answer for.

But our mental health, and especially that of our young people is something that really concerns me.

I was talking to a teacher of 11-16 year olds yesterday, who was brought up Catholic and maintains a strong faith. I found myself bemoaning the watering of religious instruction in schools. Yes me, a woman who can’t sit in a church service for more than a couple of minutes before steam starts coming out my ears and I start changing god's pronouns under my breath. (On account of the vile sexism perpetuated by our national religion). Nonetheless a grounding in religious studies gives us something resource us when times are hard, not just the familiar rituals of a funeral for example, or the quiet sacred space of a church, but also as a spiritual reference points to move towards or away from.  My rebellion against the patriarchal god/holy trinity led me to finding something that suits me better. And I have needed something. Like so many others I’ve had my share of shitty cards in the hand of life I have been dealt.

Finding ways to support ourselves is imperative in a world where it’s normal to live, as I do, 1000 miles from the place my family came from, where it’s normal not to own your own home, where it’s normal as an adult not to know the kids you were at kindergarten or primary school with, where it’s normal not to know great chunks if your family, where it’s normal for 15% of men to say they have no close friends, where it’s normal for teenagers to be covered in self-harming scars.

I have spent the last 6 months researching and writing about spirituality and healing in nature. There are hundreds of people and groups in Great Britain running beautiful projects trying to bring the anxious, the lonely, the isolated and all the rest of us stressed human beings out into nature to connect with each other and something bigger than us. From free ‘Forest Bathing’ session in London parks, to men’s woodworking community initiatives, to charities which give people of colour a feeling they have a right to belong in the wilds of our country as opposed to just the urban landscape, I've discovered there’s places for all of us to belong. I’ve spoken to young Londoners telling me about their sound baths habit, and why being tucked up and gonged over is the high point of their week; to small forest schools who are not just introducing children to the joys of mucking about outside, but their adults too.

Creating space for men to meet and talk

I hope you will join me on this journey of re-wilding myself and discovering a new, or perhaps ancient, land and woodland based ideology to provide solace and comfort, to bring us back to ourselves, to comfort and reassure, to help us develop resilience in this crazy world we find ourselves in.