Wildheart

In this week’s episode we chat about courage, and how it can help us to find inner strength to walk the pathway.

Why have we chosen to talk about courage?

* At this time, solar energy (and the related fire element) is reaching its peak - this kind of energy is connected with fierceness and taking action, but this often requires courage

* We’ve talked about permission and value recently, and an important question coming out of these conversations seems to be how do we cultivate the courage to allow ourselves to live on our own terms?

What do we chat about?

* Not aiming for an absence of fear, but an acceptance of (reasonable/healthy) fear as part of life and the willingness to walk alongside it and listen to / learn from it

* How courage is a heart-centred approach (we associate the fire element with the heart and spirit)

* Calling on the summer archetypes of the Wheel to support and guide us to cultivate courage

* How courage can help us to keep moving towards aligned action, even when things feel hard

In this week’s episode we chat about value vs values, and how our relationship with these concepts impacts our lives.

Why have we chosen to talk about value?

* Summer is often considered a season of ‘productivity’ - both in terms of the fullness and abundance of the wild world in this ‘fruitful’ phase of the year, and also in terms of the busier way of life we tend to be called towards during the summer months

* Very often, productivity is a concept that’s linked with a reward of some kind - whether financial or status-based, which in turn is connected to the question of value, so we thought it would be an interesting theme to dive into as we enter the heart of the summer season here in June

What do we chat about?

* Separating the idea of worth from the financial meaning, and moving away from commodifying everything

* Building a life (ecosystem) that intertwines value with values (and why this is so hard!)

* Valuing as the act/process of cherishing - honouring the preciousness of life

* Valuing our own uniqueness

In this week’s episode we chat about permission, and how it’s wound up in the journey to becoming your true self.

Why have we chosen to talk about permission?

* In our last two episodes we’ve talked about delight and thriving - both of which can be related to joy, abundance, pleasure, savouring… all things that summer encourages us to embrace, but can also bring up feelings of discomfort or guilt.

* We can end up feeling as though we need or want to seek permission to allow ourselves to slow down or enjoy ourselves or feel content for a while instead of striving for more - so we thought it might be helpful to consider this theme in more depth.

* Summer’s also a time when we might desire some time away from work, which again can cause us to seek permission for this, and it’s also a season (as we’ve spoken about already this series) that can feel like it has to be lived and experienced in a particular way, whereas it can be helpful to give ourselves permission to do things differently - much like living a rewilded life in general.

* We’re also currently in Gemini season (May 20th - June 21st) - all about questioning ‘shoulds’ and expectations / breaking societal rules.

What do we chat about?

* How we can often question whether we’re ‘allowed’ to do something - especially when it comes to branching away from the norm

* Untangling our conditioning - realising why we often feel the need to seek external permission from a ‘higher authority’

* Reclaiming our autonomy - learning to cultivate a sense of internal permission that we can offer to ourselves

* How a rewilded version of permission can help us to live life on our own terms

In this week’s episode we chat about thriving, and how we try and reframe our approach.

Why have we chosen to talk about thriving?

* It’s connected to high solar energy - the fullness and vitality of this time of year

* Our guiding word for June is flourish, so it feels relevant as we start to look ahead to the Summer Solstice (we explored the word ‘flourish’ in Season 7 Episode 1)

* Summer is often considered the season of ‘living your best life’ - this narrative can be quite challenging, so we think there’s a different way to think about thriving that can help us to ‘make the most’ of this time of year without all the expectations, pressure and comparison

What do we chat about?

* The active, intentional nature of thriving

* Asking: What does thriving feel like for me? (& the importance of bringing in the body)

* Tending to our roots in order to thrive

* The difference between surviving, striving and thriving - and how thriving could be a mindset, a lens to view the world, or a container

In this week’s episode we chat about delight, why we weren’t sure how we felt about the word to begin with, and how we might reframe it.

Why have we chosen to talk about delight?

* It’s connected to many of the themes that emerge in early summer: joy, pleasure, beauty and sensuousness

* It’s a word that seems to encapsulate the magical qualities and bountiful blossoms of the month of May

What do we chat about?

* The ‘juiciness’ of life - summer as the season of berries / soft fruits, abundant ripe produce, colourful flowers, long days, warmth on our skin

* The connection between pleasure and guilt - feeling like slowing down and savouring is somehow fanciful

* Romanticising life, consciously ‘feeding’ ourselves, and other ways to embrace delight

* Asking: “what feels good?”

In this week’s episode we chat about ignition, and what connecting with and welcoming in the fire element can look and feel like.

Why have we chosen to talk about ignition?

* It’s our guiding word for May on the Rewilding Wheel

* It captures the feeling of the sudden burst of colour, life and energy that happens in the wild world at this time - it’s been slowly building over the past few months, but now is when we really start noticing the abundance of the incoming summer season

* Ignition honours the fire element, and offers an apt representation of this time of transition from spring’s air element into summer’s fire element, symbolising the way that air acts as a fuel for fire - we can consider everything we’ve been doing throughout spring as the ‘breath’ that will kindle our energy and momentum throughout summer

* It also reminds us of fire’s unpredictability - when you’re blowing on embers, you never quite know when they’re going to catch light or how fiercely they’re going to burn, so that point of ignition can take us by surprise

What do we chat about?

* Connecting with our spark - our vitality, aliveness, passion, desire, authenticity, spirit / wild essence

* Taking a heart-centred approach to action

* Intensity - reaction, emotion, passion (connected with the idea of burning) - and being aware of the powerful solar energy / fiery quality of summer and its potential for overstimulation and burnout

* Holding fire as a tool for transformation - fuelling, purifying / stripping back, catalysing, alchemising

In this week’s episode we chat about growth, and the different ways we can choose to grow.

Why have we chosen to talk about growth?

* It’s our guiding word for April on the Rewilding Wheel

* There is now evidence of the natural world’s movement towards growth - it really starts to become most noticeable from this point in the year

* This is our final episode of the spring season (and halfway point of the podcast for this cycle through the Wheel!) so we thought it would be a good time to reflect on a personal level and think about what growth means in this phase of our lives and work

What do we chat about?

* What has changed since we last talked about growth on the podcast

* Different ways to grow (rising up, rooting down, stretching out sideways)

* The unexpected journey of growth at The Wild Academy

* What growth means for us on a personal level right now

In this week’s episode we chat about expansion, and how spring encourages us to expand in lots of different ways.

Why have we chosen to talk about expansion?

* We’re in the cycle of the Seed moon - the last point of connection with our inner world ‘beneath the surface’ in terms of lunar cycle themes

* Expansion connects with the Warrior energy we talked about last episode - our archetype for April, who guides us in taking purposeful action and standing firm, rooted but rising

* We’re also now welcoming lighter evenings and lengthening days, and as this extension unfurls, everything starts to feel more open and spacious

What do we chat about?

* Moving from germination beneath the surface to unfurling into the open

* Exploring what is rising within us

* Taking up more space

* Thinking bigger and feeling into what might be possible

In this week’s episode we chat about the warrior archetype, and what it means to connect with and embrace the sacred warrior within.

Why have we chosen to talk about the warrior?

* The Warrior is our archetype for the month of April, which will be here in less than a week

* We’ve been sitting with a lot of hazy, push-pull energy since winter and talking a lot about how to navigate that - we made a few steps forward with the exploratory Wayfarer archetype earlier this month, but now that we’ve passed the Spring Equinox it feels like time to commit to a clearer, steadier way of being, and the Warrior can help us with this.

What do we chat about?

* Reframing / rewilding the ‘warrior’

* Our perception of the sacred warrior

* Why we might want to connect with the warrior within at this time

* How the sacred warrior seeks to empower rather than overpower

In this week’s episode we chat about the process of cultivation, and how we can apply this to our lives.

Why have we chosen to talk about the idea of cultivation?

* We’ve talked a lot lately about moving upwards and outwards with the coming of spring…but what do we do once we get there?!

* As the Spring Equinox arrives, it feels like a good time to think about how we can ‘plant’ ourselves more fully and commit to our growth

What do we chat about?

* Intentionally identifying what we want to cultivate (connection, opportunities, health, wealth…) and then carefully sending our resources towards those things

* Repetition - circularity, spiralling, coming back to something over and over again

* Rooting (sinking down into place) in order to grow (develop, evolve)

* Reframing the idea of being ‘stuck in the same place’