Find your way back to nature
From barefoot running to natural navigation via foraging and urban woodlands, Jini Reddy tells you how
By 
Psychologies
GO FORAGING. Fergus Drennan offers full-on one-day foraging courses, for seasonally available plants, seaweeds and fungi, exploring different habits. He is also collaborating on the Foraged Art Book Project, producing a book made entirely from plants foraged from the wild.
EARTH YOURSELF. There’s nothing like barefoot walking or running to bring you more closely in touch with the earth. Outdoors champion Lynne Allbutt offers courses in the Brecon Beacons.
TAKE A WILD SPA TRIP. Way of Nature UK hosts day long ‘wilderness spas’ with a mini-solo element in Epping Forest and wilderness retreats abroad.
LEARN ABOUT PLANTS. Rachel Corby guides wild medicine walks and sacred planet medicine retreats.
TAKE A WALK. Wilderness Minds offers one-day mindful walks on the coast of Anglesey and three-day wild camping and mindfulness trips in Snowdonia.
GO ON A CITY BREAK. Want to connect to nature in the Big Smoke? Jo Goldsmid offers day-long Earth Whisperer workshops in urban woodlands in London.
USE YOUR NATURAL COMPASS. Tristan Gooley, aka The Natural Navigator, offers one-day beginners’ natural navigation courses.
GO SOLO. Devon-based Regenco offers ‘supported vision’ quests, including fasting and solo-time, land skills-based retreats and reflective walks on Dartmoor.
RECLAIM THE NIGHT. Also in Devon is the excellent Wildwise, which offers a range of courses including nature-awareness courses, forest skills, wild food walks, and walks which help you to explore nocturnal nature.
And to get you in the mood, here is some recommended reading:
- The Spell Of The Sensuous by David Abram (Vintage Books, £10.55)
- Feral by George Monbiot (Penguin, £6.99)
- 52 Flowers That Shook My World by Charlotte DuCann (Two Ravens Press, £6.99)
- H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald (Jonathan Cape, £4.99)
- Spindrift: A Wilderness Pilgrimmage At Sea by Peter Reason (Vala Publishing, £16.99)
- Plant Spirit Medicine by Eliot Cowan (Sounds True Inc, £14.99)
- Soil, Soul, Society by Satish Kumar (Ivy Press, £16.99)
- The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake (Coronet, £10.68)
- Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie (Sort Of Books, £6.29)
Jini Reddy is a freelance writer, who is interested in forging deeper connections to land, people and place. Follow her on Twitter @Jini_Reddy
Photograph: Corbis
More inspiration:
Read The call of silence by Mark Vernon on LifeLabs
