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Michelle's Rewilding Journey...

The Path to The Wash
Rewild - v.
 1) to return to ones natural habitat
 2) to intentional become feral
 3) to return to creation and the wildlands


For many years, I have struggled with what to call my minimalist, back to nature self.  You see, I am most at home running or often limping through the forests and deserts near our tiny home: just me, my walking staff (for my bad leg), and more often than not our dog, Shaggy.  Then, a few months ago I discovered, or more picked up on, the term "rewilding".  I had heard it before on some shows my husband and I watch, but it never really hit me... wait, that is what I am... a "rewilder",  a desert minimalist, a rewilder.  How does this fit in to my faith and my calling, that will be a journey to explain, but I will do my best in the days, months, and years to come.



Michelle in her "Tree House"
But why?  For along time I have felt out of place, with a lot of aspects of the modern world. I had always been a quiet back to the land person, from the time I was 7 and learned about Earth Day.  I was the one in my home concerned about recycling.  My dad and I would fish together, and bring them home to cook.  My mom and I would urban garden, before that was a term; we also ate food from the natural grocery stores, back before it was cool  (like late 80's/early 90's).  My favorite places in the world were my "Tree House" built next to a sycamore tree with roof access into the tree, and my grandma's forest.  I always studied the old arts and crafts of the Native Americans and Celtic cultures as much as I could.
 

Michelle at 24
Then in my late teens I suffered the "year of sorrow" where I lost 6 , and my beloved Elk-hound, Wolfy.  For a long time I was distant from part of my heart, name living near the land.  I drifted from cause to cause, far from my heart.  In 2007, my heart began to awake a bit as I married my soul's love, Robby. We ventured again to his second home in New Mexico for the first time in summer of 2008.  There something deep began to reawaken deep in my soul. After New Mexico's openness we head to Chicago's busyness, there I found that the country, not the city was home.  The sounds of lake Michigan and the coyotes in the graveyards were my solace.  Within a year of leaving Chicago, we moved out to the Reservation and the Desert Southwest.


Michelle at 34
It has been out here, that I have begun to find my footing again, though it took the death of my mother in 2014 to put me back on the path.  I crashed about as hard as I ever had from a death, the only thing close was the "year of sorrow".  From there I slowly had to rebuild, and in so doing, I rediscovered myself.  At the same time, I discovered my path of chose was called "rewilding". 

This is the back story to why I rewild, it is a return to who I was, and a rediscovery of myself.

~ Michelle

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