Reconnect with your wild essence as you awaken your innate bond with the natural world
“Rewilding is a return to our essential nature. It is an attempt to reclaim something of what we were before we used words like ‘civilized’ to define ourselves.” ―Micah Mortali
In his long-awaited book Rewilding, Kripalu director Micah Mortali brings together yoga, mindfulness, wilderness training, and ancestral skills to create a unique guide for reigniting your primal energy―your undomesticated true self―and deepening your connection with the living earth.
For hundreds of thousands of years, humans lived intimately with the earth. We were in the wild and of the wild. Today, we live mostly urban lives―and our vital wildness has gone dormant. As a result, we’re more isolated, unhealthy, anxious, and depressed than ever, and our planet has suffered alongside us.
With Rewilding, Mortali invites us to shed the effects of over-civilization and explore an inner wisdom that is primal, ancient, and profound. Whether you live in the middle of a city or alongside the woods, the insights and practices on these pages will bring you home to your wild, wise, and alive self.
Highlights include:
• Practice-rich content―mindfulness exercises, guided meditations, yoga and pranayama, inward sensing, forest bathing, and much more
• The “life-force deficit”―explore how our separation from nature affects us physiologically and spiritually
• Ancestral skills―such as tracking, foraging, building fires, and finding shelter
• Develop a sense of calm, clarity, connection, and confidence in both your daily life and the great outdoors
• What you can learn from nature’s teachers―lessons from mountains, rivers, trees, and our animal kin
• Rewild in the wild―guidelines around safety, preparedness, appropriate gear, and packing lists
• A mindful rewilding flow―put everything together in an immersive, step-by-step rewilding experience
• Awaken your authentic spiritual connection with the natural world as you come home to your true self
• Understand the relationship between our health and the health of our planet―and how we can begin to heal both
Part celebration of the natural world, part spiritual memoir, and part how-to guide, Rewilding is a must-read for anyone who wants to embrace their wild nature and essential place in the living earth.
Micah Mortali is director of the Kripalu Schools, one of the largest and most established centers for yoga-based education in the world. An avid outdoorsman, mindful wilderness guide, 500-hour Kripalu yoga teacher, and popular meditation teacher, Mortali has been leading groups in wilderness and retreat settings for 20 years. In 2018, he founded the Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership. Mortali has a passion for helping people come home to themselves and the earth, and he is finishing his Masters at Goddard College on nature awareness and mindfulness practices. He lives with his wife and children in the Berkshires. For more, visit kripalu.org/about/kripalu/faculty/micah-mortali.
Stephen Cope, MSW, is the founder and former Director of the Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living, the largest yoga research institute in the Western world. He is a Western-trained psychotherapist who writes and teaches about the relationship between Western psychological paradigms and the Eastern contemplative traditions. Scholar-in-Residence and Kripalu Ambassador in Lenox, Massachusetts, Cope is the author of several bestselling books, including Yoga and the Quest for the True Self, The Wisdom of Yoga, The Great Work of Your Life, and Soul Friends.
