Inner Wilderness Work

I love the work I do! I just finished another 2-hour Earth-rooted mentoring session with a new client. It is such an honor to be able to help provide a safe container for Whole Self exploration and witness the soul journey as people come into deeper belonging to themselves and nature. It’s gonna take each of us becoming our full selves and sharing our gifts to transition in this time of the Great Turning. The beautiful wild coastal landscape evoked the inner tide and walking at one’s growing edge.

Trusting your inner guide. Courage to take meaningful action. Creating Ritual for marking transition and celebration. Finding your own flow and rootedness. Leaning into the hardest spaces. Connecting to the inner child/healer/masculine/feminine. Clarifying your purpose. Dancing on the growing edge. Own the shit parts. Cultivating facets of the whole self from the four directions. Shedding old stories that no longer serve. Deepening your ecological self.

These are some of the things I live for!! Like anybody, I have a lot to learn, but I love holding space, deep listening, and gently guiding. 1-on-1 work is about a third of my @wildnatureheart work (the others are reconnection workshops and Wilderness trips-and the Wild Nature Heart Academy soon). One of my specialties is facilitating a series of inner/outer wilderness sessions, culminating in a solo wilderness ceremony that we co-create.

If some of these themes resonate with you and you’re curious about working with me, drop me a line at ryan@wildnatureheart.com, I’d love to have a free chat with you. Everybody who works with me over several sessions also receives my two earth poetry books. I currently have 1 in-person spot available (in Humboldt County) and two remote (via video chat) spots available. Find out more about working with me in 1-on-1 Earth-Rooted Mentoring/Inner Wilderness Guiding.
-Ryan @ryanreturntotheearth

THE THRUSH’S ANSWER

The Thrush’s answer ushers in
the last of daylight’s questioning

In ever-widening loops he throws
his singsong down, and finally flows

through the finest forest fingers
and in my old ear-mind lingers

Dissolving all the daylong haste
into the slow of dusk’s embrace

We catch ourselves in melody
for there’s no place we’d rather be

I’m steeped in his voiced infusion
a moment stopping all confusion

Leave behind all fret and furrowed
brow with no thought of tomorrow

With each bright measure, each long lilt
I’m stitched into the biggest quilt

Pouring out his full throat woodsongs—he answers my most ancient longings

🌱WILD NATURE HEART ACADEMY🦉

Really excited about what’s emerging! I’m launching Wild Nature Heart Academy.

It’s still early, but I couldn’t wait to announce it. In a couple months I will be Inviting JUST 8-10 PEOPLE to join the first edition of Wild Nature Heart Academy’s introductory online course: RECLAIMING YOUR WILD NATURE HEART. This is the online version of the on-the-land version of the course that I will host in Humboldt County.

The interactive course is for people who are on the path of rewilding and cultivating a deeper belonging to place, purpose, and people. For those transitioning to a deeper earth-centered and sensual life and those unfurling a meaningful livelihood sharing your unique gifts that honors our earth home and our wholeness as people. And for those exploring their inner wilderness and eager to expand their toolbox of exploration, and wanting to share with others.

Participants will not only have a transformative, nourishing, and inspiring experience, but will also be in the first cohort who will help shape the Wild Nature Heart Academy. It is also an opportunity to be part of the growing edge of the ever-expanding rewilding and nature-connection/ecotherapy movements.

More soon on details as the curriculum is developed, but for a glimpse now: there will be 8 modules (on topics ranging from Deep Belonging, Deep Listening, and Stepping into Your Power, to Joanna Macy and The Work That Reconnects, the 4 Shields of Human Nature, and The Way Of Council), weekly video meetups, Deep nature and wild soul connection Practices and activities, guest teachers, 1-on-1 earth-rooted mentoring/inner wilderness guiding sessions, Assistance designing on-the-land experiences and creating a self-ceremony, poetry, and council circle with peers doing similar work and learning.

If this sounds like you, put a pin in it or DM me (ryanvanlenning@gmail.com) with your interest. More soon! 🤠
-Ryan

Spiral In Beauty Way

Let’s spin greenly into each other

Make a playful pact and sign it
with the green ink of sunlit trust

Let’s walk the Spiral-in-Beauty Way
Proclaim Yes the shimmers

Yes all the hues, old patterns and new ripples

Yes the great green garments of summer
and its endless faces

Let’s green our minds
and pour the old songs
into each other’s heart-mouths

Unfurl into each other’s laps
until we have no more defense
against the miracles

#ryanvanlenning

Dedicated to the ferns, Giant swamp lantern leaves, and the letter Green
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You can get my books RE-MEMBERING: Poems of Earth & Soul, and High-Cooing Through the Seasons: Haiku From the Forest through your local bookstore, on Amazon or Indiebound, Link in bio. My book of mystical poems, Silence Begins Here, and book of love and erotic poetry, Wild Rose Hips, will be out later this year. Follow me @ryanreturntotheearth for ecosensual mythopoetic inspiration and @wildnatureheart for my heart-centered nature connection & 1-on-1 inner/outer wilderness work.

Until the Soil Of Me

I was proven wrong once
again

Do you think I am done breaking down
the resistance?

A forest floor this rich doesn’t happen in a season

and I’m still hungry for dirt—
Obliterate the monkey bars!

I was told once by a half-farmer
to catch the worm I must become the early bird
and to join ‘em if you can’t fight em

I still don’t know if that’s
something to do with hard work
and capitulation
or with fishing and surrender.

That was my grandfather.

The other half was winter and whiskey.

It’s ok, all of us are split. All of me
is half of a half, and halves of those in turn

I’m filled with them all the way down
like turtles—
it makes of me many a continent
and the ocean washing over

Always building up
always breaking down
until the soil of me can grow
the whole truth

—Ryan Van Lenning
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You can get my books RE-MEMBERING: Poems of Earth & Soul, and High-Cooing Through the Seasons: Haiku From the Forest through your local bookstore, on Amazon or Indiebound, My book of mystical poems Silence Begins Here and book of love and erotic poems Wild Rose Hips will be out later this year.

The Password

To where the windows are open,
or none at all, withdraw
but give up on all avoidable walls

to where fences are figments of imagination
rainbows more real than nations

cast out the keys to all kingdoms
and let your eyes find feet more near

where the slightest gesture of dawn
pricks your holy ears

eluding the noisy net
that daily casts to catch

the dragonfly duet
of your pitch perfect patch

to where the rhythms hard
and soft flood in
imprint them in your luscious blood again

and trace the long-journeyed tree
through the four gates for free

a delicate dance that cannot be seen
without committing to the seasons

Find yourself one day somehow
on the other side of an audacious vow

the secrets spilled, on display
by every gust and guest of the glade

and a cheek against the live oak skin
can tell you the password again.

-Ryan Van Lenning
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You can get my books Re-Membering: Poems of Earth & Soul, and High-Cooing Through the Seasons: Haiku From the Forest through your local bookstore or on Amazon, Link in bio 🙏😀🎄💚