Andre Virly
Jul 27, 2017 · 2 min read

I’ve struggled with these same questions all my adult life, especially as global environmental concerns have increased. As a child, I spent significant periods in Nature. In my early adulthood, I underwent several profoundly transformative experiences while on extended canoe trips (with no outside contact) in the Canadian wilderness.

These events led me to the conclusion that deep, physical immersion in demanding natural environments is a crucial part of full human development. It’s also how we evolved. This needs to become an important part of our educational systems if we want to start turning our self-centered, destructive (and currently suicidal) civilization around.

Length of experience is critical. This type of inner change is a radical reality shift which takes time. It won’t happen in a 3-day city park workshop. In my experience, it takes the better part of a week in deep wilderness just to cross the ever-increasing boundary between urban/civilized and wilderness/natural realities — just to realize that all our urban, civilized programming is now useless and irrelevant, and that we’re operating under a whole new set of rules.

And there’s nothing romantic about this process. Quite the opposite, it’s a hard, unflinching reality check. Ultimately, Nature doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether we live or die. You play by its rules, or not at all.

Our civilization shelters us from this reality — up to a point. We’re rapidly approaching that point. It’s the boundary where our deeply unbalanced civilization may fail, brutally reminding us of our Nature-based animal selves. And the great danger lies in the fact that most of us have lost the skills and (more critically) the mindset for surviving in natural environments.

We need to become deeply competent in both realities, and start closing the artificial gap between them, which is a destructive mental construct anyway.

This process can be started in the classroom, with approaches based in ecoliteracy and systems thinking, but then it has to be taken outside, where the deeper emotional, heart, and Spirit-based learning can begin….

There are many ways we can bring such natural experience back into our lives — especially with our children and adolescents, who are increasingly confused and lost in our man-made world.

Summer school programs would be a great start — such as living with, and learning life and survival skills from indigenous people. Sailing as crew on windjammers is another excellent example. The longer and more immersive the experience, the better.

And rites of passage in Nature to mark major life transitions (at all ages) are also extremely valuable. Again, they’re common to just about all indigenous peoples, and something humans evolved with. I underwent such a program with the School of Lost Borders in California. The entire process required a full year’s commitment.

Nature is a great ego-reducer and balancer. It’s also a Spirit and Heart amplifier and healer. It restores mind-bending wonder and connection to their rightful, central place within our everyday reality. It makes the extraordinary “normal”.

Ultimately, it shifts our inner world and makes us profoundly different, better people.