Claire Dunn - Rewilding the Urban Soul - Searching for the Wild in the City

REWILDING THE URBAN SOUL

Claire Dunn is a writer, speaker, therapist, guide, barefoot explorer, and passionate advocate for rewilding our inner and outer landscapes. She worked for many years as a campaigner for the Wilderness Society and now facilitates nature-based personal development and leadership through rewilding, deep nature connection, and contemporary wilderness rites-of-passage. In 2010, Claire lived in the bush for a year as part of a wilderness survival program, an experience she wrote about in My Year Without Matches . She currently lives in Melbourne.

www.naturesapprentice.com.au

Scribe Publications
1820 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia
2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom
3754 Pleasant Ave, Suite 100, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55409, USA

Published by Scribe 2021

Copyright Claire Dunn 2021

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Scribe acknowledges Australias First Nations peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of this country, and we pay our respects to their elders, past and present.

978 1 925713 15 2 (Australian edition)
978 1 913348 72 4 (UK edition)
978 1 950354 78 8 (US edition)
978 1 925938 93 7 (ebook)

Catalogue records for this book are available from the National Library of Australia and the British Library.

scribepublications.com.au
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This book is dedicated
to all those who champion the Wild
And to my loving parents,
Bob and Pauline Dunn.

Wildness is a form of sophistication, because it carries within it true knowledge of our place in the world. It doesnt exclude civilisation but prowls through it, knowing when to attend to the needs of the committee and when to drink from a moonlit lake.

Martin Shaw, A Branch from the Lightning Tree

Contents

Prologue:

Epilogue: (2020 and after)

Prologue
The Choice

Youre moving to the big smoke? Really, girl? Mark looks at me incredulously, covers his mouth with his hand, and turns away in a half-mock theatrical giggle. It turns into a gravelly cough, which gives weight to his hanging question. I cant help but laugh too as he tries to regain his composure, prematurely looking back in my direction before being beset by coughs again. Finally, he turns towards me, his head cocked on one side with a look that is more of a listening, his dark eyes gently enquiring into mine.

Behind him, a small plume of smoke still issues from the welcoming-ceremony fire circle that Mark extinguished not long ago. Small groups of people stand sandalled or barefoot on the grass, chatting quietly. A few kids are chasing each other around the single pecan tree in the field. In the background, the forest is dark along the creek line, lightening to blues and greens as it meets the sandstone.

The ceremony was the most animated Ive seen him striding confidently through the space made by a hundred-odd people in a circle, gesticulating with his arms as he talked. His passion for the country here emanated through his every gesture and footfall. Youve got to claim your belonging, he said. Weve all got to belong to this land, everyone, everywhere. Then we are the caretakers of old. The crowd around him was captivated.

An elder in training, he used to joke in humble introduction. But it was a half joke. Hes apprenticing still to his old uncles and aunties of the Gumbaynggirr clan, who reside on the north coast of New South Wales. I can feel some threshold has been crossed in the three years since Ive seen him. Its in his gaze, like hes seeing through me with X-ray vision.

I feel a lump grow in my throat as I meet his eyes, remembering the first time we met. It was the first week of a yearlong wilderness survival skills residency that I was embarking on with five others on a piece of land not twenty kilometres away as the crow flies. I can clearly picture myself, walking into the thick of the smoke, directing it over my head with both hands as if splashing water, my heart a cauldron of fierce intentions for the four seasons ahead. And Mark there, tamping down the gum leaves onto the coals with his bare hands. He would return throughout the year at intervals, walking us out on country, showing us the plants that would feed and heal us, cooking up some damper when we got too thin, tempering the intensity with his belly laughs.

Really, girl? he asks again, this time more seriously. But I know you, youre made of the bush, he says with a slight edge of concern. Im amazed how well he remembers me after the passing of years.

Tears come to my eyes as I clock the truth of this in my body, the comforting smell of smoke in the air, the stirring cry of the channel-billed cuckoo, my hair still wet down my back from a dip in the creek and my bare feet spread like moulded clay on the earth. The majority of my years have been lived outside capital cities. The times Ive lived urban, I perched rather than dwelt, a bird on a wire waiting for the wind to blow me back to a branch in the woods. And now Mark is witnessing me about to enter another kind of jungle, this time of the concrete kind.

I know, its kinda crazy, I say vaguely, but Ive gotta go.

Mark looks on, waiting.

Oh, okay, and Ive met someone, I say, smiling shyly. I dont tell him Ive only known the guy for a few months.

Ah, now were getting the full story, he says with a laugh, his eyes sparkling with mischief. Its not really the full story, I think to myself. There are other reasons, but they might be harder for Mark to understand, or at least to joke about.

Whats he gonna hunt you in the city? Mark laughs and I join him, trying to picture my new man catching anything other than the mosquitoes he chases down with vehemence in the bedroom. Marks wide smile fades and his face turns suddenly serious.

You stay wild, eh? Youre a woman of the earth. Dont forget what youve learnt out here.

My full trolley is a reluctant cargo ship in the swell of a busy IKEA Sunday. Another laden trolley capsizes in my path. I stop to wait while the giggling bunch of uni kids attempt again to pile on a bedrooms worth of cheap furniture and accessories in the most counterintuitive order. Their trolley bumps mine, and the large flat-packed box at the bottom of my cargo slides onto the shiny white floor. Crap, I mutter, and I try to wedge it back on.

I look around and try to remember which direction Ive come from. I identify five possibilities, all looking equally unfamiliar. I squint under the overhead lights. No sun to guide my way here. Another load, captained by three more students, makes pace towards me. Ive got to steer my ship out of here.

My trolley makes a resistant squeak as I turn and find myself in domestic dollhouse avenue kitchen after kitchen curated to particular eras and genres. I pass farmhouse chic, ode to stainless steel, 1950s kitsch, contemporary warm. I half expect to see Ken and Barbie tossing salads and waving at me. This is not just buying kitchen furniture, or even an aesthetic, its buying a dream, an off-the-shelf life.

Oh gawd, get me out of here. Ive been wondering around for what seems like hours, but I wouldnt know, as there are no clocks, nor any clear up or down, just endless spirals. I feel like Im stuck in an Escher painting. Im thirsty and my heart is beating faster than the physical exertion of trolley hauling requires.