On the weekend of the 3rd and 4th of May 2003, a conference took place at Glenmore Lodge in the Scottish Highlands on the psychology and philosophy of wild places. The event was organised by Footprint Education, Glenmore Lodge and TGO and was the first of its kind in the UK that was open to all-comers. It proved to be a profound and important occasion.
My own experience of this event, as the one responsible for organising it, was one of relief to finally be surrounded by people who “knew” – by people who understood each other because they had spent time in wild places and experienced what wildness is all about.
For one weekend at least, I swam back into the great Flow, the irrefutable current – the quintessential, all-powerful force of life itself. It was like discovering an oasis in the desert of industrial life.
That’s how it felt for me, below is a brief collection of comments from others that were there.
Jo Roberts, The Wilderness Trust (Presenter): Wilderness as a concept can be a lonely one. Promoting its protection to people who have no understanding of the concept is a difficult one. Coming together at a gathering where all the people present have a shared knowledge, passion and understanding of the wilderness experience was an incredible one…
The Wild at Heart conference made possible a unique sharing of ideas, practices, philosophy and programmes amongst a very well balanced group of organisations and individuals. The presentations each in their own way reflected different aspects of wilderness education, experience and campaigning, which are the three main objectives of The Wilderness Trust. There was much gained from discussions surrounding the working groups and the links created have continued between participants making our shared goals easier, and our shared knowledge more accessible. The passion of wilderness preservation was the undercurrent of the weekend and the waves of spreading this passion further keep rolling forward for more people to benefit from.
As a result of the conference we have created a network of skills in which to enhance joint programmes and this alone made every minute of the weekend worthwhile.
Ann Palmer (Delegate): For me, the ‘Wild at Heart’ Conference had two major effects, and I mean MAJOR. One was a massive confirmation of personal beliefs. This arose from meeting with and talking to such a diversity of people who all shared a vision, and who are all furthering it in their particular and individual way in their professional lives.
The second major effect has been on my personal work – which was suddenly endowed with a variety of alternative models. At the moment I resemble an exploding firework, ideas flying out in all directions.
Mary-Jayne Rust, Jungian Therapist & Ecopsychologist (Presenter): As a Jungian analyst, working in a room in an urban environment, you might have wondered why I was presenting at the Wild at Heart Conference, amongst a large group of people who were working in the wilds, with a series of excellent presentations on so many different aspects of this area.
But I also call myself an Ecopsychologist, someone who is interested in the edge between psychology and ecology, struggling with questions such as: can we use our psychological insights to help shift our current environmental crisis? Can and how do we bring the ‘state of the planet’ into individual therapy within an urban setting?
The ‘other-than-human’ world is part of us – we are nature. Our bodies are our animal selves and our emotions arise from the body. Reconnecting mind and body within a culture that has for so long disconnected psyche from matter, and that is so wary, even denigrating, of our ‘animal’ instincts, can be a profoundly healing act.
Richard Wood (Delegate): My experience of the Wild At Heart conference was one of feeling an affinity with people from all different backgrounds. Our experiences were all from the same source, wild places, but were all unique to ourselves, our imaginations, and our cultures. It was heartening to see many perspectives and personal truths being voiced.
I felt it was an opportunity for me as a non-professional to be able to share my feelings about wild places with people who were academics but in an atmosphere where we, I felt, understood our feelings shared the same roots – the wilderness.
Al Smith (Delegate): The Wild at Heart Conference was great. There was everything you needed for it to be a success; there were inspirational and passionate speakers, people from varied backgrounds but with like minds and a fantastic location. My favourite memories are of being let loose with coloured crayons in Kaye’s session, let loose to roll in the heather and hide from walkers behind trees in Ann-Marie’s session and the inspiration I drew from Alistair McIntosh and the work of the Wilderness Trust and the John Muir Trust.
Steve Johnson (Delegate): How many of us have adopted the classic “head down, arse up” approach when struggling to get to the top of the next peak? Barely noticing the path let alone the peregrine falcon overhead. No wonder some are so keen to get off the mountain or so engrossed in the achievement of bagging another route that they ignore their environment, that they leave so much litter behind.
How many candidates for Mountain Leader assessment would dare submit route cards suggesting times twice those using Naismith’s rule, simply to allow time to sit and think, take in the grandeur of our hills and forests? Yet this is exactly what the participants at the Wild at Heart conference recognised. From Doug Scott to Colin Mortlock and Chris Townsend, all told stories reflecting the beauty of our wilderness and their understanding of our place in it. We all took time to experience our surroundings, reflect on experiences and recognise our impact and desire to help and encourage others to appreciate, to understand and to feel the healing qualities of just being outdoors.
Brendan Hill, Ecopsychologist (Presenter): There’s been little research looking at why some of us love the outdoors, while others loathe it. What I’ve found in my work is that watching nature programmes when we’re young gives us a lasting sympathy with nature, but it isn’t the same as feeling at home in it
Having had encouraging parents also matters but more for what they do, like letting you tag along when they’re going outside, than for what they tell you – it’s a case of ‘don’t do as I say, do as I do.’ But overwhelmingly the most important factor for adults who feel really at ease being outdoors is having been free to explore and discover your environment under your own steam as a child.
Chris Townsend, Writer (Presenter): “Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of the wolf”. Aldo Leopold – A Sand County Almanac.
Peter Lyons (Delegate): The most heartening aspect of the conference was the number of bright young people working to bring environmental awareness to the world. Clearly huge advances are being made in use of wilderness for education, healing, and countering the negative aspects of Western culture. I once read that the environmental crisis, of which threat to wilderness is part, could only be solved by a dictator with the brutal instincts of a Pol Pot. The diversity, idealism, and enthusiasm expressed at Wild at Heart indicates there are other ways. Dave Key has started something that will grow and grow.
In the core of us all is wildness – an uncontrollable intuition that connects us to our habitat, our home. The great planetary biosphere on which we depend and from which we have ultimately drawn all meaning and nourishment is threatened by our own hubris and passivity. Realising that we rely on the biosphere, which exists variously but in its most vibrant form as wilderness, depends on us experiencing ourselves as part of this great web of life, only then can we act to change our destructive ways.
Many of our philosophies, cultures, religions and traditions are built on nature, on our place in nature. Our psychology – our sense of “self” – is equally informed by our relationship with the Earth, at every turn we depend on nature, for sustenance and sanity.
The Wild at Heart conference was made remarkable because it was necessary at all. It simply made explicit two of the most obvious facts in the history of the human species, that we are nature and that a journey in the wilderness allows us to experience this first-hand.