For over fifteen years, I’ve taught thousands to reconnect with the land through the simple act of foraging.
And there’s a myth I want to challenge. The nature connection myth.
Humans are animals. We’re already connected to the ecosystem — whether we live in a tower block or deep in the countryside. But the way we use the word Nature suggests otherwise. It puts it out there — as something separate, something other.
Language matters. It shapes our reality.
I remember reading a quote on Monbiot’s site, from Lord Byron: “I love not man the less, but Nature more.” And my heart sank. Even George hadn’t clocked that this reasserts the same old disconnection. As if we’re not part of nature. As if it’s somewhere else.
I’ve sat with traditional cultures whose ways of being are vanishing. For them, connection isn’t something to seek — it’s how life is. That felt knowing lives in the bones.
When people talk about wanting to reconnect, I believe what they mean is: I want to feel it again. Not as an idea — but as a bodily truth.
Like missing someone you love. That tug in the chest. That quiet ache. It’s not outside you. It’s felt.
That’s what real connection is. And it doesn’t come through concepts. It comes through attention. Through practice.
Our culture sells disconnection — and then sells the solution back to us. Nature courses, quick fixes, trendy retreats. They might lift us, but the effect fades. We end up back where we started.
But there’s another way.
You don’t need to run wild. You don’t need to escape. You can begin exactly where you are. Even in a city.
Let wildness into your body. Eat it. Sit with it. Let it change your blood, your brain, your way of seeing.
Not to become more spiritual. Not to heal. But to belong.
This isn’t about going back.
It’s about remembering who we already are.