The Stranger Things of a Wild Life
(Art by Leif Podhasky)
I hope you receive this while enjoying a gentle landing into 2026. The last week of the year, which contains my birthday as well as New Year’s Eve and the turning of the calendar, is always a heady one for me as well as one where I protect as much rest, quietude and alone time as possible. I learned early into my decades of living in Los Angeles that this particular week in the city is a gift even many Angelenos are unaware of if they travel most years: our notoriously traffic-packed streets easily flow and a soft, muted tone coats the streets. I usually try to preserve this week with little plans wherever I am though. This year, things were chaotic right up until almost the end of the year, but I descended into the well-worn cushions of silence in my home now.
***Note the Gregorian calendar is not necessarily everyone’s compass of time, but it is one of the rarest of instances where around the world most people must, for shared calendar purposes, acknowledge the ending of a year and the beginning of another, even if the marker in time is somewhat arbitrary.***
The central plan for my New Year’s Eve was a fireside viewing of the series finale of Stranger Things. Perhaps you too? The next morning I awoke and realized how the ten years many of us spent cheering on the protagonists of Hawkins, Indiana is a mirror into the very aspects most of us seek for a rewilded, rich life. Many of us are in on the secret that a rich life has little to do with our bank accounts – though resources are necessary to live – and everything to do with connection. No matter where you stood on the finale or if you never watched the show at all, I believe they were beloved around the world because we watched ten years of true friendship, true community, true intimacy, true vulnerability, wild imagination, wild bravery, wild storytelling and more.
It takes imagination to create the lives we want, better systems and an equitable world, and the characters and creators of the show had imagination and childlike wonder as well as maturity in spades. Many of us don’t want to be fighting all-powerful monsters and potentially be the world’s only saviors like they were, but we DO want to do hard things with others, not alone. Many of us envy the experiences the characters had not because we want to be in harm’s way, but because we know life is difficult, unpredictable, and we know deep down we face it better together.
Some of our viewing pleasures, our favorite books, the works of art we take in again and again are not escapes from life they are escapes TO somewhere, a place we are challenged to find in our day-to-day life. When I woke up New Year’s Day contemplating the Stranger Things of the last ten years a feeling that’s been simmering within me was at a full boil: a life well lived isn’t just being informed, it’s informing the world of what is possible. And for that, I want my fantasies of better ways to live in this world in relationship to each other and to the more than human world to be given far more space and time than I previously have given it. Dreaming can be a bold act while we also keep our feet rooted in the Earth. Like the final scene ever of this beloved show, “I believe”, too.
Following are some of my early 2026 offerings to deep dive into the power of the pack and our collective imaginations. Much more coming. And if you have anything you’re looking for or ideas, email me: micha@werewild.co. And welcome 2026.
Disclaimer
weREWILD, its team, and content providers are not rendering mental, emotional or physical medical advice or treatment – just resources. Always consult your own doctors, mental health providers, or seek some assistance if in need. Several of weREWILD’s contractors and content providers are licensed mental health practitioners. Others are certified and trained in fields noted in their biographies. No current contractors or content providers are licensed allopathic medical care providers.
Many of the photos used here were shot by Elli Lauren: https://www.ellilaurenphoto.com/
Disclaimer
weREWILD, its team, and content providers are not rendering medical advice or treatment – just resources. Always consult your own doctors, mental health providers, or seek some assistance if in need. Several of weREWILD’s contractors and content providers are licensed mental health practitioners. Others are certified and trained in fields noted in their biographies.
Inspiration for Micha has come from far and wide: facets glimpsed in anthropology, biology, ecology, music, literature, art, the tales of outliers and adventurers, in addition to psychological traditions of Jungian/depth psychology, feminist psychology, ecopsychology, plant medicine, and trauma-informed work. Parts of her process are drenched in the traditions of eco-therapeutic approaches, which reminds us (or teaches, for many of us) that the well-being of humans and the natural world are inextricably connected, which ancient and native peoples didn’t necessarily have to study, they breathed it. All you see here are Micha’s own proprietary writings or creations unless otherwise cited from other sources and can not be lifted. But to be clear, ideas are rarely new or a possession, they have generally come long before us, in a myriad of ways, and present a little differently through all of us.
Many of the photos used here were shot by Elli Lauren: https://www.ellilaurenphoto.com/
Disclaimer
weREWILD, its team, and content providers are not rendering medical advice or treatment – just resources. Always consult your own doctors, mental health providers, or seek some assistance if in need. Several of weREWILD’s contractors and content providers are licensed mental health practitioners. Others are certified and trained in fields noted in their biographies.
Inspiration for Micha has come from far and wide: facets glimpsed in anthropology, biology, ecology, music, literature, art, the tales of outliers and adventurers, in addition to psychological traditions of Jungian/depth psychology, feminist psychology, ecopsychology, plant medicine, and trauma-informed work. Parts of her process are drenched in the traditions of eco-therapeutic approaches, which reminds us (or teaches, for many of us) that the well-being of humans and the natural world are inextricably connected, which ancient and native peoples didn’t necessarily have to study, they breathed it. All you see here are Micha’s own proprietary writings or creations unless otherwise cited from other sources and can not be lifted. But to be clear, ideas are rarely new or a possession, they have generally come long before us, in a myriad of ways, and present a little differently through all of us.
Many of the photos used here were shot by Elli Lauren: https://www.ellilaurenphoto.com/
