Beauty + Brains

Why We Rewild.

by | Nov 21, 2017

Art by Rachael Day for Of The Wolves

 

Between 2007 and 2015 there was a 31% increase in suicide rates among young men, and for young females the suicide rate doubled. Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S. alone. According to the World Health Organization, suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds globally. There are indications that for each adult who died of suicide there may have been more than 20 others attempting suicide.

As Tristan Harris, a well-cited ethicist for Silicon Valley has said, “Technology steers what 2 billion people are thinking and believing every day. It’s possibly the largest source of influence over 2 billion people’s thoughts that has ever been created. Religions and governments don’t have that much influence over people’s daily thoughts. The problem is the hijacking of the human mind: systems that are better and better at steering what people are paying attention to, and better and better at steering what people do with their time than ever before. The premise of hijacking is that it undermines your control. This system is better at hijacking your instincts than you are at controlling them.”

And as our very own contributor McKayla Robbins recently wrote of the ancient patriarchal systems crumbling before our very eyes for MEDIUM, “But we’ve named it: that’s the first step. Reclaiming the story: that’s the second step. All of the women speaking up, and all of the women and men saying, ‘I believe you,’ are doing this work, are calling us up from the belly of the thing. Are unwrapping the parentheses. Are speaking out, and in doing so, are giving others the permission to speak.”

More comedically, Russell Brand (yep, him) offers in his book “Recovery” a re-imagination of the 12-step programs that have saved his and millions of people lives for decades: “Step 1 – are you f**ked? Step 2 – could you be a little less f**ked?” But most notably he recognizes, “We’re all on the addiction scale” these days. Be it technology, food, substances, unhealthy relationships, etc.

Finally, the exquisite Hunter Lovins, renowned author, champion of sustainable development for over 35 years and TIME Magazine’s Millennium Hero for the Planet, presents to organizations, NGOs, conglomerates and more around the world about the status of our beautiful Mother Earth, and the status is this: “What we do in the next ten years is more important than what humanity does in the next 10,000 years”, as originally cited by Dr. Sylvia Earle.

Earth will go on without us, but we are inextricably linked to her.

We humans took some serious forks in the road to get here, but the map is really quite traceable. How we transcend it is not so clearly laid out. Or is it? The point is not bleakness but opportunity – the crossroads humanity is at is an invitation.

You may ask – why REWILDING? Are retreats just big business for people to sip juice and practice yoga and talk a lot? Maybe for some, but not for us. Communion is an ancient human need – to connect, tell each other stories, and to learn from one another. We’ve brought some of the brightest and most enthusiastic problem solvers and story tellers into one place for the weekend of January 26-28. 2018. If you’re curious at all about how to join us and REWILD, how to make changes in your life, how to live more altruistically, we will do our best to answer you!

Love,

Micha and Lulu