Everyday Sacredness:
Conversations between Body, Land and Soul

Inner & Outer Nature | Personal & Collective Journeys

  • Group Mentoring | Online Facilitation | Trainings

  • Women’s Retreats & Buddhist Retreats

  • Vision Quests - 12 day facilitated processes at the core of which lies a 4-day solo fast

  • Nature Vigil - 3-or 5 day process at the core of which lies a 1-day solo fast

  • Custom designed journeys | immersions for individuals & small groups in Europe & UK

I have a tremendous amount of experience in my field and I believe these are vitally important processes for actualising a future that is good for soul, soil and society.

I need land, or access to land, to guide on. I’d welcome investment and possible partnerships.

I’m Natasha Lythgoe,

and I believe that quality of our relatedness determines the shape of our lives, and the life of our planet.

Traditional cultures throughout time were intimately bonded with the more-than-human world, which included nature ‘out there’, the realm of imagination, dream and myths (both creation myths and folktales). These relationships located us humans deeply within the family of things, in relationship with the different levels of reality, interconnected with all life.

Over time, many of these relationships have been severed along with it our sense of belonging and connection to the sacredness of all life. It’s vital we rediscover the sense that to be human is to be part of nature. Is there is a way to remember and embody this primal wisdom we all carry? I believe so.

In at the deeper end of nature connection the way we guide does not end with increased mental and emotional wellbeing, but aims to create a profound shift in our sense of identity, transforming it from one that is isolated to one that is deeply rooted in relationship; from Isolated Self to Ecological Self.

This changes us at depth. We are grown through Earth’s Dream of us.

Our own moment in the unfolding story of life may or may not be as extreme as the near-extinction of some of our ancestors, but certainly we are a species navigating quite a bit of stress. All that is offered here is in the spirit of enabling us to navigate the coming chapter. Together.

We design experiences that lay the ground for students and participants to engage in conversations between land, body and soul. It's in the subtleties of these interactions that emergent possibilities are found - something I like to call the fresh interaction between a murmuration and sky.

Our online programmes and in-person retreats range from Vision Quests, Embodied Animism, Eco-Somatics, Ways to revive the sense of Being-Indigenous to Earth and How to Grow Eldership (I know this is a niche word but it simply means how to grow wisdom, authenticity and maturity in people).

I’m an experienced guide specialising in Rites of Passage | Vision Quests having trained in the States and the UK over the past decade. I bring and blend my twenty six years of experience in complimentary modalities which I believe are necessary to guiding this work in a way that is relevant to 2025. My About Page lists my qualifications and modalities.

In addition to traditional ways of facilitating nature-based-rites of passage programmes I ensure my programmes are trauma-aware, do not overly psychologise the process at the expense of experiences of self transcendence, and emphasise integration. The way I work with people emphasises embodied, experiential learning over just-concepts. It's the difference between talking about how to swim and at some point - getting wet in the water.

I offer online and in person programmes, nature based seminars and retreats, vision quests and 1-2-1 mentoring. I’m based between Austria and the UK. To stay in touch sign up to my newsletter.

Guardian (2024) 10 of the Best Wellness Nature Retreats for 2024
Elle Magazine (2021) Rewilding Feature
“ Blending ancient wisdom with modern culture, supporting you to connect with innate wisdom and awaken your true nature whilst offering ways to ground it back home, one step at a time. Supporting both individual and collective change.”

“ The medicine we need,
is in our wild,
both within us and around us.

  • Murmurations Group Mentoring

    Finding our way back to being dreamt by earth. Together.

    I am launching a six month group mentoring programme in Deep Nature Connection for women this December.

    We will be an intimate group size - max 8 participants.

    REGISTRATION IS NOW LIVE.

    Information & Registration

  • Retreats & Vision Quests

    2025

    January 22nd - 26th
    Scandinavian Women’s Winter Retreat

    25th Apr - 2nd May 2025
    Everyday Sacredness: Conversations between Body, Land and Soul

    7th May - 18th May 2025
    Cretan Vision Quest.

    30th July - 3rd August
    By Still Water Women’s retreat in Denmark

    19th - 31st August
    Findhorn Vision Quest

    Retreat Details

  • Commissioned Programmes | Personal Journeys

    I take small groups and individuals on contemplative adventures and guided solo immersions in nature, with limited access to technology, lasting anywhere from one day to twelve days.

    We have access to a variety of places to stay, from camping to catered, from indoor retreat centres to the wilds.

    Commissioned programmes are designed with you and can form part of a wider programme of mentoring sessions.

    More Information

If you want to stay connected with me the best way to do that is by signing up to receive my newsletter. This is where you’ll get all the info about new things like my upcoming podcast, online courses and live events etc. You can expect a newsletter about once a month or once every two months.

My newsletters are written by myself as if the recipients had signed up to receive them. Which they have. I love staying in touch with this community and hope you love reading them.

Natasha Lythgoe, founder of The Art of Rewilding

When we fall out of myth we fall out of meaning

By courting and nurturing relationship with the mythic dimension of our lives we find the healing, courage and wisdom needed to navigate a life lived with purpose. The mirror of myth, deeply intermingled with nature and rites of passage, wakes us up to the big questions and reveals to us the dormant parts of our lives.

Entering the forest at dusk, diving into wild rivers, watching the sun rise from a dewy patch of earth and sitting around open fires as the birds sing up the dusk and moon…

It is in these moments that we might ‘catch the quiver’ as it moves. Touched by awe and wonder when we listen for the call of the land and the myth of our lives we begin remembering ourselves to ourselves, and sensing what our hunter gatherer ancestors always knew;

That we are part of a bigger story, way beyond our comprehension and that our lives matter.

Remembering Our Roots

You may already be familiar with the Celtic wheel of the year interwoven with the solstices, equinoxes and seasonal fire festivals. The wheels I am most familiar with, based on natures cycles and our own natural cycles, map the Body in the south, Soul/Psyche in the west, Heart-Mind in the north and Mystery in the east.

These maps, deeply woven with land and cycles, are known as the Four Directions Medicine Wheel and the Nature Based Map of Psyche. Their teachings of nature within us, and around us, contain sacred paths and ceremonies which were once the life-blood of our ancestors and communities. Various forms of these ancient, circular, seasonal teachings have been used pan culturally by peoples to navigate what it means to be humans deeply connected to the wild.

Marking important life transitions, growing a person and connecting them with their innate wisdom, these rites of initiations are known as vision quests, rites of passage or wilderness vigils.

Ultimately they show us paths that enable healing, whole-ing and transformation - how to align with our true nature and embody the gifts we carry so that we can live as potent, healing influences in our communities. These teachings show us how to become mature humans and eventually elders for the health of the community in the largest sense of that word.

 

To be authentic means to be true to oneself.

It is a very, very dangerous phenomenon, rare people can do that. But whenever people do it, they achieve such beauty, such grace, such contentment that you cannot imagine…

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Human Growth

There are particular points in your life when something needs to change and you have the feeling that you want to evolve into the next chapter. An identity shift, if you will. These shifts are as natural as life itself; whether from childhood to adulthood, singledom to marriage, or youth to middle age we all know something of these passages. There are also more nuanced passages but no less important; times when it might seem like the hardest thing in the world is to be ourselves.

When we ask, Who am I? Really? Aside from what family and society and conventions tell me. And how do I get to that place of self knowledge and conviction where I are able to state without doubt, fear or anger, ‘This is who I am, this is what I stand for, this is how I intend to live my life’?

These are all death and rebirth moments within a life; when we die to what is no-longer so that we can open to what is new. Natures cycles of death and rebirth are inherent to all life, human and more-than-human. My passion is to share ways in which we can live in harmony with these cycles, to support folk in navigating and transitioning the different seasons of their lives.

Who do we walk this path for?

Ultimately these journeys invite us to embody the gifts we carry so that we can live as mature, powerful, healing influences in our communities. We do this not only for ourselves, but for our kin, human and more-than-human. These are our offerings for future generations.

Quote by Brigit McNeill
Art Credit: Miles Toland

An interesting idea that turns up in myths and stories is that the crises we experience, both individually and collectively, are not here to destroy us but rather to break the spell of the little self, and to break the spell of collective lives that are also imagined as small and not connected to the source and origins of life

That the crises that we experience individually or collectively are here to crack the shell and break us open to the inner eyes of the soul and to give us the opportunity to reconnect to the deeper self which knows why we are here and what our life purpose already is.

- M. Meade