wild

Going From The Concrete Jungle To Becoming Radically Wild

I went from the concrete jungle having been born and raised all my life in the city of Brooklyn NY, to becoming radically wild. I woke up to a different perspective in life, to appreciate and cherish the beauty of the world and mother nature. One of growing love, compassion and finding my inner wild child and regrowing who I am. In this post I write about my radical transformation and hope to inspire others to grow their wild roots.

I have grown a deep profound connection to nature having now lived 7 years in the paradise that is Puerto Rico, where as now, nature has become my teacher as I have evolved who I was under the layers of conformity, and hence, a radical shift in my consciousness awoke.

I care deeply for nature as I realized that we are nature. Decided to be the guardian of the beaches and rivers as I went on a mission to protect them from litter, which can be read about here.I now live a barefoot, conscious, minimalist lifestyle. I became a vegan (read more about here.) and I learned to grow My own food. One of my goals was to live more off the grid and on a tree house surrounded by the beauty of nature, as that is where I feel is where I belong. Which I did something similar to in a farm here in Puerto Rico. I now live a similar lifestyle to an ancient cynic or stoic as I now live a life according to nature.

I now feel that my wild roots have grown into my being and into my soul. A wildness that has been missing for a large part of my life.

“To be fully human is to be wild. Wild is the strange pull and whispering wisdom. It’s the gentle nudge and the forceful ache. It is your truth, passed down from the ancients, and the very stream of life in your blood. Wild is the soul where passion and creativity reside, and the quickening of your heart. Wild is what is real, and wild is your home.”

― Victoria Erickson

Rewilding

I believe rewilding ourselves is the key to perfect happiness and to creating the lives we were meant to live.

Finding myself in the many wild beautiful places of Puerto Rico, brought me back to the primal, divine roots of humanity, which has not only enriched my life, but also has made me grow spiritually, in which has also made me a better human.

To grow wild means to unlearn social conditioning and reclaim our birthright. By growing wild, we give ourselves the freedom to live who we truly are. To be uniquely you. By restoring our lost connection to the natural world, we re-develop our intuition and instincts, illuminating our true source of power within.  Having a wild heart allows us to live a passionate life, with truth and integrity. It’s an authentic life, fully embracing vulnerability.

A Product of our environment

Being from Brooklyn, I grew what I call a concrete mindset. I became a product of my environment . The streets were dirty and the city life was noisy. Now I understand that it takes noise to really appreciate silence as silence is now what I crave.

Where I grew up there were no trees on the streets. The trees would be found only in the city parks, but I was not aware of them. For me they were just this brown thing with leaves on top. A tree was nothing but just another tree, I did not see the beauty in them. Therefore, I never had an appreciation for nature the way I do now. Where as now, I am like a kid at a candy store when I see trees or any other beauty in nature.

You could also say that I have become a product of my new environment, nature, but that is our natural environment in which we were supposed to exist in. Consequently before, I was very disconnected from this world and connected to a material world. All I would care about was chasing money, as well as a false happiness and my own ego. I feel that most of humanity has become disconnected from nature and solely connected to the material world. Nature has become just an attraction, a place where we just take for our vacation. “Oh look at that pretty waterfall , OK now let’s go snap some pictures and go back home”, and so we go on not realizing that home lies in nature.

Not knowing who we are

We become what culture, society and ultimately, what civilization tells us how we must conform to be. We take the box that is given to us in our environment and comfortably wear it. Not being aware of the box that we are in, as we become a saturated and a diluted version of who we are supposed to be.

I proudly wore that box for most of my life. I would listen to the same music as my friends, In addition to having similar taste in clothes. As it just seems like we become nothing but clones of each other and so we go on never realizing our own individuality that lies within as we bury it under those boxes, layers and mask.

We often remove one mask just to put on another. This radically wild version of me could just be another one of my many mask that I have worn. But the difference is being aware that you are not just putting on another mask and uncovering your true essence and true nature. Here I write about evolving ourselves and finding our true nature.

No time for ourselves

For me and many people born in this type of environment, Get out of my way I have to get somewhere becomes our motto. We live life in such a rush that we don’t notice that we are just rushing to our death. Whereas in nature you realize that there is nothing to rush off to. You learn calmness, patience and just to be.

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

― Alan Watt

Time, a commodity that we no longer have as we now have sold our time to chase that material world. So for most of us, we rarely have time for nature, nor for ourselves. We have no time to even get to know who we are behind the layers, the mask and boxes we choose to wear.

I feel we live in a world of distractions and so we become distracted to in the present and of own selves. We should take the time to be more in nature and time for ourselves. Time to reflect and for self-introspection. Life is too short and I should know after being shot at my head (Click here to read about that). Make the best of your time and start appreciating and living life. Break from the distractions.

Life becomes a cage

I now view living in that environment as nothing but a cage. For most of us, we become trapped in this cage. We go on never seeing the world, never noticing the beauty of life around us, just the engulfment of concrete.

Before I never wanted to be out in nature as I was comfortable with this material world. I would come home from work , into my expensive tiny shoe box apartment. Just to watch my favorite show or movie on my 42 inch screen TV and do the same thing everyday without ever noticing life around me.

Living in that type of environment we grow stress and that city life for many, grows depression. That is how I lived most of my life. I wrote about my depression and suicidal thoughts which can be found by clicking here. All the stress eats at us mentally and physically, which then leads us to bitterness, leads us to hatred, leads us to lashing out. All of which was the way I lived. But when we are in nature you suddenly feel a reduction of that stress as everything just melts away.

What contributed to this change?

About 6 years ago I quit drinking alcohol (Read about that Here.) and decided to be in solitude in nature. I believe that combined with growing my own food contributed to me shedding my layers of conformity and realizing the masks that I have worn. Everyday I strive to remove them and better who I am as a person. Because the way I was living before was negative. So I chose to discipline myself and work on my shadow everyday so I could instead leave positive ripples across the universe.

If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.

– Carl Jung

I live by a motto. I don’t grow plants , they grow me. Growing my own food was the catalyst that taught me many wonderful things such as patience, perseverance and above all respect, among many other values. I will go further on that in another post, but I feel that sticking our hands in dirt that our wild roots grows further and we develop a stronger connection and bond with the natural world.

Solitude is freedom. Freedom from the dilution of society. solitude is where we go deeper in finding who we are. I would say most people are afraid of solitude, of facing themselves. Solitude in nature was where my wild roots grew further. Sitting there among the trees in a beautiful river listening to the waterfalls, the wildlife around me and getting lost in contemplation. In addition to unraveling the beautiful puzzle of who we are without the saturation of others as we now live trying to please others, but never pleasing ourselves. I will also write another post on solitude.

Become like wild flowers…

Most would probably say, oh so you have become a “hippie”. Because we not only decide to put boxes on ourselves, but we also put them on others. It makes it easier for us to understand others. If what makes me a hippie is growing love, kindness and compassion, living consciously. All of these wonderful qualities that died in me through the cultural conditioning of my upbringing. The question then should be, what does it make all of us who are not labeled “hippies”?

We should strive to be more loving, compassionate beings. Strive to become better than who we once were. Everyday for me is a new day to be reborn. To be aware of those layers we have worn and to unleash more of of wild nature. We must reconnect to the sacred divinity of our Mother Earth.

I have become wild like the wild flowers that sprouts from concrete. Broke free from the cocoon that confined me and the shackles that have bound me. I love what I have become in such a short amount of time and look forward to seeing what I continue to evolve into being. There is a lot of room for growth in all of us and only we have the key deep down inside. I have found my inner peace and look to continue my metamorphism, grow self-love, and bloom all the wonderful qualities that reside in me.

Living in the midst of civilization

I spend more of my time in wild places in Nature and less time around civilization. Although there has been radical shift in my being in such a short amount of time, I am not as radically wild as I need to be. I know the wildness that lies within me and in which lies in all of us. I could live in the midst of civilization yet retain my wildness. When I am in nature, that wildness takes over, However, I learned to create a balance in order to walk between two worlds.

I could never return back to NYC or any similar type of cities to live. I now plan to travel the world to find more wild places to roam around in and to find my potential home. Look forward to sharing more of my thoughts and more of my radically wild adventures throughout the world.

So unleash your inner wildness. Reconnect. Rewild & Grow your wild roots and be FREE!

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Over to you, What do you think about what I wrote? Have you found your wild ways or feel that you need to reconnect again?