There is an old legend that says we each have a wild, curious twin that was thrown out the window the night we were born. This is the side of us we shun and ignore, choosing instead to conform to societal norms and who we think we’re supposed to be. And while so many of us never re-meet this estranged, exiled self, this legend urges us to seek them out and invite them back into our consciousness.

“For if there is something we are meant to do with our few short years on this Earth, we can be sure that our wild twin is holding the key.”

All efforts I had made to deny my wildness left me in a state of perpetual anxiety— specifically the feeling of chains winding and tightening around my body. I’ve only just recently recognized that state of feeling trapped and understand its remedy: to let go fully and experience being flesh, bones, blood, and soul at the whim of the world.

In 2021, I began working with and through a profound grief that rattled me up so hard that all those chains I’d wrapped around my chest and ankles broke free. The walls I’d built around myself came crashing down and suddenly, I found myself standing face to face with my wild twin.

Like the seasons, the flowers in the vase, the days when farming just sucks, my twin carries a felt-knowing that nothing lasts. Everything will go away and it's the in-between that really matters.

This knowledge was my rewilding.

And this farm, these flowers, are my practice— my continual commitment to courting my wild twin.

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If you’d like to read this story it’s found in Dr. Martin Shaw’s Courting the Wild Twin. And while not many things can replace the tactile experience of turning a page, I highly recommend listening to the audiobook, read by Shaw himself.

Additionally, if you’d like to explore courting your wild twin, come by the garden. I can’t think of anything that connects me to myself and my wildness more than pushing my fingers deep into the soft soil.