Slow Down and Sync Up with Nature’s Rhythms, Interview with Nicolette Sowder

Ginny: Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the One Thousand Hours Outside Podcast. I'm laughing because I should have just started this five minutes ago because we have just been sitting here talking, me and Nicolette, and I think I'm just thrilled to be back talking to you on the screen.

Nicolette: I'm glad. Yeah, it's just talking to a friend. 

Ginny: Yeah, it's the best. It's the best. When it's someone you already know and you're like, Oh, we just get to have this conversation to have some time. It's so good. 

So this is Nicolette from Wilder Child, which I'm sure that you've heard of. You know, I can't say that about many other things, right? But Wilder Child is everywhere. Right? I mean, just everywhere you are influencing the masses and you have been for almost a decade now. So can you take a quick minute and introduce yourself?

Nicolette: Yeah, OK. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm always amazed and honored at everything that happens all the time with, with just the entire movement and with Wilder Child, the way it's going. 

So I'm Nicolette Sowder, the creator of Wilder Child and Wildschooling and the Kids Moon Club. And yeah, my purpose, which is taken on a life of its own, is to really just help people recognize just that inherent bond that's within them. Like just to help them rejoin with that secret connection to the land and to do that in community, too. 

Ginny: We've known each other for a while because we've sort of been in the same space for a while, but have connected more in the past couple of years. We live in the same state. 

Nicolette: We do have to see each other.

Ginny: So that's been on our radar. But you and I, when COVID hit and all these families sort of got blindsided. And um, and all of a sudden, you know, these families that maybe would have never even considered homeschooling or homeschooling and everyone was home together. And so you and I did make an online homeschooling workshop together, and it was really special. You know, there's kind of some smaller groups, and I thought it was really intimate. 

But the part about it that I really want to focus on is that you and I had had this, you know, we went back and forth and we had this sort of script and this layout. And then when we finally got to doing it, basically, I just took notes the whole time because you were saying all these things that they just kind of blew my mind and I felt like I was in a pretty good spot with homeschooling. You know, we've been doing it longer than you guys have, but as soon as you started talking, I was like, I was taking the class. You know, I was writing down all these notes because you are purposeful about the way that you live your life. 

And it was so refreshing and so different to hear these things and I've talked about it a lot since, like, you revolve your schedule around the Moon and and full moons and the cycles. And I never had heard that before, Nicolette and I thought, “Wow, like, there's so many cool ways that we can choose to live and we get to write our own script and we get to make those choices. People are fascinated, and it gives them permission to go off the beaten path and say, “This is kind of how I want to live my life.”

And so that's sort of our background together. You are just endearing and delightful. Your writing, it just hits everybody deep in their soul. So I could not be more delighted to call you a friend and have you on today. 

It's going to be December when this airs. And so what we're going to start off by talking about since we're talking about sort of living your life in these cycles and rhythms and you can probably hit on that is your beautiful program, The Kids Moon Club. 

And before you tell us a little bit about it, I came across the very first blog post where you put “basically I'm shaking in my boots. I've spent two years on this and I'm about to put it out in the world.”

And I think so often when we see people's creations, we don't realize the sort of nervousness and a heart in blood and sweat and all of those things that go into it, and then we're going to present it. We don't really know where it's going to go. So I just want to say congrats. This will be year five, I think.

Nicolette: Yeah, yeah, It is one of those things where it's it's still scary and I'm still innovating it and still changing things based on, you know, what families have said and I never it was something that just came out of our experience and out of, you know, a heart centered place which you're that's where you come from. 

And so it's scary to come and put your art, which is essentially, you know, I think everybody's an artist. And to then put that out into the world, it's really vulnerable and it's really scary. But So every time, I'm just humbled and amazed that people want to be a part of it. But it is. Yeah, it's near and dear to my heart. 

It's even hard for me now to talk about it. I'm like a horrible person when it comes to, like, you know, explaining and pushing my own things. [00:15:32][6.3]

Ginny: Tell us about this. And you talked about it a little bit when we did our homeschooling class about how, you know, sometimes people view these different moons. You know, as if they're very disconnected from it. And so you had talked about even in the home schooling class, that this can be part of your rhythm, that and it's really exciting every month you post about it, the new moon. And people can have different traditions and infuse these different, memorable things. So I think you could tell us a little bit about your life and then also about if people want to join this kids moon club in 2022, and there's only a month, right? There's only a month to hop on.

Nicolette: So it only opens once every year. We started celebrating when I when I moved to Michigan, my husband and I wanted to start a permaculture farm, so we were just completely overwhelmed. We had a one year old and we had never, ever done farming before. So we're like, we'll just do this now with the little and we're learning how to be parents. 

You know, our generation has really, I think, done a lot of reinventing and a lot of healing around our parenting and taken the good stuff and also trying to, you know, look into the future to make things as good as we can make them. So we were on that healing journey and nature was such a part of that and specifically the Moon, because it just helped us re sync up with those sacred site goals. Itt helped us find our center because we just felt so centered from all these, just these parenting ideas that we were breaking down and building ourselves back up. And so the Moon was such a huge part of that. 

And specifically the full moon we just started celebrating, you know, colloquially, those moon names are like the Wolf Moon. We've all heard those by now. Yeah, but what I came to realize through celebrating those and helping those that really started to serve as our anchor is that the Moon. Those names were really different for a lot all around the world. Globally, different cultures have called those moons different things. So there's the milk moon and there is, you know, there's the sturgeon moon in some areas, but not in other areas. So we started to create our own names based on our biome. And that was something that the entire tribes in North North America did. 

So we were looking at our phenology nature's calendar, the things that were emerging in our area and applying that to the names, which is how it really was. And I think then that led us into this whole idea of decolonizing our nature based experience and making it much more relational, like instead of going and be like, Oh, OK, this is Frog Week, we had to re construct how our relationship to Mother Nature and being like, no, like what's in our world, like what's emerging for us right now? And it and it's such a simple thought, but it's so radical because we've been so taught to commodify our nature based experience like we're going out there to take something, it's back dropping our our our our lives. You know, we're going skiing. We don't know the name of the people who used to live there. We don't know the history of that particular land, and we don't really have a deep relational connection because we haven't been taught it. And so through this process of the kids club, not only are we rethinking up to the rhythms, which is just helping us get rooted and connect to each other. We're also building a relationship that's specific to where we are, and it's happening over and over and over again every single year. So it's yeah, it's been pretty life-changing for us. 

Ginny:  Yeah, it's really beautiful. It makes me think about a couple of things as we're heading into the holiday season here. And so people have different traditions and they're really special, right? These are the things that ground you and you remember forever. And so one of the things that I really like about this is that it infuses it throughout the year, you know, and so, so tell us about how sort of on a monthly basis. 

OK. OK. Let me be honest, I don't even know how often a full moon happens, and I don't know what permaculture means. So clue me in just a little bit.

Nicolette: So we have, like the new moon is the beginning of the cycle and the number of cycles varies for every year. So sometimes it's 12. I have to redesign the Kids Moon Club for the way that the lunar cycles are falling during this particular year, so it shifts a little bit, but generally speaking, we start the first new moon after the winter solstice. OK, for us, the winter solstice marks the beginning of our solar year, beginning of our home schooling year, but I don't even want to use the word homeschooling because I think that it doesn't matter if you're homeschooling or not.

So that volume of our lives is like from winter solstice to winter solstice and then within that. So that's the solar cycle. And then within that are the lunar cycles. And so then you have those that start and you had this opportunity to wax and wane, like in breath out breath throughout the entire year of being like, Oh my gosh, we're in winter now and we're going to go inside for all of this season and then we're going to have this is, you know, especially in Michigan. We have these. I mean, we are people of the lake upside down here and people. 

You know, as a parent, it's like I can't handle too much. So I just try to keep it. And whatever you can do, I think that's the message most families can handle. OK. It's the full moon. 

Ginny: I can go out there. I can look out the window.

Nicolette: It's a great anchoring point, and it's amazing for little ones because they get excited. It's something big and energetic that you can really attune to. So I think those are powerful things in nature. The big things, right, like water and the mountains, the trees. If you're just trying to introduce and get realigned and you feel a little bit disconnected, I think it is great to have a big thing like a full moon that can get you pumped up. Then you can build that culture on something that's like if you start with something like forging that can be super overwhelming. But as a little girl, my daughter started as she's one year old and where we're tethering to those full moons, I mean, that's going to stick, right? 

Ginny: Yes. Like even the farming, that's really overwhelming, right? But you talk about these moons? They are fascinated, you know, I mean, I remember my kids going “Moon Moon,” and we did the sign. And I mean, they were really little. And I'm fascinated, especially those really big ones, and they're so bright. The grandparents are fascinated. So this is something that you could do as an entire family. 

Nicolette: Yes.

Ginny: And so, specifically someone could join the Kids Moon Club as this airs, they could join now. There's just this small window of time to join, and this is going to make their 2022 to have such beautiful rhythm and add so much.Well, what would they be doing?

Nicolette: Well as a part of the club that they can use forever more, not only a framework like a rhythm, but also there is a story. So there are two characters and they walk you through the entire, the whole the they walk you through the full moon forest. So there's a different part of the story for each one, and there's a different map piece of the forest that my sister in law and my brother actually have done all the artwork, and they're just incredible artists. And so it's like a labor of love there. There were so many things to me. It's so hard to actually make it happen. 

But I mean, you get a little piece of the map, every single moon cycle and then you get the fall. You get the full full moon for a picture of all these characters that you meet along the way, you meet a different character that goes with each of the mountains. So there's a wolf girl for the Wolf Moon, and she has a power, and it's really like about your emotions as you go. So it builds on like in the beginning for the Wolf Moon, you're really building. You are your will, right? It's all about in order if you want to do something. If you want to go on a journey, you first have to decide to do it. So she's encouraging that, and then it just builds from there with the culmination at the end of the piece Moon, where you're really just integrating. So you're you're they're teaching you how to go through that emotional rhythm that's tied to nature throughout the entire thing. And then there's basically the South. Our piece, I focus on the story because I love the character so much. 

The centerpiece is really about parties. A full moon party gives you everything you need to celebrate those moments. Every single cycle. Yeah, I think you got to celebrate.

You are so good about talking about play and how important play is. And so there's a tree and there is an activity that's actually something that you make that's featured in the story. So I try to make it contextual. Oh, how fun, like just crafts that you're just going to, that they don't really have a place within the wider journey. I tried to tie it all together. Even the food that's featured in some of the treats is featured in the story. So it's just it's all about that celebration of this amazing event that we get no matter what's going wrong. What has that worked? You have that every single month. You have this shining light of we're going to celebrate it, however vague, however small we're going to. We're going to mark that moment and it's going to be good. 

Ginny:  What a gift. At this time of the year is so neat because it would be such a great gift to give for your family or to another family or to, you know, your grandchildren as something that, like you said, lasts forever. In terms of habits and rhythms. But just that, you know that 2022 is going to have this, you know, these really special, unique, memorable times that are multi age and across the generations. 

So you know what? It makes me think about Nicolette, we have from time to time tried to keep a Sabbath day of rest, and we haven't been the best at it. But, you know, and I don't even really know how much I really even think about it, you know, like, are we supposed to do it? Are we? But we've tried it from time to time. Where and what has worked with you? Having young kids is to do it in the Jewish tradition, at sundown to sundown, Friday to Saturday. And so, you know, we would try not to work. You know, we had small kids and I would try and cook ahead. And it was surprisingly actually easy to make it happen, even though, like the other days of the week, I would have a hard time getting meals on the table. But you know, there was something about it that just worked. But what it did for me, Nicolette, more even than having that rest period, was that it made me aware of the passage of time. And so what would happen is that each Friday, either the Sun would set earlier or it would set later and there was a 10 minute difference or an eight minute difference. And every single week, it turned out I was like, “Oh, time is passing.”

And so that's what this makes me think about. You know that I think it's so easy to just go you go, go your wheels spin, your wheels spin. But if you have this rhythm where you're stopping and you're celebrating and the seasons are changing and the moons are changing, it reminds you that life is passing by.

Nicolette: Absolutely. And it reminds you that you can navigate. You have choices like, yeah, you have an option that is way more biologically and ancestrally aligned. We do the calendar, I mean, we're so lucky to have another option, a cyclical one. I think it does something to your brain. Like my children, I already can tell the flow is just different with them. I can ask them right now, where are we in the cycle, both on the larger solar cycle and the lunar cycle? And they will know in their like basically they know in their bodies. 

Ginny: Wow. 

Nicollete: And I think that translates to so many other things just from a practical perspective, thinking like, Oh, well, maybe there's another way to do something just on that. 

Ginny: Yes, yes. And that is sort of the point, right? Which is like when we do this homeschool class and I'm thinking like, you're just going to say everything I already know, and then you start talking and I was like, Wait, 

Nicolette: There are other ways to think about time, other ways to think about the pace of your own life and to experience the pace of your own life. I mean, to me, that sovereignty, you know, that's true freedom. And so when you start to navigate that way, you just after a year of doing it. Living in that cycle, you just come out different and then you come out with 12 or 13 of your own biome bonded. Anchor points, yeah, that you can do, you can. Of course they can change, you know, but you have and then you start building culture around those. Yeah, and that's like a whole other thing. 

Ginny: What a gift to give kids, you know? So here this is coming out in December. There's one month to join the Kids Moon Club. If people are interested, where can they find information, Nicolette? 

Nicolette: OK, so they can find it on Wilderchild.com and on my Instagram? Those are the best places to find it. 

Ginny: And there's just a limited window, right? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, the doors open on December 1st and they close on the last day in December. So yeah, it's this. It's this window. I don't I'm not trying to create some scarcity. I really do that because then it starts up and then it is. It is a year long experience. 

Ginny: I think it's really neat because I think that we are bonded in that way. You know, One Thousand Hours Outside is a yearlong thing and it's one of those things that is a big commitment, you know? But years come and go. We sure know that. 

Nicolette: You’re great about telling people, do what you can. 

Ginny: You and I have this thing like, Hey, 2022 is going to be a great year. You know, with these, it might be hard, you know, there might be some big hardships, but to have this beautiful rhythm and flow? 

Nicolette: Yeah. And sense that our programs are longer, though, because we're taking the long view. I mean, yeah, we're both about moving at a slower, more connected pace. So it makes sense that a lot of people are just trying to figure out my business and here like this is you should not do this like this is way too complicated. It's way too big. It's way too long, it's way too clunky.

Ginny: I've gotten all the same feedback. You know, my favorite thing was your introduction when I was like, Introduce yourself and you said, like two sentences. I'm the same.  

People who are listening, you just want to be connected to Nicolette. I mean, that is the thing. And so one awesome way to get into her world and you join the Kids Moon Club. That's a life changing experience. 

Nicolette: They get out there. Now you see the Moon. We're basically like, the magic is happening out there. Just get out there. Yeah, trying to get out there in community, you know, because human humans, we evolved, we call evolve over nature in community. 

Ginny: Yeah, it's beautiful. I um, I printed out a couple of ah, blog posts. I thought, you know, so people can get a little taste if they haven't already read of your writing. And so obviously with the Kids Moon Club too, you just get Nicolette’s Way with words. There's something about it, Nicolette, your way with words. And so this is from one post about, um, being messy. And I mean, I just want to read a couple of sentences, 

“When we reflect back on our lives. Most of us find that our most powerful life moments aren't scripted. They are raw, unhinged and, well, messy. Despite this, we as a society tend to worship at the foot of organization, cleanliness, minimalism and order. You talk about each day there's a new guru or bestseller promising a system, standard philosophy or method that will let us feel in control once and for all. The only problem is we're fighting a never ending battle like nature. Our lives are variable tapestry knitted together by complex, ever shifting forces.” 

Ginny: It touches your soul, the things you write, which is, you know, part of the reason why I really am and wanting to highlight the Kids Moon Club because what you do is different. You know, there's something to it that just hits so many layers, so well, let's take a minute and talk about, can we talk about your poetry background? 

Nicolette: Sure. I mean, it's hard for me to. I am so grateful for the praise. It's so hard to accept it. And here's why. Because I got my master's in poetry, and it was a really leap of faith because it came from a background where we just didn't have much money and that was just such the wrong thing to do. 

I had gone to undergrad and then it wasn't my passion, and it was pretty much a disaster. And then I'm like, You know what? I did Teach for America and taught in the classroom. 

Ginny: Oh, my brother did that, OK? 

Nicolette: And that was the whole experience inside those walls. And I just felt like I needed to do something that was straight from, you know, from me and straight from a part where it wasn't about the money. It was just about and that really that leap of faith transformed my entire life because it's like I just felt like myself open up when I made that decision, you know, and just got me out of a lot of the patterns that I had around money and scarcity growing up. 

So then I just wrote, I just got to write. I wrote for me. I wrote to write. And so when I write it, it feels like it comes from just, you know, it's part channeling. It's part other in all the influence coming in. And so then it just comes out and I feel like it's part me, part, not me. I feel so grateful for it. I feel like you never feel like a poem is done. 

It's just like when you read that blog post. I'm still editing it in my mind, but I'm also happy to be able to share that to bring nature into my world of poetry because you can really like you can really go down into the dark. 

And so I feel like being able to share my voice in a different way, in a way that just feels so much more as a whole. It has definitely healed part of me to be able to bring those two parts together like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. 

Ginny: Well, it's interesting because this particular blog post and you have so many great things on your blog, which is Wilderchild.com. This particular post is about embracing the life-changing magic of making a mess. And I think that getting a master's in poetry probably felt a little bit like making a mess, right? You're like, you know, and this is the responsible thing to do. 

Nicolette: Yeah, it's terrible the way that we we have, we're so pushed to try to hold it all together, you know, in every way, like it's from all the way through our early and all we you just gotta keep it together, get to hold it together. But when you're out in nature, everything's falling apart. Nothing, even a tree. You know it is decaying. And before your very eyes, it's happening. A very slow rate. But everything's like mixing and matching together and everything's getting wet and everything's freezing and unfreezing and falling apart and storms are happening. There's all this whole cycle of continuous like everything's at a different stage, like at every point. And it's really a reflection of our peak, our internal ecosystem. 

And so much so that when you look out there, you're getting a much more accurate reflection of how we work, like how we truly work. And there's a lot of grace then I think for me, that comes being out as long as much as I have been. I'm a teacher at a forest school and it's just like, you're out so much you start to forgive yourself. And that's happened to me, and I almost felt like choked up thinking about it because I don't have to put it all together. Like, I can just let go and it's going to enrich, whatever I shed is going to enrich just like the things that should enrich the soul. And so I'm aligning with that.

Ginny: There's so many lessons out there. I would say that one of the most beautiful lessons I learned is that there's beauty in the mess, and, you know, if you look at growth, it's not linear and you can't control it. But whatever blooms or whatever, whatever grows that you can harvest, it's thrilling. And so even in a family setting, you know, it's like all you want everyone to grow and everyone at the same rate and or in a school setting, right? And it ought to be rows and perfect. But when you go outside, it's not. But it's beautiful .

Nicolette: A you don't know what's going to happen in the garden. I mean, we don't have the full picture. We don't. It's all about control. Like we want to control everything, but we can't. 

And in terms of how people think about educating their children now, we don't know what's coming. Obviously, that's been so many more true times than that. We don't know what's coming. So the more you can align with more of a flexible type of like cycle of renewal as opposed to, you know, thinking that you know what's coming, it's just the better, the more ironically, the more stable you will become and the more you are preparing your children. 

It's a disservice when we think that everything that we're teaching them. That we know exactly what they're going to need to know. So it's just we can teach them to our best ability. But I think it's like being of two minds at the same time, which is a hard, energetic place to live. We both give them what we know and what we feel is going to be true, but at the same time, occupying that space of, well, also we don't know. And that's how nature is again occupying multiple states of being at the same time. Yeah. You know, roughly doing that and because it's not about control in nature, it's about. Everything it's about, it's about different things for everyone, but to me, it's about everything continuing to exist, like it's not just about the tree existing, it's about, you know, it's not about just one animal existing, it's about every single thing is existing. So some things have to let go and lose their sense of like stability in order for other things to be able to exist. And that's just you don't like, I don't know everything, and I want my kids to know that's one of the most important things that we build into our education and our outdoor education is that I don't know. 

Ginny: I guess, you know, it reminds me of this other post that you talk about where you say, I almost feel like an imposter, you know, sort of going out and leading your children or leading other children into these sort of nature journeys. But then you say you are enough, you know, you are enough. And I think that I think that's a foundational message for parents, for teachers, for a person to know that they are enough and. 

You say we don't have to obsess.  You know, we don't have to know all the Latin names. You don't need to be a naturalist. I

Nicolette: My child really had her natural curiosity at the time and the fact that she was exploring that land for the first time ever. And so I learned through her experience and she opened my heart, and it was the only thing I could say that would be one thing that I did go in with. 

That changed the entire experience for me and has brought me to where I am right now is my willingness. I was open to her like my relationship with her, and I was open to nature. I did come in with a curiosity and a willingness. So if there is one trait, I think it's willingness. The more you can just be willing to just experience and turn and then your senses will follow. 

And then after your senses start to wake up, John Young talks about this a lot. He's one of my heroes, but he talks about how, you know there are things that literally do not wake up unless you are. You go out there like birdsong and feel like your brain is what Robin knows is just a glorious book. 

But your brain will either wake up or not based on how much you experience, like birdsong. So that part of you will feel just completely laid up. And so you don't have to really worry too much about all the skill set. It's the relational components, the willingness and being open to the relationship. It's like a trusted friend. It's like anybody you're trying to get to know. You can tell if you're more open to them, the relationship's going to deepen and it's going to grow. You're going to have a chance. So I think that's what the relationship is at the center of nature connection for our family. Yeah, and that takes time. Like, just give it time. You wouldn't expect that you would go and meet somebody and be best friends with them right away. Things take real relationships, take time. And so it's OK. You just take it slow. 

Ginny: That's a really good parallel. Have you heard that saying, “We never could have learned to love the Earth so well if there were no childhood in it”, something like that. So I used to think it meant that childhood is where we sort of learned to love the Earth. But when I had kids, it actually made me realize that at least for me, I was like, I have learned to love the Earth because of my kids' childhood. Their childhood has been what has made me love the Earth.

Nicolette: And we're all no different. Yeah, I mean, we yeah, like exactly and we re-experience we get reinitiated into our childhood. You should feel like a child again first. For many of us, maybe the childhood that we never had outside. You know, I went through 12 years of compulsory schooling. I didn't get the time that I have now. It's a privilege to have it. So, so many of us, for better or worse, experienced that. And so there is a re-initiation for wild schooling. That's like unschooling has this schooling component, which is this period of time that you just need to like, just basically not do anything. Just do your school, your mind decontextualized, your mind from those years the way you think education is supposed to be. And for wild schooling, it's really about rejoining and taking that Solar year to just reinitiate into your childhood again through feeling through sensory experience. So getting dirty smelling, do you feel like basically just feeling again, full feeling all the experience movement? Oh my gosh, movement moves like jump leap climb. I followed my daughter around this, doing what she did because I was reinitiated re initiating my body back into those movements that I hadn't done. And so if you follow a child or I don't know if I could do that now, so now I'm getting older and you start to feel things you've never felt before. If you want to feel things, you want to break your pattern, you want to feel things you have never felt before, and you want to connect with nature in a way you have before you have to move in ways that you have. 

Ginny: Yeah, I tell you what, kids are really inspiring. If you take a step back and you really look, there was actually a video going around a while back and it was probably one of my favorite ones ever. It was a bunch of adults on playground equipment, and they were just like falling and smashing it.And it was funny. It was funny, but it made you think like the way that these kids can move their bodies.

This is embarrassing a little bit, but we were in North Carolina, in the Asheville area, which is one of our favorite places to go visit. There's just waterfalls everywhere, and there's this one called Graveyard Fields, which is a funny name. But anyway, it's beautiful in the fall. And so we're hiking and. You know, you can walk through the waterfall like down at the bottom, you know, and it's really slippery. And so it's amazing how much your brain is turned on in those moments because you're really having to assess with every step. You know, am I stable and I just remember my brain being exhausted after those different experiences, And it's a reminder that this is all cognitive. But I slipped at one time and my daughter, I think she was six, she grabbed me. You know, I wouldn't have gotten really hurt, but I would have washed down a little ways. You know, and I thought, Wow, like, these kids can really move in their bodies in ways that are, I think, almost miraculous. You know?

Nicolette:Absolutely. Yeah. And they're doing it while they’re relationship building out there. Yeah. So when you're in a relationship, when you're willing to take risks, when you're willing to explore, ask questions of the other person, really get personal, go with them places that you typically wouldn't go if you're just staying with your friend. Your friendship is on the edges. You're never going to get into the deep forests, you know? But now every year I can I'm co-parenting with Mother Nature. We're co-creating. And my daughter's relationship with nature deepens every single year in a way that I could probably only dream of it, and they just keep going deeper and deeper into their own personal, unique relationship, and there's culture like we have Mother Maple is such a it's such about deep culture that can only be built through trust, but we have a tree called Mother Maple. My role with Mother Maple was I will not pick you up and you have to get yourself down. Like, it seems harsh, but 

Ginny: that's how we do it.

Nicolette: That was the rule. And so every year, a little bit more and a that more and we would tap Mother Maple and like lots of storytelling under her branches and really calling her by name. And we're building that culture and building those stories and building that sanctuary. There's so much that we can do to aid in building sanctuary for children outside, like they're going to do it naturally when they go out there. But in terms of like over 200000 years of storytelling, story is so powerful. If you have a story, you're knitting yourself to the landscape. I mean, you're really storing the landscape. So yes, 

Ginny: [00:54:15] you do that with your Merryweather, 

Nicolette: There's a story point about every part of our property. But it's really just knitting that into their memories. And so then your body becomes indistinguishable with the land. And that's the way that indigenous people, whom I still have just so much inspiration and so much honoring of the indigenous people who are on our land and also who still like living and doing so much good work with preserving and trying to share culture. So because that's my passion is so much about where we're human culture just meets nature and the magic that happens there, but we can do that as a family. 

Ginny: Yes, yes. And that's so beautiful. We're running low on time. We don't even have enough time to really or do it justice. But you started Wildschooling this concept of wild schooling. And so I would love for people to hear just a little bit about that or a lot of it about that, whatever. But even on your website, you have sort of these 10 foundational pillars about how it's going, and so people aren't familiar or if they're a little bit familiar. But can we talk about that?

Nicolette: So we have been on our land for, well, it was four years, three years at that point and then kindergarten was coming and it was just we were so deep into our experience. At that point, it really was somatic. It was a somatic decision more than anything, because my daughter is just somebody who sings and dances throughout her entire day. And then that's what's happening with nature singing to the point I just couldn't take her out of the it was about like I could not take her out of the environment because to connect it to the environment. 

So then I started, you know, we called our way of walking wild schooling, and then it just felt lonely. I wanted community. So I started putting that out there, put that out into the universe. There was a need for that, for homeschooling families like a nature bonded homeschooling movement. And then it has just grown from there. 

I have 80000 people in the Facebook community and just families all over the world. And I still actually can't even believe it. We're working on something called wild schooling villages that is going to bring those communities together and really circle in a way and give them a framework for building that culture because it's just been so, so lost. It's so hard to know. 

You know, sometimes you get in co-ops and they're just not, they're not. For some people, they work beautifully and some people struggle with it. So villages will give people an opportunity together, regardless of they like what others, whatever side they're coming from, it'll be gathering in a way that it can either add on to your cloth or it can really just be something altogether different. So while schooling is is I think the community, the community tells me what they want, I try to make it happen. It's been co-created with all these people. It's nothing that I ever saw coming. I never intended to homeschool. So it's been. It's been, I don't I love it. I love it. 

Ginny: So that sounds really  interesting because I talked to Angela Hanscom, who wrote, Balanced and Barefoot, which is such a great book. We talked recently and she said, You know, I never planned on working, you know, I wasn't planning. This was not my plan. And so it's so, it's so neat to hear people's stories, you know, where they say this was not my plan. And yet it's still wildly successful, you know, and I think it's because you followed your path, the path that you're supposed to follow and done, the things that are scary and done, the things that, you know, maybe seem wild and irresponsible. And, you know, but you knew that's what you were supposed to do. And so you know you did them anyway. 

Nicolette: I don't think I could have done those things had I not really decolonized a lot of the way that I was thinking and done my work in nature. And I can honestly, I can completely say that I would not be where I am. I would not have followed my path because it was just completely inseparable from my journey in reconnecting with nature because it gave me permission like it changed again. It changed the way I think about time. I think about my options that are available to me, the way that my own power, the way that I think about my relationship with, with my children, my family, my community. You know, when you're looking at the wider community and you're making all these connections, it changed. It gave me my own permission and strength to go towards my purpose. And then every day I see that reflected. I'm sharing my experience out there every day and just it's like that beautiful circular experience. And so that's why I have so much gratitude. Yeah, think if you go forward in nature with gratitude, there's this every day like that. I can share this beautiful experience. 

Ginny: And you've impacted the world. So we talked about it a little bit with the Kids Moon Club. People can find you on Facebook because you have the largest following of anybody that I know. And it's just, well, you just share your beautiful poetry and you everything is uplifting so people can find you on Facebook while their child and your website once again is while their child. That and I'm sure you have a newsletter, people sign up there so they can make sure they know what's going on. And then you're on Instagram. Are there any other spots? I want to make sure we don't miss it? 

Nicolette: Yep, that's enough, right? 

Ginny: I just want to encourage you. But I mean, you gotta connect with Nicolette. I'm going to read the one that's on the top here. 

“No barefoot, no barefooted tree climbing, frog holding, mud pie, baking clouds spotting, puddle stomping, bird calling, wild foraging, moon gazing, firefly chasing Fort Building, Creek following rock hunting moment with Mother Nature is ever wasted.”

I mean, it's like that all of the way through, so people definitely have to connect with you. Nicolette, can we end with a favorite memory of yours from childhood that was outside? 

Nicolette: I have that one so easy because it's etched upon my very soul and it's in Michigan. My family used to go for one vacation a year. We drove up to Traverse City and we stayed in a little cabin on a lake and there was the same cabin every year and there was a long dock and the stars up there are just ridiculous. So I would put my hand in the water and the stars would be reflected in the water and I would just swirl. I would swirl the stars. 

It changed my life because I moved up to Michigan because of those memories. We grew up in Northwest Indiana, where it's right by the steel mills. And it's just, you know, I didn't put we didn't put our feet in the most beautiful lake in one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, Lake Michigan. It's the same lake up here, but my relationship with it was one of fear. It was a lot about me not, you know, having good enough knowledge. But there was just this fear and culture of fear around the water. And so feeling that and coming up here, it wasn't about the location, it was just about my relationship to it. And so but it was all because of that. It was definitely because of my childhood interests. And that's what I want to leave everybody with is how powerful it doesn't have to be big. That was once a year. 

And it was a brief encounter and to put it, but it was so sensory and I was. So even when you know, in your when you're young, those moments are so powerful. It matters. Those little moments matter. 

Ginny: Nicolette, I just appreciate you. I appreciate your time here. Obviously, I just appreciate you as a person and you know, all of the uplifting energy and light and ideas and permission that you give people to be free and to live life and to create, you know, to create and craft a life that may be long. Yes. That there, yes, that you are doing so much for our world. So. Nicolette, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am just thrilled that we've connected. 

Nicolette: Thank you for everything you're doing. You are a force you. Thank you for bringing me into your world. And I am so grateful to you and so happy that we could be doing this together. We need everybody, everybody that we can get. So thank you. I appreciate it.