The wilderness vigil is an ancient process and the bones of it can be located in many cultures all over the earth. At Wolf Milk it looks like this: four days and nights alone, fasting in ancient forest. No tent, fire or phone. Supported by trained guides, this extraordinary rite of passage is something that is undergone for all sorts of reasons. To deepen your relationship with the wild, to wrestle a grief or question, to mark a transition of one kind or another.

This is not essentially a human teaching. This is the old bones of the forest as teacher, the cawing raven overhead as guide. You pay attention to your dreams, interactions with animals, where your thoughts are drifting. Everything is trackable, and filled with information. Despite what we’ve done to it, the earth is still extraordinarily forgiving and wants to communicate with us in this most ancient of ways.

Martin Shaw trained as a guide for many years then started leading wilderness vigils in 2001. It was a process that changed entirely the direction of his life and became the root system that underpins his work with myth. David Stevenson, Tina Burchill and Tim Russell are now trained guides, and alongside apprentices Lucy Cooper and Michael Martin who guide the majority of camps. Martin named the process wilderness vigils rather than vision quests to lower expectation of incendiary visionary encounters (though it can happen). Refreshingly free of many psychological handrails, this decade of work in a Dartmoor forest has opened up an extended conversation with the power of the place itself. If it’s true that the earth thinks in myth, this is a dynamic introduction to such dialogue.

The School of Myth wilderness vigil guides have been trained by Dr Martin Shaw.

Tim Russell, David Stevenson and Tina Burchill are in their 10th year, and Lucy Cooper and Michael Martin are in their fourth year.

Wolf Milk

Martin Shaw’s book Wolf Milk is highly recommended for anyone considering participating in a wilderness vigil. You can find it in the Cista Mystica shop here.