Ian McCallum is a psychiatrist, analytical psychologist, and specialist wilderness guide. A former rugby Springbok, a director of the Wilderness Foundation, a trustee of the Cape Leopard Trust, and the author of multiple publications including two anthologies of wilderness poems: Wild Gifts (1999) and Untamed (2012). His book Ecological Intelligence – Rediscovering Ourselves in Nature – won the Wild Literary Award at the World Wilderness Congress in 2009.
Ian is a great friend of my father, Nick Chevallier, who is a wildlife documentary filmmaker. My dad helped to film a great expedition he did in 2012 called ‘Tracks of Giants’. I first felt like I had met Ian through his poetry and book, Ecological Intelligence and Living in Two Worlds (co-author, Ian Michler).
To my fortune, a few weeks ago, I got the awesome opportunity to sit down with Ian and further explore his work over the past few decades. During our conversation, he recited two different poems, one that I mentioned was my favorite and he remembered it by heart: ‘Lost’’ by David Wagoner, and the second one is his own, called 'The Rising’.
The poem ‘Lost’ by David Wagoner speaks about the movement from being lost to being found - from disconnection and disorientation to connection and placement. This movement from one to the other is accomplished, ironically, according to the poem, by standing still. It's amazing what poetry can do, and I believe this particular one speaks to a very wide audience, who are aware of the issues we face right now, both within and outside ourselves.
‘Lost’ reminds me specifically of my time at Schumacher College. It had such a profound impact. I remember how lost I used to feel back when I was first engaging in the problem of biodiversity loss and climate change. I knew that I wanted to be a part of solving this problem, but I felt completely lost in how I was going to go about doing it. This poem guided me to create moments of stillness and create space to see myself in context to not only the environment in which I am but see myself in the greater context of Gaia and the Cosmos.
Watch Ian reciting ‘Lost’, below:
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same as Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
by David Wagoner
(1999)
The second poem, ‘The Rising’, is one of Ian's original poems. I hope this poem moves you as much as it did for me. Our wild souls will always come looking for us in our lives, and there is just no mistaking it. If humanity is to move forward in a direction that is symbiotic with the natural world, we need to acknowledge our wild selves and integrate them into our daily lives, rather than having them trapped in a cage and ignored.
One day, your soul will call you with a HOLY RAGE!
Watch Ian reciting ‘The Rising’ below:
The Rising
One day
your soul will call to you
with a holy rage.
“Rise up!” it will say …
“Stand up inside your own skin.”
Unmask your unlived life …
feast on your animal heart.
Unfasten your fist …
let loose the medicine
in your own hand.
Show me the lines …
I will show you the spoor
of the ancestors.
Show me the creases …
I will show you
the way to water.
Show me the folds …
I will show you the furrows
for your healing.
“Look!” it will say …
the line of life has four paths –
one with a mirror
one with a mask,
one with a fist,
one with a heart.
One day,
your soul will call to you
with a holy rage.
- by Ian McCallum
Ian's poem really speaks to the greatest transformation that needs to occur across humanity today. “Feast on your animal heart” - we need to remember and acknowledge that we are all animals, that we are nature and part of these great systems and ecosystems.
Poetry is a great gift for us to connect with the natural world. However, it doesn't need to be ‘poetic’; the act of writing and reflecting is important and helps you to see and learn more about what is happening inside you, and around you physically.
I challenge you, the reader to take 30 minutes in your week to sit somewhere where you can hear a river flowing or a bird calling and write some things down. A lot of possibility arises from quiet moments in nature.
News from ReWild Africa:
We would love to hear any of your favorite poems. Please feel free to create a post/story on Instagram and we will reshare it.
We have had a new team member join the ReWild Africa herd as Business Development Assistant and Producer - Ben Pama. Ben is super enthusiastic, a fast learner, and so quickly learning the ropes! We can’t wait to learn and grow with you Ben!
We are also super excited about Julian Culverhouse joining our team for a while from the end of March! Julian is an exceptionally talented filmmaker and we look forward to learning from each other!
Ben and Justin have been working on some online educational material for Plant the Seed - making education around recycling, circular economies and waste entertaining and accessible! We love talking about waste!
Megan, alongside freewilder Justin Sullivan, has just come back from a great shoot in Limpopo for EarthLife Africa - telling the story of the Musina Mukhado Special Economic Zone, and what this means for the local communities and indigenous forests.
Justin and Megan are off to Ghana for BBC Storyworks next week for an exciting shoot - more to come…
GOOD NEWS! A High Seas Treaty agreement was reached yesterday by 193 UN member states, after almost 20 years of talks. This is one of the most significant environmental agreements ever! Encompassing over 60% of the ocean and 43% of our planet's surface, the "high seas" are the oceans outside of national boundaries and jurisdiction. This agreement is a crucial step towards enforcing the 30x30 pledge made at COP15 in Montreal (protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030), as it should provide a legal framework for establishing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) on the high seas. Currently, only about 1.2% of this area is "protected".
We had a beautiful FreeWild Friday a couple of weeks ago - hiking up and sleeping on Table Mountain.
Cheers for now,
Sammy Chev
I really love this one, which I recently reproduced in full for a little write-up on our BiomimicrySA website:
Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when the dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
'On working' from The Prophet by Kwhlil Gibran
Awesome work sam and Rewild