Nature has been calling to you for a long time. But uncertainty, fear, and a lack of experience have kept you from answering.
Are you struggling to break free of the stresses and noise of the modern world?
Are you looking for a peaceful refuge where you can go to heal, have fun, grow, and remember what matters?
How would it feel to walk into the woods without unease or uncertainty?
What possibilities might open up if you could hike, camp, explore, and follow your curiosity outdoors, knowing that you were safe and capable?
How might your life change if time in nature became a real source of stillness, renewal, adventure, and connection?
Being safe, confident, and connected in nature can sound like a dream.
And perhaps a part of you worries that it will not work for you.
Free Meditation
Begin with the Five Senses Grounding Meditation
Receive a free guided practice for becoming more present in the living world around you, along with first notice when enrollment opens.
You might be asking yourself…
What if I am not very physically fit?
What if I live in a city and only have access to crowded public parks?
I am already so busy. Do I really have time to make this kind of change?
I have tried to become more comfortable outdoors before, without success. How do I know this will be different?
And maybe you have looked for wilderness education before, but everything you find feels:
Disjointed, overwhelming, self-contradictory, or confusing
Focused on surviving against the odds, rather than feeling capable and at home when there is no emergency
Like an expensive, physically demanding in-person program far from where you live
Like it frames nature as a challenge to overcome, rather than a refuge and relationship to return to
I hear you.
The natural world can feel overwhelming when nothing about it is familiar. It can be hard to take that first step when you do not know what you need to know, where to begin, or whether you can trust yourself once you get there.
But that distance can be crossed.
With practical knowledge, direct experience, a framework to follow, and support from someone who understands the journey, the places that once felt unfamiliar can begin to feel known.
Practical knowledge
Direct experience
Support
You simply become more able to meet that mystery with awareness, skill, curiosity, and respect.
You just need a guide, a framework, and a community to help you find your way back into relationship with it.
CONNECT WITH THE WILD
A live nine-week online course for building confidence, connection, and a more meaningful relationship with the living world.
Practical wilderness confidence
Learn how to prepare, what to bring, how to stay safe, and how to begin hiking, camping, and exploring from a more informed and empowered place.
Ecological awareness
Learn to notice and understand the birds, animals, plants, tracks, patterns, and relationships that shape the living places around you.
Inner connection
Use sensory awareness, mindfulness, and direct experience to move beyond distraction, become more present, and begin exploring the meaning, refuge, and stillness that nature can offer.
Together, these three paths help transform nature from something distant and unknown into a living world you know how to enter, understand, and experience more fully.
Over nine weeks, you will learn to:
Develop a deep, meaningful connection with nature
Become confident, comfortable, and empowered outdoors
Move beyond the stresses and screens of modern life
Explore nature as a source of healing, mindfulness, refuge, and empowerment
Understand the plants, animals, birds, and relationships that shape the places around you
Build the skills and confidence to explore more of the world outside your door
This is not a course about becoming fearless.
Created and taught by Eric Winter, an ecologist, Cyborg Anthropologist, wilderness educator, animal tracker, survival instructor, and permaculture designer.
Before Connect With the Wild
You dream of spending time in nature, but discomfort and uncertainty hold you back.
You want to hike, camp, and explore the natural world, but do not feel prepared.
You feel stressed, overwhelmed, and isolated by the fast pace of modern life.
You find yourself pulled constantly toward screens, noise, and distraction.
You know there is something missing, but you are not sure how to find your way back to it.
After Connect With the Wild
You feel more relaxed and comfortable in the woods, with a clearer sense of how to move through natural places safely and respectfully.
New adventures, activities, and hobbies become available to you because you know how to approach them from an informed, empowered place.
You begin to understand the world around you outdoors. You see how animals and plants work together to shape landscapes, and how to fit yourself into those relationships rather than disrupt them.
You have a nature-based mindfulness practice that gives you a place to return when you need stillness, perspective, or renewal.
You notice more animals, tracks, birds, plants, and patterns than you ever knew were there.
You have resources, guidance, and a community to support you as your relationship with nature continues to deepen.
Everything included in Connect With the Wild
Nine weekly modules
01
Awakening the Wild Within
Expanding your Senses -
priming your brain for connection
Meet your Sit Spot -
grounding yourself in the natural world
Dirt Time -
the merit of getting your hands (and feet) dirty
02
Moving and Being in the Wild
Being One with the Woods -
how to walk, sit, listen, and be in nature
Coexisting with Animals -
how to think like, and share with, the non-human
Basic Camouflage -
the animals around you are invisible. You can be too
03
Forest Bathing & Nature Mindfulness
Nature Medicine and Nature Deficit Disorder -
the healing power of the greater-than-human world
Shinrin-yoku -
the Japanese art of immersing yourself in the forest
Wilderness Meditation -
sensory awareness as a gateway to being present
06
Plants, Mushrooms, and the Internet of the Forest
The Language of the Trees -
how plants communicate
The Universal Plant Families -
how to roughly ID any plant you find
Edible and Medicinal Plants -
safety and harvesting ethics
Mycology, the Forest and Humans -
how mushrooms run the world
05
Animal Tracking
Being a Nature Detective -
every landscape is a story waiting to be read
Thinking Like Animals -
the game of life and how to play it
Reading the Woods -
common tracks, trails, burrows, and other animal sign
04
Understanding Bird Language
The Birds around You -
basic bird types, ID techniques and bird calls
Discovering Baseline -
learning to recognize stillness in the woods
Alerts and Tractors -
letting the birds give you a tour of the forest
07
Wilderness Safety and Survival
Survival Basics:
purifying water, making fire, building shelter, bushcrafting
Wilderness Hazards -
wild animals, widowmakers, flood zones and more
What to Do if You’re Lost -
how to stay safe and find help
08
What to Take With You
The Gear Worth Worrying About -
what’s important, and what isn’t
How to Carry -
packing backpacks, worn weight, ultralight theory and more
Build Your Own First Aid Kit:
know what you have and know how to use it
09
Camping and Longer Excursions
Getting Out There:
types of camping, where to camp, tent and gear options
Eating in the Wild:
camping food options, prep, storage and disposal
Responsible Camping:
Leave No Trace principles & how to shit in the woods
At first, you may be learning to recognize a bird call, read a track, prepare for an outing, or sit quietly in one place.
Over time, these separate skills begin to change the way you experience the entire living world around you.
What once seemed like an indistinguishable wall of green begins to reveal individual plants, animals, movements, relationships, and stories. The unknown becomes more familiar, and fear begins to give way to curiosity, confidence, and connection.
Plus
More than 20 prerecorded meditations and guided audio activities
Three 1:1 coaching calls spaced throughout the course
Nine weekly live Zoom sessions in which Eric teaches each module and answers questions
Individual email support to ask questions and get help
A digital sit-spot journal and guidebook
Lifetime access to a private participant community
Gear recommendations and guide
The option to purchase additional 1:1 sessions
Lifetime access to course recordings and core materials
Weekly time commitment
All you need is a place outdoors with more plants than pavement, where birds sometimes visit, and a willingness to begin paying closer attention.
Weekly modules take about an hour each, with an additional half-hour or so of audio-guided outdoor activities. Along with a few 1:1 coaching sessions, you will have a clear and supported path to follow through all nine weeks.
And you will have a community of people who have made the journey with you: people to connect with, ask questions of, and support as your own wilderness adventures unfold.
Meet your instructor
Eric Winter
I am an ecologist, Cyborg Anthropologist, wilderness skills educator, survival instructor, animal tracker, and permaculture designer.
But I was not always the person I am today.
Before nature became central to my life, I was an avid technology geek with very little interest in getting outdoors.
I was fascinated by the remarkable future humanity was building, and by the ways technology changes human experience.
That fascination led me to design my own degree in Ecology and Cyborg Anthropology at Western Washington University.
I studied ecology through the lens of complex systems: how relationships, feedback loops, and human choices shape the living world around us.
I also explored how changes in technology affect our relationship with nature, with one another, and with ourselves.
As those questions deepened, something became increasingly clear to me.
For all the wonders technology can bring to humanity, modern life can also take something critical away.
As our world becomes more immersive, mediated, and screen-based, it can become remarkably easy to lose our felt connection to the natural world.
And I discovered that this was something missing in my own life, too.
After graduation, I created and taught an upper-division course called Cyborg Ecology, helping students explore their own evolving relationships with technology and nature. Teaching led me to Alderleaf Wilderness College, where I spent the next year learning in the field, often with no gear, and training in wilderness education, survival skills, tracking, and permaculture design.
It was there that I found something I had not expected.
I had been raised around meditation, but had never managed to establish a practice that felt real to me. Once I began learning to engage my senses the ways animals do, to slow down, and to experience nature from a connected, eyes-open place, mindfulness began to emerge naturally.
Nature became more than scenery or recreation.
It became a teacher. A refuge. A source of wonder. A way into stillness. A way to remember that I was part of something larger, older, stranger, and more alive than the narrow human world I had learned to inhabit.
Since then, I have spent years learning, teaching, tracking, traveling, and deepening my own relationship with the living world.
Connect With the Wild is my attempt to share that path with people who feel the same pull.
Not as a promise of easy answers, but as a way to begin asking deeper questions from a more connected place.
The first Connect With the Wild journey begins soon.
The founding cohort will bring together a small group of approximately 10 to 12 people for a live, personal, and interactive experience.
As a founding member, you will receive:
All nine modules taught live by Eric, with opportunities for questions, feedback, and personalization
Three individual 1:1 coaching sessions spaced throughout the course
Direct email support and a small community of people making the same journey
An opportunity to help shape the future of Connect With the Wild through your experience and feedback
A founding-member rate for the first cohort
Discounts on future Connect With the Wild offerings
Discounts on additional 1:1 coaching sessions
First notice when enrollment opens
Begin with a simple practice.
Free Five Senses Grounding Meditation
Before you learn to identify birds, read tracks, build a fire, or plan a camping trip, there is one place to begin.
Your senses.
This guided meditation helps bring you into the present through sight, sound, touch, scent, and breath. It is best used outdoors, but can also be practiced beside an open window, in a garden, or anywhere you can pause long enough to notice the life around you.
First notice when enrollment opens
This journey may be for you if…
You hear nature calling, and you are ready to answer.
You dream of spending time in the woods or participating in outdoor activities, but fear and uncertainty have held you back.
You feel stressed, overwhelmed, isolated, or disconnected, and want a place of refuge to heal, recharge, de-stress, and have fun.
You want to learn to be present and mindful, but have struggled with meditation in the past.
You want more resilience, empowerment, growth, meaning, and possibility in your life.
You sense that a vital part of your existence remains unexplored, and you are ready to begin finding your way toward it.
Frequently asked questions
The forest is waiting.
The birds are still speaking.
The world outside the walls of ordinary life is still full of relationships, intelligence, beauty, danger, mystery, and possibility.
And there is still a part of you that knows how to listen.