Description
In the headwaters, the pull begins…
Write Your Wild River is a 6-week invitation into poetry as presence, practice, and portal. Part creative writing journey, part nature-connected immersion, part earth community, this course is for those longing to slow down, listen more deeply, and create from a place that is more embodied, more alive, and more in conversation with the world.
We will write with river logic. We will follow currents rather than force conclusions. We will listen for what is moving beneath the surface, what is stuck, what is ripening, what wants expression. This is not a workshop about getting it right. It is a space for loosening, listening, experimenting, and finding your own voice in deeper relationship with the wild within and around you.
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
~ Mary Oliver
Each week, we will gather around a different stretch of the river. We will work with generative writing prompts, poetry and other texts, embodiment practices, visualization, open conversation, and spacious invitations for creative experimentation. There will be room for play, grief, sensuality, stillness, silliness, surprise, and the unexpected wisdom that arrives when we stop gripping so tightly and let the current carry something through.
If a blue dragonfly comes by and asks what you’re doing,
just smile and say, “Experimenting.”
No previous poetry or creative writing experience is needed.
This space is for both brand new and experienced writers, and for anyone who senses that language can be a way back into relationship: with self, with Earth, with feeling, with imagination, and with a more liberated way of being.
Over six weeks, you will be invited to:
- deepen your relationship with poetry as a living, accessible practice rather than a rarefied art form
- slow down enough to hear what is authentic, subtle, and ready to emerge
- sharpen your senses and trust the body and intution as part of the writing process
- explore different textures of your wholeness, including play, grief, anger, desire, stillness, and joy
- experience the more-than-human world as companion, mirror, and co-creator
- experiment with poetic forms, imagery, voice, and creative risk in a supportive setting
- write in the company of others and be nourished by generous witnessing and reflection
- reconnect creativity, imagination, and expression to the larger work of belonging and collective liberation
When asked to which country I belong
I said, I’m a citizen of her flow.
THE RIVER’S COURSE:
Week 1: Lazy, Luscious River
Theme: Dipping Your Toes In | Cultivating Your Pace and Pollinating Purpose
Week 2: Playtime in the Big River
Theme: Make a Splash | Everything is an Experiment
Week 3: Raging River of Tears
Theme: Lending Your Tears Back to Watershed | Re-arranging the Landscape
Week 4: Get Wet
Theme: The Creative Erotic | Ecosensual Embodiment | Writing Desire
(with guest co-facilitator Katie Baptist, a Sacramento-based writer and therapist)
Week 5: Dams and Dreams
Theme: Tear Down Those Dams | Writing Towards Collective Liberation
Week 6: To the Sea
Theme: From the Headwaters to the Mouth of the Great Mystery | Shapeshifting Shorelines
Each session flows:
Each gathering includes a mix of poetry, generative writing prompts, embodied practice, guided invitations, open conversation, and supportive sharing. Between sessions, you will receive simple invitations for writing, listening, and earth connection to continue the current in your everyday life.
Your watershed nourishes not just you
but all of us downstream.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
- Write Your Wild River is for anyone longing for a more alive and earth-rooted relationship with creativity.
- For those wanting to explore the many energies of their whole selves in a creative, earthy way.
- For anyone who loves nature and likes to play with words and imagery.
- . For those who are brand new to poetry, and for those who have been writing for years but want a space that feels less extractive, less performative, and more relational.
- For those who want a safe, evocative, and gently adventurous container in which to listen, write, and be witnessed.
My paws are alive
and my heart-tongue arrives
at the wonder of things.
DETAILS:
WHEN: 6 Wednesdays, May 6 – June 10
Time: 9am – 11am Pacific Time | 11:00am – 1:00pm EST
Where: Online via Zoom, with invitations for practices on the land between classes
EXCHANGE:
Recommended Exchange: $200
Sliding Scale: $175-$250
Register here
Or you can also send payment via:
PayPal.me/WildNatureHeart
VENMO: RyanVanLenning
(note: “FLOW” + your email)
Questions? Contact Ryan: ryan@wildnatureheart.com
If you fee a small current moving in you, trust it.
Join us in the river.
‘Til you get that river in ya…Flow by flow, stone by stone.
About Your Facilitator:
My name is Ryan Van Lenning, Founder of Wild Nature Heart, and I am an earth-lover with a deep desire to be of service in the work of re-connection, re-membering, and re-inhabiting the animate web of life.
My life changed when I really started listening and apprenticing to Water and the seasons. I started Wild Nature Heart to support people at a crossroads to re-connect with the wisdom of both inner and outer wild nature, to live their soul callings into the world, and to assist in the work of repairing broken belonging. If I had to summarize our work for this time: Compost Empire and re-surface all it has paved over. I believe each of us has unique gifts that the world needs as we birth new imaginations and ways of being beyond Empire, and I love hearing and mirroring people’s stories as they deepen into their purpose and next aligned steps.
I am a threshold guide and barbarian poet of the Great Turning (author of several collections of poetry, including Re-Membering, From Inside These Wild Ones, One Bright and Real Caress, An Ambitious Silence, Trust the Ceremony, F*ck the Ceremony, and Trust the Ceremony, Then Yeses Come Bubbling, Within the Cave Something Pulses, Moon Has a Long Memory, Kiss Me A Huckleberry, and High-Cooing Through the Seasons: Haiku From the Forest). Two new collections, Becoming Beautiful Barbarians and We Go to the Sea to Scream, will be out in fall 2026. A compost pile disguised as a book and field guide to outgrowing Empire in our bodies and imaginations, Composting the Spell of Empire: 40 Trickster Invitations for the Great Unraveling, will be released in early 2027.
I am trained as a rite-of-passage/wilderness ceremony guide through the School of Lost Borders, certified as an Ecotherapist through The Earthbody Institute, where I teach the Level 1-3 ecotherapy courses, and am a Certified Wilderness First Responder through Foster Calm. Prior to moving to California 18 years ago, I taught Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Environmental Ethics at Sinclair College in Ohio.
I live among the forest and rivers in northern California, ancestral Wiyot and Yurok land. My current apprenticeship is to fire, seeds, composting, and emergence and I like cinnamon ice cream, fantastic fungi, and river ottering.
Appreciations:
“Ryan is a purposeful, playful, permission-giving guide for creative quests! I had so much fun in this workshop! I sometimes surprised myself with the writing that emerged, and was inspired and delighted by my fellow poets’ writing and our collaborative creations. What a joyful journey that enlivened me and helped me birth something new into the world!” —Gemma Armstrong (Write Your Wild River, Spring 2025)
“The writing class was really so great and I can’t thank you enough for that offering! I learned a lot about myself and enjoyed hearing your writing and the writing of other poets that you shared. I became inspired to write Limericks and it’s all just flowing out of me! —Erin (Write Your Wild River, Fall 2024)
“It’s been so meaningful to be connected to such fun and sincere energy that wants nothing from me but to show up as my Authentic self.” —Raina (Write Your Wild River, Fall 2024)
“The ‘Write Your Wild River’ course was so valuable in improving my writing technique, expanding my overall poetry knowledge, and providing inspiration and a creative catalyst for my writing. It also served as a very valuable personal development course through the prompts provided and sharing that was encouraged. The thought, care, and energy Ryan put into this course was evident and his warm and intelligent style made it a welcoming, comfortable, and effective environment to learn in. I highly recommend this multifaceted course!” —Anne Williams, LPC (Ecotherapist, Fall 2024)
“Thank you so much Ryan for a wonderful two months together! Your course provided so much new excitement and inspiration for me. It was really eye opening and truly deepened my sense of ecological connection. Thank you for guiding us through this beautiful course.” —Nicola Gailits (Deep Belonging 2025)
“I have worked with Ryan in different courses and contexts, both virtually and in person on the land. I find him to be a skilled guide, gentle but powerful, who creates invitations to experiences that provide safety to swim in liminal spaces where deep work blossoms into growth, all in the absence of ego. Not only is Ryan very knowledgeable but he listens deeply and provides mirroring that leaves you feeling seen and honored. The spaces he creates encourage productive struggle and growth with a healthy dose of play.”—Kim Bielmann (Deep Belonging 2025)
“I went to an event with Wild Nature Heart on the River, and it was magical! Ryan and Katie were excellent guides and mirrors, and made me completely comfortable sharing my story- even personal at times. I feel more at peace, and a passion for writing has been rekindled; it also doesn’t hurt that they found a beautiful and secluded location 🙂. If you love writing, nature, community or even need a safe space to explore who you are, I highly recommend them!” – Candace C., Writing Wild Gathering, Sacramento
“Thank you for awakening not only my inner playful poet but for allowing me to remind myself all that is in there… including nature and everything in it. What is true reveals itself as I am ready for it, through you guiding us. It’s all unique to everyone; more an ‘unfoldment’ than ‘class’ or exercises. You guys, if you didn’t make it, you are really missing out!” – Karen S., Fremont
“I have never thought of myself as a poet, or even very good with words. Until fairly recently, most poetry left me feeling lost. Ryan helped me discover my “inner poet” by using nature as a means of finding it. It was surprising how easily I slipped over the line from non-poet to poet! Ryan has a gentle way of helping us feel more connected to nature, and thus, to ourselves. I highly recommend trying out his nature poetry events, even if you don’t “feel” like a poet.” — Diane Dew, Oakland
“I find myself repeatedly touched by the depth of your caring for Earth and all her beings and by your dedication to practice and evolving new pathways of relationship and culture. I am moved by the presence that you bring to deep listening and your willingness to explore different perspectives. Your ability to express through poetry and action what’s in your heart and your desire for healthy relationship among all beings is a source of inspiration for me.” —Marianne B. Rowe, MS, LMFT, Summer 2022 Level 3 Ecotherapy Training, Earthbody Institute
“Ryan is a deeply earthy, magical, inspiring poet and person. Katie is a courageous, heart-full, dynamic storyteller and writer. You will be amazed and forever touched by learning and creating with them!” — Ariana Candell, Psychotherapist, Ecotherapist, Dance Movement Therapist, Founder of The Earthbody Institute, Oakland
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