摘要：This essay explores how loss and grief can shape the narrative of our relationship with nature. The author recounts an experience of a five-day walking and wild camping immersive wilderness experience in the highlands of Scotland, which provided an opportunity for reflections and musings on the theory and practice of ecopsychology. Story telling and narrative therapy are explored in the context of attachment and a comparison is made between the mythic land of eternal youth, Tir na nOg, and the personal experiences of our deep brain attachment narratives. The author documents his evolving worldview from a biologist to Systemic Family Therapist. A journey from a knowledge based Darwinian evolutionary perspective to more imaginal or depth psychology perspective as a result of the training as a therapist and the influence of the work of Stephen Foster and Meredith Little, Bill Plotkin and Henry Corbin. The piece concludes with a description of ‘Soul encounter’ or wilderness experience as an embodied transpersonal encounter of nature outside of a Cartesian paradigm. The author suggest that this experience is one of the core practices in the emerging field of ecopsychology.
