Chicago Rewilding Society

06/28/2025

Cowboy is a state of mind. Thank you to for the Healing Illinois initiative that supported our cowboy camps. It was beautiful to see the community come together to teach nature based learning. It was a delight to form intergenerational and interspecies collaborations. Thank you, Chicago. We love you, Garfield Park. 💞🍀

10/30/2022

Fathers 😘💖

01/10/2022

Kemo shepherding, Chicago, 2021. 💜

Flip through fast and pretend these are a gif, choppy images dancing in quick succession.

The "pasture" on the corner is several vacant lots that have been reimagined by the community and fenced in for the animals to play and graze. To get there, we go through the alley, along the basketball court, then cross a small street. The horses are on leads, but the goats run free, while friends and neighbors watch out for traffic. Goats get distracted by weeds and vegetation along the way. Kemo, injured from recently being hit by a car, shepherds with the help of his walking cast and cane.

This goat parade involves community participation. To get this right, we need to jog, coordinate with one another, yell, swing arms, gesture wildly, and joke around when things don't go according to plan.

Are our bodies portals? Through absurd physical participation do we access new selves? Through surreal physical experiences do we create new places? Forge connections we wouldn't otherwise? Disoriented and dreamy, unreal and fantastic, what new worlds do we weave together?

Who knows but one thing is for sure:

We are an interspecies animal party.

Thanks to all the neighbors, human and non, that make our pocket of Chicago so special. And to those of you we haven't met yet: Welcome to the party.

Hope you are having a blast in that little animal-body of yours.

photos by

01/10/2022

Temyrie & Egypt, Chicago, 2021.

image descriptions: 1. Boy glances over shoulder while seated on a dappled palomino on a neighborhood basketball court. Cars and stone two-flats, one of them boarded up, can be seen in the background. He is preparing to take his shot, basketball resting between his hand and the horse's withers.
2. As the horse starts moving, the boy smiles, casually and confidently riding ba****ck, with only a rope and halter to steer. 3. He takes his shot and the horse is unphased. 4. He prepares to try again, waiting for a neighbor to pass him the ball so he doesn't have to dismount. 5. Boy and horse oversee the intersection like proud sentinels.

If you like these, please like, post, comment, save, and share! We are trying to increase our exposure and need your help! As dreamy animal people, internetlandia is not our strong suit.

photos (these are even better when they're not cropped so we will have to share them again.)

****ck

01/10/2022

In honor of the solstice passing and days getting longer, here’s a honey colored sunshine palomino with sweet dapples and a heart that weighs 8.5 pounds, the size of a newborn human baby, drumming inside a a tender body, next to an attentive human listener, pressing her cheek against a foreign fur to hear its beat and feel its warmth and be lightly swayed by lungs expanding and contracting with sweet breath, accordioning the large ribcage.

Image description: Beautiful beings enjoy the setting sun, one afternoon of a precious life on a swiftly spinning planet. Chicago, 2021. Against a dappled background we see a little girl mid-embrace: curious, excited, and brave. She is exploring many senses in one magic moment: touch, sound, sight, and smell.

The medicine of our imagination is a tender seed, germinating and waiting for brighter and warmer days. Close your eyes and feel the beat of your own heart as you say to yourself "oh there you are, my darling." What songs does it sing? What worlds does it dream? What prayers are said in this living altar? This inner chamber beats on, carrying us through another breath, another day, another season.

Happy belated solstice, sweet explorers. Hope you enjoyed this little journey inside the body and back out again. 💓

photo

01/10/2022

"when we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us." —bell hooks

image description: A woman gently smiles with her eyes closed as she rests her head against a horse, gently resting with eyes half open. This is on a basketball court in Chicago but, as the background is obscured with muslin cloth, this could be anywhere.

photo

10/10/2020