Retreats
What a nature immersion actually involves
Team Selgars · · 1 min read
Not a walk with a nicer name
A nature immersion is structured attention. The activity is often just sitting in one place for a long time — long enough that the wood stops reacting to you and resumes what it was doing. Most people have never done this and find the first hour genuinely difficult.
Why organisations use it
Teams working on climate, land, food or ecology often make decisions at several removes from the thing they are deciding about. Spending a day at the pace of a river changes the quality of the conversation afterwards in a way that is hard to argue for in advance and obvious once it has happened. There is research behind that; Evolve’s piece on why nature changes the work collects it.
What the day looks like
A slow start. A period of solo time, usually longer than people expect. Coming back together and putting words to it, which is the part that turns an experience into something usable. Then a shared meal, because the transition back needs somewhere to land.
What it is not
It is not therapy, it is not a survival course, and it is not a silent retreat. It also is not for everyone in every team, which is why the solo periods are structured so that opting for a shorter version is easy and unremarkable.