Medicine Walk
A medicine walk is a healing experience on many levels—including the spiritual. Spirit guidance reveals itself through the trees that call to us, the animals and birds that cross our path, the plants we encounter, and the rocks we sit on. Beyond seeking answers to questions of self-enquiry, the wild is a gateway into the mystery—the Great Spirit.
The Medicine Walk is a profound and ancient practice rooted in shamanic traditions—a sacred journey of self-discovery, healing, and communion with the natural world.
Rooted in the belief that all of life is interconnected, shamans undertake these walks to receive guidance, insight, and transformation from the spirit of nature.
At its core, a Medicine Walk is about attuning oneself to the rhythms and energies of the natural world—whether in a forest, desert, mountain, or any landscape rich with life force. The journey is undertaken with reverence and clear intention, creating space for spiritual exploration and revelation.
By immersing yourself in the wilderness, the medicine walk will start to open your senses to the subtle whispers of the natural world. Every rustling leaf, every flowing stream, and every creature encountered holds a message or a lesson, waiting to be interpreted and integrated.
During a Medicine Walk, certain spirits or elemental powers—reflecting aspects of your own inner council—may be drawn to you and reveal themselves. In co-creation with nature, an allegorical or symbolic story is woven, illuminating your future direction, innate gifts, and sacred acts of power. This is the medicine of Nature’s wisdom unfolding within you.
Through deep observation and heightened awareness, the Medicine Walk becomes a bridge—connecting you with the spirit of the land and its inhabitants. In this exchange, healing energy and ancestral wisdom flow freely.
Importantly, the Medicine Walk is not only about receiving—it is also about giving back. Whether through a quiet prayer, a simple offering, or the gift of your attentive presence, you honour the natural world and uphold the sacred reciprocity that sustains life on Earth.
The Practice
A Medicine Walk is a journey taken in Nature—and a pilgrimage into yourself—where the signs and symbols of the natural world reflect your inner path.
Begin by clarifying the guidance you are seeking, and prepare yourself to read the Greater Patterns so you can recognise the wisdom being revealed.
Set a clear intention for your walk. It can be helpful to formulate it as a question you wish to receive insight on. This helps focus your intention and prepares you to read the Greater Patterns, so you can recognise the wisdom being revealed.
Then set forth on a wandering, intuitive path—without striving to reach a specific destination. Allow your walk to be unstructured, guided by your senses and subtle inner prompts. Stay alert to symbolic messages and signs. Be mindful of what draws your attention. Listen to and sense the consciousness of all that surrounds you.
When you return, take time to write down or draw the messages you received, especially in relation to your intention.
Keep your notes close, and revisit them whenever you need guidance.
It is recommended to keep a journal account of your walk and to become familiar with its basic narrative—for it is a kind of ‘life story’, and you are its hero or heroine. Like life, this story has a beginning and an end.
A Medicine Walk can be as long or as short as you wish, though one to two hours is often ideal.
Happy Medicine Walking!
Sidsel Solmer Eriksen, Founding Editor
MORE IN WANDERLUST
Field Notes
I always keep a notebook in my pocket on Medicine Walks and sacred wanderings.
It helps me stay present in the moment—and whenever I receive an insight, I don’t need to reach for my phone (where I usually store my daily ‘pings’).
I use the notebook to record signs, symbols, dreams, drawings, questions, and insights received along the way.
A powerful benefit of writing things down on paper is this: when personal insight travels through the body—down from the head, through the limbic system, into the hand—and you take the time to slow down and write or draw, that insight becomes embodied. It is stored in your nervous system as lived wisdom.
This is the power of combining walking and writing. You engage the body–mind connection to imprint wisdom directly into your body’s memory.
In this way, your notebook becomes more than a travel journal.
It becomes a medicine map—a tool for weaving personal truth into lived experience.
Your field notes are part of the medicine.
Shinrin-Yoku: Forest Bathing
People have long understood that spending time in nature—especially among trees in a forest—has a calming effect. But only in the past decade or so have consistent scientific findings begun to support the idea of nature as a form of preventive medicine.