Women, Nature & Reclaiming Our Power
For centuries, across countless indigenous cultures, women have gathered in nature. Honouring the Earth, harnessing its healing power and sharing ancestral wisdom. As caretakers of the land, skilled healers and educators, women held profound knowledge of agriculture, medicinal plants and natural healing practices. Land itself was once passed down from mother to daughter, reinforcing the sacred bond between women and the Earth.
At the heart of this history lies an enduring truth: women have always carried a deep, intuitive connection to the natural world. Nurturing the Earth, is not separate from nurturing life itself, it is an extension of empathy, care and the compassion to protect future generations. Adopting a more sustainable mindset.
Women as Leaders in Community & Environment
Women are powerful community leaders, not because they dominate, but because they guide with intuition, empathy and collaboration. Their ability to nurture strong relationships and foster inclusivity allows them to create resilient communities where everyone feels seen and valued.
My personal journey into survival skills, meant working alongside different skilled men, many of whom had gained their survival skills via the military, marines or army. However, I gained a different insight into survival skills and was blessed to work alongside many good men. Although rather than adopting a ‘survival of the fittest’ attitude towards survival, my knowledge was inspired by indigenous cultures surviving in remote rainforests. I was looking into survival skills from a different perspective, a more environmental one, how ultimately humans are connected to the natural world and what we do to nature, we do to ourselves.
Women as leaders can bring emotional intelligence, adaptability and intuitive vision. They balance practicality with compassion, strategy with sustainability and ambition with collaboration. This is the kind of leadership the Earth urgently needs, one rooted in care rather than exploitation, in regeneration rather than depletion.
Breaking Barriers & Reclaiming Space Outdoors
For too long cultural conditioning has taught women to shrink themselves, to be accommodating, self-sacrificing and domesticated, while ambition and leadership are praised in men. These subtle but powerful messages cause many women to underestimate their worth and silence their voices.
Outdoor spaces may also feel unfamiliar or unwelcoming to women. For generations, they were underrepresented in landscapes of adventure, survival and environmental leadership. But these limitations are not inherent, they are constructs. And they can be dismantled.
When women gather outdoors, they reclaim that space. They build strength, physical, emotional and spiritual – while supporting each other in authentic sisterhood. Every step on the trail, every breath of forest air, every moment together by the fire, is an act of empowerment.
The Healing Power of Nature & Sisterhood
Nature is the greatest teacher and healer. I have witnessed countless transformations beneath the trees, tears shed, lessons learned, perspectives shifted, new directions found. Each woman enters the forest on her own journey, yet leaves with the same realisation: the Earth restores, strengthens, awakens and connects us.
There is something profound that happens when women gather around a fire. Fire – an element essential to life – creates a natural circle of healing and belonging.
In these spaces, women reconnect not only with the Earth but also with one another. They discover a shared energy, a forgotten power that carries forward into life with renewed hope, resilience and clarity.
Being outdoors calls us back to presence. It breaks repetitive patterns, dissolves outdated routines and reminds us of freedom. Nature whispers: everything is interconnected, everything is exchange. Simply breathing together under the open sky and trees, forges a bond that is ancient and unbreakable.
Inspiring Women to Step Outside
To inspire more women outdoors, we must create spaces that feel safe, inclusive and welcoming. Outdoor gatherings, group hikes, workshops and wellbeing practices such as forest bathing (Shinrin-Yoku) are gentle doorways back to nature.
At Women in the Woods, a gathering created by Wildeye Adventures, women gather together to learn bushcraft and survival skills, practice forest bathing and drum around firelight into the night. These experiences remind us that the outdoors is not only accessible, but is eternally connected to us. Every path, every tree, every starry sky is an open invitation to reconnect with nature, with one another and with ourselves.
A Call to Women Everywhere
Nature is always communicating, but who is listening? Trees talk to each other via an underground network of fungus. We’ve been led to believe it’s “survival of the fittest” When in fact, everything in nature is an exchange of energy, as part of the cycle of life. We come from a world of squares, being boxed inside and indoors, outside in nature, when looking closer and deeper, everything is spiral and circular.
We may dwell in man-made constructs, but the natural world operates by its own eternal laws. The laws of the natural world. The forest works as a community, a collaborative network of interconnectedness; what we take from nature, we must give back.
Mother Nature is calling women to rise into their power, to heal, protect, to nurture the lands and all its creatures. By stepping outside and connecting to the natural world, we don’t just restore our own balance; we ignite a collective empowerment that ripples into families, communities and the wider world.
When women step into their full power, in communities, in leadership or in nature. We don’t just guide. We connect. We Inspire. We transform.
Women bring a holistic, regenerative perspective to leadership and environmental stewardship. Feminine emotion or empathy has been long dismissed as weakness, when in fact, it’s our greatest strength. It is empathy that prevents us from reducing the Earth and its creatures to a commodity to be exploited and instead teaches us to honour it as a living, breathing source of life.
We remember that we are not just a part of nature; we are nature. This forgotten unbound truth connects all of humanity; as one.
By Yara Ghrewati – © Wildeye Adventures
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By Yara Ghrewati
Yara Ghrewati is the founder of Wildeye Adventures, a passionate advocate for reconnecting people with nature through immersive outdoor experiences. With over 15 years of expertise in the outdoor industry, she is a certified Bushcraft & Survival Instructor, Archery Instructor, Environmental Educator, and Forest Bathing Practitioner.
Operating across UK woodlands and international landscapes, Yara works with schools, expedition companies, youth mentoring groups, and grassroots initiatives to deliver engaging, hands-on learning in nature. She is First Aid certified, DBS checked, and holds a qualification in Mental Health in the Outdoors.
Beyond her work in the field, Yara is also a public speaker, campaigner, and media presenter, using her voice to champion environmental awareness and outdoor education.
