Episode 106: Betsy Perluss | Tending to the Mystery and the Wild Wisdom of Land

What happens when we step away from the noise of modernity and sit quietly with the land, with our dreams, with each other?

In this intimate conversation, Dan speaks with Betsy Perluss—esteemed elder, Wilderness Guide with the School of Lost Borders, Jungian analyst, and psychotherapist.

Betsy has spent decades guiding people into the wild, into themselves, and into the shared spaces where land and psyche weave together.

Supporting people into deep relationship with Earth and soul, through solo time on the land and the ancient practice of council.

Together we explore how these deceptively simple practices—fasting alone under the sky, listening deeply in circle, paying attention to the more-than-human and tuning into our dreams—can shift our orientation to life in profound ways.

This is a conversation about mystery, grief, presence, and the possibility that wisdom is always already available… if we learn how to listen.

How do we learn to listen differently — to land, to mystery, to each other?

We talk about the practice of solo time on the land—sitting out, fasting, letting Earth be both mirror and teacher. And we talk about council—an ancient, simple, radical practice of listening and being listened into deeper presence.

These are quietly revolutionary practices.

They offer ways of being that modernity can’t commodify or quantify—ways that remind us we belong.

The conversation also opens into dreams, the unseen, and the deep mystery that enfolds every life.

Betsy reminds us that paying attention to mystery may offer more than all the technologies and rational maps we’ve been taught to rely on.

This episode is not about solutions. It’s about presence. It’s about remembering that the land is always speaking, that our dreams carry wisdom, and that listening together can be its own kind of healing.

Themes We Move Through

🌲 Solo time on the land as a mirror and guide

🪶 Council as a way of listening each other into deeper being

🌌 Dreams and the unseen as teachers

🌀 What modernity blinds us to—and what becomes possible when we remember otherwise

💙 Crew questions: what it means to belong, to serve, to stay awake together

🌐 Guest: Betsy Perluss

* Wilderness Guide, Jungian Analyst, and Psychotherapist

* Long-time teacher with the School of Lost Borders

If you’re interested in experiencing these practices, Becoming Crew Collective are hosting a final Community Solo, a weekend on the land including fire circles, council and a fully guided overnight nature solo at Ghostwood Down, Nr Bath - 19-21st September - full info here