Queering Nature: Embracing the Strange and Sacred

What happens when we begin to see nature not just as a backdrop to our lives, but as a mirror, a teacher - even a quiet witness to our queerness?

To queer nature is not to change it, but to re-see it. Queering in this context means questioning the dominant narratives - the binary, the straight, the linear, the hierarchical - and instead embracing fluidity, multiplicity, interconnection, and wonder. Queer ecology is an invitation to disrupt the heteronormative, colonial lens through which we’ve been taught to view the natural world, and to explore more inclusive, relational ways of being in connection with the land, each other, and ourselves.

For many of us who identify as LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, or otherwise outside the “norm,” nature offers a radical kind of belonging. It doesn’t demand that we fit a mould. It thrives on diversity, interdependence, shapeshifting, and unexpected alliances - a complex ecosystem where no one way of being is superior to another.

Nature isn’t straight - it’s winding, adaptive, layered, and wild. It changes, it transforms, and it makes space for all forms of becoming. In its quiet presence, I’ve felt a kind of deep acceptance I couldn’t always find in human structures. It has reminded me that I, too, am part of the strange and sacred.

Queering nature also means reclaiming space - physically, emotionally, spiritually. It’s about creating rituals, stories, and practices that honour our lived experiences, outside of systems that have excluded or erased us. It’s about making kin with trees, rivers, animals, ancestors, and each other - not metaphorically, but relationally.

That’s the spirit behind Queer by Nature - a workshop (and evolving program) that weaves together ecotherapy, queer spirituality, mythology, creativity, and community care. It’s a space to reimagine what it means to belong. Not by fitting in, but by showing up as we are - complex, curious, and connected.

If this resonates, I’d love for you to join me in this unfolding journey. Whether that’s at a workshop, through a future program, or simply by taking a quiet moment to listen to the land around you - may you feel held in your queerness by something larger than yourself.

🌿Stay grounded. Stay strange. Stay sacred.