Natalie Bogwalker develops natural skills at Wild Abundance

Natalie Bogwalker at Wild Abundance
ROOM TO GROW: Natalie Bogwalker's eco-homestead serves as the setting for Wild Abundance's classes in permaculture, medicine making, carpentry and more. Photo courtesy of Bogwalker

Natalie Bogwalker was born to be wild. She has a degree in ecological agriculture and spent time living in a bark hut in a primitive community where residents carried all of their water, started fire by friction and cooked all their food over open flame. “I loved living superprimitively; it fed me so much,” she says. “I saw a lot of things about contemporary life that were damaging to the earth, so I decided to share what I was doing.”

After founding and running the annual Firefly Gathering festival for a decade, Bogwalker started a permaculture school, Wild Abundance, to focus on more individualized education. “[Firefly] was a great event, but I really wanted something more intimate, to see how people could undergo a transformation long term,” she explains.

Through Wild Abundance, Bogwalker and a tightknit community of neighbors and friends teach courses including homesteading, hide tanning, wild foods, medicine making and women’s carpentry (the most popular). Classes — suspended through late April due to COVID-19 but planning to resume at the end of the month — take place on a hilly, wooded eco-homestead campus featuring Bogwalker’s self-constructed cabin, gardens and fruit trees, and students can choose to camp on the property for a full immersion into a more sustainable way of life. “We are permaculture in action, a living example of the beauty and abundance of the land,” she says.

For more on programs at Wild Abundance, visit wildabundance.net.

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About Kay West
Kay West began her writing career in NYC, then was a freelance journalist in Nashville for more than 30 years, including contributing writer for the Nashville Scene, Nashville correspondent for People magazine, author of five books and mother of two happily launched grown-up kids. In 2019 she moved to Asheville and continued writing (minus Red Carpet coverage) with a focus on food, farming and hospitality. She is a die-hard NY Yankees fan.

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