Live and train with your fellow Forest Monks for three months amidst the breathtaking beauty of Wisconsin’s Driftless Region. Your teachers will be the towering oaks, the eternity of sparkling night skies, and the elusive creatures of the forest, as well as Kenton Whitman, Founder of ReWild University.

You’ll live in a yurt, tent, cabin, or natural-made shelter as you adventure in the wilderness, develop ancestral skills, learn martial arts, explore deeper connections with nature, fish and forage for your food, learn herbalism, delve into spiritual Awakening, and more.

Becoming a Forest Monk is a journey into nature, Self, and spirit. This is a holistic journey — a strengthening of body, mind, and emotions, as well as deepening our connection with the world. This is not an ascetic monkhood, but instead a journey into passion — living as our most authentic, powerful selves.

Your Guide

Kenton Whitman shares his extensive knowledge of martial arts, primal fitness, wilderness skills, meditation, nature awareness, and nature-based Awakening.

Kenton is a gentle, loving, yet challenging guide who excels at helping others venture into their deepest evolution, and who is genuinely passionate about helping you to grow as fully as possible while you are here.

The Teachings

Forest Monks are immersed in a skill-sharing environment where much of the learning is in an “unschooling” style, streamlined into every-day living. In addition, students will have the option to take part in more structured skill-sharing. Each program is different, depending on student interests, but there are many things to choose from.

Wilderness Living — Living primitively, you’ll become intimate with skills such as firemaking, campfire cooking, forest navigation, canoeing, minimalist camping, and more.

Martial Arts — From developing strength and power, to physical and mental conditioning, you’ll have a wide range of martial arts elements available to you, from learning how to punch and kick to Aikido-style blend-and-flow, to Chinese Chin Na, to modern MMA and Jujitsu skills. Depending on the group temperament, our martial arts gatherings can involve anything from “just for fun” gladiator games to serious discussions about the application of martial elements in daily life.

Rewilding Your Mind — Using techniques to unleash your innate mental and emotional health, you’ll learn to turn judgment into curiosity, to recognize and dissolve resistance-based emotions such as anxiety, frustration, and stress, and how to use meditative practices to still your mind and awaken your natural appreciation for life. You will also learn how to enhance your senses, become less vision-dependent, and develop an all-encompassing awareness.

Awakening — Using different approaches, from Zen practices to exploring vulnerability and release, you will journey into the depths of your sense of Self and begin to uncover the true nature of ego. For some, over time, this can lead to a profound awakening experience where the world as we know it transforms completely.

Ancestral Skills — You’ll track animals, learn friction fire, build shelter, and learn to make many of your everyday items from stone, clay, bone, or fibers. You’ll forage for mushrooms, berries, and wild plants, and learn to use these skills to foster a deeper connection with nature.

Herbalism and Healing — Using herbs, mushrooms, and energetic healing practices, you’ll discover different methods to bring health to bodies that are being challenged by injury or disease.

Primal Fitness — By learning new movement paradigms, we can begin to have fun with developing new habits of movement that enhance our strength, balance, flexibility, agility, and endurance. You’ll learn to see the world as your playground, and how to move in joyful ways that will give you a lifetime of physical fitness.

Wild Spirituality — Without teachers imposing any dogma, you will be free to explore a deeper connection with nature, Self, and the Divine through nature entrainment and learning to sense things that many consider to be “beyond the senses”. Whatever your current belief-set, you will be given tools to explore those beliefs more deeply, and to have more opportunities to encounter your spirituality in a direct, rather than simply conceptual, manner.

Program Structure

Monks live technology-free, on-site in a primitive encampment. This is beautiful natural area that is perched on the intersection of humans and the wild. The Driftless consists of farmlands woven between steep ridges and valleys. As such, you’ll hear the sounds of humans, from tractors to cars, but also the sounds of nature, like the owls or coyotes who will sing you to sleep. Squirrels and chickadees will watch you from trees, and playful movements of wind, stars, and rain will bring you into rhythm with the woodland. This is the intersection where many animals find themselves today, and serves as a reminder that natural spaces are precious. 

Nature presents challenges as well, from ticks and mosquitoes (who can be among our best teachers) to the fears that many of us harbor when we are confronted by elements of nature such as strange sounds in the night. Yet in the end, our environment is seen to nurture us in beautiful ways, giving us every-moment opportunities to transform ourselves into a sense of Being, rather than Doing.

Your home may be any of a variety of shelters, depending on your desires and what structures are available, but in all cases you will be living very simply, without running water or electricity. Each day is an unfolding of opportunities for growth and evolution. The program is primarily a skill-sharing environment, where your guide, Kenton, other students, and nature will share philosophies, challenges, and new ways to encounter life’s “problems”. Many days will have no structure at all, allowing you to be present in nature and to experience life with your fellow monks. This spaciousness can either be tremendously boring or tremendously enriching, depending on your level of motivation to “go deep”.

On “Guide” days, you’ll have time with Kenton, during which just about anything can happen. You might gather herbs and create a tincture, or learn to bake bread. You might go for a run, or play woods-games or go tracking. Or you might be invited to take part in a “hypothermia challenge”.

Finally, you’ll face challenges over the three months that Kenton will craft with and for you. By gently exploring the places where you might be harboring your greatest fears or emotional blocks, we’ll co-create personal challenges that will give you a “rite of passage” experience that will forever change the way you encounter life, moving you from fear-based living to joy-based living.

Food

Your tuition includes access to basic foodstuffs based loosely on a vegetarian diet. This diet includes whole grains, beans, and high-fat foods, and it is possible to subsist entirely on the food provided. However, most monks supplement this diet by purchasing their own foods during a once-per-month provisions trip into town where monks are free to buy meat, dairy, and other foodstuffs not included in their basic diet.

We highly encourage monks to cook together using a “base meal” approach. Together, a basic meal is created (for instance, a lentil-vegetable soup), and then individual monks are free to add personal foodstuffs into their bowls. One monk might dish out the soup into their bowl and then add some hot sauce. Another might cook chicken over the fire and add that to their bowl. Yet another might have gone fishing and add fish to their soup. In this way, monks can experience communal cooking while still being able to individualize their diet to their needs.

Moving Onward

We take great care in helping people develop “re-integration” skills so that culture shock is minimized when you return to civilization. What if you don’t want to return to civilization? You’ll have skills that will allow you to open many new doors in life — doors that might have seemed too improbable (or even impossible) to open before. We are also looking at possibilities for people who want to stay on as long-term Forest Monks at a reduced tuition rate after they complete their three month training.

Applying

We use an application process that begins with you filling out some questions. We’ll use video talks to further get to know each other. We want everybody involved to feel like this is the right thing for everyone involved. Most Monks feel like they “know” Kenton before they even arrive. Make sure to also watch some of Kenton’s videos at youtube.com/rewilduniversity to get a feel for his teaching style.

Tuition

We encourage but don’t require students to take part in the full three months of the program. Tuition for the full program is $9,500 per Forest Monk. For Forest Monks who wish to commit to two months only, we ask $7,500. One month’s tuition is $4,500

If these tuition prices are impossible for you, feel free to connect with Kenton and discuss your situation. We have operated for years on the basis of trusting that people will contribute as much as they can, with more financially able people helping support the ability of less financially able people to attend.

To Learn More

To learn more about this program, contact Kenton for a copy of the Forest Monk Handbook. If you read the handbook and still feel this program is for you, contact Kenton at rewilduniversity@gmail.com to apply. He is happy to answer any questions you might have and take you through the next steps of the application process!