Wild Offerings: A journey towards self-care

Created by
Jillian Peever,
Fellow, I Love My Gig Ontario 2025

Published
February 4, 2026

Setting the stage

Before beginning the fellowship, I had been working through some major life changes, several of which were big shifts I am still moving through since the pandemic.

In early 2020, I was feeling like I had really “made it” as a new mother and active dance artist in Toronto. I was about to begin a new series of rehearsals with Fujiwara Dance Inventions, a dance company on the verge of touring, Eunoia, by Denise Fujiwara. This piece was a welcome challenge that I had performed only twice before as an understudy. This time I was to be in the main cast, and it was going to be my first proper tour across Canada!

At the same time, I was also in the middle of a personal milestone project, a solo commissioned dance by Sasha Ivanochko that would be presented in the fall at The Citadel, a well-known presenter of intimate contemporary work in Toronto. It was an exciting time for me — I was working with established female choreographers whom I admired deeply. With pride and excitement, I kept hoping the lockdown wouldn’t last… but finally… lockdown took hold. With an uncertain future for my young family, we made a big decision to leave Toronto for a tiny village three hours north, and to grow our family by one more.

For the first time since about age 15, I wasn’t working on the weekends. I had very little to do. It was strange. I was restless. Because of all the uncertainty, and the new reality of constantly being with my family, I turned towards meditation to gain some quiet. This, and simply being outside more often, in wilder areas than I had been in in a long time, helped me feel like I was still connecting to something greater. The time passing more slowly felt like witnessing beauty instead of “wasting time”. My connection to something larger — up until now — had been engaging in my art, climbing and driving upwards in my career as teacher and artist. Simply being outside didn’t appear, at first, to be a comparable action.

Through this fellowship, I’m seeing how important self-care is. Self-care will take on different forms at different seasons of life.

Early Fellowship Reflection: Being outdoors with intention felt like a step towards self-care that I had forgotten. I love how in this video, I seem to be taking in my surroundings as if looking for guidance. I think the message is clear. “Let’s keep going Mom”.

Leaping forward

Jump forward to 2024, when I first read about the fellowship: I’ve started a not-for-profit organization with the mission of bringing more awareness, curiosity, and appreciation for contemporary dance as an artform in the rural area where I live, The Almaguin Highlands. I have two kids, ages 7 and 3, and a new major impact on my life, a parent who has undergone a very serious health scare, and now requires support.

We had expected moving north would be a way to receive help from family, but in Fall 2024, I had found myself once again climbing, driving, overwhelmed by the busy pace that was partly my own making, partly fate. The stress had returned. I worried, “How am I going to make it this line of work sustainable? Financially? Mentally? » How can I continue to care for my family in ways that matter to me and remain an active arts worker?”

Read on to see my journey back into the wisdom I had experienced from the pandemic, and how it is shifting to include my artistic practice.

An “aha” moment leading to the discovery of Wild Offerings was when my son filmed me dancing in the wild. It makes me smile every time.

Excerpts from my fellowship journal entries

March 2025

…Having a healthy, healing, calm, personally contemplative weekend brings me a certain kind of care that I value very much, and then another day, indulging in a feast with loud celebration and socializing can bring much different elements of care that I also value. Care to not care what others think, or care to not care about work, but to focus instead on family or enjoyment…

Sometimes care can be uncomfortable. If you care for someone you might challenge their behaviour by bringing up uncomfortable topics with them. Perhaps judgement is entangled here… we care, but come with our biases and judgements, conscious or unconsciously…

…Care for me is a quiet dance alone in nature. I’m not too shy of my 4-year-old yet to ask him to videotape me dancing in the wild. That will forever be special.

Part of care for me now is passing on tools for self-care to my kids. If they can self-care, then I will have more peace to “self-care” me. …I’m very conscious now of the parent/child struggle, and I thoroughly believe that the lack of importance placed on artistic expression or personal expression or spiritual expression is to blame for lost people.

…Care is, sometimes listening to the wise woman inside me. Care is sometimes, taking advice from people who care about me. Sometimes it’s the imagined advice…

…Why do we give love? So that others might see it and feel encouraged to give it too.

April 2025

…Dance has been a major part of self-care in my life and I can’t get caught in paperwork and housekeeping all day or else I get so stuck and angry…As I sit here and write now, I’m vibrating and fresh because I got up and had a creative and joyful moment of dance, and a shower and now I’m ready for my day…but because I don’t have to leave my house and go to a class, I haven’t gotten into a routine still yet… I need to be accountable…have to show up…

Think less. Everything is enough. We build stories, we make connections. Do less. I want to put this into my creative process more. It is how I can bridge the care fellowship into my life…

External excitement in the room with me helps. I’ve made that happen. What I’ve learned from my teachers is to trust. What I’ve learned from life is that when I try too hard, I get hurt. All I can do is be passionate and in the moment to the best of my ability and to speak my truth in loving ways…

The plan begins to take shape

As the fellowship continued. I began dancing outside more. I realized the marrying of the two things that have been long time personal supports, was a natural step forward for me at this time. It started off as simple improvisations when I found myself alone outside. It is how I think now, through improvised dancing. As I danced outside, I was tuning into how I felt at that moment, and while it’s hard to really explain in words, the best I can say is that it felt like clarity and connection.

This was going to be my focus for the fellowship.

Late winter anecdote

While on a road trip with family, we stopped in Algonquin Park for a much-needed break. I had to stay near the car with our sleeping son, while our older son and his dad did a quick hike. I took the opportunity to test Wild Offerings. I really needed movement in that moment. High energy dancing was my self-care component. Then I could get into the offering. Self-care brings you to a place of outwards generosity.

An “aha” moment leading to the discovery of « Wild Offerings » was when my son filmed me dancing in the wild. It makes me smile every time.

Early spring anecdote

Do the Trees think I’m silly and insignificant?

One day in not-yet melted spring, an idea that popped in was this interconnectedness in the universe, and especially in nature.

I had biked out into the woods for a moment of intentional reflection, or a sort of “Test” and while biking to my chosen location it struck me that we humans often act like the top dogs in this world, a world we SEEM to think we control…

While listening to some online content earlier, I was struck that day by the human tendency to laugh at others, to dismiss others, to look down upon and to judge others…. but while biking into the woods on an icy and muddy trail I felt like the TREES must look at us … standing so tall and ancient and wise beyond our comprehension.

The Trees may be looking at me while I bike in the forest, on my man-made machine, and think I am so silly. Why am I biking in the forest when I could just walk/climb/run like I was built to? Instead, I’m playing with this contraption that some human designed hundreds of years ago…and I’m playing in the snow with this “novel toy” in the forest… just like when I watch videos of playful pandas rolling down a hill and think how adorable…

Excerpts from my fellowship journal entries

May 2025

Reading Peter Wohlleben’s, The Heart Beat of Trees, had me reflecting on some important aspects of being near trees in the context of this project.

Noticing the artistic tendency for sensation in my dance practice, and the human tendency to use sensation to understand nature.

…I’m interested in how our senses are being dulled in a way because of screens, books, and the technology of today….Vision: nearsightedness due to focusing on books/screens instead of distance in nature and in the dark…Taste: preference for sugar, fat, salt (overly available) vs. Bitter, Earthy (foraging)…Smells: fragrances of clean homes and laundry, vs. fresh/dank rotting of leaves on the forest floor, etc…Touch: everything soft/smooth indoors, and at playgrounds vs. uneven/rough in nature.

Video in the woods. Making mental notes to be in clothing appropriate for the woods (i.e. bug jacket).

June 2025

After a very busy period of work, and a few days of relative rest, I went out early one morning and spent some time reflecting on Wild Offerings.

I brought the forest air into my home.

It surrounds my hair.

The hair that falls around my face, neck and ears. The hair standing up on my arms and neck. The hair inside my nostrils and ears.

The very fibres of my being seem to have caught a cool embrace that lifts me up.

Elevates. Levitates.

I’m floating upwards today instead of driving forwards.

… I’m no forest expert. That’s OK.

What was that sound, like rain on the leaves? It wasn’t raining…

I know it could be caterpillar poop, but I didn’t notice any caterpillars…It was a consistent dropping. Ha.

It made me feel like such a novice.

I realized I had never been there before.

At that moment.

Have I been anywhere before?

This thought, it makes everything feel shiny and new like a first kiss.

I had never been in that spot—a somewhat familiar spot on a public trail—at 6:21am before. The sunshine was so fresh.

And not another ground-walking animal was in sight.

Just me and the birds, mosquitos…and the possibility of lots and lots of caterpillar poop raining down on me and the forest floor.

June 2025

After first 60-minute test.

I am a living human with the energy to move, so I must.

It seems to be nearly impossible for me to be still for any length of time in the forest….even with a bug jacket…but that’s OK because fussing over mosquitos is natural. What animal would lay down for the bugs to eat it? A dead one.

…this time, the ants held my attention.

…I feel so slowed down now. The time it took to walk out there and come back…. Big breaths of air…I’m tired.

The birdsongs on the walk home felt more integrated with me. We are connected…or… we had been… I had been. What was great was that this wasn’t my normal “Do something healthy for yourself” activity like a bike ride, a run, or a yoga class. And it was not with anyone. In fact, I sort of feared interactions with humans, and came up with a response if someone were to stop and say hello—make it look like I’m in a sort of yoga thing: I was laying on my back with my feet up in the air when someone hiked by, and my response to their passing comment was a thumbs up with no eye contact.

This was an interesting unknown.

While out for my first 60-minute test, a sign was my comfort blanket. I didn’t want to do this without some signage because I had been experiencing fear of being considered strange. In a small community, everyone knows everyone. The sign invited passersby to stop and observe the work in progress with quiet respect and explain away my fear of being considered strange.

I want to remain silent from verbal communication because I want to connect to the environment. But if a human person becomes part of that environment, I should also include them in the process of Wild Offering and aim my curiosity and love towards them. If that means speaking…then, I will let it be part of this.
I was experiencing fear of being considered strange. And instead of using love and openness and curiosity, I used avoidance, which may be perceived as dismissiveness.

When in my home, I’m as busy as an ant. Much work to be done, Never stop moving…. but the trees are hardly moving at all, and their process is happening in a way that I can’t see. But I witnessed the ants moving all around. Everywhere you looked there were trails of ants busy at work in some sort of organized unit… massive by way of this organization. The ants are constant in a different way from the trees.

…The moment is the moment, and this is an offering of intention and witnessing, not a rehearsed show. I allow my artistic expression to become part of the moment. I allow my humanness to unzip and rezip the bug jacket, to become annoyed by the sound of the bug jacket in my ears, to swat bugs away. I am not a tree. I will not let the bugs climb and crawl into my cracks and crevices.

I am ALIVE!

June 2025

After second 60-minute test.

For this final experience of Wild Offerings, I wanted to test a totally different location. The previous location is walkable from my house, and I’d done a lot of thinking about this fellowship in the spaces close to my home. I want this experience to be in a public space, but perhaps a trail is not quite right because people generally pass through trails and don’t often stay put for long.

Heading to test site 2: Screaming Heads.

But also, I thought it might be nice to try somewhere a bit less buggy, somewhere where a breeze and sunshine might be a welcome influence. So, I thought I’d try this in an already artistic space well known around here, known as, Screaming Heads. This place is vast, with areas of meadow, swamp, creek, and forest, and throughout, there are massive concrete sculptures made by Peter Camani, the owner of the property, who lives in a castle-like home built in a similar mysterious style (Do look it up if you’re curious!). There are also sounds of rooster, peacock, bull frog and the occasional sound of humans walking, biking, or vehicles passing by the property on the dirt road called, Midlothian. This felt like a welcome space for an artistic offering, and I’m very glad I had this second test where I could experience a similarly natural environment but with a much more comfortable feeling.

Why did I feel more at ease here? Was it the feeling of a more open space where I could see around me in a wider distance? Was it simply because this was my second time? Or was the ground I danced on more comfortable too? This is the long-time site of much dancing and curious and open minds during an EDM festival, Harvest Fest.

This time I danced with the horseflies. I moved around trees that were reaching out to their familiar neighbours following the branches as they weaved into each other. And I observed the sunlight catching in the tips of the pine needles, observed the new growth reaching forwards to its soon to be full length. I playfully skipped through tall grass like I am pretty sure I did as a child.

My body remembered, but it wasn’t the same. I’m not as comfortable laying down in tall grass as I used to be. I still needed my picnic blanket to feel comfortable dancing in my sock feet on pine needles, and to lay down in my bare arms and legs. Checking for ticks also became part of the dance. Care for self again. I allowed myself to be human, and I sensed when the dance began to feel performative and moved towards being curious, and sending out feelings of love. And since I love to move and fly and swirl, that is where I found the feelings of joy again when I needed to, and from there I could send out my gratitude for the earth.

A tiny voice told me that this would have been even better without any clothes. (hehehe)

An hour still felt just a bit long. I feel myself pulled to my calendar, the work I want to get done. It’s partly due to my childcare running out this week. I’ve decided I need to play with my kids more this summer as my youngest starts school next year. It feels like the end of an era. And still, there’s a need to work, to fit it all in in the last two proper daycare days left. But what was helpful was the walk in and walk out of these locations. The moment I got back into my car I felt a bit more plugged in to my usual routine, like when I am home with many things on my to-do list. But at least there’s this lovely fade in and out that I set into the experience.

The gradual transition from the fast-paced sense of home and work life fades in and out as I walk to and from a chosen Wild Offering site as I begin to offer thoughts of care and curiosity.

A louder voice told me that my kids can come with me to Screaming Heads to do this again sometime. I’ll be dancing and they can be playing or exploring. They’ll be able to come and go from my chosen space for offering and I’ll invite them in with the loving, caring, curious, energies from this reflection as I will to anyone else who enters this environment.

While this part of the reflective journey is done, I think I’ll have to keep dancing in wild places with this mindful state.

By accepting the care I give to myself through dance, accepting the gifts that nature gives by simply being with it longer and in more mindful ways than I’m used to, I will be able to better articulate and share that free and easy sense of care with others. I think that will also bring more people into communion with nature, whether that is just me and my boys, or if that ripples out to many more people, only time will tell.

After the final Wild Offering, I felt again slowed down and more integrated with my surroundings. I felt it fitting that a transformational symbol caught my attention slowly and lifted me upwards and outwards.

Thank you to ArtsPond for initiating this journey of care and to all the other fellows who shared and inspired in this discussion of care through the arts.

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