Come rest in silence
For anyone tired, overstimulated, or screen-worn. Deep Listening Retreats and guided silence walks. No signing experience needed.
Are you seeking silence?The Wild Cypress guides people back into relationship with the land, with each other, and with themselves, through silence, sign, play, and presence, wherever we are invited.
Silence is our native landscape.
Let us show you...What It Is
What happens here, plainly put.
Many of us were never taught how to be in silence. At first it can feel empty, awkward, even loud. A guide helps you find your way in, through the land, your senses, gesture, sign, and play, until silence feels less like something missing and more like something speaking.
Nature does the work
Much of the time is quiet. Without talking to fill it, your attention widens and you start picking up what was already there. Silence is not an absence here, it is the practice.
Your senses are the way in
A guide offers simple invitations: notice what is moving, follow a smell, put a hand on bark. Nothing to achieve, nothing to get right. You pay attention and the rest follows.
It is not a hike
There is no summit and no distance to cover. A walk often travels less than a quarter mile in two or three hours. You are not getting anywhere, which is the point. It began in Japan in the 1980s as shinrin-yoku, which translates to forest bathing. There is no water and no bathing suit. Forest bathing is the way into connection to yourself.
Summer Crider
guide, trainer, storyteller.
Summer Crider is a cultural studies educator, certified Forest and Nature Therapy guide, and founder of The Wild Cypress, dedicated to creating inclusive, healing experiences for Deaf, Disabled, and marginalized communities. With a background in Expressive Arts Therapy, Educational Media, and Cultural Studies, Summer combines academic depth with entrepreneurial creativity as a self-taught business owner, filmmaker, and media consultant.
- MA
- ANFT Trainer
- WFR Certified
As Featured In
PBS - Seek The World - Success Wisdom - All Humans Outside - Travelability - The Gainesville Sun
In partnership with ANFT
Forest is the therapist, Guide opens the doors.
Two ways in.
Healing in our language
For Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and hard of hearing people, signing families, and future guides. Retreats and training held fully in ASL.
Are you seeking healing in your language?Every seat in silence helps open a seat in our language.
Get Started
Come sit with us in the quiet.
Sessions, retreats, and training for anyone ready to slow down, listen deeply, and let the land do its work.