Welcome to Forager Field Notes
This is a home for the ones who never got the map, or who threw it in the fire.
If you’ve been told you’re too wild, too intense, too honest, or not built for small talk, you’re in the right place.
I’m Michelle Dowd, author of Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult.
I grew up in an apocalyptic cult on a mountain, where I was taught to trust obedience over instinct. Now I teach people how to listen to their bodies, kiss the dirt, and tell the truth without asking permission.
My words have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, TIME Magazine, The Alpinist, LA Parenting Mag, The Los Angeles Review of Books…
but this is where I write the things that don’t fit neatly anywhere else.
This is where we forage for wild truths together.
I’m also the founder of Forager Wildlife, a feral creative collective for rebels, rewilders, and pleasure-seeking survivors who want to remember who they were before the world told them to shrink.
If that’s you?
Welcome home.
Join the Crew
This space is for the ones who left the system, the religion, the fake smile, the Fog (Fears, Obligations and Guilt).
The ones who ache, who remember, who are building something new and real.
We’re not here to perform wellness. We’re here to get dirt under our fingernails.
To howl, to heal, to create, to pass the bread, the playlist, and the poem.
Subscribe for dispatches from the wild edge of instinct, beauty, and becoming.
Choose your path:
This is a reader-supported space for building a more alive, creative, and connected life.
Free Subscribers
For the quietly feral and creatively curious:
Public essays and field notes
Small invitations back to beauty, attention, and the living world
A steady reminder that creativity is not a luxury, but part of being fully alive
Paid Subscribers
For those ready to stay, and go deeper:
Full archive access for deeper creative nourishment and reflection
The Secret Garden — a guided space to reconnect with imagination, sensuality, and creative momentum
The Artist’s Way — a supported 12-week journey to rebuild trust in your own voice and desires
Writing workshops designed to help you create braver, more emotionally resonant work
Playlist Drops (music for your wild moods)
Shared conversations with people who care about art, story, nature, and meaningful change
Early access to retreats and gatherings that reconnect you to yourself, the land, and other creative people
This space is designed to help you:
Develop a sustainable creative practice
Trust your instincts more deeply
Feel less alone in your artistic life
Reconnect with pleasure, curiosity, and play
Make meaningful work instead of perfect work
Build a life rooted in attention, beauty, and connection
Paid Members of the Understory Circle (Founding plan)
For the ones walking closest:
Everything above, plus smaller gatherings for deeper connection and creative exchange
Early access to intimate retreats and limited-capacity experiences
Behind-the-scenes access to the evolving world of Forager Wildlife
Founding members help make this possible:
Supporting survivors of cults and other high-control groups, while sustaining independent creative work rooted in truth, beauty, and connection.
No ads. No algorithm. No AI.
Just real talk from the wild edge of a life being rewritten in real time.
Let’s burn the blueprint and write a truer, wilder story.
