The director of 'My Octopus Teacher' takes a cold dip to reconnect with nature in 'Amphibious Soul'

When I started reading “Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Domesticated World,” an urgent, spiritual memoir by Craig Foster, I was working long days in front of the computer, stopping only to devour dinner, kiss my children on the forehead and give them My husband an apologetic look.

Foster is known for his Oscar-winning documentary “My octopus teacher.” In his new book, his words pierce through me as he describes his own days as a workaholic, too scared to turn down projects and prioritizing his films over his family: “My hands were soft, my heart was fragile, my smile was fading, and that wild creature was cowering deep inside, with hardly any light to guide its exit.”

Foster tells how he reformulated his life to let that wild creature out and reconnect with our “deep ancestors” who lived in symbiosis with nature. He calls us all to reclaim our wild hearts.

“The hustle and bustle of modern life, the continual need to do more, go further, and move on to the next thing, had taken me, as it has taken many of us, further and further away from myself,” he writes. “I knew that if I continued this way, I would be depriving myself of something vital to being human: the savagery that is my heritage and yours.”

But if Foster could imagine what it was like for me, and indeed for many of us, to spend most of our waking hours staring at screens, I found it hard to imagine being in her seemingly intrepid shoes.

The book begins with Foster and his film crew following the Nile crocodile, Africa's largest freshwater predator, in an underwater cave (several years before “The Octopus Master”). The death-defying adventure unfolds like many nature documentaries that use suspense to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. Instead of images, Foster delights us with delightful prose.

“Beneath the swaying papyrus culms are networks of narrow tunnels and dark caves, the underwater lairs where crocodiles drag their prey,” he writes.

Although this adrenaline-filled episode brings him closer to nature, Foster still feels removed from it. He realizes that reconnecting with her wild self requires more frequent encounters near where he grew up, along the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. There he begins a daily ritual of plunging into the frigid, tumultuous ocean, forgoing the wetsuit and scuba tank to reduce barriers as he reconnects with the waters of his childhood. Immersion becomes for Foster a path to healing, a way to invigorate the body in a world in which we have created too much comfort.

“Every time I was struck by doubt, I reminded myself that my deep ancestors were cold and wet every day,” he writes. “To deprive myself of this innate evolutionary experience was to deprive myself of vitality and well-being.”

On his daily dives, Foster begins to study the Great African marine forest and track creatures large and small, drawing inspiration from indigenous hunter-gatherer communities, including the San people, whom he describes as so connected to nature that they can enter the minds of animals and track them without obvious signs.

Foster connects deeply with the animals she encounters: a sea otter caresses her face as they look into each other's eyes. Great white sharks allow you to dive with them. The book even turns spiritual when Foster explains how deeply we are connected to other beings. “I feel like a frog, I feel like a dragonfly, and if I extend my mind, I even feel like a rock. I am a frog-spider-dragonfly. I am a galaxy and so are you.”

Foster insists that those of us who grew up in planned neighborhoods next to shopping centers, and for whom manicured grass and lawns were our first encounters with nature, can also find our way back to our wild selves. Fortunately, you don't need to submerge yourself in cold water to get there.

The book provides practical guidance on how to start tracking specimens in your own neighborhood, such as visiting the same place frequently and staying still enough to let the wild world unfold before you.

Reading it encouraged me to go out more often and be more observant. One day, I found myself mesmerized as I looked into the eyes of a turtle, each of us enjoying the wonder of the other's existence.

Part of Foster's story will be familiar to those who saw “My Octopus Teacher.” In his memoirs, we learn that he struggled with the fame that came with the film's success. Insomnia begins to undermine the progress he has made. Little by little, the ocean and the creatures he befriended bring him back into balance.

Foster notes that he is grateful for the cameras and modern technology that allowed him to connect with researchers around the world. Being tame and wild at the same time is not an easy task, but I agree with him that developing a relationship with the natural environment wherever we live is important to feeling balanced.

The narrative oscillates between vignettes about Foster's life and its central point about the wild. Sometimes this structure seems repetitive, as it returns to the same conclusions. Foster does it with the zeal of someone trying to turn his audience on a major discovery, and yet I can't blame him for wanting us modern apes to wake up and go outside.

Unlike many books on climate change that discuss the ethical or moral obligation we have to protect habitats and animals, Foster explains that doing so is imperative if we want to save ourselves. In fact, this memoir could easily be filed in the self-help section of a bookstore.

What stood out to me most was Foster's optimism that humans can find their way back to a symbiotic relationship with nature. As we face one climate disaster after another with no sign that our relentless drive to produce more things will slow, I find it hard to imagine society changing course.

But that kind of thinking assumes that we are in charge. After witnessing Seaforest relentlessly struggle to regain its footing, jellyfish repair their own bite holes, and octopuses regrow shark-eaten arms, Foster is clearer-eyed about where we fit in the grand scheme.

“If humans just went extinct, this whole planet would come back to life,” he says bluntly. “The Great Mother runs the show, not us.”

Ambreen Ali is a writer and journalist living in New Jersey.