Episoder

  • ‘Cynefin’ (pr. kuh-neh-vin) is the creative vision of West Wales native folk musician, Owen Shiers. Fascinated by music and history, it aims to give a modern voice to Ceredigion’s rich yet neglected cultural heritage. Starting from his home village of Capel Dewi in the Clettwr Valley and travelling through the local musical landscape, Owen has unearthed seasoned songs and stories, some never before recorded, and given them new life in the present.

    The result of three years of research and work, his debut album ‘Dilyn Afon’ (Following a River) is distinct in its concept and ambition. From talking animals and tragic train journeys – to the musings of star-crossed lovers, farm workers and lonely vagabonds, the album provides a unique window into the past and to a vibrant oral culture of story and song – it moves, probes and reveals forgotten aspects of the tradition, whilst raising questions around our modern malaise of disconnection and rootlessness.

    As any of you who have listened to the podcast for a while now will know, belonging is a big theme within our work at Rooted Healing, and yet Owen roots belonging back into the true sense of Cynefin and discusses themes worth sitting with at a deep level.

    Owen questions our responsibilities in the protection and revival of diversity, in the broadest ecological sense that involves culture, language and story, which is big theme that we are exploring in our online course ‘Deepen Your Roots’ and at our upcoming gathering ‘Ancestral’, which is the 23rd-28th July in Eryri, North Wales. So it is especially joyful to bring Owen onto the show as we approach this time in community on home soil.

    Intro music by the wonderful Bonnie Medicine.

    Support the Show.

  • Dr Matthew Zylstra is a systems ecologist passionate about deepening the human-nature relationship for the healing of people and planet.

    He has 20 years of international experience in social-ecological research and outdoor education. With an MSc in Environmental Science and PhD in Conservation Ecology & Sustainability Education, his doctorate research explored how meaningful nature experiences and nature connectedness motivate pro-environmental behaviour and regenerative leadership, which - 10 years on - remains relevant today more than ever. Insights from this research and his publications have informed several global initiatives and university curricula. Matthew is Programme Director with the Kwendalo Institute and Research Fellow with the Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University. He lives in South Africa with his family and finds happiness and healing in exploring intertidal life above and below the surface along his local coastline.

    Accompanying this episode, Matthew has gifted 2 PDF books to our patron community: Cave and the Contemplator, which he wrote in 2015, and Cultural and Spiritual Significance of Nature in Protected Areas (edited by Bas Verschuuren and Steve Brown).

    For more on Matthew’s past research visit eyes4earth.org and for current endeavours, see earthcollective.net . See also https://bio.site/drmattz.

    If you’d like to learn more about our work at Rooted Healing, you can head to rootedhealing.org and join us at our ceremonial nature-led gatherings or online courses in animistic deep ecology.

    We have a very special gathering coming up this summer in Eryri, North Wales, called Ancestral, where you can join us and embody ancestral village life, full of songs, ancient stories, craft and ceremonies, all to bring us closer to our early ancestors and our role for the next generations to come, to the land and to our more-than-human kin.

    The music in this episode is from Bonnie Medicine.

    Receive additional resources via patreon.com/rootedhealing

    Support the show

    Support the Show.

  • Mangler du episoder?

    Klikk her for å oppdatere manuelt.

  • Mercury Prize-nominated folk singer, conservationist, song collector and activist, Sam Lee, plays a unique role in the British music scene, breaking boundaries between traditional and contemporary music and the assumed places and ways folksong is appreciated. Sam's voice has helped challenge what old songs hold for us today.

    His latest critically acclaimed album Songdreaming comes out today, of which Sam has said:

    “I wanted to sing a vision of what a conversation between us and the land could be, to restore and inspire a practice of songful immersion in nature that brings with it healing, something we need now more than ever."

    Sam’s debut novel The Nightingale, notes on a songbird richly captivates these highly endangered birds and their place in culture, folklore, music and literature throughout the millennia.

    Sam is the founder of The Nest Collective, holding vibrant annual gatherings including a diverse range of music events across the UK, featuring outstanding emerging and established folk, world and roots artists from around the globe. Perhaps most notable are his Singing With Nightingales gatherings in spring, where you can step silently into the night and listen as the finest musicians in the land duet with the sweet song of the ever more endangered nightingale.

    Sam's also a regular radio and TV broadcaster, film soundtrack composer and has provided songs for several major feature films. As a change-maker in the music industry, he is a co-founder of Music Declares Emergency, FAC board member and the pioneering artist to work with leading environmental charity Earthpercent to whom a portion of proceeds of the current album will be donated.

    If you’d like to learn more about our work at Rooted Healing, you can head to rootedhealing.org and join us at our ceremonial nature-led gatherings or online courses in animistic deep ecology. We have a very special gathering coming up this summer in Eryri, North Wales, called Ancestral, where you can join us and embody ancestral village life, full of songs, ancient stories, craft and ceremonies, all to bring us closer to our early ancestors and our role for the next generations to come, to the land and to our more-than-human kin.

    The music in this episode is from Sam Lee and Bonnie Medicine.

    Support the Show.

  • Founder and executive director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), Osprey Orielle Lake works internationally with grassroots, BIPOC and Indigenous leaders, policymakers, and diverse coalitions to build climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralised, democratised clean-energy future.

    She sits on the executive committee for the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature and on the steering committee for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    She is the author of the award-winning book Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature and her most recently published book The Story is in our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis inspired this episode. Osprey also holds an MA in Culture and Environmental Studies from Holy Names University.

    The Story Is in Our Bones reviews how women, Indigenous people, and other activists throughout the world are working to counter climate change and protect the vital ecosystems we inhabit and depend upon. She argues that a more fundamental heritage is “in our bones”—preserved in Indigenous stories and culture.

    You can WIN a copy of Osprey's new book by becoming a podcast patron.

    The music in this episode was from Bonnie Medicine and Chiara Gilmore.

    Join us at Earth Medicine, our ceremonial psilocybin retreats.

    Immerse in ancestral village life at Ancestral.

    Support the Show.

  • Imbolc Blessings!

    It is Isla Macleod’s deepest wish to inspire and support a remembrance of what is sacred in our lives, guiding us back home to the natural world. She is a renowned ceremonialist and the author of the beloved book ‘Rituals for Life’. Through offering a container for transformation, held with the deepest love and respect, Isla helps others access forgotten treasures and their innate gifts to share with the world. Isla is devoted to unearthing our indigenous roots on Brighid's Isle, and exploring how we as humans can cultivate an intimate, meaningful, reciprocal relationship with the Web of Life.

    Isla is one of our special guests on our year-long slow study course Deepen Your Roots exploring Land’s Lineage; finding and tending to the thresholds within our bioregion; creating ritual, ceremony and beauty; finding elders, stories and songs nestled in these thresholds, and bringing this wisdom forth into the threshold of these times.

    Deepen Your Roots is a year-long slow study weaving Deep Ecology, the Work that Reconnects, and a folkloric, animistic exploration into the ecological self rewoven with place.

    Accompanying this episode is a book giveaway of Isla’s Rituals for Life’ for our patron community.

    ‘Rituals for Life’ is a guide for those searching for the Sacred in the everyday, a life of meaning and a sense of belonging. This book invites you to discover how ritual can provide the bridge back to wholeness; through aligning with the wisdom of nature, the cycles of life, and re-enchanting the world with wonder and beauty.

    Through an exploration of the fundamentals of ritual and its potential to heal and empower, you are guided towards creating your own rituals to support accepting and celebrating significant life transitions. Guiding you to live a more creative and intentional life, and cultivate an authentic spiritual path that is rooted in, and inspired by the natural world.

    Head to Patreon.com/rootedhealing to enter this beautiful giveaway.

    And we are returning this summer with our gathering ANCESTRAL, where we embody the ancient ways of our indigenous ancestors - the ones who lived in full relationship with the landscapes - and through roundhouse councils, ceremonies and intimate village life, we access their wisdom and guidance for these turbulent times with new and ancient eyes.

    Explore our other gatherings and psilocybin retreats.

    Connect with us / gift your music.

    Music in this episode: Songs from Bonnie Medicine's latest album Wide Open (it's so beautiful).

    Support the Show.

  • Dr Saskia von Diest is the founder of Ecofluency, an organisation that offers consulting, teaching and facilitation in the science, art and practical magic of Nature communication worldwide. She has a PhD in plant pathology and has held two international collaborative postdoctoral fellowships to research intuitive farming. Ecofluency also promotes other human voices in the broader field of Nature communication, presenting multiple invitations into these deeper ways of knowing, for individual and collective transformation. Saskia has also trained in Family Constellations and in the Way of the Warrior Healer. Born during apartheid in a mixed-race family, she is committed to healing the internal, ancestral and socio-cultural damage that sexism, racism and privilege (white or class-based) causes in the world.

    Saskia is one of our special guests on our year-long slow study course Deepen Your Roots where she’ll be joining us during the module ‘More-than-human kinship’ where we’ll explore:

    Animistic interspecies communicationBirdsong recognition and the myths and folktales carried in their wings and melodiesDeconstructing the dominant anthropocentric over-culture in the great unravelling of these timesDeep apprenticeship with furred, feathered, barked and budded ones

    Deepen Your Roots spans 13 moon cycles, weaving deep ecology, ‘the work that reconnects’, and a folkloric, animistic exploration into the ecological self rewoven with place. It is an intergenerational calling into bioregional guardianship and the cultivation of profound belonging. Throughout the programme you will have the opportunity to explore and develop offerings to nourish your ecological-niche and bring your medicine forth into the world. Use the code DEEPEN10 at checkout for 10% off until Imbolc.

    And we are returning this summer with our gathering ANCESTRAL, where we embody the ancient ways of our indigenous ancestors - the ones who lived in full relationship with the landscapes - and through roundhouse councils, ceremonies and intimate village life, we access their wisdom and guidance for these turbulent times with new and ancient eyes.

    Explore our other gatherings and psilocybin retreats.

    Connect with us / gift your music.

    Music in this episode: Songs from Bonnie Medicine's latest album Wide Open (it's so beautiful).

    Support the Show.

  • Seth Hughes is driven by a determination to remind humans of their intrinsic relationship with the natural world. He believes passionately that the modern human is both lost and disempowered, suffering from a kind of collective amnesia about their roots - but that they have an opportunity now to reconnect with the knowledge - and the simple joy - of our indigenous ancestors.

    Seth's professional background is in filmmaking but more recently he decided to adapt these skills for his own brand of digital storytelling. Sharing stories on social media of our ancestors - of foraging, of folklore and of the pleasure to be had exercising in wilder places, his videos have struck an emotional chord, frequently garnering millions of views.

    Seth also runs a men's group in Cornwall, where they connect with each other through Natural Lifestyle practices, such as barefoot running, tree climbing and movement play - helping men to emotionally ground themselves in nature.

    Seth is a special guest on our year-long slow study course Deepen Your Roots where he’ll be joining us during the module ‘Courting your local flora and fauna’ where we’ll explore:

    Deepening intimacy with the edible and medicinal beings within your bioregionRe-enchanting our ancestral threads through Folkloric foragingApprenticing with a chosen plant or fungi ally Finding the songs and stories woven within the stems and roots

    Deepen Your Roots spans 13 moon cycles, weaving deep ecology, ‘the work that reconnects’, and a folkloric, animistic exploration into the ecological self rewoven with place. It is an intergenerational calling into bioregional guardianship and the cultivation of profound belonging. Throughout the programme you will have the opportunity to explore and develop offerings to nourish your ecological-niche and bring your medicine forth into the world. Use the code DEEPEN10 at checkout for 10% off until Imbolc.

    And we are returning this summer with our gathering ANCESTRAL, where we embody the ancient ways of our indigenous ancestors - the ones who lived in full relationship with the landscapes - and through roundhouse councils, ceremonies and intimate village life, we access their wisdom and guidance for these turbulent times with new and ancient eyes.

    Read Lyla June's article 'Reclaiming our Indigenous European roots'

    Explore our other gatherings and psilocybin retreats.

    Connect with us / gift your music.

    Music in this episode: Songs from Bonnie Medicine's latest album Wide Open.

    Support the Show.

  • This is a different kind of episode, introducing you to Aisha von Nahmmacher, who works with me on rooted healing and we, last minute as ever, decided to record a bonus episode of sorts in honour of the solstice and to mark our full cycle of work together.

    Aisha is a documentary producer currently delving into hidden ancestral practices in Britain and Ireland. She’s also a yoga teacher who fuses the mycelial realm regularly into her work, and she was the curator of our gathering Forestlings, which was a joyous, playful exploration of autumns’ delightful wisdom. So it goes without saying that Aisha is an avid plant + fungi medicine advocate who is also burrowing away to help Rooted Healing grow more roots. You may be hearing more from her as this new cycle of the podcast unfurls


    We went on a meandering escapade through the landscapes of solstices, ancestral stones, ceremony and psilocybin. We spoke of going into the darkness at this potent time and so at the end of this episode we’ve woven in a beautiful song called Let the Light In by Bonnie Medicine from her new album Wide Open.

    Head to rootedhealing.org to explore our gatherings and upcoming online course ‘Deepen Your Roots’. The course begins on Imbolc so it could be a potent time to enrol now amidst the solstice, planting those intentions.

    Thank you Mike Howe and Chris Park for your music ongoing music contributions.

    Support the Show.

  • In this episode I am joined with Nici Harrison, our first ever repeat guest, which marks 2 years of the podcast. After our first ever episode, ‘the art of grief tending’ back in 2021, I have taken part in one of Nici’s online 3 month apprenticeship programmes, and more recently we have worked together on her grief retreat this year and have become dear friends
 we are now merging our work into an exciting new collaboration next year.

    We dive into more nuanced topics, exploring how collective grief relates to our own sorrows, the psychedelic or liminal nature of deep grief and the relationship between grief and plant or fungi medicine ceremonies. This conversation will give you a sense of why we have formed this new partnership and a glimpse into the potential psilocybin has to support the tending of our grief.

    Nici is a beloved grief worker, speaker and founder of The Grief Space. Through her own deep experiences of loss, she came to recognise that our modern culture has forgotten how to grieve. Over the years, Nici has been blessed to learn from great teachers, experience beautiful grief rituals and familiarise herself with traditions and practices of tending to grief. Her work is built on the foundation that grief is sacred and is a radical gateway to a deeper appreciation of life.

    Originating from the root word ‘tenderness’, grief tending invites us to bring compassion to our grief, as we would to a small child or a wild garden. Grief tending is the understanding that to be human is to know loss. It is the practice of welcoming grief so that we can keep our hearts open to life. It is coming home to the recognition that we all have grief, whether it’s for the losses in our lives, the unmet longings or the sorrows of the world.

    Grief tending is the understanding that our earth needs us to grieve, just as it needs us to pay attention. It is the trust that when we grieve and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we open ourselves to connection, authenticity and intimacy. As we remember the lost art of grief tending where all is welcomed, we restore our connection to each other, ourselves and the earth. We emerge with the capacity to hold it all; love and loss, grief and gratitude; life and death.

    The collaboration we are referring to is the mergence of our signature psilocybin retreat ‘Earth Medicine’ with the art of grief tending. So in May next year - 2024, we are holding this first alchemised marriage of work that feels so naturally suited. If you are curious and would like to learn more, head to rootedhealing.org/earth-medicine-grief-tending.

    Nici is also a special guest on our upcoming ‘Deepen Your Roots’ course, which is our year-long slow-study weaving deep ecology, ‘the work that reconnects’, and a folkloric, animistic exploration into the ecological self rewoven with place. Head to rootedhealing.org/deepen to learn more.

    The music in this episode was by Mike Howe and Ruth Blake.

    Support the Show.

  • This episode focusses on the cultivation of belonging through bioregionalism, a life-way that Ben Stopford has explored on a deep level in North Wales. Ben is a facilitator, gardener and gatherer, offering the creation of wild-culture gardens and the pollination of foraging for food, medicine and connection to place. He holds a PGDip in Sustainable Food + Natural Resources and is the founder of Conscious Roots and co-founder of The Kingly Stag. Ben's group work stems from 'The Work That Reconnects' and contemporary Rites of Passage (vision quest), all guided by a deep-rooted, nature-based philosophy.

    This episode is seeded in the merging of our exciting, life-changing course 'Deepen Your Roots', which is a year-long slow-study weaving deep ecology, ‘the work that reconnects’, and a folkloric, animistic exploration into the ecological self rewoven with place. It is a course to cultivate profound belonging and purpose.

    Next enrolment: Imbolc, February 1st, 2024 (we are offering a patron-exclusive discount).

    Learn more about Deepen Your Roots

    Become a podcast patron

    Explore our 2024 gatherings

    Contact us or submit your music

    Follow us on instagram

    Music in this episode was by Mike Howe, Chris Park, Nathalie Nahai and Chiara Gilmore.

    Support the Show.

  • As the world changes, and we rapidly have to alter the way we navigate our existence, Bristol Fungarium, the UK's only organic certified medicinal mushroom producers, believe we can learn much from the fungi world.

    Their core work is to grow local mushroom strains that have developed over millions of years in an attempt to be mindful about their impact on the local flora and fauna. With up to 2 billion ash trees going to perish in the next 2 decades, anything we can do to mitigate the unforeseen consequence of introducing different genetics into a highly complex ecosystem - the team at Bristol Fungarium feel obliged to do.

    In this episode, we have the wonderful Elle Kennedy, who, after 14 years in the world of sales & marketing across Europe & Asia and a lifetime of interest in natural alternative and complementary medicine, found herself on a mushroom farm back in her heartland of Bristol in 2020 and was tasked with putting her skills to better use; launching the Bristol Fungarium brand. When she isn't playing mushroom paparazzi, Elle spends her time studying Western Medical Herbalism with Heartwood, part of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists.

    Links

    Learn more about Earth Medicine, our psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands.Grab the last spot on ForestlingsExplore our online course Deepen Your RootsVisit our website rootedhealing.org and sign up for our newsletterBecome a Patron (and get your 20% discount for Bristol Fungarium!)Follow us on Instagram

    Support the Show.

  • Linguist, author and filmmaker, Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the international non-profit organisation, Local Futures; a pioneer of the worldwide localisation movement, raising awareness about the power of ‘going local’ as a key strategy for restoring ecological, social and spiritual wellbeing. Helena’s books include ‘Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh’, an eye-opening tale of tradition and change in Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”. Together with a film of the same title, Ancient Futures has been translated into more than 40 languages, and sold half a million copies. Her latest book is ‘Local is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness’. Other publications include ‘Bringing the Food Economy Home’ and ‘From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture’. Helena is also the producer of the award-winning documentary ‘The Economics of Happiness’.

    From 1975, Helena worked with the people of Ladakh, to find ways of enabling their culture to meet the modern world without sacrificing social and ecological values. She was the first outsider in modern times to become fluent in the language.

    She has helped to initiate localization movements on every continent, particularly in South Korea and Japan, and co-founded both the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Ecovillage Network.

    In this episode, Helena debunks many myths around the perpetuation of economical globalisation, including agricultural misconceptions, whilst also offering connecting insights into the shift in the human psyche from local life to mainstreamed globalisation.

    Join us at the Planet Local Summit in Bristol.

    Explore our work

    Join us at Forestlings

    Learn more about Earth Medicine

    Offer your music

    Support the Show.

  • Lindsay Branham is a revolutionary eco-doula, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and a social scientist, dedicated to leveraging media and technology to end human rights abuses and ecological disconnect. She is the Founder of Novo film, which inspires imaginative solutions to seemingly insurmountable challenges, as well as a PhD student at Cambridge University exploring nature connectedness at the somatic, sensory level. She is a Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace and was named the inaugural Envision Social Good Fellow by the Independent Film Project and the United Nations. Lindsay served as a media behaviour change specialist for UNICEF and Search for Common Ground, and was a freelance journalist for CNN and the BBC.

    In this episode, we discuss a sensuous, erotic kind of deep ecology, the power of narrative in reshaping social repair, healing chronic illness through trees and interconnectivity, and Lindsay's new book on its way, 'Heartwood'.

    References

    They Came at Night - Novo FilmUndrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals - Alexis Pauline Gumbs

    Links

    Learn more about Earth Medicine, our psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands.Grab the last spot on ForestlingsDribble worthy forestalling feasts on Chippy's instaExplore our online course Deepen Your RootsVisit our website rootedhealing.org and sign up for our newsletterBecome a PatronFollow us on Instagram

    Support the Show.

  • Jill Purce is a renowned voice teacher, Family Constellations therapist and author, who pioneered the international sound healing movement through her rediscovery of ancient vocal techniques and the spiritual potential of the voice as a magical instrument for healing and meditation. Her 1974 book ‘The Mystic Spiral: Journey of the Soul’ was a seminal influence, helping inspire the birth of the modern labyrinth movement. The BBC made an hour-long documentary film about Jill and her work called More Ways Than One: The Mystic Spiral. She produced over 30 books as General Editor of the Thames and Hudson Art and Imagination series, which pioneered a thematic approach to the spiritual and psychological meanings of the art of different cultures.

    Learn more about Earth Medicine, our psilocybin retreats.

    Join us at Forestlings.

    Explore our work.

    Become a Patreon

    With thanks to Mike Howe and Chris Park for the music in this episode, as well as Jill Purce for the overtone chanting snippets.

    Support the Show.

  • As a founding member of YES&: Conscious Living, Lawrence Joye co-curates and runs events and retreats as well as offering 1:1 and Group Developmental Coaching. He is an initiate of the ManKind Project and offers Men's Coaching programmes and workshops as well as co-hosting Menspedition Retreats, which involve pilgrimage and rites of passage as a crusade into the depths and magnificence of our collective and individual masculinity.

    Lawrence has been facilitating The Work That Reconnects for a number of years and is excited to be weaving it into the spaces he creates for men. He finds deep fulfilment in his work supporting groups and individuals to deeply meet themselves and others, cultivating more trust, joy and reverence for life.

    Lawrence currently lives with his family at Cae Mabon in Gwynedd, where he hosts and co-facilitates Men's Retreats as well as managing other in-house projects.

    This conversation spans men’s work, healing the masculine, rebuilding reverence for the hearth and exploring the often overlooked transition into fatherhood.

    Join us at Ancestral (10% off for listeners).

    Learn more about Earth Medicine, our psilocybin retreats.

    Explore our work.

    Become a Patreon!

    With thanks to Mike Howe and Chris Park for the music in this episode.

    Support the Show.

  • Kirra Swenerton M.S. is an edge-walker, healing artist and scientist. Kirra teaches nature reverence, ritual and restoration ecology, bridging the worlds of science and the sacred, merging rigour and ethics with herbal wisdom and ancestral traditions, uplifting vulnerable creatures and revitalising wild places. Kirra specialises in land and water tending, deposession and curse unravelling, plant medicine and psychedelics, dreamwork and ceremony and regularly speaks, teaches and writes about biocultural conservation of entheogenic plants and fungi, with a focus on Peyote and Sonoran Desert toad habitat protection. Kirra upholds the traditions of her British, Irish, Armenian and Italian ancestors and is an initiate in Vedic and Norse spiritual lineages. Kirra serves as the custodian of two salmon-bearing creeks in the mountains of Mendocino, California and frequently travels to the San Francisco Bay Area. You can connect with Kirra at rootwisdom.com or at the Atihana Nature Preserve.

    References

    Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund
    Grow Medicine

    Join us at Ancestral (10% off for listeners).

    Learn more about Earth Medicine, our psilocybin retreats.

    Explore our work.

    Become a Patreon!

    With thanks to Mike Howe, Chris Park and Dorrie Joy for the music in this episode.

    Support the Show.

  • Elisa Fusi is an Italian molecular biologist, visionary herbalist and writer, with a research focus on human pathology, mycology, neuroscience and ecology. With an ongoing investigation on folk medicine, ancestral rituals and indigenous cultures all over the world, Elisa has studied and lived with different indigenous groups in Madagascar and across Central and South America. She later obtained a diploma in Mayan Medicine issued by the Mayan Medicine Institute of Guatemala.

    After a near-death experience her quest for a more complete understanding of human consciousness became stronger. She founded an environmental organization called You Are Home and later in 2012 she created Alquimia, an educational centre promoting alternative teachings on herbalism, shamanism and alchemy in Costa Rica.

    Elisa is also a PNEI (PsychoNeuroEndocrineImmunology) practitioner and Psycho-oncologist offering advice, resources, courses, and support to people with cancer and autoimmune disorders at her open clinic in Costa Rica.

    In this episode, Elisa discusses the patterns of illness and the key insights from her extensive research and practice with chronic disease. She discusses the ancestral approach to healing disease through altered states of consciousness and the initiations one can take to become an animistic healer.

    Join us at Ancestral (10% off for listeners).

    Register for our Summer Solstice ceremonial gathering.

    Learn more about Earth Medicine, our psilocybin retreats.

    Explore our work.

    Become a Patreon!

    With thanks to Mike Howe, Ojhroy and Chris Park for the music in this episode.

    Support the Show.

  • Violeta Abitia is an artist, energy healer and reiki master who leads reiki courses and children’s art and mindfulness programmes in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico. Violeta seeks to deconstruct the patterns that take us away from what she calls the most sacred experience granted to every human being on this planet: "Awakening".

    Woven into this episode is music from Miguel Angel Sui Sanz, who is an indigenous musician who busks in San Cristobal de las Casas. This episode is a nostalgic taste of a chapter in Mexico, finally reaching ears after a year and a half in the archive. We hope it brings you a joyful and nourishing taste of Violeta's wisdom and Miguel's heartfelt melodies.

    Join us at Ancestral, July 10-16, Yr Wyddfa

    Explore our other gatherings

    Become a patron

    With thanks to Mike Howe and Miguel Angel Sui Sanz for their music contributions.

    Support the Show.

  • Nathalie Nahai is an expert in psychology, persuasive tech & human behaviour, drawing upon a rich background in psychology, web design and the arts, to offer a unique vantage point from which to examine the complex challenges we face today. Her best-selling book: Webs Of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion has been adopted as the go-to manual by business leaders and universities alike, and her new book, Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience, has been described as “One of the defining business books of our times”. Whether speaking to audiences of thousands, or leading executive roundtables for private clients, Nathalie’s ability to ignite conversation and offer tools and strategies with which to ethically harness human potential, has helped countless organisations transform how they approach business.

    Nathalie is the host of The Hive Podcast, enquiring into our relationship with technology, one another and the natural world. You can find Nathalie’s interview with me, which was episode 106. CEREMONY, SONG & BELONGING: REKINDLING RELATIONSHIP IN A FRANTIC WORLD. Nathalie is also a spectacular multidisciplinary artist and the second half of this conversation offers a rare glimpse into Nathalie’s creative world, where we’ve woven in one of her original songs, which goes straight to the core of existence itself. Explore her creative works. This is such a powerful conversation spanning what it really means to be human and how the technological world poses such nuanced, thought provoking questions for us to explore, especially with the rise of AI in the arts.

    Learn more about The Digital Age: Understanding & Reclaiming Systems of Power


    Apply for the final spot at Earth Medicine.

    Join us at ANCESTRAL and explore our other gatherings, episodes and website.

    Gift forward by becoming a patron. Bonus content comes out with every episode alongside giveaways and discounts.

    Thank you to Mike Howe, Ojhro and Chris Park for the music in this episode.

    Contribute your music and artwork.

    Support the Show.

  • A Spring Equinox episode to inspire new beginnings and plant seeds of change... Rob Hopkins is the co-founder of Transition Network and Transition Town Totnes, and author of The Transition Handbook, The Transition Companion, The Power of Just Doing Stuff, 21 Stories of Transition and most recently ‘From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want’. He is an Ashoka Fellow, has spoken at TED Global and at several TEDx events, and appeared in the French film phenomenon ‘Demain‘. He is a keen gardener, a founder of the New Lion Brewery in Totnes (an example of 'REconomy'), and a director of Totnes Community Development Society, the group behind Atmos Totnes, an ambitious, community-led development project. Rob hosts the podcast ‘From What If to What Next‘, inviting imaginative thinkers to travel in a time machine to 2030 and create a visceral, tangible, innovative sense of a greener, more integrated future, where he champions collective imagination.

    Rob shows us that rapid, radical and resilient change can happen. It is possible and here are some ideas, solutions and ways to create a greener future joyfully.

    Recommended reading:
    The Entangled Activist by Anthea Lawson

    Join us at ANCESTRAL and explore our other gatherings, episodes and website.

    Gift forward by becoming a patron. Bonus content comes out with every episode alongside giveaways and discounts.

    Thank you to Mike Howe and Chris Park for the music in this episode.

    Contribute your music and artwork.

    Support the Show.