beneath the stream: Recent Episodes
beneaththestream
the human experience in the non-human world: discussion and experiences on location and in the studio
Around the world there are over 100 human names that mean ‘The Sun’; perhaps the clearest evidence of us humans being inspired by, and acknowledging the significance of, a 4.5 billion-year-old yellow dwarf star, a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core.
Its benevolence and its destructive capacity affect all aspects of our being, our cultures, our artworks, and take The Sun away and Polar Night makes us sad, detached, without energy, struggling to concentrate, struggling to stay awake. Give us too much of it and we cannot survive its power.
With music from Colin Williams
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Equinox
Rush
2001 A Space Odyssey
Richard Strauss ‘Sunrise’
Sun Studio
RKO Pictures
Isla Santa Catalina
Helios
U2
Kiribati
Hopi
New Mexico
Mexico FIFA 1986
Serotonin
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Carrington Event
Svalbard
Carl Nielson
A high tide coming
Will eat the land
A tide no breakwaters can withstand.
Act 1 Scene 1 Peter Grimes, Op. 33 Benjamin Britten, libretto Montagu Slater
On a cold winter's day, we go down to a river that becomes the sea and, in an exploration of the complex human relations with the tide, we go with the ‘ebb and flow’, feel the currents, watch the high water mark and study what gets cast up. We are waiting to see what the tide brings and what it takes away; especially at this time in human history.
With music from Colin Williams.
‘JUST AS THE TIDE WAS FLOWING’ BY JON BODEN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST https://www.jonboden.com
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
River Alde
Benjamin Britten
Corhampton
Svalbard
Moby Duck
Wild Man of Orford
Wadden Sea
Just as the Tide was Flowing
Isle of Iona
Dunwich
Woodhenge
Doggerland
Cockles
Julius Caesar; William Shakespeare
We live in the age of the 6th Mass Extinction; one that is human caused. Yet, amidst all this loss, we are still finding so called ‘Lazarus’ species; creatures that we believe we had extirpated but have been re-found. And some that have not been proven, but many fervently believe are still alive, clinging on to existence away from human gaze and knowledge; ready for a second coming.
Why are we so reluctant to let go of that which has demonstrably gone? Why do we hold a desperate desire that some creatures are still there, but we didn’t care enough at the time to stop their eradication? In this episode we explore stories of the Tasmanian Tiger, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and others, and wonder why do so many of us ache for natural loss not to be final.
With music from Colin Williams
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Thylacine
Arthur Conan Doyle
Cottingley Faeries
Sixth Mass Extinction
Yangtze River Dolphin
Passenger Pigeon
Honshu Wolf
Mexican Grizzly Bear
Tasmanian Emu
Tasman Starling
Coelacanth
New Zealand Storm Petrel
Mahogany Glider
Mountain Pygmy Possum
Adelaide Pygmy Blue-tongued Skink
Bridled Nail-tailed Wallaby
Night Parrot
Aldo Leopold’s ‘Sand County Almanac’
Darren Rees
Ghosts of Gone Birds
BirdLife International
Carolina Parakeet
John James Audubon
Galapagos
Lonesome George
Natural History Museum, Tring
Sam Keen
Of all the ways we relate to the natural world it could be said that the human sense of smell is by turns our most powerful sense and yet also our weakest link with the rest of Nature. Scents can transport us, can help us form enduring memories, proves the link between our olfactory system and our limbic system.
The human nose and brain can detect 1 trillion different odours yet we have inadequate language to describe them, often amalgamate them into collective smells (“it smells like a forest”) and struggle to quieten our mind in Nature and become one with the odours. With contributions from Ella Roberts, Sam Lee, Devi Singh and Gina Gow, we attempt to make sense of scents.
Music from Colin Williams
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Jasmine Tom Robbins Sam Lee Nature Moroccan souk Herb Robert Peak District Patrick Süskind Freshwater Mint Meadowsweet Adam Thorpe Wiltshire Downs Hiraeth Cistus Wild Thyme Cairngorms Cuban cigar Fern Schumer Chapman Balsam Poplar Tamarack Song Aldo Leopold Red Fox Henry Beston Sagebrush Yellowstone Western Meadowlark White Sage Bay of Fundy Bougainvillaea Fungi Amanita Neroli Rosemary
Is song connected to even deeper roots than time and place? Can music and song can bring us closer to the non-human world? Does musical meaning arise from the experience of inhabiting the world and is it shared freely between humans and birds and trees and ‘all our relations’?
We explore all this and much more with the wonderful Sam Lee. A highly inventive and original singer, folk song interpreter, passionate conservationist, song collector and successful creator of live events. Alongside his organisation, The Nest Collective, Sam has shaken up the music scene breaking boundaries between folk and contemporary music and the assumed places and ways folksong is appreciated.
And he is the author of the acclaimed ‘The Nightingale’, a book about a bird whose presence and reassurance of nature represents an English totemism, a symbol of a visceral relationship with the natural world, myth and identity. Mixing grief, hope and vision for the future, we explore how Nature projects on to us, not us on to Nature.
Sam Lee website
The Nightingale book
Old Wow album
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Jeannie Robertson - MacCrimmons Lament Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Bernard Butler Buzzard Totem Anthropomorphism Heron Kestrel Ornithology Totem Pole Ray Mears Shamanism Music Declares Emergency Wembley Stadium Hans Christian Andersen J M W Turner Hawthorn Supermoon Ecology Solastalgia Caroline Lucas MP Benedict MacDonald - Rebirding Monsanto Siren Calling Fridays for Future
An archetype, a creature that we impose human ideas, ideals, values and characteristics upon? A real, spectral being, visiting us from the demonic world? Or simply our domestic companion for thousands of years that we have venerated, commemorated and depicted in myriad ways? Hounds have been - and continue to be - all of these for us humans.
As a denizen of the wild around them, humans have encountered wolves, jackals and dogs dependent upon geography, and those cultures have found ways to bring those relationships into myth, legend, worship, movies and more. In this episode we ponder Anubis in Egypt and the Beast of Bray Road, Robert Johnson’s ‘Hellhound on My Trail’ and the legend of East Anglia’s ‘Black Shuck’.
THEME MUSIC BY COLIN WILLIAMS
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh Black Shuck East Anglia The Hound of the Baskervilles Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Flag Fen Caldicot Shamanism Saint Christopher New Testament Bog bodies River Styx Spanish Water Dog Anubis Sirius Tutankhamun Werewolf Dogman Encounters Radio Beast of Bray Road Jung Archetypes Jackal Osiris Sumarian Goddess Bau The Omen Lycanthrope Beowulf Grendel Scucca Hellhound on My Trail Robert Johnson Delta Blues Gospel music Caerwent Staines Leiston Abbey Felixstowe Gorleston Long Island Ipswich
The power of place, our fascination with what is not human . . . these have been cornerstones of Beneath the Stream since we began. But so too is the power of the human mind, our perceptions, our telling of stories and perhaps, most of all, the telling of stories to ourselves through culture and memory and the tricks and truths we encounter.
The work of author Ed Parnell is a powerful illustration of all of the above. His acclaimed book Ghostland has been described as “Parnell’s moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – and what is haunting him. It is a unique and elegiac meditation on grief, memory and longing, and of the redemptive power of stories and nature.” Ghostland was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley 2020 Award for memoir.
Speaking in the book of his memories he says, “All of it was real, I think”.
Ed Parnell’s website https://edwardparnell.com
INTRODUCTORY AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC: Colin Williams singing ‘Breaths’ by Sweet Honey in the Rock
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
M R James https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._R._James Algernon Blackwood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Blackwood Stonehenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge Garth Marenghi's Darkplace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Marenghi%27s_Darkplace Boston, Lincs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston,_Lincolnshire Holbeach Marsh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holbeach_Marsh New York - Lou Reed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_(album) Fata Morgana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage) Pilgrim Hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim_Hospital Illustrated London News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illustrated_London_News The Willows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Willows_(story) The Danube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube Lakenheath Fen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakenheath_Fen_RSPB_reserve Golden Oriole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_golden_oriole Arthur Machen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Machen Alan Garner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner Weirdstone of Brisingamen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weirdstone_of_Brisingamen The Moon of Gomrath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_of_Gomrath Hemmingford Grey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemingford_Grey Robert Lloyd-Parry http://www.nunkie.co.uk Waterland, Graham Swift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterland_(novel) The Wash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wash Jodrell Bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodrell_Bank_Observatory E F Benson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._F._Benson Borth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borth William Hope Hodgson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hope_Hodgson Folk Horror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_horror The House on the Borderland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_on_the_Borderland The Blood on Satan’s Claw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blood_on_Satan%27s_Claw The Wicker Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicker_Man Witchfinder General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchfinder_General_(film) Psychogeography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography The Blair Witch Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project Lapwing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_lapwing Bella Lugosi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bela_Lugosi An American Werewolf in London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Werewolf_in_London Tolkien https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien Harry Potter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter The X-files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Oh,_Whistle,_and_I%27ll_Come_to_You,_My_Lad%27 Watership Down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down
“There are many songs in the landscape”, says Ed O’Brien, guitarist and member of Radiohead, “it roots you in what it means to be a human being; what are we doing walking on this planet”. In this podcast it’s our delight to have time with Ed as he describes the making of his solo album ‘Earth’ in retreat in mid-Wales, amidst a timeless, rich vein of Celtic tradition, and in Brazil amidst the polyrhythms of insects that are at the heart of samba.
Landscape, belief, aliveness, quantum physics, spirituality, and reading poetry aloud in the mountains, the interview dances through concepts, connections and contrasts, from a man who continues to be creating contemporary music that is a record of time, place, resonance and emotions. “Nature and landscape are not always easy places to be but you couldn’t feel more alive”.
Ed O’Brien and ‘Earth’ https://www.eobmusic.com
INTRODUCTORY AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC: Colin Williams
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Led Zeppelin Bon Iver Jack Kerouac Snowdonia Radiohead Brazil Oxfordshire Vale of the White Horse Mid-Wales Cambrian Mountains Jay Griffiths - Wild Rhayader River Wye Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass William Blake Dylan Thomas Celtic Nations The Shard Plynlimon Rebecca Solnit - Wanderlust Barry Lopez Aberystwyth Ezra Pound Dead Poets Society Atheism Agnosticism Buddhism Aldous Huxley - The Perennial Philosophy Sufism Kabbalah Hinduism Samba Laura Marling Nick Drake New Mexico Arizona Dehli Rajasthan Bhutan Sámi Aretha Franklin Quantum physics Paul McCartney
Gillian Burke is a biologist, TV presenter, public speaker, voiceover artist, writer and mother, and she joins us to discuss how people can relate to, and tell stories of, the human and non-human world. At a critical time for our environment scientists and artists can tell stories, especially when every single person and every single organism has a story to tell, about staying alive.
With her African, Asian, European, Native American, Oriental and Polynesian ancestry she uses different perspectives is to push past boundaries and discover greater empathy and connection with each other and the world we live in. A passion for science and storytelling reside in the universal themes of defeat and victory, endurance and resilience, the light and shade of being alive.
Gillian Burke’s website http://www.gillianburkevoice.com
INTRODUCTORY AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC: Colin Williams
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Kenya Nairobi University of Bristol Blow Flies Power lifting Cool Earth Professor Wangari Maathai Green Belt Movement Kenya Survival International First Nations Celtic Cornwall Beltane Stonehenge Matt Chatfield, The Cornwall Project Medieval Druids
We are delighted to be joined in this episode by archaeologist, historian, author and presenter Neil Oliver, who talks with us about the places where we can be reminded of things that have affected every version of humanity and can imagine we reach through the thin divide between us and the past. Places where we understand that humanity is a work in progress; that Nature is not finished with us.
Since the last ice age the landscape has become a priceless time capsule preserving moments of human history. Our story is in the land. We can read it and touch it; the land can tell us who we are and how we got here and, as Neil says, here we can discover “the love and grief that our ancestors have left, or have been put, in the ground; no more potent magic is available to us human beings.”
Neil Oliver’s website Book: The History of the British Isles in 100 Places Podcast: Love Letter to the British Isles
INTRODUCTORY AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC: Colin Williams
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Box Hill, Surrey A A Gill Joanna Lumley Homo heidelbergensis Iona Westminster Abbey Ness of Brodgar Céide Fields Torr An Aba, Iona Vedbæck, Denmark Fernand Braudel Olduvai E O Wilson Happisburgh footprints River Thames The Wash Homo antecessor BBC Coast King Solomon Fife Walkers Crisps Mesolithic Loch Doon Chert Smalls Lighthouse Association of Lighthouse Keepers Orford Lighthouse Llandudno copper mines
Entering wild water we have the chance to become one with the river, the kingfisher, the sea, the seal. Or instead the visceral thrill of breaking the surface ice can leave us, in Karen’s words, “screamy flappy and trying to quieten the survival part of your brain”. It all depends it seems on what intention you set out with - a personal wild experience with no safety forms to complete.
With Karen of the glorious Swim Wild podcast as our guide, we explore how everyone comes to wild swimming for different reasons. How magical places and times of day are enhanced simply by being held by the water. As she says, each wild swim is unique and once it trickles through your fingers it’s gone, you can’t hold it, and there its no other recourse than to plan your next one.
Swim Wild podcast ~ the podcast for the wild swimming community. Interviewing members of your tribe about iconic swims, personal challenges, the friends they have made, the impact on their health and well being and finding a deeper connection with the natural world. Testing out the theory that, whenever and wherever we swim outside, we "emerge from the water better versions of ourselves".
INTRODUCTORY MUSIC EXPLORING THE BLUE BY LUKA BLOOM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST
Luka Bloom https://www.lukabloom.com
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Lake District, Cumbria UK Great North Swim Gilly McArthur Jini Reddy, Wanderland WhaleFest Sunderland Terns Kingfisher
Food can be about more than taste, it can be about the gathering and that when you ‘spend a lot of time in Nature you have another relationship with it’. In this episode we learn much, especially about the uses of Arctic plants, from a joyous conversation with Eva Gunnare, who has made her home in Jokkmokk, a place that is the heart of indigenous Sami culture in Sweden.
Unlike may of us, the Sami have had a different connection to the land: they use it but do not own it and work together to make a living. Indigenous peoples can have deep-rooted traditions of using plants for medicine and food - a tradition where the difference between survival food and base food is knowledge, knowledge that can be lost but can also be kept alive.
Eva guides tours and gives ‘taste performances’ and you can find out more at her website. Eva's 'Rose' song:
"My rose, my lily, I would like to share every day of my life with you. When I have become gray, I have spent every day of my life with you". A love song that I usually dedicate my life in Jokkmokk with plants, people, forests and all.
INTRODUCTORY MUSIC BY EVA GUNNARE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST
All other music by Colin Williams
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Sámi Jokkmokk Stockholm Kvikkjokk Mountain Sorrel Padjelanta National Park Goahti turf hut Alpine Bistort Wild Angelica Rowan Birch Rosebay Willowherb Reindeer Scots Pine Cloudberry Arctic Bramble Bilberry Bog Bilberry Joik Noiadi / Shaman Nettles Dandelion Meadowsweet Glögg
“Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf”, Aldo Leopold. Prejudices, storytelling, popular culture and medieval demonisation populate the landscape we have created for the wolf; one that often bears little resemblance to the harsh and diverse landscapes they actually call home.
However, it is as a non-human creature that can seem all too human in its habits, that we humans seem to struggle the most. In this podcast we ponder the history of our relationship with wolves, the detail of how they live and where, the motifs we have created and how they live alongside us, and increasingly so. What is our future alongside wolves? What is the wolf’s future alongside us?
MUSIC BY COLIN WILLIAMS
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Yellowstone National Park Theodore Roosevelt Aldo Leopold David Mech Doug Smith Jim Halfpenny Dan Hartman Red Hot Chilli Peppers Rudyard Kipling Nunamiut Inupiat of Alaska Blackfoot Confederacy Pawnee Zuni Fenrir Lupa romana Little Red Riding Hood Aesop’s Fables Three Little Pigs Big Bad Wolf Of Wolves and Men - Barry Lopez The Great American Wolf - Bruce Hampton The Grey - Liam Neeson Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon The Colour of Money Sasquatch An American Werewolf in London Rietschen Trophic cascade E O Wilson Ed Bangs
“Long ago when animals could speak …”. In this episode we explore the boundary lines between non-human species and ourselves, boundary lines that many indigenous peoples - and our ancestors - did not see, and the ability, or not for communication to pass across that boundary. Today, for western society, it is only in children’s novels that animals can speak and be heard.
So much is invested by animals in the biology of communication and we can teach creatures about human communication but is it inconceivable that they have an ability to speak to us in their form? In maintaining scientific distance do we only allowed artists and musicians to show us that other species have ‘language’ and we should not treat the non-human as less than ourselves?
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
TOGETHER WITH ADDITIONAL MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE BY DAVID ROTHENBERG
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Sitting Bull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitting_Bull Tales from Ovid - Ted Hughes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_Ovid Chaser - border collie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaser_(dog) Kanzi - bonobo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanzi Raven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven Greater Honeyguide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_honeyguide Red-tailed Hawk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-tailed_hawk Watership Down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down The Jungle Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_Book The Chronicles of Narnia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia John Masefield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Masefield Sperm Whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_whale Orca or Killer Whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whale Blue Whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_whale Corky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corky_(killer_whale) David Rothenberg http://www.davidrothenberg.net Thousand Mile Song https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/07/scienceandnature Birds Why Birds Sing https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/10/featuresreviews.guardianreview5 Bug Music https://www.bugmusicbook.com Eisteddfod https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisteddfod Jim Nollman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Nollman Dolphin Dreamtime http://www.doyletics.com/_arj1/dolphind.htm Kamchatka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamchatka_Peninsula Henry Beston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Beston Tree networks https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/ Plants and sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_bioacoustics Himalayan Balsam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impatiens_glandulifera David Abram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Abram Becoming Animal https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/318/becoming-animal-by-david-abram/ Prince Charles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles,_Prince_of_Wales Real Magic - Dean Radin https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/551604/real-magic-by-dean-radin-phd/ Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Triffids Evelyn Glennie https://www.evelyn.co.uk Monica Gagliano https://www.monicagagliano.com Plant Consciousness https://www.plantconsciousness.com Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal World - Stephen Harrod Buhner https://www.stephenharrodbuhner.com/about/ Kurukindi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ77sYSqD6o
The human and the non-human claim rivers as their own. By the banks of the River Kennet we conjour with our thoughts and experiences of rivers waters, along with those of a diverse cast of that includes: Roger Deakin, Bruce Springsteen, Norman Maclean, Masuru Emoto, Feargal Sharkey, Icy Sedgewick, Lewis Mumford, Michael Harner, Bedřich Smetana and Joseph Conrad.
We take in the travels, contours, myths, creatures, stories and spirits of rivers such as the: Awash, Tigris, Indus, Yellow, Nile, Danube, Amazon, Alde, Namada, Volga, Boyne, Crystal, Laxa, Congo, Moldau, Tana, and Everglades. We fight over them, deify them, we use them and misuse them, and yet what runs through them, because of us and despite us, is the the lifeblood of our world.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
The River Kennet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Kennet Water Crowfoot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranunculus_aquatilis Water Vole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_water_vole Grass Snake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_snake Reed Bunting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_reed_bunting Brown Trout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_trout Brook Lamprey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brook_lamprey Crayfish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austropotamobius_pallipes Mayfly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayfly Caddisfly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caddisfly Awash River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awash_River River Tigris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigris River Indus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River Yellow River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_River River Nile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile River Danube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube River Amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_River River Alde https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Alde Emperor Claudius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudius Boudicca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica Pied Kingfisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_kingfisher Water Monitor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_water_monitor Lewis Mumford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford River Namada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmada_River River Volga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_River Isis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis River Boyne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Boyne Kelpie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelpie Morgan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgen_(mythological_creature) Personhood for rivers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_personhood Animism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism Roger Deakin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Deakin West Indian Manatee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Indian_manatee Crystal River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_River,_Florida The Salmon of Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_of_Knowledge Laxa https://www.nat.is/laxa-river/ Kushtaka, Tlingit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushtaka Selkie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie Amazon River Dolphin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_river_dolphin The Grindylow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grindylow Icy Sedgewick http://www.icysedgwick.com Peg Powla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_Powler Hamish Henderson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamish_Henderson Goðafoss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goðafoss Michael Harner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Harner Mircia Eliade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade Achuar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achuar The Fighting Temeraire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fighting_Temeraire Heart of Darkness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness River Congo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_River Apocalypse Now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_Now Bruce Springsteen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Springsteen The River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_River_(Bruce_Springsteen_album) Bedřich Smetana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedřich_Smetana River Moldau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vltava Baiji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiji Masuru Emoto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto Chlorpyrifos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorpyrifos Chalk streams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk_stream Feargal Sharkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feargal_Sharkey River Tana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tana_(Norway) Everglades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everglades Okavango https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okavango_Delta Daintree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daintree_Rainforest Cantabria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantabria Norman Maclean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean
How do we each respond to the environmental alarms that are being sounded by climate, nature, youth and the ocean? In this episode we feature interviews with Roger Hardy and Rhett Griffiths - wave-tossed thoughts from the tideline of the North Sea - plus a recording of Rhett’s epic poem ‘The Tipping Tide’.
Artists suggest different ways of seeing the world and, in response to these issues and as part of Siren Festival in 2019, artist and sculptor Roger Hardy created a powerful installation and multiple figurative sculptural piece on Aldeburgh beach entitled ‘Time and Tide’. He also created ‘Lookout’, a human figure gazing out at the sea from the South Beach Lookout. Here was also installed - in written form and in audio recoding - ‘The Tipping Tide’, a poem by Rhett Griffiths.
With extracts of Colin singing ‘Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy’, we explore what the sea says to us.
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Rhett Griffiths
poem - The Tipping Tide
Roger Hardy
Siren Festival Roger Hardy’s ‘Time and Tide’ Roger Hardy and Rhett Griffiths’ 'Lookout' and 'Tipping Tide' Lancaster Dawlish Aldeburgh Festival Suffolk Devi Singh Heathcote Williams Benjamin Britten South Beach Lookout Greta Thunberg School strikes Mudlarking Felixstowe
An archetype, a creature that we impose human ideas, ideals, values and characteristics upon. An unknowable, untouchable creature of the dark, whose call provokes fear and awe. A silent, surreptitious, living breathing feathered predator, whose beyond-human abilities allow it to master the night and span almost every habitat on Earth. Which of these is Owl for you?
As a family of birds, owls are all of these and more, and we explore their role in human culture from 30,000 years ago to the present day, as well as sharing tales of owl encounters around the globe. Evil messenger and harbinger of Death? Wise councillor and friend from childhood literature? Owl can be what each of us bring to it but is also master of its world.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Forest Eagle Owl Sinharaja, Sri Lanka Pliny the Elder Tengmalm’s Owl Florence Nightingale Pablo Picasso Winnie the Pooh Bagpuss Tawny Owl Eric Hosking Ural Owl Sir David Attenborough Hawk Owl Saariselkä, Finland Little Owl Chauvet Cave, France Eurasian Scops Owl Athena Harry Potter Western Screech Owl Hopi Sokoke Scops Owl, Kenya Aztec god of death Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee Barn Owl William Wordsworth Tlingit Egyptian Book of the Dead Great Horned Owl Seminole Apache The Secret Life of the Owl, John Lewis-Stempel Great Grey Owl Barred Owl Minnesota, USA Eurasian Eagle Owl Eurasian Pygmy Owl Pel’s Fishing Owl Blakiston’s Fish Owl Snowy Owl Twin Peaks, David Lynch The Messengers, Mike Clelland Whitley Strieber Owlman, Cornwall The Mothman Prophecies, John Keel Mark Twain Elf Owl Short-eared Owl Denmark Öland, Sweden Goldcrest “In a hole with an owl” The Fast Show
“What avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?”, said writer Aldo Leopold, and in this episode we revisit what the human concept of wilderness means and where we might find it. Unmodified, unspoiled, on the edge? When in our history was the point when humans changed their view of wilderness?
With incidental music from Colin, we consider how wilderness means many differing things to different people - it is ‘home’ for some and hostile for others - and discuss what our view of it says about us. Is our definition derived from an International Union for the Conservation of Nature edict, or is it reflect - or even imposed - by the human approach to the way we make art? Ultimately, is wilderness still a valid notion or is it beyond our reach, beyond our gift to bestow, at a time when perhaps we need it more than ever?
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Jane Smith Darren Rees Kitty Jones Chris Wallbank Julian Hoffman Beauchene Island, Falklands Bay of Biscay, France & Spain Pasvik Valley, Norway Unst, Shetland Spitsbergen Hoo Peninsular, England Dan Richards IUCN wilderness definition 1B Xia Gui - master chinese painter Old Testament Paleolithic art Sicily rock art caves Shan shui - master chinese painter Thomas Moran The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (painting) The Sublime (artistic movement) Sewell Newhouse (trap maker) Industrial Revolution Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (painting by J. M. W. Turner) Smithsonian, Washington DC Aboriginal Australian art Shoshone Ansel Adams BBC Planet Earth John Muir Bushcraft Aldo Leopold Annie Dillard Edward Abbey Kvitøya Island, Svalbard Barry Lopez Of Wolves and Men Jordan Bedouin All Things are Quite Silent (English folk song) Franklin Expedition
The Sea ~ a prelude
Summoning the spirit of a forthcoming full podcast on The Sea, we tease with Rhett Griffiths reading an extract from his poem ‘The Tipping Tide’ (more of the poem and an interview to come), Colin singing ‘Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy’, plus wave-tossed thoughts recorded by the sea-washed shingle on the tideline of a grey North Sea.
All in rather lively STEREO by way of a change. Enjoy.
The way that people respond to wild places lights them up; so proposes writer Dan Richards, who’s latest acclaimed book, ‘Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth’, explores what wilderness means to us. In this podcast he discusses whether our response to wilderness is bearing witness to the traces of humans who have been affected by places that, in our imagination, are meant to be savage and untameable.
Does wilderness comprise the places where a writer can touch ‘other’? Be lonely? Feel alive? Escape human connection? Or see what the world would be like without us? These places change us, and with music by Dan himself and prompting from Colin - solo in this episode - together they ponder ultimately whether humans are entitled to go to these places that might themselves be irrevocably changed by our visits?
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth
Wealden Literary Festival
Dan Richards
Svalbard
Ny Ålesund
Polar Bear
Climate change
Desolation Peak
Jack Kerouac
On the Road
Thoreau
Walden
Roald Dahl
Francis Bacon
Edward Abbey
Gary Snyder
Cairngorm Mountains
Bothy
Iceland sæluhús
Mars Desert Research Station
Cordouan Lighthouse
Ray Bradbury
The Foghorn
The Signalman, Charles Dickens
Roger Deakin
Nicky Wire, Manic Street Preachers
Oscar II Land
From the North-west passage to Niels Bohr via Bruce Chatwin, Bardsey Island, Joan Baez and Blue Whales, our journey on this podcast explores the physicality, spirituality and ‘otherness’ of pilgrimage. Recorded on location on the Camino de Santiago in Asturias, northern Spain we ponder the meaning of this human act of endurance, faith and meditation.
What do we learn when we feel the earth on our skin and feel, and touch or reconnect to, something more: to meet the crossing points to our ancestors, or the migratory routes of birds, or profound non-human experiences. Accompany us and discover if we are in fact ‘nobody to the hills; just a body, feeling’.
With music by Colin Williams.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Asturias Biodiverse Camino de Santiago Oviedo Cathedral of San Salvador Frédéric Gros: A Philosophy of Walking Satish Kumar Green lanes Croagh, Ireland Kumano Kodō, Japan Kumano Shan Zan Via Francigena, Italy Pilgrims Way, North Wales Holywell Bardsey Island Mount Kailash Circuit Tibet Matthew Oates Migration of birds Santa Cristina de Lena Swifts Shamanism John Clare Brill Building, Broadway Goffin & King Elton John Cafe Wah?, Greenwich Village Ellis Island Sicilian Black Mountains, Wales Bruce Chatwin Niels Bohr Quantum Physics Paleolithic rock art John Coltrane Joan Baez Bob Dylan Blue Whale Northwest Passage John Franklin Michael Palin: Erebus Stan Rodgers Michael Meade: Fate and Destiny the Two Agreements of the Soul
Recorded on Hampstead Heath in London, we take a journey into some of the most threatened places and habitats of the non-human world by talking with Julian Hoffman, author of the newly published and acclaimed book ‘Irreplaceable’. He eloquently weaves accounts of both loss and ‘radical hopefulness’ through the stories of the people working to save these places, and through our conversation we seek to answer questions about our relationship with the non-human.
Are stories becoming ever more important for us to navigate the great challenging environmental issues of our time? Why do locations become places of importance to humans? Why do some enlarge what ‘home’ means to them by including the non-human? How do we resist being divorced from the natural world by the those pursuing power and greed? How is it that children still engage with the non-human in the little details and small places unselfconscious about engaging with nature?
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Irreplaceable
Julian Hoffman
Hoo Peninsular
John Keats
Mavrovo National Park - north Macedonia
Meteora monastery west Greece
Watford allotments
Wales
Gwent Levels
Wordsworth
Future Generations Act
Cairngorms
Jim Harrison
Václav Cílek
Serengeti
Great Expectations
David Abram
Nan Shepherd
Arctic Tern
Bangka island, Indonesia
There is perhaps no creature that better encapsulates our conflicted relationship with the non-human world. Think of the complex mix of ideas that we humans associate with bears in modern times: child’s toy; indigenous people’s power totem; the reality of human-bear antagonism; the fear of unpredictable predators; celestial constellation; Boston Bruins; Chicago Bears; Yogi; Goldilocks; the list goes on. Through their place for us in myth, symbolism, history and reality do bears ‘see’ through us, and in doing so allow us to see beyond our humanity and glimpse again how we are primordially connected to the natural world?
With music from Colin, and recordings from in the field in Asturias, northern Spain, amidst the mountains, screes, meadows and forests of biologically-rich Somiedo Natural Park, we explore the ideas that humans hold regarding Bear, whilst seeking an encounter for real with a being that is now scarce in western Europe.
With special thanks to Marco and Wild Watching Spain.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Somiedo Natural Park
Asturias Cantabrian Brown Bear
Grizzly Man movie
Grenadier Guards bearskins
Bear clan
Eight species of bear
Kodiak Bear
Romania Bears
Nicolae Ceausescu
Bears in Britain
Cave Bear Grizzly Bear
Winnie the Pooh
Gentle Ben
Bear senses
Bear Totem
Spirituality and Bear
Nature, the non-human - and humans too - connect together in the world of sounds. We are all auditory creatures. However, how do we non-humans relate to what we hear? How do we experience these sounds and where do we store the images and memories we associate with them: in our heads, our hearts, our cells, or all of those?
With three chosen non-human sounds that mean something to him and spark discussion, plus his own music, Colin considers: the messages that the non-human shares with us; the difference between noise and sound; seeking being unsettled by a natural sound; how sounds herald other beings as visitors in ‘our’ world; and how we feel their presence.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Whale blowing
Blue Whale
Science of sounds as a sight
Cockchafer / May Bug
Emotional Reaction Model - Misophonia
Echoic memory
Dylan Thomas
Love in the Asylum Richard Adams Watership Down
Skylark
Vaughan Williams
The Lark Ascending Thomas Moore
Philip Hoare
Cape Cod
Melissa Harrison
Rain
Hinduism
River Ganges
Mary Oliver
At the River Clarion
Night distorts the human world and, as we become separated from what is not human, is the night the way we reconnect with that experience? Sat in a final fragment of Dunwich’s 10th century Greyfriars Monastery, near a single tombstone of All Saints Churchyard, we record this podcast at night in one of the “most haunted places in England”.
With ‘A Natural History of Ghosts’ by Roger Clarke, filling our minds, we contemplate why should ghosts - whatever that phenomena might be - appear more often at night? As night ‘falls’ (or does it rise?) we consider the fears that we lay at night’s door, seen from the corner of one’s eye. A time of danger and the ‘other’, night is filled with terrors for modern humans.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Greyfriars Priory
Dunwich
Brassaï
Tarsier
M R James
Margaret Atwood
Black Shuck
Hobby Lanterns
Marsh Gas
Homer’s Odyssey
Apochrypa
Jinn
A Natural History of Ghosts - Roger Clarke
Bram Stoker
“To enter a wood is to pass into a different world” said author Roger Deakin, and in this episode, recorded in ancient Staverton Thicks forest, we explore why it is that there is a history of humans going to the woods to grow and learn, and to travel to find ourselves, often by getting lost. Why is it a place of story-telling, of fairy tales, of childhood imagination?
Disorientating for many modern humans, is there a density of ‘otherness’ in forest, and is this why for us the wild wood is it place of fear but also a place that we love? Sit with us on a mossy fallen tree as we question whether these are places to hide, to escape and adventure, or ones to fear where the non-human - or perhaps human - is watching us.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Blair Witch Project
Staverton Thicks
Pollarding
Gossip from the Forest - Sara Maitland
Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
As You Like It - William Shakespeare
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Wood - Andy Goldsworthy
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorn
The Consolations of the Forest - Sylvain Tesson
Wild Wood - Roger Deakin
Woodlands - Oliver Rackham
Lord of the Rings
Domesday Book
Beowulf
Białowieża
Baka people
The Witch - Robert Eggers
Grizzly Adams
Olympic National Park
Massachusetts
Polish Jewish villages
We humans have long made sense of the non-human world around, and beyond us, through storytelling and myth. Folklore has much to say about hairy wild men, and women, and their relationship to us, past and present. Exploring these motifs, stories and the creative process, we focus on these ‘woodwose’, their presence on church fonts, and their probable origins as creatures and symbols.
We speak with playwright Thea Smiley who, with theatre company Wonderful Beast, has written about The Last Wildman and The Woodwose. With her we ponder what we should learn from wild places and wild people, and the 'mythical' beings who perhaps know more than we do about how to live.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Aesops Fables
Pliny
Michael Witzel
Selkie
Flood mythology
Werewolf
Wendigo
Griffin
Thea Smiley
Wonderful Beast theatre company
Return of the Wildman
Woodwose
Woodwose photos
Matt Salusbury
The Wildman
Wildman of Orford
Ludham font
Ralph of Coggeshall
Green children of Woolpit
Orford Ness
Ted Hughes ‘Wodwo’
Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Almasty
In this podcast we explore the proscribed routes, the safe paths, the trackways; and how they affect our perception of the land and our experience of the non-human world. What lives beyond the path? Are we an animal making paths of convenience or is there a human need for paths, boundaries and way markers - is it that our species deliberately wants to make marks on the land?
On a windswept autumn day we explore The Ridgeway and ancient Wayland’s Smithy discussing trading routes, pilgrimage, and how to avoid getting lost on tracks that may even be born of the Earth itself.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
The Ridgeway
Oxfordshire Downs
Wayland’s Smithy
Uffington White Horse
Plague village of Eyam
The Old Straight Track
Ley lines
Paths of Desire
The Old Ways
Robert MacFarlane
A Line Made by Walking
National Trust
Tristan Gooley
Night makes us focus on our human experience of the darkness. Night is a place where the non-human world thrives: both in reality through wild predators whose senses exceed ours, and also in imagination as, for humans, the darkness often harbours our fears and is home to the unknown, the half-seen, and the mis-heard.
We explore what is special about night, In what ways does night reveal itself that goes beyond simply the interval between the light of day? How do we respond as the night-time takes away our senses? Maybe night is when we see ourselves most clearly.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Robert Johnson
Canonical hours
Ramadan
Melatonin
The Daintree
Tawny Owl
Nightjar
Transylvania
Fortified churches
Svalbard
Spring-heeled Jack
Jack the Ripper
Reynardine
Heart electromagnetic field
Baja California
Swamp gas
Human sleep pattern
Botswana
The Darkness is Light Enough
Visions of Johanna
In a windswept locale we explore how both we, and the inhabitants the non-human world, respond to the wind. Wind spirits, the voice of the wind, hurricanes, and the sense of ‘aliveness’ that it has all affect us. Why does it makes us feel a certain way? How is it perceived by many indigenous human cultures?
For birds, insects, trees, seeds, oceans and more, the way the wind moves across The Earth is fundamental to their lives. And so it is to us. Indeed during this podcast you can catch the wind in our voices.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
North Wessex Downs
The effect of wind on children
Inkpen Beacon
Anemochory
Mi’kmaq
Navajo word for wind
Sami god, Bieggolmai
Carlos Castaneda
Shetland
Iceland
Western Isles
Beaufort scale
Aeolian harp
Gerard Manley Hopkins
We explore some of the most evocative sounds in the natural world and examine the power that the acoustics of the non-human world have over us. As we listen in Part 1 to Ian’s choice of sounds, we discuss how we navigate the natural world with sound and how it gives us a sense of place.
Are we acoustic creatures? What is the ‘voice’ of the non-human world? How does it speak?
How does sound link to a sense of place and calendar and what is it power to stir memories in us? What indeed is its power for one species to ‘speak’ to another?
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
David Abram, Becoming Animal
Spring Peeper
Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams
Elk
Chris Watson
Geoff Sample
Gruenrekorder
Peregrine Falcon
The non-human world, in it’s many guises, can often be a place where we face our fears. Recorded in Cambridge at Mill Road Cemetery and the 12th century Leper Chapel of St Mary Magdalene, this episode features an interview with Robert Lloyd Parry, an outstanding performance storyteller, who specialises in classic literary ghost fiction, in particular the work of Montague Rhodes James.
We explore Fear: as a human adaptation; as a heightened sense; as a part of our experience in the wild; as something ‘unnatural’; or something we experience in solitude; and how we experience it in our sense of familiar and unfamiliar places.
We would like to thank our wonderful guest Robert Lloyd Parry. To discover more about him visit http://www.nunkie.co.uk
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Arthur Machen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Machen
The Cruel Mother https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cruel_Mother
Malcolm Sinclair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Sinclair_(actor)
Julian Hoffman https://julian-hoffman.com/irreplaceable/
Ray Bradbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury
Kenneth Grahame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Grahame
Robert Macfarlane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Macfarlane_(writer)
M R James https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._R._James
A Warning to the Curious https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Warning_to_the_Curious
Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Oh,_Whistle,_and_I%27ll_Come_to_You,_My_Lad%27
Cambridge Leper Chapel https://www.cambridgeppf.org/Pages/Category/cambridge-leper-chapel
Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Alberic%27s_Scrap-Book
The qualities of light, and how the natural, human and non-human world can be viewed and impacted by light is under discussion in this episode of the podcast. References you might wish to follow up include:
Watership Down, Hampshire, UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down,_Hampshire
John Aitchison, cameramen and broadcaster http://johnaitchison.net
The Native American medicine wheel https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/exhibition/healing-ways/medicine-ways/medicine-wheel.html
Songlines by Bruce Chatwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Songlines
Ladysmith Black Mambazo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladysmith_Black_Mambazo
Baja California, Mexico https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baja_California
Extremadura, Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremadura
The Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) http://swla.co.uk
Darren Rees, artist http://www.darrenrees.com
Lars Jonsson, artist http://www.larsjonsson.se
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Jonsson_(illustrator)
Barry Lopez, writer http://www.barrylopez.com
What is it about fire that draws us to its side? It brings warmth and safety, yet it carries a destructive threat. Recorded on location by the fireside in Suffolk, this episode explores our long relationship with fire and how it links us to our landscapes. We talk about how it has bound us in belief, and its role at the centre of communities and belief systems.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST.
Some of things we discuss in this episode
Beltane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane
Native American sweat lodge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_lodge
Polly Wiessner https://www.humansandnature.org/polly-wiessner
The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/history/The-Biggest-Estate-on-Earth-Bill-Gammage-9781743311325
Yellowstone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_National_Park
Great Fire of London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London
Must Farm http://www.mustfarm.com/
Phoenix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)
Salamander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander
Pyromancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyromancy
Recorded on location in Asturias, Cantabria and Castilla y Leon in northern Spain: join us, Colin Williams and Ian Rowlands, as we look at how our ancestors approached death, life and spirit, through our exploration of ancient sites and the manner in which they are located in the landscape.
These sites provoked some lasting emotions and questions in us: our place in time and bones of the land; what is the import of posterity; our relationship with our far-distant ancestors; their relationship to the creatures they shared their world with; and their relationship to the rituals, spirits and places that were of such importance to them.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Asturias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturias
Cantabria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantabria
Castilla y Leon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castile_and_León
Dolmen de Busnela https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmen_de_Busnela
Dolmen de Las Arnillas http://www.turismoburgos.org/es/destino/cultural/dolmen-de-las-arnillas
The sacred hoop http://nativeamerican.proboards.com/thread/450/sacred-hoop-circle-life
R S Thomas https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/r-s-thomas
Hornos de la Peña http://cuevas.culturadecantabria.com/hornos-de-la-pena-2/
El Castillo http://cuevas.culturadecantabria.com/el-castillo-2/
Bullroarer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullroarer
Graham Hancock https://grahamhancock.com
The Divine Spark https://grahamhancock.com/divinespark/
The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_in_the_Cave
Jean Clottes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Clottes
What is Paleolithic Art? https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/books/what_is_paleolithic_art_jean_clottes.php
The power and diversity of ritual and ceremony: join us, Colin Williams and Ian Rowlands, as we look at how the cycles of the natural, human and non-human world can be viewed and recognised through ritual. Why do humans create rituals? How do they relate to our experience of a world of ‘other’?
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Carpathian Mountains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpathian_Mountains
Walbiri rain ceremony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSyp65n9AZk
Gamilaraay people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamilaraay
Watership Down, Hampshire, UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down,_Hampshire
Falmouth Harmony Choir https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idN5ZBXDllk
Papua New Guinea spirit house http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/creativeinstinct/sepik-spirit-art/4404386
Wagogo Marriage Ritual https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t1TcTzeF7A
Silurian Morrismen http://www.silurianmorris.org.uk
Oak Apple Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Apple_Day
Crying the Neck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crying_the_Neck
Soul Caking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_cake
On Silbury Hill, by Adam Thorpe https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/on-silbury-hill/
Folk Song in England, A L Lloyd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._L._Lloyd
Navajo corn grinding songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR7Z4vGIHbs
Sky burial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial
Dolmen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmen