Mindsprings Podcast with Alistair Appleton: Recent Episodes
Alistair Appleton
Podcast from meditation teacher Alistair Appleton on dharma, psychotherapy, neuroscience and more. Info at www.mind-springs.org
Following one of the live sessions, Alistair talks about the experience of dissociation. This is a natural function of our minds, but it can also erase our natural kindness - especially towards ourselves. How do you work with dissociation? #dissociation #psychology #Buddhism #MindspringsPlease do join our 3x weekly meditation group on Zoom. You can find the details on how to come along here: https://www.mind-springs.org/online-live
An excerpt from the Holy Island Retreat October 2022. Alistair is talking about the theory of Buddha nature, that we are already enlightened at our core. And even it's not true - is it beneficial? Does it change the way we are in the world. And does it lead us to the beautiful moment of taking our bodhisattva vow.
This is an excerpt from the Holy island Retreat in October 2023 which was focusing on the wisdom aspect of compassion. Alistair sketches out the way compassion is seen within the various yanas of Buddhism and how 'forgettery' lies in the centre of our suffering and the suffering of others.
Discussing with Mindsprings member, Dameon, about the issue of other people's anxiety. Our anxiety work often - rightly- focuses on getting our own nervous systems under control. But what about the people around us? if you would like to join the Mindsprings anxiety community come along on Tuesday evening 6pm UK for an hour's stressbusting practice: https://www.mind-springs.org/online-live
Following a meditation exploring self-love, we were talking about the nuttiness of hating your experience. After all, it's the only one we're going to have. I then went on to flag up the social prohibition against loving ourselves - it's a bit "grandiose", or "selfish" or worse: "narcissistic. But narcissism is very different from love... Please do join our 3x weekly meditation group on Zoom. You can find the details on how to come along here: https://www.mind-springs.org/online-live
The negative news industry.
Responding to a student’s comment on the distractions of the news media, Alistair speaks about the nature of news as an industry and the myth of ‘being informed’ that drives it.
What if we were to question the mechanism of news and what it means for us?
Join in the conversation live at the Mindsprings Practice Space. It's free and friendly. https://mindsprings-practicespace.org/sign-up/
Jane asked: "Is awareness the same as consciousness? And how do you deal with someone with a lot of shame or someone with no shame, like Donald Trump?" Alistair discusses how the definitions of awareness and consciousness are different in Buddhism and Psychotherapy. What do you think?
In this podcast, Alistair, (after being interrupted by Ben the dog 😀) discusses distractions with the Mindsprings students. He says tension is the motor of distraction. The tenser you make the mind the more thoughts and thinking arise. Just as the more you squeeze the bottom of the toothpaste the faster it comes out of the top. Do you get distracted by thoughts when meditating?
Alistair talks about the three things that dance the waltz of Samsara - Delusion, Wanting & Hatred .
From a Mindsprings meditation Zoom class discussion. Buddhists take aim at the fixed nature of our sense of selves. They believe suffering is caused when we try to keep ourselves in a fixed state. Alistair says at Mindsprings we are exploring if there really is an unchanging person within us, a 'self.' Perhaps we will find out the Buddhists are wrong.
You can join Alistair in 3x weekly live sessions to practice meditation. Interact with the Mindsprings community and join in these conversations about meditation, Buddhism and life. It's free!
https://mindsprings-practicespace.org/sign-up/
Alistair discusses lasting happiness following a question from Jane, a Mindsprings student. We have to look in the right place for bliss. Blissful happiness is in the field of awareness, not in our emotional bodies.
Are you a worrier? In this Podcast recorded from a Mindsprings meditation class, Alistair busts the myths around worrying.
Alistair discusses toxic relationships and how to empower yourself to change things.
Do you have any difficult relationships in your life?
We're not made up of one coherent self, Alistair explains, but rather there are different parts of us at play or at war. When our internal managers, firefighters and exiles are fighting we suffer. Loving our different parts is a route to finding inner peace.
Alistair discusses Maitri with his students. Maitri meditation is kindness and compassion for ourselves and others. He says it starts with recognising the knarly patterns within ourselves that get in the way of loving other people.
Alistair remembers his mother saying 'People who ask don't get.' Yet, he says, in Tibetan traditions asking for blessings is an act of devotion. This discussion with students centres on the differences between western attitudes and religion where prayer and asking are supreme spiritual activities. Can you ask for help or are you afraid of asking?
Alistair talks about Internal Family Systems. The different parts inside us, identified by therapist Richard C Schwartz. We all have parts playing out an internal role, some are vulnerable, whereas other parts of us are protectors or managers. Learning to recognise these parts and understanding how they interact is key to understanding ourselves.
How do you react when someone hurts you? In this recorded teaching, Alistair says it's not ok to be a punchbag. A healthier way is to acknowledge our pain and then try to understand where it is coming from in the other person.
It's easy to be compassionate with yourself when you're feeling OK but we are often very mean to ourselves. In this recorded teaching, Alistair says the essence of self-compassion is being OK with whatever our experience is. Even if that experience is crazy-nuts.
We don't meditate to become good meditators. We meditate to become kind human beings. In this recorded lesson, Alistair discusses steadying the mind and the benefits of different mediation teachings.
From a recorded lesson: Alistair discusses thoughts and thinking with students. It is not thoughts that make us unhappy. Thoughts come and go but it is unconscious thinking, ego thoughts that cause suffering to arise. Soothing our minds soothes our thoughts. If the body is unified our thoughts ride the Windhorse of the bodys energy.
In answer to a students question, Alistair discusses thoughts and feelings. Instead of being bulldozed by our thoughts, we can learn to dance with them. Gentle familiarisation of the inner landscape increases our wisdom and reduces suffering.
Alistair discusses suffering in a teaching session. We are conditioned to believe that we should be suffering but when you remove 'me' you end the struggle.
In this lively recorded teaching Alistair discusses how we can stay in love with our mind and be happy in the here and now.
In this Podcast, Alistair discusses Jaak Panksepp's Wheel of emotions. Emotions, which pre-date thoughts aren't bad or wrong but all animals share them. Panksepp identified seven primal emotional patterns, as well as negative emotions such as fear, sadness and anger there is also caring, lust, seeking and play.
In this podcast Alistair discusses Selfing V Being. It's a bit like salt, a little bit for flavour but too much is bad and it spoils everything. Too much self gets in the way. When we limit ourselves to our idea of ourselves, we run into problems.
Alistair discusses the Lojong slogans - Don't talk about injured limbs, translates as don't focus on other peoples wounds and defects. Don't be judgemental.
Yoga V Buddhism: In this recorded teaching, Alistair speculates that the emphasis in Yoga is on improving oneself, but Buddha would call this poisoned food
Was Freud right - is it all about sex? From the Live Sessions in February 2021. Tamsyn mentioned her dislike of reading Freud during her therapy training, and Alistair jumped to his defence.
Recorded teaching from the Mindsprings mediation school: Thoughts, feelings and unexamined beliefs become visible, during the practice of the Four Fields. We become aware of all the clutter we have in our experience and the tragedy of spending years disassociating from life. Alistair explains to a student, having preferences is part of being human. It's ok to feel bad and ok to prefer not to feel bad.
Having an ego is part of being human. Our sense of ourselves, our reality, rests on activity in certain parts of the brain. But identifying as only an ego can be problematic. When the ego believes it is the only thing, we can become fixated, leading to self-absorption and paranoia.
It's not the experience that's the problem, we can't control that. It's the stance we have towards the experience that generates the suffering and negativity in our lives. In order to reach an openhearted space of awareness without preference, we need to be compassionate to ourselves first.
Recorded teaching from Alistair: Many of us live our lives inside a well-oiled cocoon and run on autopilot like zombies. Others find the cocoon creepy and diseased and experience a calling to find out what is outside of it. Outside the cocoon, we can find a sense of aliveness and the fullness of life.
In this podcast, Alistair considers religion. Different faith traditions have different names for awakened energy but everyone plugs into the same supercharged higher power regardless of the name it is given and all races and religions concur that this power is love.
Shame is the fear of ostracization and it is one of the key practises to work with in Therapy. In this Podcast, Alistair concludes that shame is the glue that holds much of our pain-creating unconscious patterns together. These damage us and those around us. By sitting with 'what is' we can feel pain but ultimately it is a healing pain.
Life hurts! A recorded teaching from Alistair on the inescapable suffering of being alive. The first hurt being getting sick, particularly relevant in this time of Covid. And the second is the hurt we cause ourselves which, when we are trapped in the dark prison of ignorance, is more difficult to love.
In this teaching, Alistair shows students an exercise to demonstrate there is no fixed self. We are not just our skin, hair or bones. By putting awareness into our hand and knowing it from the inside, we become more plugged in and get a more accurate overall reference point.
Our sacredness is occluded from us because of the world we live in. Cultural forces conspire to make us needy and greedy. Bigger than our rational thinking minds, the full potential of being human is magical.
We think our bodies are one fixed thing and should be perfectly balanced. Still, when we start to live in our energy body we see that we are actually wildly asymmetric and different sides are dominant at different times during the day.
The way we look after ourselves is important but it is easy to get into a state of poverty mentality when we are ill. By embracing a time for convalescence and plugging into a care network, we build support with others in the same situation. These types of resources help us expand our empathy as we realise that our suffering is a part of much wider suffering at this time.
Where is your sense of self within your body? Where is the core of your awareness? In the west, we often think we're situated behind our eyes but in this podcast, Alistair discusses that in the here and now we have more of a sense of ourselves along the front of our spine.
There is more to us than just our thoughts. In this podcast episode, Alistair discusses our notions of our higher self. How we can forget our higher self and the need to reconnect with a bigger portion of ourselves. When we start to connect with the bigger sense of ourselves we realise we are the universe experiencing itself.
In the final part of Alistair's 2020 Cardiff talk he explores the 'endpoint' of purification. What is the space that we would experience free from any distortion?
Part three of the 2020 Cardiff talk sees Alistair move into the world of therapy and how this intersects with the concept of 'emptiness'. Can Game of Thrones help us grasp this?
In the second part of the Cardiff 2020 talk on purification, Alistair explores how this concept functions in Tibetan Buddhist practice.
This is the first part of Alistair's March 2020 Talk at the Cardiff Buddhist Centre on Cowbridge Road. The talk was on the subject of 'purification' and in this first part Alistair explains why it's interesting to him and how a false and correct understanding has played out in his life to date...
We can use the breath like a tiny, powerful spotlight into our inner experience. In this excerpt from the Spa Road weekend course on IFS in 2019, Alistair explains how somatic practice puts us in direct contact with the power of awareness, what Trungpa calls 'ordinary mind'.
Alistair gives a very clear and insightful definition of maitri or love to the self. In an excerpt from the Spa Road Weekend in September 2019, he points out how we habitually ignore the very things that actually need the love... The weekend is happening again in London, 11-12 January 2020: https://mind-springs.org/courses/maitri-meditation-and-internal-family-systems/
From the October 2019 annual Mindsprings retreat for more advanced practitioners, this podcast is an exploration of why we end up spending so much time on the cushion thinking, thinking, thinking. Instead of demonising it - maybe there's something to understand? Details of 2020's advanced retreat are here: https://mind-springs.org/courses/autumn-retreat-compassion-the-great-connector/
Excerpted from the October Holy Island Retreat in 2019, this is an inspired exploration of why we practice. What's the point of maitri, of using internal family systems, of the whole path of meditation? This podcast gives a good answer... The IFS weekend is happening again in London, 11-12 January 2020: https://mind-springs.org/courses/maitri-meditation-and-internal-family-systems/
This is a great excerpt from Alistair's 2019 weekend course on the Buddhist practice of Maitri (love to self) and Richard Schwartz' work on internal family systems. If you're a meditator and you have problems with loving yourself - this talk is a must. The full weekend is happening again in London 11-12 January 2020: https://mind-springs.org/courses/maitri-meditation-and-internal-family-systems/
This is a guided meditation Alistair gave in Brighton in December 2019. It's a very simple but interesting exploration of "simple sitting". You can do it sitting in a chair or on the floor if your knees prefer that!
This is a short guided meditation from the Brighton 2019 Somatic Course where Alistair guides the practice of "Three Levels of the Breath". To read about Alistair's process in teaching this, see the Mindsprings blog entry: https://mind-springs.org/blog/is-my-finger-pointing-at-the-moon-from-where-youre-sitting/
GUIDED MEDITATION: From the 2018 'Being Still, Still Being' retreat on Holy Island. Alistair guides the group in an evening sit. Exploring the practice of Earth Descent in the sitting up position.
This is a 24' guided meditation of the Somatic Sitting Practice, guided by Alistair Appleton. It's extracted from the 2018 'Being Still, Still Being' Holy Island retreat.
This is the guided meditation (audio) from Alistair Appleton's "Sit the Downs" meditation. Using somatic meditation to connect with the energy and wisdom of the landscape. Full 25' video is available here: https://mind-springs.org/blog/mindsprings-tv-sit-the-downs/
This is an excerpt from Alistair Appleton's course in London on the 1st and 2nd of June 2019, on 'Tapping into Freedom'. It came at the end of the weekend when Alistair was exploring the deepest motivations of using tapping in the Buddhist context.
5 of 5: In the last extract from Alistair's 2019 talk in Edinburgh, he talks about the here-and-now possibilities opened up by the teachings of Reggie Ray, his teacher. The somatic path allows us to love our bodies and find freedom.
Part 4 of 5: In this fourth section of his talk in Edinburgh, Alistair explore the alternative history of tantric Buddhism which treats the body as completely sacred and as the pathway to Liberation.
Part 3 of 5: Continuing his Edinburgh, Alistair considers the way that contemporary culture paradoxically makes us more and more unhappy with our bodies. The internet allows for total disembodiment and consumerism welcomes it.
Part 2 of 5: In the second part of his Edinburgh talk, Alistair runs through the history of our relationship with the body from early hunter-gathers to the Instagram age.
Part one of five: Alistair gave a talk in Edinburgh in February entitled "The Body is A Buddhafield, Not a Battlefield". In this first part he asks the question: 'What turns us against our bodies?'
This is a 35 minute guided meditation by Alistair Appleton exploring the Earth Descent practice taught by Reggie Ray.
This is Alistair Appleton's guided meditation 'Polyvagal Tuning' based on the neuroscientific work of Stephen Porges. It's 25 minutes long.
A student at the 2018 Summer Retreat asked if meditation can be guaranteed to make you calmer, more self-confident and stronger. His answer was an emphatic "No". Meditation helps us grow up and take on the full remit of being human. Something we all - including the POTUS - have to work at.
Alistair Appleton reveals that much of what we think about the 'ego' being a problem is wrong. Much of the ego is not a problem - just one aspect of it... Taken from the Summer 2018 Retreat on Holy Island. To find out about 2019's retreat look here: https://mind-springs.org/courses/summer-meditation-retreat-2019-the-body-is-the-ground/
During a discussion in the Summer 2018 Retreat on Holy Island, Alistair speaks to a mother's worry that she has over-mothered her children and explores the way somatic practice improves relationships. You can book for the 2019 Retreat here: https://mind-springs.org/courses/summer-meditation-retreat-2019-the-body-is-the-ground/
Exploring the interface of neurobiology and meditation, Alistair explores some of the 'koans of the soma', the nuts and bolts of our human bodies and how that affects our being. This is an extract from the 2018 Summer Retreat on Holy Island. To book for this summer's retreat, click here: mind-springs.org/courses/summer-m…y-is-the-ground/
In his opening comments to the 2018 "Being Still, Still Being" retreat Alistair outlines the neurobiological underpinnings of our obsessive busy-ness and how we need to work with that not against it. The Summer Retreat on Holy Island, suitable for all levels, is open for booking here: https://mind-springs.org/courses/summer-meditation-retreat-2019-the-body-is-the-ground/
Most of us exist in a frenzied haze of continual distraction from our real experience of life. The traditional posture of sitting meditation creates a framework that makes the distraction fade out, and life appear.
Most of us are compulsive do-ers and actually afraid of being still and silent. Alistair explores the three interlocking states of being-enjoying-doing and how they can help us relax.
In an excerpt from the 2018 Summer retreat on Holy Island, Alistair explores some of the current thinking about introverts ruling the world and how discomfort can often bring wisdom.
Alistair starts to explore with the retreatants on Holy Island the realm of "non-thought". If we no longer identify with our thoughts then what is left? What is our true identity?
In this excerpt from the 2018 Retreat 'Being Still Still Being', Alistair looks at the experience of thinking as a phenomenon. What is thinking? And how does it feel?
In a second excerpt from the 2018 Summer retreat on Holy Island, Alistair looks at the potent connection between Tibetan Buddhism and poetry. Touching on Trungpa and the Beatniks and Reggie's strange love of Wordsworth.
An excerpt from Alistair Appleton's 2018 Meditation retreat up on Holy Island. Do our precious thoughts actually add up to that much? Can you remember what you were thinking 5 minutes ago?
In this talk from the 2018 "Being Still Still Being" retreat on Holy Island, Alistair lays out the fundamental principles of "retreat". What needs to happen for us to really sink into our experience? How do the constraints of the Container free us up?
In the final chunk from the 2017 Holy Island Compassion retreat Alistair introduces the mind-boggling practice of tonglen, one of the classic Buddhist techniques for rousing the compassionate heart.
This is the second excerpt from Mindsprings' 2017 Compassion Course on Holy Island. Alistair explains how the strategies we come up with as children to survive might not be ideal as adults - but they did their job. We shouldn't feel bad about them not working now...
This is the second excerpt from 2017 Holy Island course on Compassion, where Alistair explains that our bodies are actually perfectly tuned to be compassionate and that we are successful as a species because of it.
This is part one of excerpts from the 2017 Compassion course on Holy Island in Scotland. Alistair talks here about the evolutionary roots of compassion and why human sensitivity is the key to our success as a species... To experience the Holy Island course 2018 please look here: https://mind-springs.org/courses/beating-heart-compassion/
This is the final part of Alistair's talk on the cross-pollination of therapy and Buddhism in the contemporary world. Summing up his talk in Dublin, he talks about the best practices when it comes to working in these two mighty "lineages of the mind".
This is part 2 of Alistair's 2017 talk in Dublin on the intertwining of therapy and Buddhist meditation. This part is considering the long lineage of Buddhist teaching and touching on the 'sidelined' teachings of Vajrayana master Chögyam Trungpa.
This is the first of three sections from Alistair's public talk in Dublin in October 2017 looking at the relationship between psychotherapy and Buddhism. This first part looks at the 'lineage' therapy and what is often dissociated from that history...
This is an excerpt from the 2017 "Being Earthed" Holy Island Retreat led by Fay Adams and Alistair Appleton. Fay and Alistair share personal stories about the power of the island and Fay reads the words of Tai Situpa about the geomancy of Holy Isle
In the final part of Alistair's 2018 talk from Scarborough, he turns his attention to the way that Buddhism might understand dissociation. He probes the ways in which meditation can mimic this defence and finds ways to free ourselves from it...
This is Part 2 of Alistair 2018 talk on dissociation from Scarborough. Here he starts to discuss the fascinating cover-up of the work of Pierre Janet in the "lineage of psychotherapy" and how the myths of Osiris and Oedipus cast further light on the power of dissociation...
Alistair guides you in a 25' meditation exploring the somatic tool of the 'three levels of the breath'. The practice is done lying on your back, comfortably, with your hands on your belly and feet flat on the floor, knees together. [Excerpted from the Scarborough "Tender is the Heart" course in March 2018]
This is part one of a talk Alistair gave in Scarborough on 23 March 2018 at the Samye Dzong at Londesborough Lodge. It's a light-hearted exploration of the human defence of dissociation, a subject close to Alistair's heart...
An excerpt from the February 2018 "Time Terror" course at Spa Road in London. Alistair is unpacking the second of the Four Reminders, Tibetan Buddhist texts to bring us back to life.
The 2nd Reminder runs: Remembering that death is real and comes without warning, / Recalling that this body will become a corpse,/ Knowing that my chance to practice dharma is brief,/ I undertake this practice.
This is a talk by Alistair Appleton given in Cardiff on 23rd February 2018 on the subject 'Is Meditation Enough?' - it's a wide ranging and relaxed introduction to Alistair's stance on the role of meditation in contemporary life: where are its limits? what can and can't it do? and what might we need to make it 'enough'?
This is an excerpt from the talk that Alistair and Ajahn Sundara gave at the British Museum in September 2017, looking at aspects of Buddhist practice and how they impact the contemporary mind.
Taken from the September 2017 weekend retreat on "I see you, Mara", Alistair talks about how this problematic notion of the "ego" can be understood as an excess of thinking, a slipknot round your own throat or as Reggie Ray describes it, an lethal addiction to painkillers...
An excerpt from the 2016 Samadhi retreat looking at the way in which ego arises and constricts the open space.
Recorded at the August 2017 Gayles "Drawing on Mindfulness" retreat, Alistair gives a fundamental overview of the different streams of meditation coming out of the Indian Tradition and notes how mindfulness is unique and distinct from other forms.
This is a recording of a chat between Alistair Appleton and the art teacher Isobel Dutton after the close of the Gayles 'Drawing on Mindfulness' retreat in August 2017. Over a cup of tea, they talk about the similarities between art anxiety and meditation anxiety and how making a mark and being your true self both require 'breaking the frame'.
This is the last bit of Internet related podcastery for a while. It's the 10 bits of advice I gave at the end of my 2015 talk on the Internet and Meditation in Scarborough.
This is the second extract from a talk I gave in Scarborough in 2015 on the subject of 'Mindfulness in the Age of Twitter'. This part looks at the fascinating field of dissociation and how the Net really feeds into that desire to zone out from life.
This is Part 1 of a series of podcasts on the effect of Internet use on the brain. It's excerpted from a talk I gave in Scarborough back in 2015. This part looks at how the Web fires up potent areas of the brain...
This is an excerpt from the 2016 Samadhi Retreat up on Holy Island where Alistair and the group discuss the nature of thinking and particularly those thoughts that 'scrunch' us away from openness.
This is an excerpt from the 6 week course in Mindfulness taught in 2016 at St Mary's Church in Brighton. Alistair uses the image of the scrunched up scarf (which he, in turn learned from the Dharma Ocean teacher, Neil McKinlay)to illustrate how awareness becomes claustrophobic in direct relationship to the number of I-me-mine thoughts
In memory of the great affective neuroscientist Jak Panksepp who died 2 weeks ago, I've extracted a short explanation of his brilliant work on human emotions and how we can understand them so much better by seeing their mammalian roots.
This is an extract from the 6-week compassion course that I taught in Brighton in early months of 2017, looking at the demanding 'next step' of compassion practice.
This is Part 2 of 2 from a talk I gave in Norwich back in 2012, looking at the alternative spiritual view on sexuality and sex. The Tibetan shamanic traditions and the Tantric deities give a different take on how to be sexual and spiritual.
This is Part 1 of 2 from a talk Alistair gave in 2012 exploring the nature of religious attitudes to sexuality. This part touches on some of the archetypes of the Old Man and Mother that prevent sex becoming central and explores the alternative notion of exuberance as a way of framing sex.
This is an excerpt from the Mindsprings Holy Island retreat in October 2016. The theme of the retreat was Samadhi and here Alistair talks about our resistance to meditation...as well as his rather dramatic experience up in the snowy mountains of Colorado in 2016.
This is an excerpt of the 2016 Winter Eight Week course taught by Alistair at St. Mary's in Brighton. It's from the seventh week where we started to explore the experience of what Alistair calls the "fifth field": the stance of the experiencer to what is experienced. Enjoy!
This is a talk Alistair gave at the Samye Foundation Wales in Cardiff on Friday 26th February 2016.
It was outlining the historical precedents of the current vogue for mindfulness; making some distinctions about what exactly it is from a Buddhist point of view; discussing how it can be problematic when dealing with people who dissociate; and - in the Q&A - talking about the merits and demerits of 'mindful' colouring-in books!
This is an extract from some teaching Alistair gave as part of a study day on Compassion - he is outlining the benefit of the Buddhist practice of 'tonglen' which involves giving away the good and drawing in the bad - the opposite of our usual egoic way-of-being. It's a counter intuitive practice but from the Buddhist point of view, ultimately effective.
This is a recording of the 45-min lecture I gave at the magical woodland glade that the folks at the Southbank created for the events around Opera North's performance of the whole of Wagner's Ring Cycle.
This is a public talk and Q&A, Alistair gave in the Scarborough Art Gallery on June 26th 2015. In it he talks about the unprecedented nature of the 'social media revolution'; how the internet and social media works on the brain; how we can understand it in the buddhist terms of attachment, aversion and dissociation. And how mindfulness is the skill we need to develop to survive it.
This was a talk given by Alistair Appleton at the CABS Business Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe during his trip to Africa in February 2009. It’s an impromtu ramble over many subjects connected to Mindfulness and Alistair’s experiences in Zimbabwe - fairly relaxed and chatty. The talk is introduced by Alistair’s fantastic hostess in Africa, Pam Sheehan.