Art Heals Earth: Recent Episodes
Megan Reich
Art Heals Earth is an inquiry into the connection between personal and planetary healing. Through interviews, stories, and meditations, Art Heals Earth investigates how creative expression can strengthen our relationship with the earth in the age of the Anthropocene. Considering the possibility that the climate crisis is also a crisis of the human spirit, Art Heals Earth deepens into the question: why are the arts a necessary part of enacting heart-centered environmental stewardship?
Dana O’Driscoll is a homesteader, a permaculture practitioner, and dedicated bard, practicing many arts including watercolor painting, leatherworking, eco-printing, writing, and panflute. She is the artist and author of the Tarot of Trees and the Plant Spirit Oracle, and her writings on druidry, nature, and permaculture can be found at the Druid’s Garden Blog. Dana is a Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids and is a Druid Adept in the Ancient Order of Druids in America. Dana is also an Associate Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches doctoral courses in writing pedagogy, research methods, learning theory, and writing centers. As a learning researcher, Dana’s scholarly research has long explored how people learn, “transfer” that knowledge to new contexts, and develop long term expertise as writers.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How Dana’s journey into earth-based practices began
- The spiritual path of Druidry: what it means to Dana, and how it shapes her inner and outer life
- Regeneration as an essential component of an ethic of care
- Healing the land: where to begin
- The Druid’s Anchor Spot: the practice of returning to the same place
- Connecting with the oak tree through harvesting and preparing acorns
- How Dana’s scholarly research on the learning process has affected the way she approaches her many crafts
- Writing as an act of learning
- Current projects Dana has been working on
- How art helps heal Dana’s relationship with the Earth
- A question Dana is asking right now
- What gives Dana hope right now
Follow Dana’s Instagram
The Druid’s Garden Blog: https://druidgarden.wordpress.com/
Plant Spirit Oracle: https://www.plantspiritoracle.com/
The Tarot of Trees: http://www.tarotoftrees.com/
Druid’s Garden Art: http://www.druidsgardenart.com/
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CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.
And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.
Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider’s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.
- The Spider’s Web (A Natural History), by E.B. White
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CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
Anne Smeets is a visual and performance artist and a researcher based in The Netherlands. At the beginning of the 2020 quarantine, Anne started her nature photography project, Earthgazing. In Anne's words, Earthgazing is about interpreting the natural world, zooming in and out, examining big landscapes that hide in small corners. Inspired by colors, patterns, textures and abstracted images. This project is also an investigation of how photography and abstract visual art can be defined. Anne attempts to move away from clear borders of the medium photography and move towards an abstraction of the medium characteristics. To follow Anne’s project, visit http://earthgazing.art/
In this episode, we discuss:
- Anne’s journey as an artist, the main themes within her work
- What inspired Anne to start her Earthgazing project, and how it has affected the way she engages with the natural world
- What Anne finds fascinating in the landscapes of The Netherlands
- Some of the different subjects Anne has photographed
- The role that nature has played throughout Anne’s life
- Witnessing seasonal shifts
- Discovering photography subjects through wandering and stillness
- How art helps heal Anne’s relationship with the Earth
- A question Anne is asking right now
- What gives Anne hope right now
Connect with Anne’s work: https://www.annesmeets.nl/
Follow Anne’s Instagram: @earthgazing.art
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
The old pond
A frog leaps in.
Sound of the water.
- Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694)
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
Brian Isett and Claudia Biçen chat with me about their book project, The Forgotten Teachers: How Life Learned the Story of Earth. The Forgotten Teachers is an illustrated true fairytale about Life on Earth. Through natural history and poetic contemplation, readers are introduced to twelve forgotten teachers that shaped our past and define our present. Among them: Sun, Moon, Ocean and Trees, each depicted in intricate and dream-like watercolor illustrations. Through these encounters, we re-learn the story of our past: our emergence from Oceanic depths, our colorful history in Trees, and the ancient celestial rhythms that still permeate our biology today. By reexamining Earth’s role in our evolution, The Forgotten Teachers begins to repair the lost but crucial connection between science and spirit.
Brian Isett is a published poet and neuroscientist at Carnegie Mellon University. While finishing his Ph.D. in neuroscience at U.C. Berkeley, his first book of poetry, Grid Poems Vol. I, reached an international audience (over 500,00 views on Ello) and quickly sold out through venues such as the New Museum and Printed Matter in New York, and Motto Books in Berlin. In the field of neuroscience, Brian has authored several high profile research articles in areas ranging from tactile perception to Parkinson’s disease. He won two competitive national awards, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship as well as the National Institutes of Health NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship. Brian received his B.S. at Cornell University in Biology, winning the George Harmon Coxe award for Fiction in 2009 and the Arthur Lynn Andrews Fiction Prize in 2008.
Claudia Biçen is a visual artist exploring the nature of mind and the construction of meaning. She has exhibited at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (Washington DC), the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (London), and the National Arts Club (New York). Her projects have been featured in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle and displayed in hospitals and educational institutions around the world. Claudia is Creative Director at Project Wayfinder, where she designs curricula for fostering belonging and purpose that have been taught to more than 10,000 students worldwide. She is a lecturer at Stanford University, holds a BA in Philosophy & Psychology from the University of Oxford, and an MSc in Social Anthropology from University College London. Website: www.claudiabicen.com
In this episode, we discuss:
- 3:10 – Claudia and Brian's journies
- 8:28 – Inspirations for The Forgotten Teachers book
- 14:08 – The deeply collaborative nature of The Forgotten Teachers
- 19:28 – The senses and embodiment as gateways into connecting with the Earth
- 24:57 – The teachings of Plants
- 31:34 – The teachings of Scale
- 37:00 – Ways that Claudia and Brian connect to nature
- 45:44 – How art helps heal Claudia and Brian’s relationship with the Earth
- 51:32 – Questions Claudia and Brian are asking right now
- 56:16 – What gives Claudia and Brian hope right now
Follow Claudia’s Instagram: @claudiabicen
Follow Brian’s Instagram: @brisett_writes
🎧 Subscribe to Art Heals Earth on iTunes
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
zaneta (they/them) is a queer multi-identities sound artist, creative expression activist/educator, percussionist, witch, healer, and Tarot reader, whose work spans a wide range of offerings, from the magical to the non-profit. The core thread that runs through their work is that creative expression is a birthright and is essential to our well-being. To that end, zaneta co-directs the non-profit, inner arts initiative, reads Tarot for creative healing, trains teachers to decolonize music ed, creates soundscapes for spellwork, holds ceremonial performances, and offers classes for drumming, sound art, and magical and creative empowerment. Their ritual soundscapes, meditations, upcoming ceremonies, and tarot readings can all be found at their site www.soundartmagic.com.
In this episode, we discuss:
- 2:54 – How zaneta’s journey with PTSD led them into using field recordings and sound talismans as tools for healing and invoking memories
- 11:54 – Sound rituals and their ability to create a space for connection and community
- 18:34 – zaneta’s field recording process and connecting to a place through listening
- 23:03 – Being in right relationship with the source of your listening
- 30:07 – The importance of starting where you are in establishing right relationship
- 32:17 – zaneta’s Sacred Seasons project: connecting to the seasonal shifts of nature through sound
- 41:15 – zaneta’s witchcraft practice as a tool to liberate their creative expression
- 47:56 – Magical correspondence and ritual as symbolic action
- 52:23 – zaneta’s work with Inner Arts Initiative
- 58:24 – Creative expression as the missing link to collective healing
- 1:01:39 – A question zaneta is asking right now
- 1:06:46 – What gives zaneta hope right now
- 1:08:39 – zaneta’s Mabon event on 9/20/20
zaneta’s Instagram
zaneta’s website
SACRED SEASONS: MABON - a livestream sound ritual for the Autumn Equinox
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
Johanna Warren is a singer-songwriter, actor, herbalist, and energy healer based in Portland, Oregon. She has released 5 solo albums and 2 earlier albums under the band Sticklips. Johanna released her most recent album, Chaotic Good, in May of 2020.
In this episode, we discuss:
- 2:48 – Living in Wales: Shifting from a nomadic lifestyle to staying within one place
- 4:54 – Plants Johanna has developed a kinship with while in Wales
- 6:26 – What Chaotic Good means for Johanna as an album, music as a space for processing and calling in the neglected parts of ourselves
- 9:58 – The voice as an energetic tool for embodiment
- 15:44 – Unblocking the voice, connecting the human body and the earth body through the voice
- 19:24 – What brought Johanna to herbalism, how listening to the wisdom of plants has helped Johanna listen to herself
- 23:44 – The interrelatedness of Johanna’s herbalism and music practices
- 25:49 – The cyclicality of creativity and reclaiming the yin
- 26:36 – How the pandemic months have shifted Johanna’s perspective
- 30:06 – Johanna’s journey with Reiki
- 35:30 - How energy work has affected the way Johanna engages with her music
- 39:16 – Being a multi-disciplinary artist, moving between artistic mediums
- 45:55 – How Earth helps heal Johanna’s relationship to art
- 48:16 – A question Johanna has been asking right now
- 53:27 – What gives Johanna hope right now
Johanna’s Website
Johanna’s Instagram
Johanna’s new album, Chaotic Good
🎧 Subscribe to Art Heals Earth on iTunes
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
🎧 Subscribe to Art Heals Earth on iTunes
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
Jordon Goebel is a composer, percussionist, and guitarist. He has a degree in composition from St. Cloud State University and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of Minnesota. Jordan has performed as a percussionist with the St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra and is the lead singer and rhythm guitar player for the Twin Cities-based rock band The Arcanes. Jordon has an interest in new media and electroacoustic music, and his recent work focuses on conceptions of time through music. In this episode, we reflect on themes around one of his latest projects, a soundscape piece called Sun After Rain. Through gradually merging field recordings with electronics and percussion, the piece guides listeners through a reflection on interactions between nature, technology, and the human.
In this episode, we discuss:
- 3:54– What brought Jordon to the world of music, and what led him to composition
- 8:26 – The conception of Jordon’s new piece Sun After Rain
- 12:25 – An overview of what happens in Sun After Rain
- 15:29 – What nature means to Jordon as a source of creative inspiration
- 17:41 – The role that listening plays in Jordon’s compositional process
- 21:54 – Improvising and playing with environmental sound
- 24:04 – How Jordon’s perception of environmental sound changed as a result of composing Sun After Rain
- 26:54 – The relationship to the listener
- 31:30 – How Jordon experiences and experiments with time in music
- 40:50 – How art helps deepen Jordon’s relationship with the earth
- 33:04 – A question Jordon is asking right now in his work
- 46:40 – What gives Jordon hope right now
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
Rev. Lanny Kuester is a writer, poet, pastor, speaker, and community leader. He has traveled extensively and has studied with spiritual elders from around the world. Lanny works as an ordained minister in the Minnesota area and currently serves with Mendota Heights United Church of Christ. There, he helps host bimonthly “Meditations for the Earth” nights, as well as community events that draw upon the wisdom from Native American Medicine Wheel traditions to foster personal reflection and connection with the natural world. Lanny’s publications include Secrets of the Grand Canyon: A Spiritual Journey, and The Story of the Little Turtle.
In this episode, we discuss:
- 3:37 – How Lanny’s connection with nature developed throughout his life
- 10:50 – What roles nature has played in Lanny’s sense of spirituality
- 15:01 – Experiences and people that have helped strengthen the bridge between nature and faith, connecting to the environment through writing and poetry
- 23:30 – Lanny’s experience starting the Spirituality & Environment nights at UCC Mendota Heights
- 28:44 – Lanny’s learning with Medicine Wheel traditions and the four elements
- 35:45 - Seeing the natural world as a source of energy and beauty
- 40:12 – How art helps heal and deepen Lanny’s relationship with the earth
- 43:43 – A question that Lanny is asking right now
- 47:47 – What gives Lanny hope right now: a powerful gift given by a tiny bunny
Lanny’s Book: Secrets of the Grand Canyon
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
Anne-Marie Houy Shaver is a musicologist, flutist, and educator originally from the Texas Hill Country. Her research interests involve ecomusicology, listening practices, and contemporary music/performance. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in musicology at Arizona State University, where she is a part of ASU’s Acoustic Ecology Lab. She is also receiving training in the Deep Listening Certificate Program. Anne-Marie aims to use acoustic ecology to encourage community engagement, increased sonic awareness, and a connection to the environment. As a performer, she enjoys promoting new music, especially through the use of extended techniques.
In this episode, we discuss:
2:36 – What led to Anne-Marie’s converging interests between music and environment
5:22 – Anne-Marie’s research: applying ecomusicological frameworks to composers' works
7:56 – Representing vs. capturing environmental sounds in music
9:46 – Anne-Marie’s Deep Listening practice
13:29 – Listening as a practice of compassion that instills inclusion, openness, and awareness
16:11 – Listening as a mode of meditation
18:06 – Multi-sensory and embodied listening
21:02 – How Anne-Marie’s listening practice has affected her performance practice as a musician
24:46 – Hosting an Ecomusicology workshop at Enchanted Rock Park
28:35 – Anne-Marie’s experience with soundwalking
34:22 – ASU’s Acoustic Ecology Lab
37:32 – How art helps heal Anne-Marie’s relationship to the Earth
40:21 – A questions that Anne-Marie is asking right now
42:55 – What gives Anne-Marie hope right now
Follow Anne-Marie’s work on her website.
Check out Arizona State University’s Acoustic Ecology Lab!
For more information on Pauline Oliveros’s Deep Listening, visit The Center for Deep Listening.
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
Dr. Mark Pedelty is a Professor of Communication Studies, Affiliate Professor of Anthropology, and Fellow at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. His research deals with music and sound as environmental communication. In 2012 Mark published “Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment.” Mark published "A Song to Save the Salish Sea: Musical Performance as Environmental Activism” in 2016, a book about environmentalist musicians and movements in Washington State and British Columbia. As part of a linked project, Mark produces, directs, and composes music videos for Ecosong.Net, watershed districts, and environmental nonprofits.
•3:51 – Mark’s journey towards converging his musical and ecological interests
•8:54 – The focus on community in Mark’s research
•14:25 – Musicians as “cultural interlocutors”
•18:48 –Re-creating a sense of place and locality through music
•23:32 – Mark’s EcoSong.net music video project
•28:37 – Advice for people aspiring to use their voice to spread awareness of larger issues
•33:10 – The role that listening plays in Mark’s research and musicianship
•41:21 – Bioacoustics and the semiotics of sound
•45:13 – How art helps heal Mark’s connection with the earth
•51:08 – Questions coming up for Mark, where he wants to go from here
•55:12 – What gives Mark hope right now
Follow Mark's Work:
EcoSong.Net (Environmental Music Videos)
A Song to Save the Salish Sea: Musical Performance as Environmental ActivismEcomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
Lisanne’s work as a scientist, minister, and poet reflects the intimate intersection between spirituality and the natural world. Lisanne is a biology professor at University of Northwestern St. Paul, a minister with Mendota Heights United Church of Christ, and a published poet. She holds a Master’s degree in Biology and PhD in Cell Biology and Biochemistry, as well as Master’s Degree in Theology and Religion, and a second PhD in Systematic Theology and Divinity. Her scientific and scholarly research work at the convergence of two seemingly disparate disciplines: Biology and Theology.
In this episode, we discuss:
•3:17 - Where Lisanne’s love of nature and spirituality started, and how she was gradually able to integrate these strands
•9:44 – Lisanne’s journey with finding belonging in an academic world where she “asked broader questions than science allowed.”
•13:07 – Lisanne’s new book: pursuing a philosophy of nature through a faith-based perspective
•18:57 – Nature’s inherent value and the concept of teleology
•22:44 – Lisanne’s poetry practice and how it contributes to her connection to nature
•25:58 – Creating connection and community through writing
•27:44 – Learning to go within through meditation
•35:19 – Being in her garden as her daily meditation practice
•37:31 – Lisanne’s work as a marine biologist
•42:36 – The impact of the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami on Lisanne’s research team
•46:49 – A special visit to a church while trapped in Tokyo
•50:17 – Lisanne’s favorite places in the natural world
•54:27 – Advice for people who have many different passions and interests
•57:01 –How art helps deepen Lisanne’s connection with the Earth
•59:26 – A question that Lisanne is asking right now
•1:02:07 – Lisanne shares a poem with us
•1:05:17 – What is giving Lisanne a sense of hope right now
Some of Lisanne's recent writings:
A Trinitarian Theology of Nature
In Praise of Creation (poetry book)
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🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)
Welcome to Art Heals Earth, a podcast that explores how creative expression helps strengthen and heal our human connection with the planet. In this episode, I share the philosophy behind the podcast, the types of episodes to come, and welcome you aboard the journey! New episodes will be released every Monday.
🎧 Subscribe to Art Heals Earth on iTunes
🌟 Follow Art Heals Earth on Instagram: @art.heals.earth
🌎 Visit Our Website: artheals.earth
CC Megan Reich
Podcast Artwork: Alex Reich
Music: Kai Engel, "Scenery" (CC-BY)