WorldWild Podcast

How can we work within the wounds of severance to bring repair to the trauma-induced damage of people and planet?  Gail, one of the Co-Founders of Extinction Rebellion, and Miles walk from Brantham, Suffolk, to the nearby Stour estuary on a cold grey January morning. They chat about XR and protest, birdwatching, body politics, humans as a keystone species, psychedelics, and cultural change. After some time spent with the low-flying knots at the water, Miles and Gail forage some ingredients for lunch as they make their way back to the village.  As they cook and eat together, they ask what community practices we need for a kinder future. Gail is a Co-Founder of Extinction Rebellion. Her time is spent supporting people and actions to help us all meet the unfolding collapse of modernity. Dedicated to spreading dignity and freedom, reclaiming people power, and unifying with our global family, her activism has been a source of inspiration for many. Her doctorate is in molecular biophysics.   Here is a Greenbelt talk referred to in their conversation: https://www.greenbelt.org.uk/product/the-religion-we-need-next/   Here are some of the books that they mention: Hospicing Modernity - Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive - Kristen J. Sollee At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Climate Crises and Other Emergencies - Dougald Hine The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World - Iain McGilchrist The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity - David Graeber and David Wengrow   Please, fund Gail's work if you can Updates about her work via telegram Gail's latest talk, So Now What blog, Just Transition blog, Lifehouse-Collapse Preparing Communities work

In this third and final episode with Dan Siegel, the journey back to Oxford centres around religion and what Dan describes as ‘communities of connection'. What new forms will emerge in future and how can we participate in fostering that emergence?

Dan and Miles start their walk in the Oxfordshire countryside contemplating access restrictions to land and the humble stinging nettle. The conversation moves on to the innate need for belonging but also the problematic reality that in group outgroup distinctions appear to also be innate. The question then arises as to whether our ingroup category can be extended to include not just all humanity but all living beings…   Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

This week Miles speaks to Dan Siegel during their journey into the Oxford countryside. Dan is an author, therapist and founder of the interdisciplinary science of Interpersonal Neurobiology. This episode, the first of 3, introduces our new format which has Miles chatting to guests as they go for a walk that includes foraging, cooking and eating a meal.   Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

'We would have had to move around to follow these foods'. This week we are joined by returning guest and good friend of the podcast Monica Wilde, author of The Wilderness Cure (Simon and Schuster UK, 2022). Sign up to our mailing list: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/c1u1n9 Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

'We live right in the middle of tragedy. that's our daily life'. This week we are joined by Richard Trudgen, author of Why Warriors Lie Down and Die and long-time community educator working with the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land, Northern Australia. Sign up to our mailing list: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/c1u1n9 Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

‘You can't think it, you can't create it from your mind. It's not like that. You see what's next. You keep walking'. This week we are joined by Holly Bridges, a somatic therapist and author of Re-frame Your Thinking Around Autism... Sign up to our mailing list: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/c1u1n9 Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

‘It's the collective unconscious of a community that draws forward ancestral ways that have been lost. because they are never really lost'. This week we are joined by Rachael Knight, an attorney with expertise in community land tenure security, community natural resource governance, legal empowerment, and community-led conservation and cultural revitalisation... Sign up to our mailing list: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/c1u1n9 Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

‘How are things lost and forgotten, and when are they reclaimed?' This week we are joined by Nina Lawrin, an ethnobotanist, artist, urban forager, permaculture designer, and general world nomad... Sign up to our mailing list: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/c1u1n9 Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

‘Foraging is one of those essential roots to care for landscapes, care for biodiversity'. This week we are joined by Duncan Mackay, an environmental policy specialist and an elected council member of the National Trust... Sign up to our mailing list: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/c1u1n9 Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

‘We're trying to create initiation that would have been developed by a community for a community, in the absence of community'. This week we are joined by Lucy O'Hagan, an ancestral skills teacher, ethnobotanist, and wild food educator... Sign up to our mailing list: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/c1u1n9 Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

It's time to 'offer up all our certainties'. In this illuminating, enriching, and deep conversation, we talk with Roger Mitchell about the work of the Poverty Truth Commission. Their key guiding principle says it all: 'nothing about us, without us, is for us'... Sign up to our mailing list: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/c1u1n9 Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

‘Genetic diversity is the key to all resilience in nature'... Sign up to our mailing list: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/c1u1n9 Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

'When you realise that you're part of nature, it's not just learning about it, when you realise that you actually are nature... when you link back into all of this, you're never on your own again'... Sign up to our mailing list: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/c1u1n9 Visit: www.worldwild.org.uk

WorldWild Podcast is back with more episodes soon. Here Miles talks about going into podcast hibernation and what is to come... Stay tuned!

To celebrate 50 episodes of the WorldWild Podcast we've put together a medley of some conversations, stories, and songs which have inspired us to think a little wilder... Enjoy and thanks for your support!

What does a new cultural story look like? How can we weave new threads to unearth old ways of being and relating? Exploring Mark Lewis' Native American heritage we begin to see the power of a story and the degree of loss which goes into the construction of one. Through exploring how the lessons he has learnt could inspire a UK wild-food cultural renaissance we tap into an even deeper truth; that what we are really looking for is a centre to grow...

Connecting wild food to the culture, bringing up kids in a wilder way, making inter-generational learning happen to sustain ways of being and unearth tacit knowledge. All these and more we explore with returning guest Mark Lewis...

The fourth and final part of a series on being rooted in your body, this week's guest is Irene Lyon, somatic practitioner and nervous system expert, who joins us to explore how our nervous systems can get regulated, how to work with past trauma, and humankind's relational nature. With an eye on what is possible for our bodies, our communities, and our planet, we end this short series with much hope.

'We've lost the language of the dorsal state, which our deeper states, our otherness states'. In the third of this series on the Polyvagal theory, we are joined by Holly Bridges who explains its connection to Autism and 'otherness states'.  Tune in for a deep dive into bodily states, neuroception, and what might be possible as open up spaces for other ways of being...

In the second of a series on the Polyvagal Theory, we are joined with respected and passionate Polyvagal clinician, consultant and lecturer, Deb Dana, to speak about what kinds of stories we tell ourselves and what this really tells us about the state we are in. She provides insight into ways to re-connect with the ventral vagal - or as she calls it: home. It is only through the body that we feel safe, so learning how to nourish our nervous system to get to that place time and time again can turn our limiting beliefs into 'stories of possibility'. Join us as we go deep into the body as we aim to befriend the nervous system...

In the first of a series on being in your body with reference to the Polyvagal Theory, we chat with Rachel Lambert, the singing forager, who not only regales us with songs about wild plants but also shares with us her journey through somatic therapy training, her teaching philosophy, the topics of stillness and movement, and the tendency in our society for wanting to pin things down into abstraction and the need to dance with language...

Ethnobotany seeks to investigate our relationship with plants, in the wider sense it is how we relate to the earth as a living planet. How we turn to it when we are met with frightening prospectives, and how we turn away from it in our quest for control. By tapping into humanity's exceptional potential, but not turning exceptionalist, we aim to seek ways to bring ourselves back into the complexity. Discussing this with us this week is returning guest Lukasz Luczaj, ethnobotanist and author of the new book On The Wild Side. Tune in for a peek at a wilder world...

Journey with us into the biochemistry of reward, addiction’s evolutionary role, and life-supporting mechanisms, plus how they can be subverted by mechanised systems. We also discuss bee-keeping, de-organisming things, foraging as normal human behaviour, and being human when we are less than fifty-percent human cells. Joining us is Fred Gillam, medicinal mushroom teacher and forager, as we seek out a north star to guide us towards well-being...

We need to know the other living things around us. The work of remembering and documenting these intricate and intimate relations is one that receives little fanfare and even less funding. What Eleonora Matarrese is doing, then, is a deep unearthing of these relations through historical documents and literature. It is this that informs her cooking and the approach she takes in her restaurant in the mountains in Northern Italy, bringing forth remembrances to communicate through wild food...

What happens when you become your own datum? Social scientist and forager Leanne Townsend finds herself turning into her own study subject as she looks at the lifestyles and practices that make up modern foraging. What comes to the surface time and again are the relational aspects of our ways of being; that which tells us where our beliefs, our practices, and our sense of self comes from is often rooted just below the surface. We dig a little deeper to find out more...

We've been grounded and before we take another journey around our room we should take a look at what's growing in the front garden, you might be surprised how many edible plants can go in a salad of many wild things just under your nose! In this episode we're joined with Kate Blincoe, author of The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Parenting, to discuss how we can all stay grounded in these trying times and inspire the next generation at the same time...

What can we do in and around our homes to revitalise our relationships; with our landscapes, our communities, our bodies? Joined by wild food and outdoor adventure guide, Adrian Boots, we endeavour to come up with ways to weave ourselves into the fabric of life. One-eye backward, one-eye forward, with our feet firmly in the present...

Learning is empowering, that much we know. So how do we go about teaching whilst lessening the grip of authority and control - thereby empowering the individual to be their own authority, to embrace their own experience and to develop a relationship with a wild plant as commonplace as a dandelion. We are talking with Robin Harford, the man behind EatWeeds and author many foraging guide books, about what we can do right now to be more at home in nature and to embrace the sensory experience...

When all things seem uncertain we take solace in that which connects us to ourselves, to each other, to the land. When we are forming we learn to eat through the hospitality of the feminine; the womb, the breast, what the mother eats the child does also. And the land is the greatest mother of all, its abundant provisions are given over and over to us. We are speaking this week with Alys Fowler, horticulturist and journalist, about what we can do to confront issues of power, dominance, control, and what the wild provisions can tell us about the relationships we need the most right now...

Fergus Drennan is a wild food experimentalist and educator who once ate only wild food for three months, he also crafts and teaches on wild paper-making and natural dyes and paints. Miles and Fergus go back over fifteen years; they talk about their early days driving to London to sell their foraged goods and Fergus recounts the story of how he managed to shut a major street down with police surrounding his wild food-filled car after making a delivery to The Ivy...

Mental health in the hospitality industry has become more recognised and spoken about in recent years. Andrew Clarke, chef and mental health ambassador, is working with restaurants to build spaces where people can share their struggles in a nurturing environment. Going through his own bout of depression a few years ago he began the hard work on himself. Now he wants to share his experience and to create a healthier and more fulfilling work-life for those in the same position...

Bruce Parry has visited with many indigenous tribes throughout his career in television and film. Now he has come to a point of wanting to put what he has learned of egalitarian values and land-based culture into action in his own life. Joining the conversation is forager, expedition leader and traditional crafts teacher Nicola Burgess for an open discussion of what kind of society we want to live in...

All citizens, put your hands in the soil! Those are the words of David Benjamin Blower, musician, theologian, and podcaster, who talks with us about what to do when things are soon to change radically, what Francis Bacon left in his wake, on what comes after collapse, and why we must break down the wall between 'reality' and 'metaphor'...

Musician, improviser, and educator Sam Bailey talks about wildness and spirit in improvisation, the relationship between craft and the unconscious and the role of serendipity. Plus, an improvised performance!

In Sao Paulo we catch up with Cesar Costa, head chef at Corrutela, to talk about a new food system, the job of chefs, the importance of love in food, and what he is doing on the ground to set up new supply chains and ways of eating out...

On the trail with a top truffle hunter and her truffle-hunting dogs to seek out that wondrously scented and much-heralded subterranean treat...

Stinging nettles. They conjure up a lot of images, maybe a few teary-eyed remembrances, so you may be surprised to learn of their historical use in textiles. We delve into nettle fibre history, processing techniques for fibre preparation and what the future may hold for wild crafts...

Where do humans stand in the picture of nature? Our dictionary definition says we are outside of it, but how can this be right in a relational world? We talk with Finnish forager and teacher Anu Tossavainen about this and more; including a review of the berry and mushroom season in our respective countries and a look at why reindeers are moving south in Finland...

Come into the woods to delve into the magical world of medicinal mushrooms...

Professor Fred Provenza re-joins us on the WorldWild Podcast to continue the conversation on complexity in food, different ways of doing agriculture, the wisdom of grazing animals and our own bodily wisdom...

When is farming not farming and when is the wild not really that wild? What to do when what is sidelined may just be a path back to connection with our living planet? It's time to break down dichotomies and silos to move into a new space of possibility...

Traveling into the deep blue to talk about the food found there, why it may just be our species' saviour, and the science of umami synergy...

‘It’s ingesting the forest where it came from...that mushroom is made up of the elements that built that forest’...

Essense; with the emphasis on 'sense', allows us to perceive the world differently, not tied to written language and conceptual frameworks, but freed into wild lyricism and experiential abandon. Here, with Eva as our cultural guide, we take a journey through wild Lapland, Sámi culture, traditional singing, and connecting with deep truth and contentment...

‘I take people to a place that they know, and then I change it, and now it’s a different place. After, they will be motivated to meet nature with more empathy and change how they act in the world’.

How to build community? This week the highly-respected wild food educator and author John Kallas joins us in conversation around community-building, the concept of elderhood, declining botanical knowledge, the potential of agroforestry and hydroponics, eating seaweeds, and tackling inertia to bring about change…

Telling the story behind the food on the plate and going foraging in central London with esteemed restaurateur Mark Hix...

Botanist John Akeroyd takes us to the wilds of Romania and Ireland, through his days at Cambridge, and details the obstacles to conservation...

We talk with Professor Philip B. Stark, one of the key figures in the Berkeley Open Source Food Project, about what weeds can teach us...

Jeremy Lee, Chef Proprietor of Quo Vadis in London, is a man who knows good quality produce and the winding journey of British food up to now...