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(transcribed by AI so there maybe some small errors!)

What if you could cultivate fulfilling lives and contribute to a healthy natural world? The wild minds podcast is brought to you by me. Marina Robb, an author, social entrepreneur, Forest School and nature-based trainer and consultant and pioneer in developing green programmes for the health service in the UK.

Join me as I discover new perspectives on what it is to be a human in a more than human world, challenging dominant paradigms, finding ways to be kinder on ourselves and harder on the system. I'm also the founder of the outdoor teacher and creator of practical online Forest School, outdoor learning and nature-based trainings for people in health, education and business, tune in for interviews, insights, cutting edge and actionable approaches to help you to improve your relationship with yourself, others and the natural world.

Welcome, to a new podcast season eight. Episode 58 the ecological self. Here I am recording in my shed. It's quite hot. It's April, and it is a new podcast season, but it's also an actual new season. It's springtime again. I am relieved to feel the heat of the sun on my face and actually waking up early hearing the bird song, and unusually, this year, we seem to be having a lot of sun in southern England, which is a blessing after a long, wet, quite dark winter. And it really feels like spring is here. I want to talk a little bit about spring inside myself, inside ourselves as the human, and also spring in the natural world. Because a lot of this podcast is me going on a journey discovering new things and constantly inquiring and learning from both the conversations I'm having and the experiences I'm having and what's going on inside myself. And some of you might not realise, but actually I am not reading from a script. I am trying, in a busy life to tune in and speak from my heart, speak from what's there, speak from what wants to be spoken. And that can feel really tricky, because there are so many things that I need to do many, many distractions, and yet, I also really want to be able to offer something of value. And how am I to know whether it is of value? And in the end, does you valuing it matter that much?

There is an absolute part of myself where it absolutely matters, what you might think and yeah, whether you're going to turn it off right now or not, but I am exploring a deeper sense of myself and what really matters to me. And actually, can I be okay with, yeah, making mistakes, creating a podcast that actually doesn't have much value, or people switch off. Does that really matter? Where is my value system? Where do I get my worth from? It's a really important question. And after all, this podcast is inquiring about the domesticated self, the self, the social self that we learn every day of our lives as we navigate being in a culture, being in a family, compared to this potential wider sense of ourselves. Which we could call the ecological self, and I have no doubt that until the day I die, I'm going to be learning more and more new things and having different experiences that are going to shape my understanding of who I am and my understanding of the larger self that goes beyond the ecological self. So I am super excited, by the way, to let you lot know that I have been interviewing some amazing people for this season. I've spoken to Sam Lee, who you heard last week. I'm getting to go on the singing with nightingales experience this week where I'm gonna spend some quiet time.

I hope listening hearing these birds that have travelled from Africa all the way to England, and spending some time in Sussex, where I live. I'm really looking forward to that. I have no idea what magic that might bring into my life. I'm told that there is this real, tangible sense of communication between the musicians and the birds, and I'm really looking forward to that. Who wouldn't be looking forward to that, especially as the forecast is sunny. But also I'm holding a kind of wondering around this concept of communication with the wild and having a few insights into why communication is so much more than the spoken word. I know that in my practice. I know that when I work with people, and particularly with young people, but it is with people that we communicate way beyond our words. We communicate often through our bodies, through our cues, through the look that we might get, and through our imagination. As well. We communicate in so many ways. So I'm a willing participant this week, for sure, in trying to leave to one side, what may be possible and what might not be possible, and how this experience lands in my body rather than my head. So that's quite exciting, that's happening this week. So as I said, This podcast is about looking at the relationship to ourselves, looking at the relationship to other people that we have, and to the natural world. And I want to speak a little bit before I drop into all of that.

I've just realised I started saying about Sam Lee, but Oh, my word this season, I have John Young, who will be speaking to me next week. And then beyond that, the legendary John seed, who I remember from a child, not a child. I remember, well, I guess it is a child, relative to being in my 50s now, but in my early 20s, reading the book, thinking like a mountain, and that influencing deeply my interest in ecology and in into a whole different world view of relationship with the natural world. But anyway, I get to speak to him and others, but returning back to this importance of relation to ourselves and others and the natural world, I want to really explore just for a little bit today, about this season and this incredible relationship We have with the more than human, the trees, the animals, the birds. And to explore a little bit into how, when we open this relationship beyond the human, that things can happen. And there seems to be a real thread, which I think is going to come through in this season, around the power of the imagination, the power of the imaginal sense, the power of what we might even call the dream body, even this concept that all of us, you me, have dreams. Some of us remember them, some of them, some of us don't. But there is this quality that isn't just happening at night, that this quality of being human that can dream and imagine in the day as well, and that seems all. Awesome, and maybe, just maybe, that is the link to what could be called Magic or extraordinary experiences that we can't frame in the current world view we may have. And I can't help thinking that children have this in oodles and oodles and oodles and noodles. And I think this needs to be considered as a real facet of what it is to be human. And somehow we have this incredible imaginal self sense and visual ability that is not just visual in terms of what we see, but what we can see when we close our eyes, and what we can feel when we close our eyes and the possibility of that, the vision that seems to me that children have comfort with that, and then we somehow lose that.

So it's springtime, and our ancestors on this land often would refer to certain trees at certain times of the year, and it's known as the OM calendar. And in my experience, it's in the same way as working with the plants, in the same way of considering plants that I might eat or make creams with that they exude certain qualities at certain times of the year, both in our ability to harvest it, but also kind of medicinal qualities and that plants have characters as well, and the tree of this time of year is the Hawthorne tree. Now it's April, and any one of you might be thinking, Well, hang on, April isn't the May tree. Hawthorn is known as the May tree. And for sure, in the next month, we're going to see these incredibly beautiful blossoms around the UK of these Hawthorne trees, which are amazing. And, yeah, beautiful. And yet, for the Celts, this tree was placed in April and also at this time of year. The tree of blackthorn is around this time. And blackthorn is often the tree that blossoms. Well, it is the tree that blossoms first, in terms of this land so we see this incredible white blossom. That's I, you know, I remember it even happening in late February, but certainly March and April, you'll drive along the roads in the countryside doesn't have to just be countryside, and you'll see the white blossom and that's the black thorn. And yet the hawthorn doesn't actually blossom until May. So there's something around here, around so what's the relationship with our psyche, with our inner worlds, and the journey, the cycles that we're on? What's needed before we get to the spring? And so the trees may help us with that so black thorn blossoms, but it's got these harsh black thorns that were traditionally, traditionally known as the crown of thorns. And it may be true. Who will know that, apparently, Jesus had this crown of thorns on his on his head?

Again, it's a time of year, isn't it? Easter? Those of you that know a bit of the story, the Christian story, then you may know that, yeah, Jesus had this crown on, and it was said that it was a blackthorn crown. Now what's the significance? What could be the significance is that in order to get to the spring, we have to go into these darker places, these challenging places to reap the benefits of the spring, and what might that mean for us as humans? What might that mean that we have to face difficult tasks and that those difficulties can't be avoided, and that we need to honour those difficult places and why they might exist before we can really enjoy the fullness of spring. So there's something now about the delicateness of those Hawthorn leaves and those. These black thorns that have a different quality and actually are quite poisonous. You're not going to eat the thorn, but if they cut you, they can wound you in the blackthorn tree. Before we get to this wonderful flowering of the May tree, which is the Hawthorne tree. So I'm often in this inquiry about the relationship between ourselves and the natural world and how we can build that and there are ways that we can gather information, or we can have different experiences. Now, for a moment, I just want you to tune into this being the beginning of spring, and that it's a birth, and to wonder for yourself around how you would treat a little baby, a baby that you love, that was had a really strong relationship to you. How are you going to treat that baby, and what would you want for that baby? What kind of home would you want for that baby? What kind of life would you want for that baby? What kind of relationships would you want for that baby? And there's something here around as an adult, looking back on our lives and on our childhoods, how that baby was treated, how that young person was treated, how that you was treated back then.

Well, we didn't have much control of we didn't have control of the adults in our lives, the place we were brought up in, the culture we were brought up in, but now, as an adult, we can do something different. Now, I don't think there's anyone out there that would have an experience as a baby of having this kind of full sense of being loved and being valued for who he, she, they are, to really know that you're loved, to really know that you are part of being of a place, of a family that you really can be supported, that you flourishing, doesn't take from somebody else, that they can enjoy or flourish in, that they have enough to look after you. And this quality of what we might like for this inner child or this baby is, in a sense of the spring like, how can we resource ourselves and nourish ourselves enough to somehow bring that to this part of ourselves when no doubt, in Reality, that part of ourselves was wounded so when we look at that baby, when we feel into the baby, that springtime, the new beginnings, when we look upon that child is a child that is natural. That child screams, expresses her or himself, reaches out, looks for attachment, looks for connection, and all the things that we could imagine that child needs. And how, if we can't get that in the real world, right, how can we do that in the imaginal world. How can we self-parent ourselves, allow for the inner gaze of ourselves, that inner perception, if you like, that inner awareness, to actually give that to ourselves. And it's everyone's individual journey, isn't it? And I would suggest that this is our wild self, this is our fully natural self in an ideal world, and where isn't ideal, we would have a community that we could see cares for us. And it's not happening, is it? And I know that it's not happening, and I know that this is ideal, however we have this responsibility, certainly as we get older, to meet our own needs, And in doing that, find a way to be able to know what we need, and then be able to ask for that, and somehow the spring reminds us of the potential, the potentiality, of a full, connected life where everything has value and everyone has value. You, and it also reminds us of not having that, and then the need to tend to that. So I'm going to kind of leave you with that and I hope that doesn't seem too complicated, and that I hope that as we journey around the year again and again, and we consider what is wild, what is wild in us, what aspects of us has been domesticated, what things we've taken on our social self, what we've taken on that doesn't necessarily belong to us, how we can support ourselves and how the natural world is showing us something different.

We are the human part of nature. We have come out of hundreds of 1000s and millions of years of this earth star system, and we have this connection where there is this intimacy, natural intimacy, that we have with the living world. And when we're not brought up in that we're not brought up with this relational capacity to be in relationship with ourselves in a kind way, to be in relationship with others, to be in relationships that might nourish us and to create systems that support more spring time, I suppose, more summer. But having said that, with every summer comes the fall and the autumn and the winter, so there isn't a sense of staying in the spring or staying in the summer. You can't stay in the summer all the time. You can't stay in the summer even within an hour. Everything keeps changing. So what renewal is needed at every single point? What resource do we need? What do we need to let go of? What do we need to connect into in order to be ready for something new. What perspective do we need to let go of to allow for the possibility of a new perspective? And this kind of death and life, and death and life is what we might call this wheel, this cycle, this circle of life. And how can we participate in that more fully? How do the children teach us? How do the elders teach us? How did the adults teach us? How did the children of the little babies of the birth, you know, the birds, the chicks, how do they teach us about a part of ourselves? How does night and day teach us about ourselves? So I'm reminded of Sam Lee last week talking about that whilst music is such a way into a different experience, to access different emotions, different images, different perspectives, different stories, music, human music, bird music. But there's also such a need to be quieter and to slow down, as is one of the key themes in the distracted world that we find ourselves in to slow down enough so that we may hear something different, so that we may experience for a moment this different quality of intimacy, and this intimacy going beyond the social self into a wilder, larger intimacy with the living world that is here right now, and It's here in an external way things that I'm able to see the colours, the shapes. It's here in a sensory smell way, the smells, some of the flowers at the moment, smell exquisite. It's here in the way it feels when. My touch senses, and it's here in the imaginal sense, the ability to close my eyes and to be in contact with my larger self, but also not just my thinking self all these words, but also this, what feels like a kind of dark space that represents my body, that I can go into and track and notice sensations, but also notice feelings and in that noticing, be able to have a relationship with that part of myself that is mine, that's within me, and it feels really important. It feels really important.

And I feel that this season will be deepening, that this kind of power of listening and developing practices which will support us to be kinder to ourselves and to be able to get what we most Need. And it may sound incredibly, I don't know, complex or maybe a bit deep, and perhaps it is, and that's part of this inquiry, but it's also part of us being well and reaching that springtime quality where we can play and laugh and be silly and be less concerned about the judgement of others or whether I say something, and it will be, you know, I feel shame or be humiliated and have these encounters that make me feel, yeah, this is okay, yay. You know, there is enough love. I can feel it. I can be who I am, express who I am, and, you know, explore joy and direct experience above being on a screen or indoors.

So thank you for listening. Feel free to take what's useful and discard what is not useful. These are my unscripted thoughts as I consider myself within this moment, within this seasonal moment, and who knows whether this is a value or not, but here I am doing it, and I'm going to be brave enough to put it out there and see what happens. So with that in mind, I wish you well, and I really look forward to next time when you get to hear me interviewing, interviewing a mentor of mine, somebody who has an extraordinary capacity for storytelling has had more than 40 years of deep nature connection, experience who brings models and perspectives to the world of everyday nature experience. And should you wish to go deeper? It's there as well. It's John Young. He's author of several books. He's also an expert around birds. If you want to learn about birds, that's a place you go, and I hope you enjoy it and thank you so much. Feel free to share this podcast. It is encouraging to feel that there are folks out there that want to listen to this and want to kind of take these experiences and then figure out how to appropriately bring practices into their everyday life. After all, there's a personal journey with this work and being able to navigate important aspects of who we are and how to be present, especially if we're facilitators and we're holding groups. And then there's the absolute, many practices and activities that can be brought in that facilitate us getting outdoors. Facilitate children getting outdoors, facilitate groups getting outdoors, which are so powerful because they're not about being in the head. They're about remembering that we have this body, this very incredible body that has a different kind of knowing, different. A kind of way of interacting with the world than our head and our communication. So I'm really interested in taking very everyday experiences of fire, of foraging, of shelters, of games, of all kinds of lovely, creative ways of being in our hands and our bodies, and learning in that way, experiential learning, while also understanding there is a deeper theoretical and experiential underpinning to this practice, these practices that help us develop from a very one dimensional, in some ways, social being in a very habitual culture, to a wild, open understanding of the ecological self.

So I will leave you with that, and I do hope that you get to have a little nibble of a hawthorn leaf, which in our old times was known as bread and cheese. Not that it really tastes like bread and cheese, but of course, has medicinal qualities. Take a little moment to notice the shape of the leaf and the way the Hawthorn is the trunk. It's very particular, and perhaps find a spot in readiness for May, when the blossom is there. See you next week.

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You can visit the www.theoutdoorteacher.com or follow me on Facebook at theoutdoorteacherUK and LinkedIn, Marina Robb. The music was written and performed by Geoff Robb.
See you next week. Same time, same place.