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

Marina Robb: Hello, and welcome to the Wild Minds Podcast for people interested in health, nature based therapy and learning. We explore cutting edge approaches that help us improve our relationship with ourselves, others and the natural world. My name is Marina Robb, I'm an author, entrepreneur, Forest School outdoor learning and nature based trainer and consultant, and pioneer in developing green programs for the health service in the UK. 

You're listening to Episode 27. My guest today is Peter Owen Jones. Peter is an ecological thinker and activist as well as a celebrated BBC TV presenter. He was ordained as a parish priest in 1992, and has explored the world's religious and spiritual ideas, and distilled essential wisdom for contemporary modern life. In this episode, we get to listen to some extracts from Peters book conversations with nature, as well as a rewording of the Lord's Prayer, which I think was quite fitting for Easter. I really enjoyed this rich conversation, where we think about core religions and love and contemplate some insights into a life well lived while celebrating the magnificence of this reality. I hope you enjoy this episode.

So welcome, Peter, to the wild mind podcast. Thank you very much for joining me this afternoon. What I'd like to do is I always start with some gratitude. And before I press record, I was particularly dropping into a feeling of gratitude for people that step out of the familiar and as Brene Brown says, like, step into the arena, so there's this feeling for me of feeling grateful for people that actually put their head a little bit out in the public eye and take a risk. And the risk, I guess is that they can be criticized and yeah, just have to face things from people that they might not want to. So I'm just grateful for the people that have the courage to do that. And I wonder whether you'd be happy in sharing any gratitude that comes at this moment.

Peter Owen Jones: Thank you. Yes, I, in light of what you have said, I am deeply grateful for the poet's I'm deeply grateful for the words of Rumi are the words of Hafeez the Romantic Movement poets, all of these men and women and the contemporary poets. I think we live in an age of dwindling hope, I think, and it is the poet's that can tell us why this is happening. And also enlighten us as to what we might do to dance again. So I am deeply grateful to them to do

Marina Robb: so perhaps that's the way in is to ask you what it might mean to you to dance again.

Peter Owen Jones: That's a very fine question. I'd like to answer in two parts. I think one of the great seductions of Getting old is that you believe your dancing days are done and that it becomes easier to retreat into some self imposed order and some. The rituals that we have constructed on a day to day basis. And therefore, what is sacrificed for that sense of order, which I think at the root of that is really an attempt to control. What gets sacrificed is spontaneity, what gets sacrificed is dancing, what gets sacrificed is staying up till four in the morning. And so I would just like to say that it's a battle, it's always a battle, because the body wants to sleep. But the heart wants to dance. And so I will kind of hang on to that tension for as long as I can. And secondly, winter is a time of melancholia. Really, we tend to shy away from that, because it's associated with depression. It's associated with isolation. But melancholia can be an extraordinary teacher. Because it's there to tell us what we haven't dealt with, what is the shadows that we have our feet in. And therefore, I would say that melancholia, it's something to be welcomed and explored, not in the sense of depression, but in the sense of the quietude. And the silence, that can offer, if we're brave enough to accept that invitation.

Marina Robb: Gosh, there are two very meaningful responses actually, and one speaks to me about, you mentioned the word control, and order. And then while that makes me think about is whether or not we can find a way to be with control in order, and at the same time, perhaps disorder, or the sense of dancing, feels like it, it doesn't want to kind of stay within confines in some way. And I'm wondering about some of the ways that we can be with both and also because actually, this podcast is likely to be released, if you're like, in the spring, which is interesting. And we haven't talked yet about your kind of faith, your Christian faith and I have been reading some literature around this idea of order, and disorder, and then resurrection. So I've already said quite a lot of things, but you provoke this in me, you know, this kind of starting to talk about this. And I wonder if you'd speak to some of that before we perhaps go to the your second point,

Peter Owen Jones: Our whole lives, or since the dawn of consciousness, I think we have, or I can No, I can only speak for myself, I cannot speak for those who have trod this path before me. It's a great seduction, I think order. It's there in the Bible, write large. You know, I don't ever proselytize, because that's just not my way. And I'm always slightly suspicious of those that wants to convince me. But, you know, it's very fundamental religious belief is essentially based on order, whether that is Christian, whether that is Jewish, whether that is Islamic, or Buddhist, or Joe or Jane. It is based, all of those fundamental beliefs are based on a strict adherence to order. And, again, I go back to the beautiful words of Rumi, I go back to the beautiful words of Christ. And here were to human beings that really kind of disavowed order, they said, plugin to love. Let go of your addiction to order and it's far harder to tune into love than it is to adopt order. And as much as I grapple with that, and fail consists simply, I would still say that our job as human beings is to tune into love. And that's going to cause chaos in terms of our addiction to order. Any anyone who has fallen in love will, will testify to that. I think.

Marina Robb: So as you know, this podcast is called the wild minds podcast in some ways, the reason that I chose that in the end was something that links to what you're speaking of, and I don't pretend to have the answers to any of this. But this sense of order, chaos and people seeing chaos as kind of wild, you know, and being scary, and not taking form or controllable in some ways. And I don't necessarily think that's what wild means. Yeah. Already in this conversation, I'm feeling that you're, you're almost in me anyway, provoking, you know, by saying, Well, look, let's point to love, that love doesn't necessarily stay in order. And so perhaps we need both. Perhaps there is something about both.

Peter Owen Jones: Yeah, I think we do need both. But I think we'd love comes responsibility. But I mean, I would place love, above all, and with love comes responsibility. That those responsibilities, those individual responsibilities, may have been melted down into commandments and decrees and thou shalt not, thou shalt. But I think that is merely an attempt to say, not to rein live in, but to say, if you're going to take the path of love, then this also comes with huge responsibilities.

Marina Robb: So I'd love to talk to you about Christianity, and I know only what I was perhaps taught at school and my mother was Catholic. I don't know that much about it. But I have a real sense it an opportunity in having you on this podcast to ask you questions that perhaps I've never asked somebody? Who would you say belongs to the church? I mean, I am I right in saying that, You mean you're an Anglican vicar? And what does that mean? Does that mean you believe in God? What does that mean?

Peter Owen Jones: I think that means something very different to every priest, whether you are a Buddhist monk, or whether you are a Christian priest, or whether you are an EMR. And so every one, every human being, I think, is going to answer that question that question differently. And I think it's much easier again, here we are with order, you know, it, the great temptation is to codify this, and to say, this is what it means. It might mean that for the person that's codifying codified it, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm not that man, I'm not that woman. So what it means to me, is going to be different to what it means to the parish priest, in the next door parishes.

Marina Robb: Does that mean you don't want to define it for yourself?

Peter Owen Jones: I think as I've got older, I think my experience of it is that there are two main experiences and that one is the presence of the Divine is constant, it is ever present and it is alive force that exists in everything. And the second the second is that it is fluid, and therefore any attempt to kind of set it in ink is only going to last for as long as it takes the ink to dry. After that, it might present itself as something different again, I think we each experience it in our own way. And therefore, there is of course you look at the Catholic you know the great edifice of the Catholic Church, you look at the great edifice of the Protestant church, that you know, there are so many strictures there are so many do's there are so many don'ts unless these are explored on an individual basis, they are essentially dry and meaningless. I think they only take on meaning when they are lived. And when it hurts, and when it brings joy, and when it makes you dance until dawn.

Marina Robb: So I think the way you're describing the words used is the sense of the divine in everything, and I feel that I come in and out of that, you know, I'll have moments when I will experience this, or this wonder this mystery in and I and as you say, it's such a personal thing that can't be so easily just defined, but I have an ongoing inquiry around the idea of having you know, that everything is divine, and then a kind of religion, or a set of rules, maybe this order that we started talking about that feels that you belong, or you don't belong. And the reason and I think this is important, because in a way, the inquiry I have is a future or hope that I have is there as a future that we can all feel that we have a place in, that we can participate with. And I feel that that's just seems to be so important. Because as I grew up, you know, and had certain ideas about a God that perhaps was more punishing, or more judgmental, I didn't feel like I could be I was part of that. Right? So I think there's a part of me now that's you know, having you on the podcast that can kind of go so. So how can you know, is there a possibility in your eyes to come from incredibly different places or understandings and yet, share something in common that can bring us together? Do you see that or? Or not? Do they divide? Do they bring us together these ideas

Peter Owen Jones: at the moment, they don't bring us together, they tear us apart. And it's no point in pretending otherwise, or coming up with kind of sweet words on that front. My eldest daughter was berating me the other day, sent to me, you know, you are part of the problem. Your Christianity, your church, that building, and, you know, all the rituals and expectations around it a part of the problem. And she you know, she looked me in the eye and said, where do we will meet? Where does the Buddhists meet the Christian? Where does the atheists meet the Muslim? And she's right. But again, you know, this is an inheritance of culture, and the dreadful notion of country and the dreadful notion of nation. And I can only say that, at the moment, what the vision that you have laid out the which is beautiful. It's a seed that needs water, and good Earth. And yes, as long as we are prepared to uphold our differences, we will remain mired with within them. And I can only say that my daughter's challenge to me, hit me very hard. And she's right, but at the basis of the religions of love, and I will just call them the religions of love. There is that call to love your neighbor as yourself. And if we can begin there and not resort to other in, then we have a hope, then there is hope. As long as we are prepared to define ourselves by our differences, our apparent differences. I would also just add to that is an Israeli heart different to a Palestinian heart is an Afghan heart different to an English art, you know, these are ludicrous notions and as long as we are encouraged and prepared to believe that they are different, then we will remain these warring little factions addicted to our own ideologies. And it is that which causes so much pain and heartache and increasing terror. So I'll leave it at that I think.

Marina Robb: Yeah, I feel that you You've spoken of already in right and wrong. And we do that all the time, don't worry that something is right. And then the other thing is wrong. And it's that othering, that you spoke to that, you know, while something might feel absolutely true and right, it doesn't necessarily make the other wrong. And that's so hard, isn't it? Because we, and this is stuff that I've read and thought about just how it's so hard for us to see beyond what we can see. And that's one of the wonderful things I think about having these conversations and meeting people from different lands and cultures and different religions is that they give us if we're willing the opportunity to see something that we just hadn't seen. And that's the other reason why I felt so excited about speaking to you, because, you know, I've seen a few of your wonderful documentaries, where you go, as you are, yes, with your culture and your trappings, whatever they may be but you go into quite extreme and a not beautiful, other places, and eat bread with other people. And it seems to me that the ones that I saw, and I haven't seen all of them, that you, you were able to both have your own sense of what's true for you. But at the same time, you know, be very open. What does that take to do that both on a personal level, but also, you know, in a culture that's holding both,

Peter Owen Jones: I've, you know, I think, on this island, and I'm only going to call it an island, you know, we're in an incredibly privileged place, because increasingly, this is what is termed, or this land, this little piece of land on this planet, especially within our cities, incredibly multicultural, multiracial, multi faith. And let's see what emerges, because I do not believe that the old lines in the sand can hold. Let's see what new ideas are fermented. And some of them are going to be beautiful. And some of them will be ugly. But this is the cauldron. This is the melting pot, we're in it. And if there's, I have great hope, and I'm I feel incredibly excited to be living now in this time, when it's quite clear that this this osmosis, this mixing is taking place. I haven't seen anything that is made me weep as a result. But look, it's coming. Because I don't think the old lines, but I know the old lines cannot hold. And that includes the old, you know, the old barricades that I find myself within as well.

Marina Robb: But in a way, having read Richard Rohr, who I know you, you've read, I've had the opportunity to revisit some of the ideas of how the old can be totally miss told if you like, and I'd love to just share or explore something around Jesus and his life. And because I've been so surprised how I didn't, when I was given another opportunity to look at some of the teachings that I was like, I hadn't even realized that, as I said a little while ago, that, you know, I was brought up with this sense of being policed by God. And this sense of, I don't know, Jesus was on a cross, you know, I didn't really know what that meant. And I wonder in the context of some of what we're saying, you know, what do you think has been misunderstood about that? And is there anything that you know, you could share with us to give us a slightly different view, maybe a new view on what that could have meant or means to us?

Peter Owen Jones: I would send her an incredibly privileged position to encounter and meet with men and women have many different faiths. And I am, I am a follower of what Jesus taught Hold on, I'm only just now beginning to kind of scratch the surface in terms of understanding. And I have not found in my life any more radical teaching on love, what it is to love and to be loved than the words spoken, or apparently spoken by that man, I have found no more opening MTU teaching there, and I think you're right, it's very easy walk into a church and you're confronted with a man in a stained glass window nailed to a cross, incredibly brutal picture, and scene to behold. And I often wonder why we've done that, because I think we've done that because of inclusion. I think the purpose of that, or at least the theology around that, which I still find slightly strange and abhorrent is that this man suffered and died for my forgiveness, because I'm a pretty rotten human being. And therefore, if I think the idea is that if we can be I can be forgiven for the terrible things that I have done. And I can only be forgiven, because of that one act. I'm not actually sure that I buy into that completely. But I understand the reasoning behind it. And I don't it to me, that's not, you know, that's not the big deal. The Crucifixion is not the big deal. To me, the big deal is the Sermon on the Mount, you know, blessed are the meek shall inherit, and so on. That, to me, is the very big deal. The kind of the theater that goes on around that. It's not so important to me, it is what you said, Love your enemies, you know, love your enemies, are you? Are you real about this, love your neighbor. And then all that he speaks of, I have found no greater teaching and love. And therefore I, I'm happy to stand where I stand right now, although I fail at every single point in every single day. Look, I mean, I just want to add, it's not meant to be easy. It's not meant to be cozy and straightforward. And comfortable. You know, why on earth? Should it be any of those things? If it is worth anything? This isn't just the kind of Protestants saying, beat me, then I'll learn, give me pain, and I'll learn it's actually no, are you going to take this, if you take this journey, you will be challenged to your core, on your understanding and your capacity, and your ability and willingness to love in the face of pain.

Marina Robb: Yeah, and I, in a in a kind of supervision session, I was exploring the idea of punishment, and how we often unconsciously punish others, or maybe I unconsciously punish others for something that I didn't receive, or whatever that might be. And it was strange, because, again, that having not, you know, following any particular religion, what came up was that image of Jesus and this idea that least at least I'm still working on it, like you say, some of these things might take me years to understand, but this sense of that, that he was saying, Actually, forgive them because they don't understand. Right, this kind of sense of we don't need to punish others. We can love others. And I feel that this this message is a very profound message because if you are suffering, like you said, and you feel the pain, it's so in a way a relief valve as I experienced to blame somebody else, you know, to make somebody else the cause of my suffering. And if I ever have the possibility of doing my inner work enough to somehow find in myself the place where I don't feel I have to make the other the problem, but actually can come has somehow work that inside myself and I think maybe I'm touching some of what you're talking about, you know,

Peter Owen Jones: I'm just going to kind of give you a reworking of the Lord's Prayer. Because I think within that there is one line that speaks very clearly to what we're talking about our father, our mother, of this planet, of the universe, of every leaf, and star, and see, and stone, hallowed be your name, your reality, be made known in all things in all times, and in all places, please give us what we need. Each day. Please forgive us when we wound others, when we scheme to wound, when we wound this beautiful planet, please help us to forgive those who have wounded us. And this is the line be with us in the shadows of our choosing, and guide us in service to love these shadows, this capacity for blame this capacity for revenge, this capacity for anger, these are choices that I make, I choose to stand that at that particular time. And through those particular stones, this is my choice, it's not the fault of the other, I could choose love at that point. But if I choose to scheme to wound, then I have a lot to learn.

Marina Robb: Thank you so much for that. And to choose not to throw the stones somewhere, I feel that I need to have enough sense of love, you know, within myself, it's something about that love within and because the reaction the release of throwing the stone or the bad words or the reaction, it's does something that if I you know, when I can pause myself and generate more love in me, then there's more possibility of me not harming the other. That's what I would add to that reflection. And in some ways, it brings us to that second point that you said at the beginning and I can't for the life of Remember how you said it. But it is about some were walking with that shadow with the discomfort isn't it? it's you said to be able to dance but to dance alongside or with all of all of what is as well.

Peter Owen Jones: Yeah, dance with your shadow gone. That's not easy. That's you know, here we are back with the man love your neighbor as yourself. Very, you know, oh, I'm a good guy. You know, I love my neighbor. Do you love yourself? Ah, that's the tough one. Sure, is loving your neighbors, you know, that's an act of generosity. Most of the time, loving yourself, what? No, that's guts, the one that needs work.

Marina Robb: Especially if you don't believe or can't feel that you're worthy of that love for that forgiveness. As you've as you talked about earlier, I think that's very hard. It's very, very hard.

Peter Owen Jones: Well, again, you I mean, this is normally the result of wounding, and trauma. And this is the result of having terrible pain and abuse inflicted upon you. And, you know, healing from that. Healing from that is very hard. But that's the journey for all of us. The journey for all of us is to, to heal, not to carry these wounds, and not to inflict them on others. But that's God's that's the loving yourself part.

Marina Robb: So with that, I'd love to turn the conversation towards the natural world. You've written a lovely, a lovely little book called Conversations with nature. And I would love just to well, actually, I would like you to read it, but I didn't ask you to bring a copy. So I'm not sure if you've got a copy. Have you got a copy? Oh, would you mind? It's a little cheeky of me. But on page six Jeannine you have one of your pieces of writing is called the OIC speaks of sanctuary. And I just wonder whether you would at least read the first paragraph. Well read as much as you'd like to read. But there's something when I read it, I really felt about, well, it warmed my heart. And it also made me feel that you spoke to some things that I could relate to, I suppose,

Peter Owen Jones: the giving of sanctuary is written into the code of life. Planet Earth is a sanctuary, a Lifeworld, in the midst of space, the stone gives sanctuary to the moss, the soil gives sanctuary to the seed, the river gives sanctuary to the read, silence, gives sanctuary to sound, you share this sanctuary with all life, with every Grove, with every reef, with every more and breath, a human being is called to consciously to uphold and nurture the reality of sanctuary to make it known. And to bring it to life.

Marina Robb: Gosh, I feel like I would just love to listen to you carrying on there. And I, I suppose I wanted you to share that because of that. That sense of intimacy and leaning into and peace is it's so wonderful, it makes me feel that we're just entangled and intertwined. And I guess it gives me a feeling of safety.

Peter Owen Jones: Yeah, but I mean, look where we are, you know, we're on this Blue and Green Globe lit by a star, circling around the star, we're having this conversation now, on this place, in the midst of space, how extraordinary how intensely beautiful, is just that second, that reality, all the mess and all the dirt, and all the shame, and all the pain is never overwhelmed by that one, constant reality that we're here. We're doing it. We're living, breathing. And it's going to be messy. And it's not going to be straightforward. But here we are. So let's love Let's dance. And let's take the challenges that are laid down before

Marina Robb: perhaps we forgotten to dance, and to be in this absolute wonder in awe that you've just spoken to, you know,

Peter Owen Jones: I think we're so tied up with nationality, that we, we lose sight of the incredible gift of humanity. And here we are, it's happening. It's real. About where the quantum physicists may disagree with us entirely. And normally, long may they thrive. But for the time being, here we are, and what a ride.

Marina Robb: Do you read on page 73? Again, just a paragraph or two from that piece of writing,

Peter Owen Jones: the moss speaks of intimacy. Intimacy is the vessel, the first language of every life world. It is intimacy that holds life in being your life, my life. Every Sturm every seed, every Finn every hair, every song, intimacy is the child of devotion. The land embraces the lake, the soil is devoted to the seed, the sapling devoted to the star, the master voted to rain. The sea embraces the urchin, the shark, the glistening fish, the sand embraces the dead and broken shells. This is communion.

Marina Robb: I'm warmed, I guess, again, just by this feeling of what it feels like when you feel intimacy, you know, this sense of this, I guess, kinship with the natural world and, and I wonder if there's anything that you can share from these conversations you've had with nature of any kind of pieces of wisdom that perhaps we out there in the world could benefit from hearing, you know, how can humans actually be part be participating in this great wonder in a way that can really be benefit life,

Peter Owen Jones: we're not participating in the natural world, the natural world is participating in us, I cannot take a breath. Without the cellular structure of my body, I cannot digest food, I cannot see, I cannot hear, I cannot think I cannot reason. And I probably can't even love, I am upheld, and walking and breathing, because of the myriad nations of microbes and beings that live within me, to enable me to function as a human being. This idea of a separate human being is completely and utterly ludicrous. As I have said, I am kept upright and breathing, by the myriads of members of other worlds of other houses, just getting on with their stuff, to enable me to speak, and drink, and eat and breathe, I am a multitude, I am not a singularity, I owe my very existence to every other life form that exists within me. And therefore, that in itself is communion. Everything exists in communion, nothing can exist without the reality of the oven, everything is shift. Everything is given. Maybe when human beings learn that we will start to be kind, and to nurture this incredible planet that we are on for such a short time, because we are nothing, we don't exist without the gift of all the other life forms around us.

Marina Robb: Well, I'm gonna leave it there. Thank you so much for your time, and all that you've shared today. And I will spend some time really sitting with so many of these themes. So thank you very much, Peter.

Peter Owen Jones: Thank you, Marina.

Marina Robb: Thanks for speaking to me, Peter. Join me next week for episode 28 when I'll be discussing themes of Love and Punishment, and touching on these universal ideas of forgiveness and spirituality, as well as simply celebrating the springtime.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Wild Minds Podcast. If you enjoyed it and want to help support this podcast, please subscribe, share and leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. Your review will help others find the show. To stay updated with the wild mines podcast and get all the behind the scenes content. You can visit theoutdoorteacher.com or follow me on Facebook at the outdoor teacher UK and LinkedIn. Marina Robb,

The music was written and performed by Geoff Robb.

See you next week. Same time, same place