Uncivil Savant Podcast

Caroline Ross
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The complete audio version of my regular posts. Notes from the Way, words from the woods, waters from the springs. carolineross.substack.com

  1. Jul 6

    Episode 113 - Beauty is Essential

    There was a thoughtful piece on beauty by Anja Byg this week about things I have mulled over for many years too (and which Ted Chiang wrangled meaningfully in his short story “Liking What You See: A Documentary”.) For me, the crucial pivot which supports the always-ambivalent weight of beauty is how it makes us behave. Does it enliven the spirit and make us better able to join in with life and with others? Or does it orient us towards control? I would ask, is a particular ideal of beauty putting an entire class of beings / people / art forms under a totalising gaze or controlling behaviour? For instance, the endless sharp tactics of the beauty myth for women in almost any time in so many societies, or the racialised ideas of beauty, whether about body shapes, artistic creations, or the relative position of rhythm to harmony in music.1 Many beauty standards do indeed spring like poisoned streams from colonialism and patriarchy. And yet, profligate beauty is everywhere to be found in nature and in culture. Certain species of birds and mammals have been shown to have deeply held aesthetic preferences, of course, the bower birds of Australia spring to mind. In human life, intact living cultures are known for their abundance of beautiful arts, crafts, music and dance. The first impulse of authoritarian regimes, from The Puritans in The New World to the Taliban today, is to limit and proscribe some or all of these things, to deface an old culture or to destroy it, to build anew in a prescriptive manner. This happened in the Chinese Cultural Revolution and with The Nazis’ war against so-called ‘Degenerate Art’, or the mass destruction of an entire craft culture during the iconoclasm of the Reformation in Northern Europe, especially in England and the Netherlands where churches were whitewashed and all images removed. Uncivil Savant is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This podcast was first published with photos, links, footnotes and more on Substack on June 19th 2026. I don’t use AI in any aspect of my research, writing or creative work. I am a member of Writers Against AI. Thanks for reading and listening to Uncivil Savant. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carolineross.substack.com

  2. Jun 7

    Episode 112 - Crooked but Lit

    I set the twisted candle in the holder and lit it. Heat may have melted it S-wise but its light remains undimmed. Something so skew suddenly so dear. To burn while the Great Bear is in the south and my north star with him. A whole week in another land and yet at home. Incomparable gifts. The return of a blessing. ‘Soft cheese, blue cheese, hard cheese,’ he shouts, ‘they’re all good, they’re all here!’ The true cornucopia is in a northern market square, enchantment hidden behind cling film and a laminated ‘A’ board. We take two slightly humming discount pieces back, on the ecstatic edge of lactic activity, not for the faint of heart. The goat roulade is fine baked on a lunch of leftovers but the butter-coloured blue strides straight for harsh metallic tang, beating me back despite the oatcake. We put the radio on and Rad Mac play drum n bass. I was a raver but no dance music for me in the morning: it divides up time too finely as with an old movie film running too slowly, I can see the frames and sense breaks down. Before noon I need continuity not division. My dreams, like four year olds, have already impressed assorted cutters into my mind dough, sprinkled the shapes with hundreds and thousands and declined to bake them promptly. Not yet sure if I have the cast of Teletubbies or the Iliad in there today, or what is more likely, both. On the table, the outstretched arms of two sprigs of ivy, still green though I left then there three weeks ago. So alive even facing certain death. Uncivil Savant is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This podcast was first published here on Substack 2nd June 2026 with many images from illustrations I made of The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth , as well as full transcript, footnotes, links and more. This week, it’s worth heading over to see the full version, just click the button below. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carolineross.substack.com

  3. May 29

    Episode 111 - Towards an Embodied Philosophy

    Winged beings Red-tailed hawk is always nearby. She swooped down from the veranda rail corner as I opened the door, the exhalatory sigh of her wings the first intentional sounds I heard from another being yesterday. We both like to spend the early morning facing west, sun behind us, meadow lit up below. She’s looking for prey, me, for glimpses of newly germinating peace. The bluebird box sits right beside the ongoing stonework foundations for the upcoming greenhouse. After fighting with its own azure reflection in the master mason’s truck window, the bluebird settles back into making its nest hospitable for growth. Perhaps it senses that’s what the masons are doing, a big nest requires a different calibre of material but the impulse to make room for growth is universal with all of us earthly creatures. Will you bear with me while I weave through the thickets of what’s growing in my heart right now? The path may meander but the walk will have interesting views. I may point at things you’d rather not see. I’ll understand if you turn back but I think this walk is better taken together. Uncivil Savant is available to all with no financial barrier to access thanks to my paid subscribers. Please subscribe to help me continue writing here. The full version of this podcast with footnotes, links, images and full transcript was first published on Substack on 22nd May 2026. Click the button below to access it. My art, music, writing, research, audio and teaching is created without the use of AI. I am part of Writers Against AI. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carolineross.substack.com

  4. May 18

    Episode 110 - Slipping Between Words and Worlds

    I am thousands of miles from home but amongst dear friends. I’ve only been here 28 hours and I have been moved to tears several times by the hospitality and love that comes from the humans, creatures and land that I meet, some deeply familiar, some new to me. I can’t write about it all now, prosaically as my phone (new to me second hand phone, new sim, new plan) yet again does not work here. Plus I am delirious from lack of sleep. I had been meaning to share a few poems with you today, as I occasionally do, so I will do that now, along with visual glimpses from today. I have been visiting with my dear friend Adam Wilson and hopefully next week I will write more about that. But for now, if you do not yet know the work of The Peasantry School Newsletter and Sand River Community Farm Newsletter , then please consider heading along there now and spending a little time in a pocket of this world where value and price have been decoupled and gravity and brevity today clasped hands. Wifi willing, I shall be with you next week. With love, Caro. The art, writing and and audio at Uncivil Savant is available to all with no financial barrier to access. Please become a paid subscriber for a while to help me keep this publication going. The full version of this podcast with footnotes, links, images and full transcript was first published on Substack on 14th May 2026. Click the button to access it. My art, music, writing, research, audio and teaching is created without the use of AI. I am part of Writers Against AI. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carolineross.substack.com

  5. Apr 13

    Episode 109 - Grace and Earthworms

    Years ago, when I first began this Substack, I regularly included excerpts from the many letters, emails and long-form voice messages I send to friends, and with permission, from our correspondences. It’s been a while and as it’s Easter Week and I am taking time off with my loved one, here is a piece, originally a voice-letter, to a dear friend from the middle of an ongoing conversation about the Eastern Christian saints, who when I read about them, sounded so much like the Taoist saints. Animals co-existing companionably with sages. Bears keeping hermits warm. Today it brought to mind one of my local saints, St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, and the otters who breathed on his feet to warm them, after his long nights praying whilst stood up to his waist in the cold North Sea. Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it. And blessed spring to all, including all the creatures, especially the worms. The art, writing and and audio at Uncivil Savant is available to all with no financial barrier to access. Please become a paid subscriber for a while to help me keep this publication going The full version of this podcast with footnotes, links, images and full transcript was first published on Substack on 9th April 2026. Click the button to access it. My art, music, writing, research, audio and teaching is created without the use of AI. I am part of Writers Against AI. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carolineross.substack.com

  6. Apr 6

    Episode 108 - No Such Thing As Wasted Time

    I have a spring basket full of good things for you this Easter week. As is appropriate to the season, some are sweet like chocolate, some are wrapped in colourful sleeves and others partake of endings and difficulty, before the beauty of transformation is apparent. I hope you enjoy them. The art, writing and and audio at Uncivil Savant is available to all with no financial barrier to access. Please become a paid subscriber for a while to help me keep this publication going. Mind-weeding A few days ago, a man from USA complained that an article I restacked was verbose, a waste of his and my readers’ time and that I should keep things streamlined and to the point. I politely suggested that we can only waste our own time and that maybe refraining from telling people off on the internet would be a good way to claw some back. He apologised for his initial brusqueness but then doubled down on his critique of the essay, (which I mostly agree with). Substack is less than intuitive, since Notes and all the doodads have been added on, so he clearly didn’t understand that the piece was not written by me but by another man from USA, whose profile link I added to the reply, to help him out. For me, none of this was a waste of ‘my time’, as learning how to disagree or differ with humour, not taking things personally, without immediately ‘blocking and deleting’, and without the grip of fear around my heart, has been the work of many years, even for low-stakes things. For some people, electronic communications are water off a duck’s back, for others, like two of my dearest friends, even a lovely text or email takes huge amounts of energy to engage with, let alone answer. I lie somewhere in the middle of this scale, thankfully moving in the direction of the ducks… This podcast was first published on Substack 2nd April 2026 with full transcript, links, footnotes, images and more. You’ll find links to all the Substacks, books, TV, film and music mentioned in the podcast at the button. My art, music, writing, research, audio and teaching is created without the use of AI. I am part of Writers Against AI. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carolineross.substack.com

  7. Mar 31

    Episode 107 - She Moves Through the Fair

    When did your heart first leap out of itself, wanting to reside in the body of they-who-had-just-walked-past? They were surely more you than your own self, yet without ungainly stoop, spot-free, gaze level rather than downcast, half smile rather than self-conscious frown. With that leap, which can only be achieved by a kind of projection, the poetic aspect of ‘projection’ not explained by psychologists, a thread of what will pull you onward through life begins to spool out from the spinning crimson yarn cone of the heart. The leap can only occur while you do not yet know that the beloved object of your attention is likely as riddled as yourself with doubt, self-aggrandisement (or his sister self-abasement) and fears. Later, this knowledge, which must come to us all to fully become adults, will be the cap stone on the gushing spring of youth. The stone itself need not be the final word on springing forth. It forces a necessary halt to looking to others for everything that we should become and asks us to commit to our own source, however meagre or chalky, so that we might in time learn how to build a font, a basin, or even a simple hand-dug little pool, to collect our waters and be of benefit to others, rather than just an annoying source of path erosion and cold feet. Staying capped, asserting that one is ‘self-made’1, self-contained and dry, (the goal of every spiritual miser who has ever lived), is nothing to be proud of. It is the tight-lipped grimace of the hoarders of the world’s resources. You know what it looks like, you see it daily on your screens.2 This podcast was first published here on Substack on March 26th 2026, with full transcript, footnotes, links, images and extras. No AI was used to research, create or edit this piece, nor any of my art, books, music, writing or crafts. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carolineross.substack.com

  8. Mar 16

    Episode 106 - Sensing, Stillness and Sovereignty

    A tree offers an uncontrived response A strong westerly is blowing and there’s a ‘yellow warning’ of high winds. The still-bare trees outside my window are bobbing and weaving like a lad in a pub, hands over-full of a large round of drinks, somehow making his way back to his mates through a throng of wildly gesticulating half-time big-screen football fans. Will he stay upright? We shall see. The deep green clad evergreens further back are full-on dancing and it’s more 90s Acid House than graceful Calypso. When the wind stops for a moment, so do they. As soon as it resumes, they move again. There’s no gap, no ‘shall I or shan’t I?’ I would never say that trees have no intelligence1, but they are not encumbered / blessed by individual minds. Only a mind can say, ‘Something is happening, but I think I will not respond…’ Well, something is certainly happening. I shall respond, but how? Uncivil Savant is available to all with no financial barrier to access thanks to the generosity of paid subscribers. Read the whole piece, with full transcript, footnotes, photos, links and more, here on Substack, first published March 12th 2026. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carolineross.substack.com

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About

The complete audio version of my regular posts. Notes from the Way, words from the woods, waters from the springs. carolineross.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Caroline Ross
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    113
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Caroline Ross
  • Show Website
    Uncivil Savant Podcast