One in Nature Pamela Wirth

How might we continue to show up responsibly, as active, compassionate  and empowered contributors in today's world? 
Listen to  Geeta Stilwell and  Juniper Stokes explore these topics in a deep conversation in this episode. 
The conversation touches on:
Compassion and inner power in the face of ecological traumaDeep reciprocity: Nature is aware of usBeing fully present is activism: The butterfly effectAnimism: Everything is spiritedShaking off the numbness: Shadow workChoosing Kairos over Chronos: An act of rebellionFinding our communities: we're in this togetherGeeta Stilwell is based in Portugal and is a certified Forest Therapy Guide and Trainer  at the ANFT. She is co-founder and co-host of The Nature Talks, an annual online conference that aims to build a community of nature connection practitioners. What led her to co-found the Nature Talks was her passion for nature connection and heartfull, meaningful human connection. She firmly believes that nature is our biggest teacher and that together, authentic in our hearts we can really show up strongly to what we are being called to by the earth and for the Earth as a human race. She is the founder of the company Renature where she creates and facilitates restorative programs that promote wellbeing and health through Forest Therapy, Nature Connection Practices, Clean Eating and Self-Care. She works all over the world with various populations that range from the general public, corporate and mental health populations and individuals recovering from situations of excess stress and resulting depression and anxiety. She is co-founder of Wellbeing Inspired by Nature Consultant Training and Programs bringing nature connection work into the corporate world. Her passion is to bring human beings back into relationship with nature and support the reconnection to the restorative potency of the natural world. thenaturetalks.com
Juniper Stokes, M.A. is a mystic, healer, alchemist, and artist who shares an integrative pathway for awakening to your true essence through spiritual rewilding. She coined the term mythoanimistic to describe her approach, which integrates animism, earth medicine, shamanic spirituality, shadow work, archetypal and symbolic languages, and both Eastern wisdom and Western magick. Juniper offers online courses, in-person retreats, healing sessions, and botanical creations through her teaching portal and apothecary, Alchemessence. 
A lifelong student of consciousness and spirituality, Juniper has trained with energy healers, spiritual guides, and shamanic practitioners worldwide. Her lineage includes a two-year teacher training in shamanism with Sandra Ingerman; in-depth study and personal mentorships in Norse, Mayan, Taoist, and Egyptian mysticism; extensive training and teaching certifications in yoga, pranayama, and meditation; and ongoing explorations in energy medicine, Hellenistic astrology, gnostic magick, and more.

As a botanical alchemist, Juniper works with the physical, energetic, and spiritual dimensions of plants. She is a clinically certified aromatherapist, herbalist, flower essence practitioner, gardener, and wildcrafter, and she has formally trained in perfumery with today’s preeminent natural perfumers. By bringing together the art, aroma, and artistry of classical perfumery with spiritual alchemy and plant healing, Juniper creates perfumes that offer transcendent fragrances and act as catalysts for the soul’s awakening.  alchemessence.com
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In this conversation,  Jamie McHugh draws a somatic map through which we may find our way into a living relationship with self, place and other beings.  Along the way we learn to orient ourselves by the simple technologies that are indigenous to every body: voice, contact, breath, movement and stillness.
This rewilding of our inner landscape lets us connect intimately with the planet and with the sheer pleasure of movement.

The episode includes an Embodied Meditation.

Interview topics:
A language independent of our thinkingReinventing ourselves through our sensory motor cortexA relational map: witnessing, contacting, mirroring, responding, and restingExplore what lies beyond beyond your preferencesCultivating inner peace in turbulent times: the slowing down of our reactive response

Jamie McHugh, MA, RSMT is a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist (ISMETA), somatic movement specialist, and interdisciplinary artist living in the Hudson River Valley of New York. McHugh is the creator of Somatic Expression® - Body Wisdom for Modern Minds, an integrative approach to the art and craft of embodiment. 

He is also the creator of NatureBeingArt, abstract contemplative photography of the natural environment for both fine art reproductions and video streams, including two online collections of motional art for “soul- settling”: 7 Days of Beauty Project and The Breathing Room Series. www.naturebeingart.org


McHugh offers trainings, workshops, classes, and individual sessions in pragmatic body wisdom and somatic literacy to empower individuals and groups in reclaiming bodily agency through the five indigenous technologies of the body:

Breath/Vocalization/Contact/Movement/Stillness. The accessibility and simplicity of his approach comes from 45 years of personal and professional practice with a wide range of audiences in varied contexts.
www.somaticexpression.com
www.naturebeingart.org

References in this interview include:

Emilie Conrad, Founder of Continuum Movement
Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen, Founder of Body Mind Centering
The Universe Story, Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme
Wendell Berry, Poet
Eduardo Galliano, Poet
Carl Gustav Jung

Hosted by Pamela Wirth


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A lively conversation with farmer Haleigh Christ while picking a crop of green beans at a  biodynamic Black Forest farm.  As her two toddlers play underfoot and farm life bustles all around, Haleigh shares about day to day life as a regenerative farmer and the important personal choices on the path towards harmony with one's life-affirming values.
The topics of this episode include:
Why food is possibly our most significant connection with the ecosystem
The difference between organic and biodynamic farming
The carnivorous wonders of healthy soil
Living in tune with the cycles of life
From consumer to ecological co-creator


Haleigh Christ is a regenerative farmer living and farming in Southern Germany.  She lives with her husband and two children on a bio-dynamic community farm, which does its best to live in harmony with its ecosystem. She lives passionately for strengthening communities and ecosystems through empowerment of the individual within the whole. Her current focus is in building a community supported agriculture program to extend the farm's current self-sufficiency onto others. She is excited for the future and believes that we have endless opportunities to connect and heal through food!
To learn more about the place, humans and animals check out www.klosterhofsitzenkirch.de



Quotes and references mentioned by Haleigh during the conversation:
Michael Pollan (Voting With Your Fork)
Zach Bush, MD
René Descartes, French philosopher, mathematician, scientist. (1596-1650)
David Hume, Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian. (1711-76)
Dugald Stewart,  Scottish philosopher and mathematician. (1753-1828)
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The mission of The Nature Talks is to remedy pandemic-induced separation with a one of a kind online gathering that is designed to transmit the warmth and uplifting sense of participation one can experience at an in-person event.
The 2022 edition will explore 'The Web of Life' with contributors  from many different different fields and a wide variety of backgrounds.
 A panel of many internationally recognized speakers share topics that range from nature inspired creative arts & music, life affirming regenerative projects, research-based perspectives to somatic practices and ancient human wisdom teachings. 
Listen to this backstage conversation with  The Nature Talks creators, Manuela Siegfried, Geeta Stilwell and Pamela Wirth, who come together as a team from Portugal, Costa Rica and the US.  
The conversation topics include:
Why it's so important to spend time with like-hearted, like-minded community 
How shared experiences encourage, strengthen and support us
What does it mean for each of us to be part of the Web of Life?
How The Nature Talks are evolving


To learn more about The Nature Talks, please visit   https://thenaturetalks.com
Hosted by Kat Novotna
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Amos Clifford is one of the most influential global contributors in the world of forest therapy. He was among the first to introduce the practice of forest bathing  in North America and founded the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy,  which has trained and certified over 2000 guides in 60 countries.

Join Amos on a stroll through the Joshua Tree desert as he explains the philosophical foundation for his lifelong work as a guide: a practical vision in which humanity lives in close, creative alliance with the earth. 

In Amos’s insightful story, each person's individual genius holds a part of what's needed for our species to evolve beyond crisis into wholeness.  The  specific skills and craft of a guide are a vital asset on the journey to discover the forgotten, wilder parts of the self and build a reciprocal relationship with the sentient intelligence of the earth.  
The topics of this conversation include:
The wisdom tradition of guiding.Why our current times are especially calling for guides.Why we are never separate from nature.What to do when nature isn’t a comfortable place.The power of curiosity to create meaning and relationship.Nature connection in every day life.At the end of the  episode Amos Clifford shares a  guided forest bathing practice: 'Walking the Web of Interbeing with Your Heart'.


Amos Clifford is the author of the best selling Your Guide to Forest Bathing (Conari Press 2018). After studying Buddhist philosophy for over 20 years, in 2004 Amos founded Sky Creek Dharma Center in Chico, California, where he emphasized the importance of meditation practice in wild places. By 2008 he no longer identified as Buddhist, instead preferring the nameless and sometimes unnamable experiences he had in natural settings, and had been having since early childhood. This led to a deepening inquiry regarding relationships between humans and the more-than-human world. Between 2010 and 2012 Amos took his inquiry into wild places, and with the help of School of Lost Borders and Men of Spirit he had a year of intense wilderness practice, which led to the vision for the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs. Inspired by the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku, Amos founded ANFT in 2012 and over the next two years developed what is now known as the "Standard Sequence" of the ANFT school of Forest Therapy. Amos holds a BS in Organization Development and an MA in Counseling from the University of San Francisco. He teaches about Forest Therapy and leads retreats internationally.

natureandforesttherapy.earth


Book titles referenced in the interview:

Spretnak, Charlene. Resurgence of the Real.
Plotkin, Bill. Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche.


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Listen to Dr. Samuel Dismond explain an evolutionary perspective on what is commonly called ADD/ADHD. This evolution story recasts the so-called dysfunctions of ADHD as unique ultra-functions possessed by Sentinels. The story begins 100,000 years ago as our DNA became fixed as Homo sapiens. Within small primitive groups, the round scanning awareness of the Sentinel bloodline featured critically in the history of group survival.
Dr. D graphically illustrates how our very recent modern circumstance differs from our origin times. Our modern world has become a series of boxes connected by lines from kindergarten to career. These edges and squares can be challenging for the round awareness of Sentinels. Nonetheless, it is very possible for Sentinels to thrive and find themselves ‘in the right place, at the right time’ in their life.
The topics in this interview include:
Scientific parts and mysterious stories meet when our “quiet brains meet green biomass”.What is a Sentinel?Not a deficit but rather a valuable genetic variant: a new way to understand ADHD.The powerful effect of green, natural environments on our brain.Why modern life has become a series of lines and boxes.How nature walks can untangle the tangles of life stories.At the end of the episode Dr. D shares an evidence-based breath work technique  to help slow down and absorb while walking through green nature.

Dr. Samuel Dismond III, MD MBA, specializes in treating adults with ADHD. He provides a patient-centered approach and believes in the importance of the patient-doctor connection. Dr. D has been practicing as a  general physician for 32 years. He got his MD at the University Of Michigan Medical School as well as an MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Dr. D is a lifelong practitioner of qigong.

NorCalADHD.com


A list of background references quoted in this episode:
Bohm, D., & Fowler, D. R. (1978). The implicate order: a new order for physics. Process studies, 8(2), 73-102.
Brown, E. R. (1980). Rockefeller medicine men: Medicine and capitalism in America. Univ of California Press.
Clarke, R. A., & Eddy, R. P. (2017, May). Warnings: Finding cassandras to stop catastrophes. Ecco. 
Darwin, C. (1909). The origin of species (pp. 95-96). New York: PF Collier & son.
 Diamond, J. (2011). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. Penguin.
 Diamond, J., & Ford, L. E. (2000). Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 43(4), 609.
 Hill, R. A., & Dunbar, R. I. (2003). Social network size in humans. Human nature, 14(1), 53-72.
 Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Macmillan.
 Mandelbrot, B. B. (1963). The Fractal Geometry of Nature. New York: W. H. Freeman and
Company.
 Starr, P. (2008). The social transformation of American medicine: The rise of a sovereign profession and the making of a vast industry. Basic books.

Trammell, J. (2014). " The Anthropology of Twice Exceptionality: Is Today’s Disability Yesterday’s (or Tomorrow’s) Evolutionary Advantage? A Case Study with ADD/ADHD". In A Critique of Creativity and Complexity. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
Visuddhimagga. The Path of Purification. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/PathofPurification2011.pdf
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