5.4K
Downloads
35
Episodes
the human experience in the non-human world: discussion and experiences on location and in the studio
Episodes
Friday Jul 10, 2020
Friday Jul 10, 2020
Food can be about more than taste, it can be about the gathering and that when you ‘spend a lot of time in Nature you have another relationship with it’. In this episode we learn much, especially about the uses of Arctic plants, from a joyous conversation with Eva Gunnare, who has made her home in Jokkmokk, a place that is the heart of indigenous Sami culture in Sweden.
Unlike may of us, the Sami have had a different connection to the land: they use it but do not own it and work together to make a living. Indigenous peoples can have deep-rooted traditions of using plants for medicine and food - a tradition where the difference between survival food and base food is knowledge, knowledge that can be lost but can also be kept alive.
Eva guides tours and gives ‘taste performances’ and you can find out more at her website. Eva's 'Rose' song:
"My rose, my lily, I would like to share every day of my life with you. When I have become gray, I have spent every day of my life with you".A love song that I usually dedicate my life in Jokkmokk with plants, people, forests and all.
INTRODUCTORY MUSIC BY EVA GUNNARE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST
All other music by Colin Williams
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Sámi
Jokkmokk
Stockholm
Kvikkjokk
Mountain Sorrel
Padjelanta National Park
Goahti turf hut
Alpine Bistort
Wild Angelica
Rowan
Birch
Rosebay Willowherb
Reindeer
Scots Pine
Cloudberry
Arctic Bramble
Bilberry
Bog Bilberry
Joik
Noiadi / Shaman
Nettles
Dandelion
Meadowsweet
Glögg
Monday Jun 08, 2020
Monday Jun 08, 2020
“Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf”, Aldo Leopold.
Prejudices, storytelling, popular culture and medieval demonisation populate the landscape we have created for the wolf; one that often bears little resemblance to the harsh and diverse landscapes they actually call home.
However, it is as a non-human creature that can seem all too human in its habits, that we humans seem to struggle the most. In this podcast we ponder the history of our relationship with wolves, the detail of how they live and where, the motifs we have created and how they live alongside us, and increasingly so. What is our future alongside wolves? What is the wolf’s future alongside us?
MUSIC BY COLIN WILLIAMS
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Yellowstone National Park
Theodore Roosevelt
Aldo Leopold
David Mech
Doug Smith
Jim Halfpenny
Dan Hartman
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Rudyard Kipling
Nunamiut Inupiat of Alaska
Blackfoot Confederacy
Pawnee
Zuni
Fenrir
Lupa romana
Little Red Riding Hood
Aesop’s Fables
Three Little Pigs
Big Bad Wolf
Of Wolves and Men - Barry Lopez
The Great American Wolf - Bruce Hampton
The Grey - Liam Neeson
Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon
The Colour of Money
Sasquatch
An American Werewolf in London
Rietschen
Trophic cascade
E O Wilson
Ed Bangs
Tuesday May 12, 2020
Tuesday May 12, 2020
“Long ago when animals could speak …”. In this episode we explore the boundary lines between non-human species and ourselves, boundary lines that many indigenous peoples - and our ancestors - did not see, and the ability, or not for communication to pass across that boundary. Today, for western society, it is only in children’s novels that animals can speak and be heard.
So much is invested by animals in the biology of communication and we can teach creatures about human communication but is it inconceivable that they have an ability to speak to us in their form? In maintaining scientific distance do we only allowed artists and musicians to show us that other species have ‘language’ and we should not treat the non-human as less than ourselves?
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
TOGETHER WITH ADDITIONAL MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE BY DAVID ROTHENBERG
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Sitting Bull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitting_Bull
Tales from Ovid - Ted Hughes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_Ovid
Chaser - border collie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaser_(dog)
Kanzi - bonobo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanzi
Raven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven
Greater Honeyguide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_honeyguide
Red-tailed Hawk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-tailed_hawk
Watership Down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down
The Jungle Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_Book
The Chronicles of Narnia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia
John Masefield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Masefield
Sperm Whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_whale
Orca or Killer Whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whale
Blue Whale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_whale
Corky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corky_(killer_whale)
David Rothenberg http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Thousand Mile Song https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/07/scienceandnature
Birds Why Birds Sing https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/10/featuresreviews.guardianreview5
Bug Music https://www.bugmusicbook.com
Eisteddfod https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisteddfod
Jim Nollman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Nollman
Dolphin Dreamtime http://www.doyletics.com/_arj1/dolphind.htm
Kamchatka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamchatka_Peninsula
Henry Beston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Beston
Tree networks https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/
Plants and sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_bioacoustics
Himalayan Balsam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impatiens_glandulifera
David Abram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Abram
Becoming Animal https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/318/becoming-animal-by-david-abram/
Prince Charles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles,_Prince_of_Wales
Real Magic - Dean Radin https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/551604/real-magic-by-dean-radin-phd/
Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Triffids
Evelyn Glennie https://www.evelyn.co.uk
Monica Gagliano https://www.monicagagliano.com
Plant Consciousness https://www.plantconsciousness.com
Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal World - Stephen Harrod Buhner https://www.stephenharrodbuhner.com/about/
Kurukindi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ77sYSqD6o
Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
The human and the non-human claim rivers as their own. By the banks of the River Kennet we conjour with our thoughts and experiences of rivers waters, along with those of a diverse cast of that includes: Roger Deakin, Bruce Springsteen, Norman Maclean, Masuru Emoto, Feargal Sharkey, Icy Sedgewick, Lewis Mumford, Michael Harner, Bedřich Smetana and Joseph Conrad.
We take in the travels, contours, myths, creatures, stories and spirits of rivers such as the: Awash, Tigris, Indus, Yellow, Nile, Danube, Amazon, Alde, Namada, Volga, Boyne, Crystal, Laxa, Congo, Moldau, Tana, and Everglades. We fight over them, deify them, we use them and misuse them, and yet what runs through them, because of us and despite us, is the the lifeblood of our world.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
The River Kennet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Kennet
Water Crowfoot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranunculus_aquatilis
Water Vole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_water_vole
Grass Snake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_snake
Reed Bunting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_reed_bunting
Brown Trout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_trout
Brook Lamprey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brook_lamprey
Crayfish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austropotamobius_pallipes
Mayfly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayfly
Caddisfly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caddisfly
Awash River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awash_River
River Tigris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigris
River Indus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River
Yellow River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_River
River Nile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile
River Danube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube
River Amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_River
River Alde https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Alde
Emperor Claudius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudius
Boudicca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica
Pied Kingfisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_kingfisher
Water Monitor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_water_monitor
Lewis Mumford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford
River Namada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmada_River
River Volga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_River
Isis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis
River Boyne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Boyne
Kelpie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelpie
Morgan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgen_(mythological_creature)
Personhood for rivers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_personhood
Animism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism
Roger Deakin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Deakin
West Indian Manatee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Indian_manatee
Crystal River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_River,_Florida
The Salmon of Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_of_Knowledge
Laxa https://www.nat.is/laxa-river/
Kushtaka, Tlingit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushtaka
Selkie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie
Amazon River Dolphin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_river_dolphin
The Grindylow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grindylow
Icy Sedgewick http://www.icysedgwick.com
Peg Powla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_Powler
Hamish Henderson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamish_Henderson
Goðafoss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goðafoss
Michael Harner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Harner
Mircia Eliade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade
Achuar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achuar
The Fighting Temeraire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fighting_Temeraire
Heart of Darkness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness
River Congo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_River
Apocalypse Now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_Now
Bruce Springsteen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Springsteen
The River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_River_(Bruce_Springsteen_album)
Bedřich Smetana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedřich_Smetana
River Moldau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vltava
Baiji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiji
Masuru Emoto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto
Chlorpyrifos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorpyrifos
Chalk streams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk_stream
Feargal Sharkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feargal_Sharkey
River Tana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tana_(Norway)
Everglades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everglades
Okavango https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okavango_Delta
Daintree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daintree_Rainforest
Cantabria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantabria
Norman Maclean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean
Sunday Mar 08, 2020
Sunday Mar 08, 2020
How do we each respond to the environmental alarms that are being sounded by climate, nature, youth and the ocean? In this episode we feature interviews with Roger Hardy and Rhett Griffiths - wave-tossed thoughts from the tideline of the North Sea - plus a recording of Rhett’s epic poem ‘The Tipping Tide’.
Artists suggest different ways of seeing the world and, in response to these issues and as part of Siren Festival in 2019, artist and sculptor Roger Hardy created a powerful installation and multiple figurative sculptural piece on Aldeburgh beach entitled ‘Time and Tide’. He also created ‘Lookout’, a human figure gazing out at the sea from the South Beach Lookout. Here was also installed - in written form and in audio recoding - ‘The Tipping Tide’, a poem by Rhett Griffiths.
With extracts of Colin singing ‘Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy’, we explore what the sea says to us.
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Siren Festival
Roger Hardy’s ‘Time and Tide’
Roger Hardy and Rhett Griffiths’ 'Lookout' and 'Tipping Tide'
Lancaster
Dawlish
Aldeburgh Festival
Suffolk
Devi Singh
Heathcote Williams
Benjamin Britten
South Beach Lookout
Greta Thunberg
School strikes
Mudlarking
Felixstowe
Thursday Jan 09, 2020
Thursday Jan 09, 2020
An archetype, a creature that we impose human ideas, ideals, values and characteristics upon. An unknowable, untouchable creature of the dark, whose call provokes fear and awe. A silent, surreptitious, living breathing feathered predator, whose beyond-human abilities allow it to master the night and span almost every habitat on Earth. Which of these is Owl for you?
As a family of birds, owls are all of these and more, and we explore their role in human culture from 30,000 years ago to the present day, as well as sharing tales of owl encounters around the globe. Evil messenger and harbinger of Death? Wise councillor and friend from childhood literature? Owl can be what each of us bring to it but is also master of its world.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Forest Eagle Owl
Sinharaja, Sri Lanka
Pliny the Elder
Tengmalm’s Owl
Florence Nightingale
Pablo Picasso
Winnie the Pooh
Bagpuss
Tawny Owl
Eric Hosking
Ural Owl
Sir David Attenborough
Hawk Owl
Saariselkä, Finland
Little Owl
Chauvet Cave, France
Eurasian Scops Owl
Athena
Harry Potter
Western Screech Owl
Hopi
Sokoke Scops Owl, Kenya
Aztec god of death
Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee
Barn Owl
William Wordsworth
Tlingit
Egyptian Book of the Dead
Great Horned Owl
Seminole Apache
The Secret Life of the Owl, John Lewis-Stempel
Great Grey Owl
Barred Owl
Minnesota, USA
Eurasian Eagle Owl
Eurasian Pygmy Owl
Pel’s Fishing Owl
Blakiston’s Fish Owl
Snowy Owl
Twin Peaks, David Lynch
The Messengers, Mike Clelland
Whitley Strieber
Owlman, Cornwall
The Mothman Prophecies, John Keel
Mark Twain
Elf Owl
Short-eared Owl
Denmark
Öland, Sweden
Goldcrest
“In a hole with an owl” The Fast Show
Wednesday Dec 11, 2019
Wednesday Dec 11, 2019
“What avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?”, said writer Aldo Leopold, and in this episode we revisit what the human concept of wilderness means and where we might find it. Unmodified, unspoiled, on the edge? When in our history was the point when humans changed their view of wilderness?
With incidental music from Colin, we consider how wilderness means many differing things to different people - it is ‘home’ for some and hostile for others - and discuss what our view of it says about us. Is our definition derived from an International Union for the Conservation of Nature edict, or is it reflect - or even imposed - by the human approach to the way we make art? Ultimately, is wilderness still a valid notion or is it beyond our reach, beyond our gift to bestow, at a time when perhaps we need it more than ever?
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Jane Smith
Marco Brodde
Darren Rees
Kitty Jones
Chris Wallbank
Julian Hoffman
Beauchene Island, Falklands
Bay of Biscay, France & Spain
Pasvik Valley, Norway
Unst, Shetland
Spitsbergen
Hoo Peninsular, England
Dan Richards
IUCN wilderness definition 1B
Xia Gui - master chinese painter
Old Testament
Paleolithic art
Sicily rock art caves
Shan shui - master chinese painter
Thomas Moran
The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (painting)
The Sublime (artistic movement)
Sewell Newhouse (trap maker)
Industrial Revolution
Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (painting by J. M. W. Turner)
Smithsonian, Washington DC
Aboriginal Australian art
Shoshone
Ansel Adams
BBC Planet Earth
John Muir
Bushcraft
Aldo Leopold
Annie Dillard
Edward Abbey
Kvitøya Island, Svalbard
Barry Lopez
Of Wolves and Men
Jordan
Bedouin
All Things are Quite Silent (English folk song)
Franklin Expedition
Sunday Nov 10, 2019
Sunday Nov 10, 2019
The Sea ~ a prelude
Summoning the spirit of a forthcoming full podcast on The Sea, we tease with Rhett Griffiths reading an extract from his poem ‘The Tipping Tide’ (more of the poem and an interview to come), Colin singing ‘Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy’, plus wave-tossed thoughts recorded by the sea-washed shingle on the tideline of a grey North Sea.
All in rather lively STEREO by way of a change. Enjoy.
Monday Oct 07, 2019
Monday Oct 07, 2019
The way that people respond to wild places lights them up; so proposes writer Dan Richards, who’s latest acclaimed book, ‘Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth’, explores what wilderness means to us. In this podcast he discusses whether our response to wilderness is bearing witness to the traces of humans who have been affected by places that, in our imagination, are meant to be savage and untameable.
Does wilderness comprise the places where a writer can touch ‘other’? Be lonely? Feel alive? Escape human connection? Or see what the world would be like without us? These places change us, and with music by Dan himself and prompting from Colin - solo in this episode - together they ponder ultimately whether humans are entitled to go to these places that might themselves be irrevocably changed by our visits?
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth
The Signalman, Charles Dickens
Nicky Wire, Manic Street Preachers
Thursday Sep 12, 2019
Thursday Sep 12, 2019
From the North-west passage to Niels Bohr via Bruce Chatwin, Bardsey Island, Joan Baez and Blue Whales, our journey on this podcast explores the physicality, spirituality and ‘otherness’ of pilgrimage. Recorded on location on the Camino de Santiago in Asturias, northern Spain we ponder the meaning of this human act of endurance, faith and meditation.
What do we learn when we feel the earth on our skin and feel, and touch or reconnect to, something more: to meet the crossing points to our ancestors, or the migratory routes of birds, or profound non-human experiences. Accompany us and discover if we are in fact ‘nobody to the hills; just a body, feeling’.
With music by Colin Williams.
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Asturias
Biodiverse
Camino de Santiago
Oviedo
Cathedral of San Salvador
Frédéric Gros: A Philosophy of Walking
Satish Kumar
Green lanes
Croagh, Ireland
Kumano Kodō, Japan
Kumano Shan Zan
Via Francigena, Italy
Pilgrims Way, North Wales
Holywell
Bardsey Island
Mount Kailash Circuit Tibet
Matthew Oates
Migration of birds
Santa Cristina de Lena
Swifts
Shamanism
John Clare
Brill Building, Broadway
Goffin & King
Elton John
Cafe Wah?, Greenwich Village
Ellis Island
Sicilian
Black Mountains, Wales
Bruce Chatwin
Niels Bohr
Quantum Physics
Paleolithic rock art
John Coltrane
Joan Baez
Bob Dylan
Blue Whale
Northwest Passage
John Franklin
Michael Palin: Erebus
Stan Rodgers
Michael Meade: Fate and Destiny the Two Agreements of the Soul