Hayley Frances is a poet and poetry therapist from Birmingham. Her debut collection, Administer the Laughing Gas (VERVE Poetry Press), is a raw and unfiltered exploration of grief, trauma and body autonomy, offering profound insights into the human experience. As the first Poet in Residence for Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Hayley’s work bridges the worlds of creative writing and healing, helping individuals navigate loss and re-encounter life through the power of words. With over 15 years of experience, she integrates poetry into healthcare settings, leading therapeutic workshops that foster emotional and relational awareness.

This episode delves into Hayley’s unique approach to poetry therapy, her personal journey through grief, and the deep insights she gained from our Earth Medicine Grief Tending retreat earlier this year.

Register now for next year's slow study Deepen Your Roots.

The music in this episode is by the wonderful Bonnie Medicine, with tracks accompanying Hayley's poems by Ojhro.

Hayley will be offering some poetry practices for our patron community, along with her powerful article about her motherline.

If you would like to gift your music to the show, please reach out to us.

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‘Cynefin’ (pr. kuh-neh-vin) is the creative vision of West Wales native folk musician, Owen Shiers. Fascinated by music and history, it aims to give a modern voice to Ceredigion’s rich yet neglected cultural heritage. Starting from his home village of Capel Dewi in the Clettwr Valley and travelling through the local musical landscape, Owen has unearthed seasoned songs and stories, some never before recorded, and given them new life in the present.

The result of three years of research and work, his debut album ‘Dilyn Afon’ (Following a River) is distinct in its concept and ambition. From talking animals and tragic train journeys – to the musings of star-crossed lovers, farm workers and lonely vagabonds, the album provides a unique window into the past and to a vibrant oral culture of story and song – it moves, probes and reveals forgotten aspects of the tradition, whilst raising questions around our modern malaise of disconnection and rootlessness.

As any of you who have listened to the podcast for a while now will know, belonging is a big theme within our work at Rooted Healing, and yet Owen roots belonging back into the true sense of Cynefin and discusses themes worth sitting with at a deep level.

Owen questions our responsibilities in the protection and revival of diversity, in the broadest ecological sense that involves culture, language and story, which is big theme that we are exploring in our online course ‘Deepen Your Roots’ and at our upcoming gathering ‘Ancestral’, which is the 23rd-28th July in Eryri, North Wales. So it is especially joyful to bring Owen onto the show as we approach this time in community on home soil.

Intro music by the wonderful Bonnie Medicine.

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Dr Matthew Zylstra is a systems ecologist passionate about deepening the human-nature relationship for the healing of people and planet.

He has 20 years of international experience in social-ecological research and outdoor education. With an MSc in Environmental Science and PhD in Conservation Ecology & Sustainability Education, his doctorate research explored how meaningful nature experiences and nature connectedness motivate pro-environmental behaviour and regenerative leadership, which - 10 years on - remains relevant today more than ever. Insights from this research and his publications have informed several global initiatives and university curricula. Matthew is Programme Director with the Kwendalo Institute and Research Fellow with the Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University. He lives in South Africa with his family and finds happiness and healing in exploring intertidal life above and below the surface along his local coastline.

Accompanying this episode, Matthew has gifted 2 PDF books to our patron community: Cave and the Contemplator, which he wrote in 2015, and Cultural and Spiritual Significance of Nature in Protected Areas (edited by Bas Verschuuren and Steve Brown).

For more on Matthew’s past research visit eyes4earth.org and for current endeavours, see earthcollective.net . See also https://bio.site/drmattz.

If you’d like to learn more about our work at Rooted Healing, you can head to rootedhealing.org and join us at our ceremonial nature-led gatherings or online courses in animistic deep ecology.

We have a very special gathering coming up this summer in Eryri, North Wales, called Ancestral, where you can join us and embody ancestral village life, full of songs, ancient stories, craft and ceremonies, all to bring us closer to our early ancestors and our role for the next generations to come, to the land and to our more-than-human kin.

The music in this episode is from Bonnie Medicine.

Receive additional resources via patreon.com/rootedhealing

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Mercury Prize-nominated folk singer, conservationist, song collector and activist, Sam Lee, plays a unique role in the British music scene, breaking boundaries between traditional and contemporary music and the assumed places and ways folksong is appreciated. Sam's voice has helped challenge what old songs hold for us today.

His latest critically acclaimed album Songdreaming comes out today, of which Sam has said:

“I wanted to sing a vision of what a conversation between us and the land could be, to restore and inspire a practice of songful immersion in nature that brings with it healing, something we need now more than ever."

Sam’s debut novel The Nightingale, notes on a songbird richly captivates these highly endangered birds and their place in culture, folklore, music and literature throughout the millennia.

Sam is the founder of The Nest Collective, holding vibrant annual gatherings including a diverse range of music events across the UK, featuring outstanding emerging and established folk, world and roots artists from around the globe. Perhaps most notable are his Singing With Nightingales gatherings in spring, where you can step silently into the night and listen as the finest musicians in the land duet with the sweet song of the ever more endangered nightingale.

Sam's also a regular radio and TV broadcaster, film soundtrack composer and has provided songs for several major feature films. As a change-maker in the music industry, he is a co-founder of Music Declares Emergency, FAC board member and the pioneering artist to work with leading environmental charity Earthpercent to whom a portion of proceeds of the current album will be donated.

If you’d like to learn more about our work at Rooted Healing, you can head to rootedhealing.org and join us at our ceremonial nature-led gatherings or online courses in animistic deep ecology. We have a very special gathering coming up this summer in Eryri, North Wales, called Ancestral, where you can join us and embody ancestral village life, full of songs, ancient stories, craft and ceremonies, all to bring us closer to our early ancestors and our role for the next generations to come, to the land and to our more-than-human kin.

The music in this episode is from Sam Lee and Bonnie Medicine.

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Founder and executive director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), Osprey Orielle Lake works internationally with grassroots, BIPOC and Indigenous leaders, policymakers, and diverse coalitions to build climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralised, democratised clean-energy future.

She sits on the executive committee for the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature and on the steering committee for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

She is the author of the award-winning book Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature and her most recently published book The Story is in our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis inspired this episode. Osprey also holds an MA in Culture and Environmental Studies from Holy Names University.

The Story Is in Our Bones reviews how women, Indigenous people, and other activists throughout the world are working to counter climate change and protect the vital ecosystems we inhabit and depend upon. She argues that a more fundamental heritage is “in our bones”—preserved in Indigenous stories and culture.

You can WIN a copy of Osprey's new book by becoming a podcast patron.

The music in this episode was from Bonnie Medicine and Chiara Gilmore.

Join us at Earth Medicine, our ceremonial psilocybin retreats.

Immerse in ancestral village life at Ancestral.

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Imbolc Blessings!

It is Isla Macleod’s deepest wish to inspire and support a remembrance of what is sacred in our lives, guiding us back home to the natural world. She is a renowned ceremonialist and the author of the beloved book ‘Rituals for Life’. Through offering a container for transformation, held with the deepest love and respect, Isla helps others access forgotten treasures and their innate gifts to share with the world. Isla is devoted to unearthing our indigenous roots on Brighid's Isle, and exploring how we as humans can cultivate an intimate, meaningful, reciprocal relationship with the Web of Life.

Isla is one of our special guests on our year-long slow study course Deepen Your Roots exploring Land’s Lineage; finding and tending to the thresholds within our bioregion; creating ritual, ceremony and beauty; finding elders, stories and songs nestled in these thresholds, and bringing this wisdom forth into the threshold of these times.

Deepen Your Roots is a year-long slow study weaving Deep Ecology, the Work that Reconnects, and a folkloric, animistic exploration into the ecological self rewoven with place.

Accompanying this episode is a book giveaway of Isla’s Rituals for Life’ for our patron community.

‘Rituals for Life’ is a guide for those searching for the Sacred in the everyday, a life of meaning and a sense of belonging. This book invites you to discover how ritual can provide the bridge back to wholeness; through aligning with the wisdom of nature, the cycles of life, and re-enchanting the world with wonder and beauty.

Through an exploration of the fundamentals of ritual and its potential to heal and empower, you are guided towards creating your own rituals to support accepting and celebrating significant life transitions. Guiding you to live a more creative and intentional life, and cultivate an authentic spiritual path that is rooted in, and inspired by the natural world.

Head to Patreon.com/rootedhealing to enter this beautiful giveaway.

And we are returning this summer with our gathering ANCESTRAL, where we embody the ancient ways of our indigenous ancestors - the ones who lived in full relationship with the landscapes - and through roundhouse councils, ceremonies and intimate village life, we access their wisdom and guidance for these turbulent times with new and ancient eyes.

Explore our other gatherings and psilocybin retreats.

Connect with us / gift your music.

Music in this episode: Songs from Bonnie Medicine's latest album Wide Open (it's so beautiful).

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Dr Saskia von Diest is the founder of Ecofluency, an organisation that offers consulting, teaching and facilitation in the science, art and practical magic of Nature communication worldwide. She has a PhD in plant pathology and has held two international collaborative postdoctoral fellowships to research intuitive farming. Ecofluency also promotes other human voices in the broader field of Nature communication, presenting multiple invitations into these deeper ways of knowing, for individual and collective transformation. Saskia has also trained in Family Constellations and in the Way of the Warrior Healer. Born during apartheid in a mixed-race family, she is committed to healing the internal, ancestral and socio-cultural damage that sexism, racism and privilege (white or class-based) causes in the world.

Saskia is one of our special guests on our year-long slow study course Deepen Your Roots where she’ll be joining us during the module ‘More-than-human kinship’ where we’ll explore:

• • Animistic interspecies communication
  • Birdsong recognition and the myths and folktales carried in their wings and melodies
  • Deconstructing the dominant anthropocentric over-culture in the great unravelling of these times
  • Deep apprenticeship with furred, feathered, barked and budded ones

Deepen Your Roots spans 13 moon cycles, weaving deep ecology, ‘the work that reconnects’, and a folkloric, animistic exploration into the ecological self rewoven with place. It is an intergenerational calling into bioregional guardianship and the cultivation of profound belonging. Throughout the programme you will have the opportunity to explore and develop offerings to nourish your ecological-niche and bring your medicine forth into the world. Use the code DEEPEN10 at checkout for 10% off until Imbolc.

And we are returning this summer with our gathering ANCESTRAL, where we embody the ancient ways of our indigenous ancestors - the ones who lived in full relationship with the landscapes - and through roundhouse councils, ceremonies and intimate village life, we access their wisdom and guidance for these turbulent times with new and ancient eyes.

Explore our other gatherings and psilocybin retreats.

Connect with us / gift your music.

Music in this episode: Songs from Bonnie Medicine's latest album Wide Open (it's so beautiful).

Support the show

Seth Hughes is driven by a determination to remind humans of their intrinsic relationship with the natural world. He believes passionately that the modern human is both lost and disempowered, suffering from a kind of collective amnesia about their roots - but that they have an opportunity now to reconnect with the knowledge - and the simple joy - of our indigenous ancestors.

Seth's professional background is in filmmaking but more recently he decided to adapt these skills for his own brand of digital storytelling. Sharing stories on social media of our ancestors - of foraging, of folklore and of the pleasure to be had exercising in wilder places, his videos have struck an emotional chord, frequently garnering millions of views.

Seth also runs a men's group in Cornwall, where they connect with each other through Natural Lifestyle practices, such as barefoot running, tree climbing and movement play - helping men to emotionally ground themselves in nature.

Seth is a special guest on our year-long slow study course Deepen Your Roots where he’ll be joining us during the module ‘Courting your local flora and fauna’ where we’ll explore:

• Deepening intimacy with the edible and medicinal beings within your bioregion
• Re-enchanting our ancestral threads through Folkloric foraging
• Apprenticing with a chosen plant or fungi ally
• Finding the songs and stories woven within the stems and roots

Deepen Your Roots spans 13 moon cycles, weaving deep ecology, ‘the work that reconnects’, and a folkloric, animistic exploration into the ecological self rewoven with place. It is an intergenerational calling into bioregional guardianship and the cultivation of profound belonging. Throughout the programme you will have the opportunity to explore and develop offerings to nourish your ecological-niche and bring your medicine forth into the world. Use the code DEEPEN10 at checkout for 10% off until Imbolc.

And we are returning this summer with our gathering ANCESTRAL, where we embody the ancient ways of our indigenous ancestors - the ones who lived in full relationship with the landscapes - and through roundhouse councils, ceremonies and intimate village life, we access their wisdom and guidance for these turbulent times with new and ancient eyes.

Read Lyla June's article 'Reclaiming our Indigenous European roots'

Explore our other gatherings and psilocybin retreats.

Connect with us / gift your music.

Music in this episode: Songs from Bonnie Medicine's latest album Wide Open.

Support the show