Lifeworlds is an intimate dialogue with our planet’s ecologies and with those who are translators and bridges between the human and beyond-human. Our guests are farmers, lawyers, scientists, investors, indigenous scholars, artists, and many more — with them, we explore the mindsets, skills and actions required to forge deep connections with nature and to enter into close relationship with the lifeworlds of other beings. We begin to change the world when we change our ways of seeing and being. Lifeworlds points us towards a deeper reformulation of core human identities, asking who it is we share the Earth with and what our human role may be at this pivotal moment in time. It is through the doorway of inhabiting and understanding multiple perspectives that we can begin to heal a culture and psyche that is steeped in duality. We have lost our place as humans amongst all life. This is our call for healing, engagement and wonder. www.lifeworld.earth Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This episode is a live interview with Dr. Suzanne Simard at the MOTH Festival of Ideas in London. Suzanne is the forest ecologist whose researched popularised notions of the Wood Wide Web and the Mother Trees, and revealed the living networks that wire a forest together to share carbon, water and resources. We talk about the courage it took to call a tree "mother," the grizzly encounters and burned-down research plots behind the tidy data, and the findings from her Mother Tree Project and luminous new book, When the Forest Breathes - chief among them, that a forest, given half a chance and a few elders left standing, knows exactly how to breathe its way back to life. Episode Website Link Links: Suzanne’s main website The Mother Tree Project & Program Book: When the Forest Breathes Book: Finding the Mother Tree MOTH Festival of Ideas Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What does it actually mean to translate a language that has never been written down or spoken in air, whose holders are ancient ocean denizens, and may not even carry concepts we'd recognize as our own? That's the question sitting at the center of this episode, and those answering it have formed one of the more radical partnerships in science today: Project CETI and MOTH. CETI is a collective of fifty-plus scientists attempting to listen to and translate the communication of sperm whales. MOTH is a legal collective working to bring that science before courts, in the hope that whales might be granted something like legal standing and rights. In a barn in the English countryside, David Gruber and César Rodríguez-Garavito walk us through what it takes to listen this closely to another species, and whether this new convergence of human, animal, and machine intelligence could spark a watershed moment for conservation and consciousness. What we'll cover: The sperm whale's anatomy of perception, acoustic vision, and what it's like to navigate a world of inky darkness through sound The deep evolutionary kinship between humans and whales, and what their convergent vowel-like sounds suggest about the origins of language How Project CETI uses machine learning to find phonetic structure and contextual meaning in whale codas The legal arguments emerging from this research, from the right not to suffer to the right to a cultural life A remarkable multi-whale birth event — and what it reveals about coordination, kinship, and social roles among whales The ethical guardrails (NACT) proposed for AI-assisted animal communication technology, and the risks of getting this wrong Whether this new convergence of human, animal, and machine intelligence could spark a watershed moment for conservation and consciousness Episode Website Link Links: Project CETI More-Than-Human Life (MOTH) Program at NYU Nature: Description of a collaborative sperm whale birth and shifts in coda vocal styles during key events What if We Understood what Animals are Saying? The Legal Impact of AI-assisted Studies of Animal Communication .” He Whakaputanga Moana: The first Declaration recognizing whales as sentient beings with inherent rights From Orbit to Intimacy The Crimson: Are Whales Trying to Tell Us Something? Time: Researchers are Using AI to Understand what Animals are Saying Lifeworlds Episode: The Sounds of Life: Bioacoustics, A.I. and Ethics – with Karen Bakker Lewis Mumford: Tecnics and Civilisation From Orbit to Intimacy Listening to whales: input requested!! Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Credits: Sperm Whale Sound (Project CETI) Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What if one of the most powerful tools for saving the Amazon rain-forest was a bee most people have never heard of? Enter the stingless bee – a 65 million year old resident of Earth that produces honeys teeming with medicinal molecules and has co-evolved with indigenous Amazonian communities across millennia. Today, these bees are at the keystone species at the heart of a pioneering conservation movement spanning science, law, economics and Indigenous rights: one that recently secured the world's first legal recognition of the rights of an insect. Dr. Rosa Vásquez Espinoza is the National Geographic Explorer and conservation scientist whose NGO Amazon Research Internacional is spearheading these initiatives. In this episode we explore the life world of the bees themselves, the pioneering science and bio-economies emerging around their extraordinary honey, the deep co-evolutionary bond between stingless bees and Amazonian communities, and how bridging indigenous and Western knowledge is proving essential for the forest, for the communities who steward the bees and the legal frameworks being built to protect them. Episode Website Link: https://www.lifeworld.earth/episodes-blog/stinglessbeesamazonfuture Links: Amazon Research International: Main Site Dr Rosa Vasquez Espinosa Book: The Spirit of the Rainforest Youtube: STINGLESS BEES AND THE BIODIVERSITY OF OUR AMAZON In Peru, a Mission to Save the Stingless Bee Nat Geo: S tingless bees make ‘miracle liquid.’ Guardian: Stingless bees from the Amazon granted legal rights in world first Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock, Ellie Kidd & The Rising by Tryad CCPL . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What is life, and are we alone in the universe? In this episode I sit down with Adam Frank, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Rochester, prolific science communicator, and author of five books including The Blind Spot and The Little Book of Aliens. Adam is one of the most compelling voices working at the intersection of astrobiology, philosophy, and the human future. We journey from the stunning variety of exoplanets we're only beginning to map, to the deep questions on detecting life in space. Adam argues that the search for extraterrestrial life can't be separated from the question of what life means here on Earth. Astrobiology, it turns out, may be our most useful mirror for understanding our own civilisational moment. We also get into the hard problem of consciousness, the blind spot at the heart of modern science, and how cosmology like art and myth - can be a gateway to awe. A conversation that leaves you more at home in the strangeness of the universe and probably less certain about what “alive” even means. Episode Website Link Links: Adam’s Website Adam’s Podcast: The Blind Spot Adam’s Instagram Noema Magazine: Why Science Hasn’t Solved Consciousness (Yet) The Atlantic: The Truth Physics Can No Longer Ignore 5 Sci FI Aliens article Beyond Center at ASU on astrobiology and SETI Sarah Walker’s Assembly Theory in the NYT: A Test for Life Versus Non-Life Nature paper on Assembly Theory Schrodinger: What is Life? Information Theory Book: Human Cosmos by Jo Marchant "Semantic information, autonomous agency and non-equilibrium statistical physics" by Artemy Kolchinsky and David Wolpert Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Photo Credit: Hubble Space Telescope Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today’s episode explores a simple but urgent question: is our education system still fit for the world we’re entering? Climate disruption, AI, and uncertainty demand new forms of education fit for complexity and change. A rich lineage of alternative and experimental education has been evolving for decades, seeking to make learning more holistic, place-based, creative, and ecologically grounded. The focus of today’s conversation is one of those institutions: Black Mountains College in Wales. BMC is building a university model explicitly designed for a warming world, where nature is often the classroom and curriculum blends ecology and climate science with the arts, systems thinking, and community-rooted practice. I’m joined by its co-founder and CEO, Ben Rawlence, award-winning writer and former human rights researcher, to explore: The historicity of Western educational systems What the role of a university should be in society Black Mountains College as model of the future of education The role of ecological imagination Youth, eco anxiety and the challenges of parenting in today’s planetary moment Episode Website Links: Black Mountains College Think Like a Forest by Ben Rawlence Guardian: ‘We create changemakers’: the new UK college dedicated to climate crisis BMC and ecological imagination by Joseph Rowntree Foundation List of alternative schools and earth centered curriculum centers The Solutions are Already Here: Strategies of Ecological Revolution from Below Britt Wray on Climate Grief Future Council Re-imagining education conference Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This Lifeworlds episode is a devotional journey into the work of Rainer Maria Rilke, the lyrical German poet of thresholds and embracing transformations. Through readings of his most luminous poems and writings, we explore how Rilke guides us deliciously in reconciling suffering and turmoil with tremendous beauty. It’s an offering for anyone standing in the in-between, for those moving through sublimation, and longing for those secret, dazzling encounters with primal life forces. Rilke’s words are an invitation in. To move towards. His poems are prayers…. “to go out into our hearts as onto a vast plain, so that life can feel us as it reaches for us.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode, we explore the role of theatre and empathy in transforming worldviews. Dr. Dylan McGarry is one of the founders of Empatheatre, a South African theatre-making company and methodology that turns research and storytelling into living social sculpture. Their plays create what they call amphitheatres for empathy - spaces where art, ritual, and dialogue help people listen across difference, from mining conflicts to ocean governance to human-wildlife coexistence. Empatheatre’s productions have brought together communities, policymakers, and activists that rarely meet, showing how imagination can transform civic life. The process of creating the plays generates profound potentials for restorative justice. As Dylan says, empathy is not about agreement, but about creating a vessel strong enough to hold our differences while keeping us in relation. We will cover: Empathy as a creative act Theatre and storytelling as Trojan horses that open conversations that traditional politics often can’t How to design spaces that allow lifeworlds to touch and the practices that help us shift into another’s perspective How empathy, when practiced collectively, becomes a form of governance: a new infrastructure for democracy and care Episode website Links: Share your input for the whale production Empatheatre Dylan’s PHD 5min Empatheatre doc Indlela Yokuphila: The Soul's Journey (ZULU) film & the radio play used in the court case Lalela Ulwandle Trailer Umkhosi Wenala doc about Zulu musical on indigenous traditions & animist relationships Steiner’s 12 senses MOTH Project CETI Karen Bakker Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals One Ocean Hub dylanmcgarry.org Instagram: @dylan_mcgarry Photo Credit: Casey Pratt. It captures a significant moment in a collaborative theatre-making & storytelling project titled " Umkhosi Wenala" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode, I sit down with Bill Plotkin, founder of Animas Valley Institute. Over the past 40 years, Bill has developed intricate, nature-based models of human development and education that challenge dominant psychological frameworks and invite us into a maturation process rooted in wholeness, wildness, and the more-than-human world. We explore their three major maps of a person’s “soul-centric journey” and cover topics including: Why most modern humans remain developmentally stuck in early adolescence The 8-stage Soulcentric Developmental Wheel and how it mirrors nature’s rhythms The four cardinal facets of the psyche, and the inner protectors that distort them Whether other species undergo their own versions of soul initiation Why the path to a mature culture will not come from the strategic mind, but from descent, mystery, and imagination This is a deep-dive into a body of work that’s revolutionizing the lives of thousands of people, and how to think about adulthood, education, and healthy human cultures. Episode Website Link Links: Animas Valley Institute Animas Valley Offerings Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries Parable of the Tribes Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Photo Credit: Midjourney Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Almost 40% of Earth’s land is degraded, meaning that the natural cycles that sustain biodiversity, water, food, and livelihoods are breaking down. This degradation is an ecological crisis, and, it also lies at the root of massive social breakdown, displacement, and conflict. And it’s accelerating. In this episode, I speak with Dutch ecologist and entrepreneur Willem Ferwerda, founder of Commonland, one of the leading global initiatives tackling land degradation via large-scale holistic landscape restoration. Their work spans over 20 countries, with projects restoring millions of hectares from South Africa to Spain, Australia to the Netherlands. We get into their unique 4 Returns Framework - a powerful, intuitive model that integrates ecological, social, financial, and inspirational/spiritual returns. We talk about: Communities building long-term visions together across sectors The importance of meeting different audiences where they are The role of storytelling, spirituality, and local leadership How restoring land helps restore meaning and purpose And how, ultimately, all this work is about regenerating life Episode Website Link Show links: The 4 Returns Framework in Practice 4 Returns Framework Publication 4 Returns Framework for Landscape Restoration 4 Returns Diagnostic Tool The Meaning of Laudato Si for a Landscape Ethic Towards financing large-scale holistic landscape restoration in Europe The Trillion-Dollar Promise Of A Landscape Restoration Industry, Forbes We must tackle global risks in an integrated way – here’s how How the Ecosystem Approach supports “Cooperation in a Fragmented World" Albania landscape project Look out for meditations, poems and readings in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Photo Credit: Commonland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What if the next shift in planetary consciousness didn’t come from looking back at Earth from space, but from listening deeply to the voices already here? In this thought piece I propose the “inworlding effect” as the overview effect of our time: one where developments in science, technology, law, and many other disciplines are revealing our entangled presence within a multispecies world. Medium Article Link Episode Website Link Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today we’re joined by artist, musician and communal grief ritual facilitator Alexandra “ahlay” Blakey to speak about the cultural forgetting of communal mourning, the sacred role of professional mourners, and the re-emergence of grief ceremonies as necessary spaces of remembrance, healing and repair. Ahlay brings her experience weaving song, body, and ritual into collective spaces where grief is given breath and movement, and we explore the history of grief practices across cultures, the political power of public mourning, and how grief can soften the heart and stitch community back together. We explore what to expect in a communal grief ceremony, and ahlay shares the story behind her 200-voice album WAILS: Songs for Grief , inspired by whales, ancestral sorrow, and Francis Weller’s work. Within the episode are woven tracks of her haunting songs, so tune up your headphones, and sink in. Episode Website Link Show Links: Healing at the Roots: ahlay’s website Song: Carry this All The Sacred Role of Eastern European Professional Mourners Sobonfu Some WAILS: Songs For Grief One Body Song Circle Live Francis Weller Book: Dangerous Voices Book: Caliban and the Witch Martin Prechtel Myth of Lindworm: Martin Shaw Bandcamp Youtube Channel Spotify Soundcloud Instagram Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Photo Credit: Cover image ( Earth Altering ) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode we’re joined by the renowned environmentalist, activist and author Paul Hawken to explore the lifeworld of carbon and its role as a vital agent in the story of life. Paul speaks about the dysfunctions in Western language on how we speak about climate and nature, and why metaphors of war, control, and fixing actually perpetuate the very mindset that created the crises in the first place. We explore common traps we fall into, and how to recarbonize, to bring life back and restore relationality in how we think, feel, and act. This is a wide-ranging and intimate conversation on language, grief, science, reverence, and what it means to come home to Earth and to the deeper meanings of life. Episode Website Link Show Links: Carbon, the Book of life (Paul’s book) Drawdown (Website & Paul’s book) Regeneration (website resources with projects) Regeneration (Paul’s book) Francis Weller Course on grief Closing Poem: Love in a Time of Climate Change By Craig Santos Perez Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode, we journey into the vibrational worlds of sound, ancestry, and deep listening with Whaia, a Ngāti Kahungunu woman of Māori descent and First Nations sonic weaver and multi-instrumentalist. Raised between the salt of the Pacific and the red dust of the Australian desert, Whaia’s voice carries ancient songlines, blending traditional Māori instruments, crystalline singing bowls, and her original mother tongue, the language of Te Rā, the Sun. We explore her work singing with whales, reclaiming cultural instruments once left silent in museums, and remembering the sacred oceanic highways navigated by her Polynesian ancestors, guided by the stars and whale ancestors. This is a conversation about song as medicine, the voice as ceremony, and reclaiming lineage through sound. We ask: what might the whales be singing to us now? What frequencies are we called to remember in order to heal ourselves and our waters? Stay on after the episode wraps to hear a special feature from Whaia’s debut album WHAIA & WATER — the first of a twelve-part series known as her Sacred Sonic Sessions. Episode Website Link Show Links: Whaia website Instagram Whaia Water Album Download Wisdom Keepers Delegation Oceanic Global Australian Songlines The Pleiades Masaru Emoto: Messages in Water Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Photo of Whaia: Chanel Baran Photo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In a remote cabin in Vancouver Island in 2019, far away, I sat by the shore. I listened. I re-read poetry. I swam with jellyfish. I ate bright salmon berries and raw samphire. I gazed around and listened to the songs of the land. This piece of writing is a result of my days there. Full poem on Lifeworlds Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Where does your body end and the Earth begin? In this episode, we explore the real and poetic parallels between human health and planetary health, and how nature’s language moves in our bodies. Joining me is Dr. Mackenzie Hall, a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Functional Medicine, who helps us trace the Earth’s vital systems through the lens of humans as ecological systems. We ask: How could one imagine the Earth’s vital organs as reflected in human anatomy? How does the Earth balance and health and detoxify, and how might this mirror how we work with our own bodies? How does the body's energetic system hold, manage and deal with pathology? How do we listen for the Earth’s pulse? How could this affect how we work as earth protectors and regenerators? This brings up a profound point: if we are to ensure the Earth’s aliveness, we have to feel it as our own body. And, if we can sense the Earth’s rhythms as our own, can we also become its white blood cells, human agents of healing embracing and embodying its circulatory wildness? Episode Website Link: https://www.lifeworld.earth/episodes-blog/theecologyofhealth Show Links: Aaro Wellness The Web that has no Weaver "Understanding Chronic Illness" Alexa’s Article: Our Planet’s Blood Earth’s Frequencies: Schumann Resonances Yellow Emperor's Classic (Classical text upon which all Chinese Medicine is based) Biocubes.net: Infographic on living and human biomass on earth Meditation: The Cosmos in Your Food Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock, Ellie Kidd & The Rising by Tryad CCPL . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
David McConville is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher who explores how technology shapes our perspectives of Earth—from local places to our cosmic context. Our conversation examines how worldviews influence infrastructure, using Los Angeles as a case study. We explore the paradigm of "living infrastructure," discussing how David's studio Spherical collaborates with communities and organizations to develop mapping and co-design tools. Even if you’re not in LA, this episode offers valuable insights into how communities can work together to create resilient infrastructure systems that honor their unique cultural needs and local environments. Links: Spherical Spherical Labs Living Infrastructure Field Kit Dawn Danby + David McConville : When Utopia is Oblivion Bio: David McConville is co-founder and lead cosmographer of Spherical, a strategic design and integrative research studio based in xučyun / Oakland, CA. His PhD in Art and Media from Plymouth University examined how cosmological perspectives shape cultural imaginaries and ecological practices. Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode, I share some reflections on Season 2, before diving into our first listener-guided Q&A! You’ll be hearing from fellow listeners who enquired on topics like: Earth-centered governance De-extinction Alternative economies Language and stories about nature Which lifeworld I’d inhabit Green tech and individual agency What is the purpose of humans? Thank you to everyone who sent in these thought-provoking questions. Episode Website Lifeworlds resource page Faith in Nature Earth Law Center Zoops Treaty of Finsbury Park Alexa's When We Carved Spirals Ian McGilchrist Colossal Britt Wray Venemous Lumpsucker Multitudes Foundation Planetary Boundaries Regeneration.org Drawdown Flock Together Good Nature Forest Bathing Last Child Alive Regenerators Bio Leadership Capital Institute Danielle Rees: dannivrees@gmail.com Small Giants Berkshares Kenya Sarafu Credit Grassroot Economics Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What if you could inhabit the future? In this episode, we dive into the work of Superflux, the visionary design studio turning imagination into tangible worlds. From multispecies banquets and rewilded ecological sanctuaries to mythic friezes that re-enchant cityscapes, co-founder Anab Jain shares how embodied experiences can transform how we see — and shape — the world. Join us as we explore speculative design, active hope, and the power of imagination to move us beyond ecological breakdown and into interspecies thriving. A celebration of wonder, possibility, and the art of asking: "What if?" Episode Website Link Show Links: Superflux website The Quiet Enchanting Calling for a more than human politics Designweek on speculative design Anab Jain’s IXDA Keynote on More-Than-Human Centred Design Noema Magazine: Radical Design for a World in Crisis 9 Dimensions for evaluating how art and creative practice stimulate societal transformations Recent Interviews: Financial Times , ICON , Wallpaper , Offscreen Magazine , STIRworld , Business Insider , NPR Radio To send your Q&A to Alexa for the Lifeworlds special episode Look out for meditations, poems, readings, and other snippets of inspiration in between episodes. Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This is my take on ancient and intuitive sensory experience that taps into the innate intelligence of the human body, a blend of body compass, Zen Beginner's Mind, a shamanic medicine walk and Goethean science. The practice asks you to find a place in the natural landscape where you could walk undisturbed for some time, and have an encounter with an element of nature. A true act of lifeworld-ing! I guide you through a short introduction and the instructions. Attached on the website page is a link to the full instructions in PDF, and listed here in much briefer bullets below. I recommend listening in full, then using either of the instructions when you choose to do the practice itself. Abbreviated instructions · Before entering into the natural landscape, you’ll walk to a threshold place, and stop. · Here you will physically draw a threshold that you will walk across. · Once you’ve done that, pause, connect with the land, speak your intention, ask for permission. · Cross the threshold, and start walking towards where you feel a tug. Be conscious of the way your body can intuitively lead the way. Use the senses. · At some point, you may come across a being in the land that catches your attention. It could be a spiders web, a stone, a patch of moss, a dead bough of a tree, a stream, a blade of grass, truly anything. Approach, introduce yourself. · Spend a moment in presence with them, in beginners mind. · Use Goethe’s Exact Sense Perception instructions –then imagine it transforming. Then release to receive. Let it communicate back to you. · Stay here as long as feels right. · When it comes to the time to go, thank this natural being and start walking back to your threshold place. · When you cross the threshold, thank the land and when you’re ready, step across back into the other world. · Gently wipe out the threshold door and take some time upon returning to digest anything that may have arisen for you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Producer's note
Steal the structure. Not the show.
Keep the useful structure, then change the audience, point of view, and voice until the idea is unmistakably yours.
