In Conversation with Nathalie Nahai

For the first episode of the season, I have the pleasure of interviewing Alexa Firmenich - an investor, consultant and facilitator on the climate crisis, whose life’s work centres on dissolving the boundaries that divide human beings from other forms of life, and enabling nature to express its fullest creativity. Focused on developing strategies that repair our planet’s ecologies, Alexa’s work experience spans from political science and leadership development to corporate sustainability analysis, journalism, eco-cultural projects in emerging markets, land-based conservation initiatives and climate communication. She is currently co-director of SEED, a new initiative housed inside the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich, that is creating the world’s first biodiversity measure that accounts for all scales of life’s complexity at a genetic, species and ecosystem level. Having co-founded the animist investment studio, Ground Effect, to direct capital on behalf of other species and back ventures that maximize planetary generativity, her current areas of investment and research include regenerative agriculture, soil health, food systems, earth jurisprudence, ecosystem restoration, ecological pedagogy, new ownership models, biodiversity, and scientific research that illuminates life’s relational processes. As an author, poet, photographer and wilderness guide, she brings people into direct contact with the living world. In her role as an Associate at Leaders’ Quest and through the company she founded, Atlas Unbound, she develops and leads multi-day immersive learning journeys for global corporations and decision-makers, principally into “nature”. These journeys embody her thesis that we learn most rapidly and durably through direct experience, and that visceral connection is a remedy to our systemic alienation from the living world. As a means to inspire a greater number of people in their climate/restoration trajectory, she started the podcast Lifeworlds. The show is an intimate dialogue with our planet’s ecologies where she explores the mindsets, skills and actions needed to partner with other forms of life. Her guests are farmers, lawyers, scientists, investors, indigenous scholars, artists, and many others, who have all learned to be in close relationship with the lifeworlds of other species. Recorded on 9th February 2023.

In 2015, sisters Ruby and Christabel Reed started organising events to explore the interconnections between ecology, community, spirituality and wellbeing. They understood the ecological emergency and mental health crisis to be inherently connected and wanted to learn about ways of being that could create happier, healthier and more just cultures. This unfolding project became Advaya, a systems change initiative that organises around the principles of radical regeneration and joyful revolution. Since its inception, it has become a global platform for transformative education, which has organised over 200 events that promote everything from regenerative narratives, embodiment, daily practice, small scale agriculture and degrowth, to local economies, ecosystem restoration, public awakening and embedded ecological awareness. In 2020 Christabel, Ruby and Cara Delevingne founded EcoResolution, an educational platform that aims to empower and inspire meaningful action in the face of ecological breakdown through education and a big-picture approach to change by platforming the inspiring and imaginative ways we can create cultures of liberation and ecological harmony. In 2021 Ruby and Christabel created Initiative Earth, a charity that empowers and enables individuals and communities to take action to support environmental restoration and regeneration. They will be launching earthed.co later this year. I first met Ruby and Christabel at a one-week introductory course in regenerative agriculture run by the wonderful folks at La Junquera in Murcia, Southern Spain, and I had the pleasure of curating a panel for their stage at the Medicine Festival earlier this year. They’re a powerful duo, and I’ve really been looking forward to sharing this conversation with you. Recorded on 28th October 2022.

Today I speak with award-winning author and speaker, Jeremy Lent. Described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” Jeremy’s work investigates the underlying causes of our civilisation’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. A former internet company CEO, with a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University and an MBA from the University of Chicago, Jeremy’s life has followed an unexpected path, as we’ll come to hear, and he has gone on to write two highly acclaimed books. The first, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning, explores the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. His new book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, draws upon science and philosophies to lay out a solid foundation for a worldview of deep interconnectedness. Jeremy is the founder of the Deep Transformation Network, a global community exploring pathways to an ecological civilisation, and the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering an integrated worldview that could enable humanity to thrive sustainably on the Earth. Recorded on 20th Oct 2022.

Today I have the treat of speaking with Dr Ros Watts - a clinical psychologist, a mother, and a passionate nature lover. Having worked as the Clinical Lead for Imperial College London’s pioneering psilocybin trial, and then as the Clinical Director at Synthesis Institute, Ros is one of the most prominent and experienced voices in the field of psychedelic research today. She has been named one of the 50 Most Influential People in Psychedelics and one of the Top 16 Women Shaping the Future of Psychedelics, and it is her focus on integration, harm-reduction and inclusion in the psychedelic space that makes Ros’s work so unique in this field. With a recently published a paper providing a validated scale for assessing psychological connectedness in a broad sense, Ros has designed The Watts Connectedness Scale as a clinical, practical tool for measuring our sense of connectedness to ourselves, to others, and to the living world. Ros has a desire to help people cultivate connectedness especially after psychedelic experiences, and it is from this place that she has created an integration community called ACER Integration, which aims to provide experiential education around how to integrate singular experiences into the wider collective and how to connect more deeply to life and one another, in all our relational complexity and richness. Recorded on 16th Nov 2022.

Today I speak with Rich Summers – a sustainable butcher, a curer, teacher and consultant who has worked in the British meat industry for over 30 years, and gained an appreciation of the finest quality British livestock and game along with an admiration for those who dedicate their time to producing it. Drawing upon his experience as a butcher, charcutier, slaughterman and occasional stockman, he has developed a forensic knowledge of ethically farmed and humanely slaughtered livestock and the importance of how these factors influence meat quality and in turn, a healthy and balanced human diet. A well-respected industry figure, Rich’s extensive knowledge of whole carcass butchery enables him to impart complex academic and scientific processes, alongside sophisticated practical skills, to clients wishing to guarantee the very best eating quality and food safety standards in a sustainable way. Rich also consults, teaches and judges on a wide range of subjects, and he leads a team of specialists offering a world class range of services aimed to produce healthier, ethical, commercially viable food systems – which you can check out at summersandco.uk Recorded on 14th Oct 2022.

As we approach the Winter Solstice and the longest night of the year, I’m delighted to share with you what has become a joyful tradition of reflection, contemplation, and looking ahead to the year to come. In this conversation, I rejoin Manda Scott and Della Duncan for a collaborative solstice offering from The Hive, Accidental Gods, and the Upstream Podcast. As we gather to reflect on what’s been a rather unusual year, we share some of the key themes of enquiry and growth we’ve explored on our podcasts, we trace what we find when we each go upstream from the challenges we’re facing today, and we explore the question of what most ignites us as we step into the months ahead. At the end of the conversation, we’ll each offer a question to you to dwell with, and Manda will guide us in a beautiful guided meditation to help us reach into and connect with this moment of the season. This is always a special episode for me, and I’m so very grateful to be able to dive into conversation with these two passionate, thoughtful and extraordinary women. I hope you find it inviting and inspiring, and I wish you a restful, restorative Winter Solstice and a fruitful new year. Recorded on 7th December 2022.

In today’s episode, I speak with Cain Blythe – CEO of Credit Nature, and Managing Director of Ecosulis, an organization that specializes in habitat restoration, particularly through the adoption of natural regeneration techniques, rewilding and the use of technology in conservation. Qualified as a Chartered Environmentalist, and a full member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment and the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, Cain has over 20 years of experience specialising in nature recovery and habitat restoration. In 2020, he published the brilliant book, Rewilding: The Radical New Science Of Ecological Recovery, which he wrote in partnership with Paul Jepson, one of the UK’s leading conservationists. Cain’s work not only focuses on the natural world – central to his approach is the endeavour to deliver solutions that ensure attractive and healthy places for people, and which also provide havens for wildlife. He has presented to a variety of audiences on biodiversity-related subjects across the UK and Europe, and he’s currently involved in innovation around biodiversity monitoring, measurement and automation, as well as rewilding, blockchain and landscape-scale habitat restoration. His company, CreditNature, focuses on mobilising high impact nature positive investments by offering a suite of green fintech products and services that have been developed using cutting-edge technologies and techniques. Recorded on 18th Nov 2022.

Today I speak with Marc Aixalà, an author and psychologist practicing in Barcelona, whose work sits at the intersection of psychotherapy, altered states and the facilitation of psychedelic integration. Having originally worked as a Telecommunications Engineer, Marc went on to become a Licensed Health Psychologist, Psychotherapist and Holotropic Breathwork facilitator, and he served as a team leader and trainer in emergency psychological assistance at Boom Festival through the Kosmicare harm reduction program. Since 2013 he has coordinated support services at the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (ICEERS), and he worked on the first-ever medical trial on the use of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, a study chronicled in the 2018 documentary, “Magic Medicine.” During his time at ICEERS, he provided integration psychotherapy sessions for people going through challenging situations after experiencing transformative non-ordinary states of consciousness. This work led him to develop theoretical models of intervention which I’m excited to say he has shared in the publication of his new book: Psychedelic Integration: Psychotherapy for Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness. Tracing the evolution of psychedelic-assisted therapy and integration research from the 1960s to the present, this book offers different models of integration and practical therapeutic techniques, and it documents Marc’s real-world observations on the deep work of healing and self-discovery. Recorded on 15th Nov 2022.

Today, I speak with Emmy-nominated filmmaker, social scientist and eco-doula, Lindsay Branham. The Founder of Novo, an incubator for art that inspires human connection in imaginative ways, Lindsay leverages media to meaningfully address ecological and human rights abuses, and also leads and facilitates contemplative spirituality retreats to deepen personal and collective transformation. She is committed to intersectional equity and justice. Lindsay's film-based interventions are designed to accompany people living in the midst of violence to build on their inherent resilience. These have focused on peacefully dismantling the Lord’s Resistance Army from within, facilitating the reintegration of former child soldiers, preventing recruitment into violent extremist groups, reducing elephant poaching, improving psychological flourishing and challenging the root causes of bonded labour. Her partners in these media-based interventions include Search for Common Ground, The Freedom Fund, Invisible Children and Google.With an MPhil in Social Psychology from the University of Cambridge, Lindsay also studied trauma and mental health at Harvard Medical School and journalism at the University of Southern California. Her current focus is on the perceptual experience of the human-nature relationship, a “sensuous terrain” of deep relationality as a PhD candidate in psychology at the University of Cambridge where she is a Cambridge Trust scholar . She is also writing a book that chronicles the intersection of health and climate change. Much of Lindsay’s ethos stems from her experience with contemplative practice from the perennial philosophies spanning decades. She is a graduate of the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies eco-chaplaincy program and is currently a retreat facilitator at Synthesis in the Netherlands. A Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace, Lindsay was named the inaugural Envision social good fellow by the Independent Film Project and the United Nations, and she has been published by CNN, the BBC and The New York Times. Her research investigating the link between media and behaviour change has been published by Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and in academic journals. Recorded on 14th Oct 2022.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr David Luke, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich. I first encountered David’s work a few years ago when I attended the biennial academic conference, Breaking Convention, of which David is a co-founder, director and chair. As you may know, I speak at a lot of conferences for my work, and I was particularly struck by this one, for their skill in weaving together different disciplines associated with the research of psychedelic substances, which is an area that is not only rich, but also very complex. Over the course of a few days I encountered talks and presentations spanning everything from medicine, psychology and anthropology, to sociology, law, politics and the arts – and so I thought who better to explore the theme of integration with, than David. Having published more than 100 academic papers, including ten books, David’s work focuses on transpersonal experiences, anomalous phenomena and altered states of consciousness, especially those occasioned by psychedelics. When he is not running clinical drug trials with LSD, doing DMT field experiments or observing apparent weather control with Mexican shamans, he directs the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon. Recorded on 13th Oct 2022.