Playmates, objects of play and natural play spaces are the focus of this episode in the Well of Being thread of the podcast. It continues to explore both what might be optimal conditions for young human development, and what we can learn from children at play for adult health and healing.

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Continuing with an examination of how we could redesign systems for harmony in people and our planet, this episode continues with some of the Permaculture principles, but also introduces Sociocracy.  This is a system of alternative governance and decision making that distributes power and resources across a group or community.

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This episode explores how resources in the novel's world are exchanged, and follows Rowan's journey through new communities of the Isles.

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In keeping with the release date of Spring equinox, this episode gets into more detail about seed sowing and how to build herb spirals or herb walls close to your kitchen.

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As this meditation is being released at the Spring Equinox it using the theme of renewal and balance. From underneath things can come back to life, energy tapped into for renewal and is inspired by imagining the life of pollinators, birds and Spring flowers. Creating a nest a space for growth and then holding patience to see what will come as we turn towards the warmth of Summer’s energy.

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Illustrator and Tattoo artist Denise (they/she) talks about their journey to a small-holding “in the middle of nowhere” in Tipperary. Almost financially inaccessible to a combined budget with their partner. They got it “cheap” because it had a cottage ruin and had been used as a dump by farmers for years. They tell of the lengths they are willing to go to deal with rubbish to let the land breath again.

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Having moved to the South of Ireland from Bangor in 1978, I tried to fit in to my new surroundings in South County Dubin.  This episode talks about the nuances of that challenge for my young teenage self.

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As this podcast uses the Celtic cycle as core pattern for releases of each batch of 8, this episode delves deeper into that pattern.

It examines how our relationship with the land and nature brings with it a connection to our ancesters' seasonal wisdom.

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I start to get more deeply into permaculture in this second episode of the thread exploring the alternatives to systems through new thinking. I draw some links to indigenous wisdom and explain some of the principles that make up the permaculture framework and how we have been applying them on our piece of marginal Wicklow hillside at Carraig Dúlra permaculture demonstration site since 2007 (where you can also find information on the courses we run there). 

For more information and resources about permaculture, go to the listen notes

This second episode in the thread about development and sources of well-being delves into crawling and toddling little humans. I wonder what we can learn from this stage, when children become copycats and start to explore what good clean dirt and objects there are in their surroundings with increasing independence. I suggest that we can rekindle and regenerate this experimentation to help find our own creative adult mental health.

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