Campfire Podcast

Support the Campfire Podcast on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/c/mattiasolsson

Maria Westerberg | The Involuntary Activist

Maria Westerberg never set out to become an activist. She became one because she saw forests disappearing — places she loved, places that were part of her home and her sense of belonging. Their destruction felt like a physical loss.

Maria is an artist, a twig poet, and a forest activist. In this conversation, we begin with her childhood and her search for a way of living that felt true to her. We talk about forests as places of refuge and freedom, the curious figures she creates from twigs, and the difficulty of finding our own way in a world full of expectations about who we should be.

We also talk about what happened when the forest around Maria and her husband Johannes was devastated by drought and bark beetles. Rather than simply clearing the damaged land and starting over, they began an experiment in ecological restoration — moving thousands of trees from places where they would otherwise be removed, restoring wetlands, and allowing a more diverse forest to emerge.

Along the way, we explore industrial forestry, biodiversity, the value of working slowly, and what it means to act from love rather than opposition. Maria reflects on how working with the land has given her something that years of campaigning against destructive forestry never quite could: a tangible sense of possibility.

Perhaps our relationship with the living world can be about more than protecting what remains. Perhaps we can also learn to repair what has been damaged, and discover a different role for ourselves among the other creatures with whom we share this Earth.

This is the first episode in a new series of the Campfire Podcast — conversations with people finding their own ways towards a more alive, regenerative and meaningful world.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Maria’s relationship with the forest, from childhood to the present

• Becoming an involuntary activist

• Twig art, poetry, freedom and the value of doing things slowly

• Industrial forestry, clear-cutting and the loss of biodiversity

• What bark beetles can teach us about forests and ecological resilience

• Restoring a damaged forest by moving thousands of trees

• Wetlands, rewilding and working with the land

• Vandana Shiva’s ideas about acting from what we love

• Finding hope through practical acts of regeneration

• Rethinking human work and our place in the living world

LINKS

Support the Campfire Podcast on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/c/mattiasolsson

Discover Maria and Johannes’s work at Romantics Reserve:

https://www.romanticsreserve.com/

Watch Kinfolk, featuring Maria Westerberg and Vandana Shiva:

https://www.campfire-stories.org/kinfolk

Watch A Tale from the Woods, my first film with Maria:

https://www.campfire-stories.org/a-tale-from-the-woods-film

Listen to Vandana Shiva on Cultivating Fearlessness:

https://www.campfire-stories.org/vandana-shiva-on-cultivating-fearlessness

Watch the films at Campfire Stories:

https://www.campfire-stories.org/

CREDITS

Music: Arvid Rask

Sound mix: Boris Laible

The Campfire Podcast is hosted by documentary filmmaker Mattias Olsson and is part of Campfire Stories, an independent film platform exploring the roots of our ecological and social troubles — and the beginnings of a different direction.

Films and conversations are freely available. Campfire Stories is sustained by people who believe this work matters.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Support the Campfire Podcast on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/c/mattiasolsson

Vandana Shiva | On Cultivating Fearlessness

How do we find the courage to stand up for what we believe in, even when the forces we face seem overwhelming? And how do we keep working towards a different world without falling into despair?

Dr. Vandana Shiva has spent decades challenging powerful corporations and defending farmers’ rights, seed freedom and the living diversity of the Earth. A physicist by training, author of more than 30 books, and founder of Navdanya, an organisation working to protect seed diversity and promote ecological agriculture, Dr. Shiva is a leading voice in the global movement for food sovereignty and regenerative farming.

We begin with the Chipko movement, the non-violent forest resistance movement in the Indian Himalayas, where villagers, particularly women, stood between loggers and the trees they depended on. For Shiva, it offered a profound lesson: when we turn towards what we love, rather than simply fighting what we oppose, we find another source of strength.

From there, we explore industrial forestry, monocultures, genetically modified crops, seed patents and industrial food systems. Shiva challenges the idea that food production can be separated from the living systems that sustain it, and reflects on the importance of biodiversity, healthy soil, small-scale farming and generations of farmers’ knowledge.

We also venture into the territory where ecology meets philosophy. What can quantum physics teach us about the interconnectedness of life? What might we gain by moving away from a culture of consumption towards one in which we participate more directly in creating the conditions for life to flourish?

At the heart of the conversation is fearlessness. Shiva speaks about trusting the truth we stand for, drawing strength from the wider community of life, and refusing to let the scale of the challenges before us become a reason for inaction. Hope, she suggests, is something we can cultivate — just as we can cultivate fear or love.

We don't have to carry the whole world on our shoulders. We can begin with the next step, taken in service of the Earth and the communities we belong to.

IN THIS EPISODE

• The Chipko movement and non-violent resistance

• Forests, biodiversity, community and democracy

• Industrial forestry and monocultures

• GMOs, seed patents and farmers’ freedom to save seeds

• Real food, soil health and regenerative agriculture

• Biodynamic farming and living systems

• Quantum physics and interconnectedness

• Cultivating fearlessness in the face of ecological and social crises

• Moving from consumption towards a regenerative culture

LINKS

Support the Campfire Podcast on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/c/mattiasolsson

Learn about the Youth Initiative Program (YIP), which facilitated this conversation:

https://yip.se/

Watch On Biodynamic Farming, the film referenced in the episode:

https://www.campfire-stories.org/on-biodynamic-farming

Explore the films at Campfire Stories:

https://www.campfire-stories.org/

The Campfire Podcast is part of Campfire Stories, an independent film platform exploring the roots of our ecological and social troubles — and the beginnings of a different direction.

Films and conversations are freely available. Campfire Stories is sustained by people who believe this work matters.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the second part of this special podcast edition of the live event "From the Ruins of a Greenhouse", Campfire Stories founder Mattias Olsson continues his interview with activist, farmer and author Stephen Jenkinson. The set finishes with Stephen Jenkinson and Gregory Hoskins performing two pieces from their "Nights of Grief and Mystery"-show. This event was recorded live at the farming collective Under Tallarna in Järna, Sweden.

Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of Campfire Stories: https://www.patreon.com/mattiasolsson

Or, to make a one-off donation, visit: https://campfire-stories.org/boxoffice/

To watch all of the Campfire Stories' films, visit: https://campfire-stories.org/film-library/

And to listen to all podcast episodes, check out: https://campfire-stories.org/podcast-library/

Follow Petronella Sjöö on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petronellasjoo/

Find out more about Gregory Hoskins here: https://gregoryhoskins.com/

Read more about Stephen Jenkinson and the Orphan Wisdom School here: https://orphanwisdom.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special podcast edition of the live event "From the Ruins of a Greenhouse", Campfire Stories founder Mattias Olsson interviews activist, farmer and author Stephen Jenkinson. The evening opens with a song by Petronella Sjöö, followed by part one of the interview, where the topics range from farming to village mindedness to animism. The set is closed out by a live performance from Stephen Jenkinson and Gregory Hoskins' show "Nights of Grief and Mystery". This event was recorded live at the farming collective Under Tallarna in Järna, Sweden.

Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of Campfire Stories: https://www.patreon.com/mattiasolsson

Or, to make a one-off donation, visit: https://campfire-stories.org/boxoffice/

To watch all of the Campfire Stories' films, visit: https://campfire-stories.org/film-library/

And to listen to all podcast episodes, check out: https://campfire-stories.org/podcast-library/

Follow Petronella Sjöö on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petronellasjoo/

Find out more about Gregory Hoskins here: https://gregoryhoskins.com/

Read more about Stephen Jenkinson and the Orphan Wisdom School here: https://orphanwisdom.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dougald Hine is a writer and social thinker, and one of the founders of the Dark Mountain Project. He and his partner Anna Björkman have recently bought an old shoe factory in a small community in Sweden, and are in the process of turning it into a home and a teaching house. In this interview with Campfire Stories founder Mattias Olsson, he speaks of what the Dark Mountain Project is, why it came about and how it’s intertwined with the Transition Movement.

Links:

Support us on Patreon

The song in this episode is called Till Skogen, by the band Kolonien

Click here to watch our documentary series about the band Kolonien

Watch our films and listen to all podcast episodes at Campfire Stories

Read more about Dougald Hine's A School Called Home

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Rune Hjarno-Rasmussen is a historian of religion and a specialist on Nordic animism and shamanism. He doesn't believe that animism belongs in the dusty cabinets of the "ancient history museum of humanity", but rather wants to explore how we can merge an animistic worldview with modernity to move forward into planetary healing.

Visit Campfire Stories to watch our films.

Become a Patron here or support the show with a one-time donation.

Visit the Nordic Animism Linktree here.

Or check out the Nordic Animism Youtube page.

The music in this episode comes from Daniel Reid.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brigid LeFevre runs the community supported agriculture operation ”Förädlad” (roughly ”Enhanced”) in Järna, Sweden. It’s a biodynamic vegetable garden that focuses on fermenting the harvest in order to enrich it with lactic acid bacteria and to make it keep for a long time.

Brigid grew up in an anthroposophically inspired Camphill community in Northern Ireland where volunteers lived and worked together with people with special needs.

Growing up in a place where food production was separated from the economic market has had a big impact on Brigid’s philosophy as a farmer. And really, come to think about it, why should the global ups and downs of the economy determine the operating practices of local farms?

In Brigid’s garden it doesn’t. She grows and ferments vegetables for the members, who subscribe to her jars of delicious sauerkraut, kimchi and all sorts of lacto fermented pickles all year round.  It’s a local, circular economy, which underpins an alive garden, buzzing and chirping, where the goal isn’t to turn a profit, but rather to make the soil more alive with the passing of each season.

This podcast brought to you by the film platform Campfire Stories – Inspiring Change through Film.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kristina Turner is the author of the book "Natural Birth – A Holistic Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth and Breastfeeding". She describes herself as a birth activist, and was one of the leaders during the occupation of Sweden's last midwife-led maternity ward when it was being shut down in 2016.

This episode is brought to you by the film platform Campfire Stories. To watch our documentaries visit: https://campfire-stories.org/

For more on Kristina Turner, check out www.braidoorganics.com or www.fodalugnt.se

For more on Stephen Jenkinson, who read that poem in the beginning, visit: https://orphanwisdom.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.