Every day Wild

Did you ever feel like you could see trouble coming? What if you could literally see it? On legs?

In the second part of my interview with Eric he describes a very strange encounter with such an entity.

The gods, the spirits, the monsters. Are they all in our mind? Where are our minds?

Eric's fascinating encounter with a half man/half deer in Scotland, suggests to us that we are all part this/part that, and that our minds aren't as particular to our brains, or our concepts of an individual self as we think. 

Have you "seen" something like this before? The whole encounter prompted us to discuss how we see things, and the social and historical conditions that set the rules on what can be seen, by who, and how. 

Fascinating stuff!

Imagine, with the mind of a child, that the lives of insects are as complex and worthy as our own. 

And that they can be included in our network of important relationships.

This understanding is reflected in the stories of Wayne and Jennifer as they recall discovering the small ones in their community with the open awareness of children.

We’re left wondering: what if we could know all our small non-human kin like this? The implications could be both wonderful and heart breaking.

Who! Who? Who appears when we are lost or vulnerable? The Owl is a predator (so are humans arguably), but what else does Owl know aside from (or through) predation?

When we are weakened, we have primal anxiety that we may become prey/food. What if being consumed and being transformed are related experiences?

Kristy’s story seems to suggest something like this: she relates a series of extraordinary Owl encounters that lead us to wonder about what can happen in that wild open space in which we are desperate and losing hope.

Bec talks about her experience of an Owl apearing in a body healing session. In the ensuing discussion with Agravaine, Daniel then bangs on a bit too much about his owl dreams and experiences. 

Horses have a special way of teaching humans about our own nature. 

L'hibou Hornung practices Equine assisted psychotherapy in the Adelaide Hills, and in this episode she shares stories about how she developed a connection with horses growing up.  

Lessons along the way included being stomped on by a horse, riding through the forest on a moonlit night, and finding presence in places by tuning the senses with the subtlety of a prey animal.

Ghost horse, Gossiping trees, the Moon as afterworld: we recount times that remind us about the way places hold experience and memory, and that the connections we make with each other are alive in the places they occur in. 

You are 8 or 9 years old. Walk into the jungle with nothing. Hunt a Crocodile for food. Do this without killing. 

In this episode Rufus Bannah shares some of his incredible intitiation story. 

This story explores the distinction between hunting, as Rufus was taught, and the acts of killing that we are each linked to as consumers of food, whether with malevolence, detachment or guilt. 

Humilitas, the Latin word root for humility, can also be interpreted as "grounded", or "from the earth" (hummus).

🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊

If you have a story you'd be happy to share, please message me a brief description: [email protected]

In this episode we notice the wild in death, animal/human relationships, dreams and visions, bushfire horrors and the ecological catastrophe. 

All this from a little story:

Paula talks to Daniel about the time her dog friend said goodbye in a dream. 

After a discussion with Agravaine, Daniel reads a story (submitted to the Animal Stories project) about a cat friend visiting their humans a year or so after dying. 

If you've got a wild story you'd like to share, send us a brief description: [email protected]

We'd love to hear from you. 

In this first episode, Kaurna Elder Uncle Lewis talks to Daniel about what it meant to know Willy Wagtail and his messages in one place (on Narrunga Country), then how that changed when he moved back to Kaurna country in Adelaide. 

There's a lot in this story, and Uncle Lewis shares some of the surrounding knowledge in a fascinating and generous way. 

This is followed by a discussion between Daniel and Agravaine about how they understood this information. 

We'd like to thank Uncle Lewis for talking with us, and would like to pay our respects to he and all Kaurna elders, past and present.