Our guest today on this week's episode is Julie Brams — an earth-centered psychotherapist, certified forest therapy guide, meditation teacher, and the author of The Nature-Embedded Mind: How the Way We Think Can Heal Our Planet and Ourselves. Julie states that her work is in helping restore the human mind to its rightful place within the living world. She is also co-founder of Elemental, an earth-centered learning community helping participants heal the division between humans and the rest of nature. This is a rich, unhurried conversation — the kind you might want to take on a walk, or sit with under a tree. We hope it meets you right where you are.

In This Episode

• Julie's path from 34 years as a licensed marriage and family therapist into earth-centered psychotherapy and forest therapy guiding
• Why she moved away from the term "ecopsychology" to "earth-centered" and "re-rooting."
• The idea of "the rest of nature" — and how this small language shift addresses the human/nature divide
• How Western civilization's model of extraction and domination differs from cultures built on kinship and reciprocity
• The historical roots of mind/body/earth separation — from ancient Greek philosophy through Descartes and the Enlightenment
• Why our bodies "cannot be separate from Earth" — from the air we exchange with plants to the physiological toll of space travel
• Gloria Steinem's phrase "linked, not ranked" as an alternative to hierarchy
• The story of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight and the moment it reshaped Julie's thinking about sustainability
• What forest therapy actually looks like in practice — and Julie's own humbling first encounter with a tree
• A story about a jumping spider that became an unexpected lesson in love versus ownership
• Reflections on grief, reciprocity, and the idea that the more-than-human world may be missing us as much as we miss it
• Language, indigenous wisdom, and the book Sand Talk as a guide to non-divisive ways of thinking
• Why unlearning this division is, in Julie's words, "a group effort"

Resources & Links Mentioned

• The Nature-Embedded Mind: How the Way We Think Can Heal Our Planet and Ourselves by Julie Brams (2026 Nautilus Gold Award winner)
• Elemental, the Earth-Centered Learning Community co-founded by Julie Brams
• The Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, where Julie was certified as a guide
• The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann
• Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert
• Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta
• Paul Hawken, author of Carbon: The Book of Life— referenced from a past Good Dirt conversation
• EcoCiv, an organization promoting earth-centered culture and economy

A Note From Mary

If this conversation stirred something in you — a longing, a memory, a small ache of recognition — we'd love to hear about it. Send us a note or leave us a voicemail. And if you try Julie's simple invitation this week (find a tree, sit with it for twenty minutes, see what happens), tell us how it goes.

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Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Lady Farmer. The Good Dirt podcast is proudly part of the Connectd Podcasts network.

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray

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