The Clearing with Katherine May

Prolific author of nine books and writer behind the Substack phenomenon The Hyphen, Emma Gannon takes us away for a whole year to her imaginary retreat in Palm Springs, where she plans to indulge almost solely in her number one favourite pastime  - reading.

Revealing the extent to which she craves alone time, she tells Katherine about her very real experience of burnout, how she went from someone who lived to work to appreciating downtime and why she relates to The Hermit in Tarot. 

An inspiring listen that challenges our ideas of ‘the right way’ to live and embraces the concept of letting go. 

Links in the show: 

Emma’s Substack The Hyphen

Emma’s website

Emma’s Instagram 

A link to buy her books including A Year of Nothing

Find Emma’s conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert about memoir here 

Max Richter’s track On the Nature of Daylight 

Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript and to discover how to enjoy the episodes ad free

Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / US

Follow Katherine on Instagram

Visit Katherine’s Website

Production Credits

Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins

Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong

Producer - Alice Lloyd

Music - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

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

Settling in amongst the sparkling sea views and scented coniferous trees of Corfu, writer Mike Sowden tells Katherine why he is ditching the concept of escape to run towards places and people with enthusiasm and curiosity.  

Conjuring up a beautiful stay on the island so beloved by author Gerald Durrell, where people are still viscerally connected to the changing seasons, Mike and Katherine find creativity in discomfort, stories from failed adventures and a shared desire to get out into the world more and embrace the randomness of life.

Links from the episode:

Mike’s Everything is Amazing newsletter on Substack 

Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson

Journey into Cyprus by Colin Thubron

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (and link to website all about her)

Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript and to discover how to enjoy the episodes ad free

Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / US

Follow Katherine on Instagram

Visit Katherine’s Website

Production Credits

Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins

Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong

Producer - Alice Lloyd

Music - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

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

Katherine explains why we are heeding our own advice and taking a tiny break this week. She also previews some exciting, listener-led bonus content that will be coming your way next season. We’ll be back next week with another wonderful guest for you. Meanwhile take care everyone.

Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript and to discover how to enjoy the episodes ad free

Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / US

Follow Katherine on Instagram

Visit Katherine’s Website

Production Credits

Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins

Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong

Producer - Alice Lloyd

Music - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

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

A modern sage who forewarned the world of the rise of fascism, writer Ece Temelkuran explains why she ‘put her heart in the freezer’ ten years ago when she fled her country of birth and how finding traces of home all around are helping her to heal. 

From a beloved old cardigan to episodes of Downton Abbey, from being surrounded by Turkish food in Berlin to talking to her three favourite trees in the park; in this moving conversation Ece reveals the power of finding joy in the little things, as we collectively go through what she calls our ‘winter of humanity’. 

A powerful call to arms and a must-listen for those of us searching for hope in difficult times.

Links from the episode:

Ece’s Instagram

Buy her latest book Nation of Strangers here

Buy How to Lose a Country here

Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript and to discover how to enjoy the episodes ad free

Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / US

Follow Katherine on Instagram

Visit Katherine’s Website

Production Credits

Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins

Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong

Producer - Alice Lloyd

Music - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

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

Author, storyteller and enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi nation, Kaitlin Curtice, shares her beautiful image of the perfect retreat, created by her own consciousness during the Covid pandemic. 

Exploring this space together, Katherine and Kaitlin discuss the little-appreciated power of ageing, looking for stories beneath the stories, the art of listening, feeling the presence of the ancestors and asking permission from the stones and shells before you bring them home. 

A wonderful episode of Indigenous wisdom, stillness and calm - the perfect moment of retreat.

Kaitlin’s Links

Kaitlin's website where you can find her books

Kaitlin's Substack  

Authors mentioned by Kaitlin

Alastair McIntosh

Clarissa Pinkola Estés 

John O'Donohue 

Billy Collins 

Musicians’ mentioned by Kaitlin 

Gregory Alan Isakov 

Glen Hansard

Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript and to discover how to enjoy the episodes ad free

Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / US

Follow Katherine on Instagram

Visit Katherine’s Website

Production Credits

Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins

Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong

Producer - Alice Lloyd

Music - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

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

This episode of The Clearing with renowned, Oprah-endorsed American life coach Martha Beck and her wonderful wife and podcast co-host Rowan Mangan skips the small talk and delves right into the mysteries and wonder of life and death. 

From the consciousness of stones to the nonsensical hierarchy of different sentient beings on earth. From the spiritual repression of our age to the societal need for a shaman. From the realities of living in a liminal space as an autistic person, to parenting neurodivergent children to each of their own unique ‘awakenings’.

With uncannily similar experiences of the world, Martha, Ro and Katherine roll through a dizzying array of mind-expanding subjects and shared interests, resulting in a truly captivating and enriching episode.

Martha and Rowan’s Links

Martha’s website where you can find her books

Rowan’s website

Martha’s Instagram

Rowan’s Instagram

Martha and Rowan’s Bewildered podcast 

Things mentioned in the show

Poet Andrea Gibson’s website and movie Come See Me in the Good Light

Nisargadatta Maharaj wiki 

The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis here

Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript and to discover how to enjoy the episodes ad free

Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / US

Follow Katherine on Instagram

Visit Katherine’s Website

Production Credits

Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins

Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong

Producer - Alice Lloyd

Music - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

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

Chef and cookery writer Melissa Hemsley shares her bucolic, Darling Buds of May-esque fantasy of ‘safe’ escape with Katherine. 

Filled with wild and domesticated animals roaming freely, Chi Gong, nudity, a hammock, friendly neighbours who are close but not too close, the sea, also close but not too close; it’s a warm hug of a landscape where everything is chaotic but controlled. Wild but safe. With people but alone. Calm chaos.

A chance to escape the anxiety that accompanies her daily life, Melissa fully embraces the opportunity to imagine a place where her brain could take a rest from the worry and conjures something very beautiful in the process. 

Melissa’s links

Melissa’s website where you can buy her books

Melissa’s Substack

Melissa’s Instagram

Things mentioned in the show

The Darling Buds of May TV Show wiki

Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript and to discover how to enjoy the episodes ad free

Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / US

Follow Katherine on Instagram

Visit Katherine’s Website

Production Credits

Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins

Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong

Producer - Alice Lloyd

Music - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

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

Writer and former magazine editor Sam Baker is dragged kicking and screaming into this getaway as she admits she can never let go of her internal chatter and is not someone who ‘does rest’. 

Giving us a fascinating insight into the brain of someone who has dedicated their life to hard work and busy-ness, we come to understand how different our visions of escape can be. 

Needing to be ‘at the edge’ of somewhere, looking out to sea with mountains nearby, and her faithful, tail-less cat Sausage, Sam only truly rests when entering the world of her favourite anime box set. Sam’s discomfort with the concept of retreat and the realisation she doesn’t like having to choose will be utterly relatable and ring the truest for many.

Sam’s Links

Sam’s Substack The Shift

Sam’s podcast The Shift podcast 

Sam’s Instagram

Buy her book in the UK here

Things mentioned in the show

You can watch The Apothecary Diaries here on Crunchyroll 

Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript and to discover how to enjoy the episodes ad free

Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / US

Follow Katherine on Instagram

Visit Katherine’s Website

Production Credits

Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins

Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong

Producer - Alice Lloyd

Music - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

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

The ADHD and autistic tendency to rest in motion is fully realised in American author and illustrator Andy J. Pizza’s vision of the ideal retreat. Choosing an extraordinary fictional setting which incorporates an ingenious method of travelling the world, this episode showcases the wonder of a brilliantly creative, neurodivergent brain. 

Along the way, and with many fascinating tangents, Andy and Katherine discuss the power of Miyazake films, their shared love of Fraggle Rock and longing for direction from the universe. 

A meticulously thought out and fully realised world that accommodates his own personal experience of ADHD, Andy unveils the most beautifully zany and imaginative dreamscape. An absolute treat.

Links

Andy’s website where you can find his books

Andy’s Instagram

Andy’s Creative Peptalk podcast 

Mentioned in the show

Fraggle Rock

Last of the Summer Wine Wiki

The Master and his Emissary book about left and right brain

The Little Prince

Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript and to discover how to enjoy the episodes ad free

Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / US

Follow Katherine on Instagram

Visit Katherine’s Website

Production Credits

Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins

Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong

Producer - Alice Lloyd

Music - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

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

Kicking off the episode with an existential crisis, the inimitable Oliver Burkeman joins Katherine to explore his own, unique take on rest and retreat. 

A familiar name to many in both the US and the UK, Oliver’s book Four Thousand Weeks has put him at the heart of the global conversation around building a meaningful life. As you might expect, Oliver turns the concept of the podcast on its head whilst taking Katherine on a wild ride through topics from whether we should use AI as a creative tool to favourite notebooks to whether TS Eliot was on the path to spiritual enlightenment. 

A wonderful, brain-stretching conversation that reaches way beyond the confines of an imagined cabin in the woods to explore wider ideas around what it really means to get away from it all and if we should even try.

Oliver’s Links

Oliver's website to buy his books and sign up to his newsletter

Things mentioned in the programme

Kendra Allenby’s New Yorker beach cartoon 

NYC stationery store Goods for the Study

Shinzen Young on T.S. Eliot 

Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript and to discover how to enjoy the episodes ad free

Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / US

Follow Katherine on Instagram

Visit Katherine’s Website

Production Credits

Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins

Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong

Producer - Alice Lloyd

Music - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

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