Susannah Crockford is a lecturer in anthropology, specialising in environmental and medical anthropology and the anthropology of religion. Her first book, Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona, explored New Age Spirituality of the Mecca of all things New Agey in the States. I came across her work as I was trying to get a stronger grounding of the harmful overlap between neoliberal individualism and health, wellness and spirituality. It’s a dangerous combination, and Susannah has put in a lot of good work exploring this from an anthropological perspective. One of the results of economic individualism dancing with health and wellness is a growing feeling among many that I can’t trust anyone but myself and the products I purchase. This collective paranoia is infecting big sections of our population.

This isn’t the ‘let’s bash those crazy new agers who believe wild theories about the nature of the world’ – it’s a look beneath what’s going on at the surface. This is often a demographic who have been let down by the medical sector, who are disillusioned with modern politics and who have been directed down the slip road of simple explanations of why things are the way they are. I think this will prove helpful for anyone who wants to learn more about the forces behind the growing divisiveness and the lack of agreement on the truth. Also, if you have been exposed to conspiratorial media or a friend of yours has, this might give you an important perspective with which to view what is going on.

As always, thanks, Susannah, for your time, thanks to you for listening and if you’d like to learn more about Susannah’s work and the topics explored in this podcast, check out the links below:

https://experts.exeter.ac.uk/38354-susannah-crockford/about

https://open.spotify.com/show/0U49MjvxOCZ87frBk7R1vA

Our guest this time is Dr. Sula Windgassen. Having experienced recurring UTIs and chronic pain in her early twenties, she felt a strong urge to learn more about human health and, in particular, women’s health, which is significantly under-researched. Since she made this conscious decision, she has become a health psychologist, cognitive behavioural therapist, EMDR therapist, and mindfulness teacher with over 10 years of experience working with people who have chronic illness in the NHS, academia, and private practice. She is one of the wisest voices on the internet when it comes to mental and physical health and is a much-needed figure in a world filled with health misinformation, oversimplifications, and massive extrapolations from the truth. I invited Sula to the podcast to talk about a range of topics related to mental health, physical health, and wellness. She knows all too well what many chronic sufferers are going through. The big motive behind her work is to prevent people with health issues from feeling as isolated and unheard as she did, and a key aspect of her success (in my opinion) is that she doesn’t necessarily push the practices and tools that helped her recover from her health issues onto her patients. She knows that just because things worked for her, it doesn't mean that they will work for you, and this is rare in the world of health and wellness. In this podcast, we cover a lot. We hear about the profound role EMDR has played in influencing Sula’s understanding of recovery, and we break down the common myth that certain physical health symptoms are all in your head, or that it’s all trauma, or that it’s all your nervous system. We unpack how the market and targeted online marketing are taking advantage of the eroding trust people have in public healthcare and the dangers attached to this. We talk about the healing power of being with our difficult emotions. We also discuss the role of connection and feeling heard on the road to recovery as well as the nuances around the benefits of mental imagery (see show notes for the referenced studies). If you want more from Sula, please see the links below.

https://www.healthpsychologist.co.uk/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4974856/

https://www.instagram.com/the_health_psychologist_/?hl=en

Welcome back friends!

You might remember Ciara Sherlock from an episode that I recorded with her in back in 2022. In that episode, we discussed the significance of psychedelic integration along with the growing popularity of women’s circles. In this episode, we cover other aspects of Ciara’s work; namely Bodywork and Doula work. In the current climate, where more and more people are accepting of the body’s capacity to store our deeper psychological and emotional weight – we chat about how massage therapy can help many who are looking to deepen their connection to their body and the variety of symptoms that this process can assist with. We then move onto discuss Doula work- which could be summarised as holistic support for women throughout their entire pregnancy journey- which can begin when a couple are considering the possibility of having a child, and can move up until postpartum, with guidance and emotional support around feeding along with naming ceremony facilitations. Doula work has played an integral role in our culture over hundreds of years and we unpack this as well as how Doulas can work alongside as well as outside the mainstream maternity services. Unfortunately, there are women who feel rushed, unherd, isolated and unsupported during their pregnancy and after birth and for women who desire deep support for the incredibly challenging and enriching process of bringing a child into this world, Doula work is an additional option. Doulas also work with women who have experienced pregnancy loss. If you would like to learn more about the topics covered in this podcast and/or contact Ciara please see the link to her website below. Happy New Year!

https://ciarasherlock.com/

Welcome back to the Earthly Delights Podcast!

Our guest this time around is writer, coach and podcaster, Erick Godsey. I have been following his work since 2020 and found him to be an inspiring, insightful voice in a wellbeing and spirituality media landscape that often promotes dangerous, wild content. His weekly newsletter is regular thought-provoker for me and I would highly recommend subscribing to it if this conversation moves you.

After exchanging pleasantries, we start the podcast by unpacking his fascinating project called The Shimmer which aims to help people understand the degree to which modern life has left us deeply distracted and provides a helpful roadmap of practices to assist individuals to get their attention back. This has helped me a lot and I have a feeling that many listeners will appreciate this project so I wanted to share it with those who might not have come across Erick and his work.

We then move into chatting about the impact meditation can have on emotional sensitivity, the individualistic rhetoric of influencers in the spirituality space and the significance of delving into a relationship with our shadow.

I tried something new with this podcast and guest, precisely because I trusted Erick’s capacity to hear a differing perspective without feeling attacked as I wanted to be able to have a respectful discussion about our differing perspectives without falling into common argumentative traps. I feel that there is a deep need for people to respectfully disagree with each other and I’m grateful for getting to try this with him.

https://www.erickgodsey.com

Lucy O’ Hagan is a very inspirational person. She has been on a fascinating journey, a journey that we couldn’t do justice to in one hour. However, we did cover a lot. I primarily asked Lucy onto the podcast to talk about her work with WildAwake – a fantastic organisation designed to help people connect to themselves, their communities and the non-human life on earth in a deeper way. Wildawake through Ancestral Skills, Ethnobotany, Wildlife Tracking and Trailing as well as Rites of Passage Training invite people to relate to the natural world in a way we have forgotten. Part of this Rites of Passage training with Wildawake includes a process which is often described as a Wildness Fast or Vision Quest which is an ancient ceremony involving several days of fasting in the natural world with little to no human company nor modern distraction. This conversation attempts to delve deeper into this rich process, why Lucy felt the call to Wilderness fasting and how it deepened her relationship with the land and inspired her work in Donegal with Wildawake. We also talk about the rise of ethno-nationalism in Ireland and consider how combined with economic precarity and misinformation online, this racism might be seen as a symptom of the significant disconnection many Irish people feel to their language, to their tradition, to their stories, to their land. Lucy also shares some of her observations facilitating ceremonies and from her extended time on the land, including the ‘inherent queerness of the natural world’. This was a beautiful chat which I think might serve as necessary nutrition for many given the disconnection, polarisation and violence going on close to home at the moment. Lucy’s story reminds me of our collective need to listen to the natural world, to learn about the ways of our ancestors and to pay homage to these practices and worldviews. You can find more information about Wildawake and Lucy through the link below. As always, thanks for making the time to listen and thanks to Lucy for getting up early for our call

https://www.wildawake.ie/

This week's guest is Evelyn Van Winden, a Therapist with expertise in attachment, behavioural and parenting-related challenges surrounding child development. We talk to Evelyn about the importance of those foundational relationships during childhood and how they affect us as we grow into adulthood. We also talk about the challenges of parenting and getting the balance between supporting and caring for your child and taking a step back to allow them to learn important lessons on their own. We could have spoken to Evelyn for hours and hours and will be sure to get her back on soon, but we hope you enjoy this first very illuminating conversation. Thanks

https://evelynevanwinden.nl

This podcast is a conversation with Declan Hammond, the co-founder and former director of the Irish School of Homeopathy. Declan’s array of skills are vast but with this podcast, we focus in on homoeopathy. Most people, at least in Ireland, disregard homeopathy as woo-woo or pseudoscience but my hope with this podcast is that the listener becomes more open to this approach to healing. In this full episode, we cover how Declan came across homoeopathy and eventually established a school in Ireland, the philosophy behind homoeopathy and how it can serve as a catalyst for you to change your life. We talk about the need for balanced practicality in the world of medicine reflecting on what can homeopathy aid and it’s limitations (in the words of Declan- sometimes a gentle approach doesn’t do it). We also cover some memorable transformations it inspired in people over the course of his career, misconceptions about homoeopathy and much more.

https://declanhammond.com

James Cussen is a philosopher, video creator and the first Limerick man we’ve had on the podcast. He runs a very successful and useful YouTube channel titled “The Living Philosophy” through which he unpacks long-standing philosophical arguments with modern-day application. A good friend put me on to his stuff and I’ve been dipping in ever since. In this conversation, we cover what philosophy has done for James, and how exactly it can help us in a very real way in our daily lives while acknowledging the dangers of overthinking and overanalysing. We also critique some heralded figures in the mainstream and what their success might reflect about our current society. Are we running away from feeling? This was a long, very fun conversation and I know you’ll take something significant from this. If you’d like to learn more about James and his work, check out his website.

https://www.thelivingphilosophy.com or his YouTube channel https://m.youtube.com/@TheLivingPhilosophy

As always, thanks for taking time to listen to us.

Part 3 of our mini-series about direction and purpose in life!

Writing an introduction for our guest this week is an impossible task, but I’ll try. Martín Prechtel is an artist, writer, musician, storyteller, teacher, healer and leading thinker..he’s also one of the funniest guests we’ve ever had on The Earthly Delights. He has lived an incredibly full life and has some profound lessons to share with whoever is open to learning. I was first introduced to the work of Martin by My dear friend Matt who shared with me “The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise”. In this book, he speaks of the inherent interconnection between grief and praise in a truly life-affirming manner. It is one of the most influential books on how I view life and I would encourage anyone to give it a read if they are struggling with grief and joy in their own lives. To be brutally honest, I would recommend the work of Martin Prechtel to you all listening. Why do I say that? Well, if you are listening to The Earthly Delights Podcast, chances are that you are finding navigating the modern world very challenging. I don’t need to go into the many ways as to how life in 2023 is sucking our life force but I know that many of us are left today feeling blocked, numb, hopeless and even apathetic. Martin’s work addresses the maladies of our current situation but still manages to instil a deep sense of hope, love, meaning and gratitude in the people who listen to him talk and read his books. His core messages are simple but profoundly countercultural and I invited him on because I think we all need to hear his words until they sink into our bones. In this conversation we speak about some of the crucial lessons in his book “The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive” namely the nature of our collective disconnection or what he calls un-intactness, the importance of giving energy towards something beautiful that we will never see fully blossom in our lifetime as well as the significance of attempting something even if it feels impossible. These areas of discussion are so relevant now and it was an absolute delight and honour to spend this time with Martin. Thank you all for listening and I left links to his website and soul-sparking music in the show notes if you want more for Martin. The new album ‘The Sun’s Gonna Melt Your Gun’ is a really touching, powerful piece of art and you will hear a little snippet of it at the end of the podcast. All the best friends,

https://floweringmountain.com/

https://open.spotify.com/album/6N96PXRbD4WVDAbGiClvDM?si=z6FfW-RfS42Brqwg-2VVDw

Part 2 of our mini-series about direction and purpose in life!

Brother Richard Hendrick is a priest-friar of the Irish Capuchin Franciscan Province, now based in Dublin. He was director of Youth Ministry for the Irish Capuchins for over ten years and has worked at both secondary and third level as a retreat giver and chaplain. He is deeply knowledgeable about ritual and initiation within several wisdom traditions and his work highlights the significance they play in our development as humans. With the Sanctuary Mindfulness and Spirituality Centre in Dublin, he has created many youth and teacher training programs around this perspective – the perspective being that young people need elders along with ritual and healthy forms of initiation to help them progress through the stages of human development. In this conversation, we unpack this further with Brother Richard, along with essential components of initiation, the precise role of the elder, and why our parents cannot be our elders. We also hear his critique around the confirmation, the common form of initiation for young people associated with the Catholic Church. This was a special chat with a man deeply committed to spreading insights from many wisdom traditions, not just the Christian tradition. If you would like some more from Brother Richard, he has a fantastic book out called Still Points: A Guide to Living the Mindful, Meditative Way which is available in all good bookshops.