The Wild Minds Podcast

By The Outdoor TeacherHealth & Fitness Mental Health Education Courses

The Wild Minds Podcast episodes

June 15Getting to Know the Plants
In this reflective solo episode, Marina explores how getting to know the plants around us can deepen our sense of connection, belonging and wonder. Drawing on a day spent teaching in the woods, she shares simple ways to slow down, engage the senses and discover the food, medicine, stories and lessons hidden within the plants we often overlook.
Key Takeaways
Why learning the names and qualities of individual plants changes how we relate to the natural world.
How simple sensory activities can help us slow down and pay closer attention.
The powerful "Meet a Tree" exercise and what it reveals about uniqueness and connection.
Marina's woodland day of foraging, fire-lighting, whittling and plant-based practices.
The medicinal and nutritional benefits of pine needles, including vitamin C and antioxidants.
How to make an infused pine and elderflower tea and immunity-supporting syrup.
The importance of safe foraging, correct identification and awareness of lookalike species.
Ethical harvesting practices that ensure enough is left for wildlife and future growth.
Insights from Mo Wilde's foraging work and the impact of wild foods on gut health and the microbiome.
The remarkable benefits of common plants such as nettles, often dismissed as weeds.
Creative ways to use plant study across science, geography, history, literacy and art.
An invitation to choose just one local plant, observe it through the seasons, and discover the richness of relationship it can offer.

Show Notes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-94-getting-to-know-the-plants/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
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24 min
June 08The Wilderness Cure: What Happens When We Eat the Wild with Mo Wilde
In this episode, I’m speaking with Mo Wilde - forager, research herbalist, ethnobotanist, author of The Wilderness Cure, and founder of the Wild Biome Project.
Mo has spent decades learning from plants, fungi, seaweeds, medicine, soil and the seasons. Her relationship with the wild began in childhood, and has grown into a life’s work exploring not only what plants can offer us, but what happens when we remember ourselves as part of the living world.
In 2020, Mo began an extraordinary experiment: for a whole year, she ate only wild food. No supermarket food, no farmed food, no quick stops for coffee and cake — just what could be foraged, gathered, hunted, exchanged, preserved, fermented or found within the landscape around her.
But this conversation is not really about survivalism. It is not about going “backwards” or romanticising the past. It is about relationship.
What happens when we begin to notice the green world in detail again? What happens when the body is nourished by wild plants, fungi and microbes? What happens to our gut, our sense of belonging, our imagination, our resilience — when food stops being just a product and becomes a relationship with place?
Together, Mo and I explore foraging, wild food, food security, children’s ecological literacy, the intelligence of plants, the Wildbiome Project, and the deep shift from scarcity into abundance.
This is a conversation about the wilderness cure — and the question at the heart of it is: what happens when we eat the wild?
In this conversation with Mo Wilde, we explore wild food not simply as foraging, but as a way of remembering our place inside the living world.
Mo begins with gratitude for plants, reminding us that through photosynthesis they transform sunlight into the energy that makes all life on Earth possible.
She describes a wild plant as one that is not directly tended or controlled by humans, inviting us to think about wildness as relationship rather than separation.
During her year of eating only wild food, Mo found far more abundance than she expected, with most of her food coming from within 15 miles of her home.
Her wild diet included hundreds of plant species, seaweed, mushrooms, shellfish, game, and even wasp larvae, revealing the astonishing range of foods still present in the landscape.
The experiment was not about survivalism or proving toughness, but about asking whether the land around her could truly feed her.
Mo speaks beautifully about the practical intelligence of preservation, celebrating the jam jar as one of humanity’s great inventions for fermenting, storing, and carrying abundance forward.
She challenges the idea that foraging requires some rare talent, suggesting that humans already can notice detail - we have simply trained that attention on brands, logos, and consumer culture instead of plants.
The conversation touches on how children can naturally learn plants when they are shown them, and how much ecological literacy could return if this knowledge was woven through childhood.
Mo reflects on food insecurity, Brexit, Covid, and her own teenage experience of feeding younger siblings in Malawi, all of which shaped her interest in resilience and local food.
What begins as a question about food becomes something deeper: Mo describes moving from a mindset of scarcity to an experience of abundance, gratitude, fragility, and being held by the living world.
As a herbalist, she reminds us that healing is not only something we seek when we are ill, but something that happens daily through nourishment, relationship, and the complex intelligence of plants.
Through the Wild Biome Project, Mo is exploring how eating wild food changes the gut microbiome, opening up questions about whether health can be understood not by isolating one molecule, but by seeing the larger patterns between bodies, bacteria, plants, soil, and place.

Shownotes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-93-the-wilderness-cure-with-mo-wilde/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
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59 min
June 01Climate Anxiety Is Not the Problem
In this week's episode I am discussing how climate anxiety is not the problem. I will explore how we educate, support and practice in a time of climate breakdown without overwhelming young people or asking them to numb themselves to reality.
Topics include:
Climate anxiety is not the problem; unsupported climate anxiety is.
Climate education cannot just give young people facts - it has to help them emotionally metabolise what they know.
Emotional literacy needs to include the body, not just naming feelings.
Adults and teachers need to do their own emotional work, otherwise they may shut down young people’s grief, anger or fear.
Climate anxiety can be a sign of care, intelligence and relationship with the world, not pathology.
The “Goldilocks zone” is really useful: enough feeling to care and act, not so much that people collapse.
A climate breakdown risk-benefit assessment feels like one of your most original contributions.
The neutrality/politics section is one of the most interesting: teachers do not need to be party-political, but silence and false balance are not neutral.
Resilience should be framed as community, belonging and collective capacity, not individual toughness.
Nature connection is not just a well-being add-on; it is part of repairing the relationship that created the crisis.
The ending around possible futures, imagination and agency is important because it offers hope without false reassurance.

Show Notes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-92-climate-anxiety-is-not-the-problem/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
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54 min
May 25Can We Teach Climate Change Without Overwhelming Young People?
Today I’m speaking with Jessica Newberry Le Vay, Senior Researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, and part of Climate Cares - a global initiative based at Oxford and Imperial College London, working to understand and respond to the links between climate change, mental health and wellbeing.
Jessica leads the Compass Project, a research programme exploring how climate change education can be integrated with mental health and wellbeing, so that young people are better supported to live, work and thrive in a changing climate. Before joining Oxford, Jessica worked at Imperial College London as a Climate Change and Health Policy Fellow with Climate Cares, and previously led Cancer Research UK’s policy research programme on cancer prevention.
In this episode:
Jessica describes climate change and mental health as two deeply connected crises, because how we feel shapes how we respond.
The conversation centres on the Compass Project, which looks at how students and educators experience climate education and climate emotions.
Jessica shares that many young people feel anxiety, fear, anger, grief, hopelessness or betrayal in response to climate breakdown.
She highlights research showing that 59% of young people surveyed globally were very or extremely worried about climate change.
More than 45% of those young people said their climate feelings were affecting daily life, including sleep, eating, school and relationships.
Jessica explains that climate anxiety is often a rational, healthy and caring response, rather than something to simply remove or fix.
Marina and Jessica explore how unspoken emotions can affect mental health, especially when young people do not feel able to share what they are carrying.
Teachers are also experiencing climate worry, while often feeling under-resourced, under-trained and unsure how to hold these conversations.
The episode explores the need to help young people hold fear and hope together, rather than avoiding difficult truths.
Jessica discusses how misinformation, social media and stigma can make it harder for young people to talk openly about climate change and action.
The conversation questions whether climate education can ever be politically neutral, especially when climate impacts are shaped by injustice, power and systems.

Shownotes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/teach-climate-change-without-overwhelming-young-people/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
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53 min
May 18Beyond ‘Just Play’: Understanding What Children Need
This episode explores the tension between “just play” and the deeper understanding of what children truly need to develop and thrive.
Topics Include:
Play is not a break from learning but the primary way children engage with and make sense of the world physically, socially, and emotionally
True play is child-led, intrinsically motivated, and process-driven, and when these qualities are removed it becomes task or instruction rather than play
Outdoor environments offer rich opportunities for sensory, physical, and exploratory play that support coordination, curiosity, and whole-body development
Risky play - climbing, jumping, rough and tumble - is essential for building confidence, resilience, and an internal capacity to assess risk
Social and imaginative play develop communication, empathy, identity, and emotional processing in ways that structured environments often limit
The role of the adult is not to control outcomes but to hold space, observe, and introduce possibility without taking over
Forest School brings a unique layer by introducing tools, fire, and cultural practices that deepen play and expand children’s worlds
There is a constant dynamic of stepping in and stepping back, requiring skill, reflection, and responsiveness to each child’s needs
Behaviour can often be reframed as a sensory or developmental need rather than something to be corrected or managed
Each child has a unique sensory profile, meaning the same environment can regulate one child and overwhelm another
Play may be the destination, but for some children it requires co-regulation, relationship, and careful support before it can emerge

Show Notes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-88-beyond-just-play-understanding-what-children-need/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
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38 min
May 11Restoring the Occupation of Childhood
In this 1st episode of Season 12, Restoring the Occupation of Childhood, I’m joined by Angela Hanscom, a paediatric occupational therapist, Author of Balanced and Barefoot.
She is also the founder of TimberNook that programmes designed to immerse children in sensory-rich, authentic play in nature and are found in over 51 locations in 4 countries!
Angela’s work invites us to look again at the rising challenges we’re seeing in children today - anxiety, attention difficulties and disconnection, and to ask a different question.
What if these aren’t problems within the child… but reflections of the environments we’ve created around them?
In this episode, we explore what children truly need to flourish - and how outdoor play, movement, and freedom are not extras, but essential foundations for healthy development.
Topics include:
In this episode, we explore what children truly need to flourish - and how outdoor play, movement, and freedom are not extras, but essential foundations for healthy development.
A “flourishing child” is not defined by academic success, but by their ability to adapt, regulate, take risks, and keep going when things are hard.
The environments children spend most of their time in are shaping their development - often more than we realise.
Outdoor environments offer rich, multi-sensory experiences that support brain organisation and sensory integration.
Uneven ground, natural sounds, and changing conditions constantly challenge balance, awareness, and attention.
Many modern children are significantly under-moving, with long periods of sitting impacting posture, attention, and overall development.
Movement - especially spinning, climbing, and going upside down - is essential for developing the vestibular system and the ability to focus.
When children are restricted from movement, they often appear fidgety or inattentive - but this may reflect unmet developmental needs rather than behavioural issues.
Risky play helps children develop internal risk assessment, confidence, and safety awareness - overprotection can have the opposite effect.
Play is the primary “occupation” of childhood and the most meaningful way children develop physically, socially, and emotionally.
Child-led, unstructured play supports executive functioning, problem-solving, emotional regulation, and social skills.
Outdoor play offers far greater therapeutic benefit than controlled indoor environments due to its complexity, freedom, and full-body engagement.
A major barrier to children’s play is adult fear - often driven more by social perception than actual risk
Reducing demands and giving children time and space outdoors can significantly support mental health and reduce anxiety.
Restoring outdoor play is not just about individual children — it has the potential to shift culture, education, and how we understand development

Shownotes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-89-restoring-the-occupation-of-childhood/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
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1 hr
March 16Ceremony, Science and the Sacred
In this final episode of Season 11, Marina reflects on ceremony at a seasonal threshold, where science, spirituality and everyday life meet.
As the light shifts toward spring in the North and autumn in the South, this episode explores what keeps us well - personally and collectively - and asks whether we are living as passengers or participants in our time.
Topics include:
Living at a threshold - Spring Equinox in the North, autumn descent in the South - renewal and death side by side.
For most of human history, ceremony aligned us with cycles - watching the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) rise, noticing light, temperature, migration - remembering our place in the unfolding.
Science is not naïve materialism - it studies what we cannot see - fields, probabilities, dark matter - but it asks different questions from spirituality.
Science reduces suffering through medicine and understanding; ritual, myth, art and community help us face death, grief, forgiveness and meaning.
The real tension is not science versus spirituality, but what happens when any system claims exclusive truth.
Health requires biology, psychology, belonging and existential depth - mechanism alone is not enough, meaning alone is not enough.
The language of “energy” and “spirit” carries different meanings - measurable in physics, experiential in lived reality - clarity matters.
Ceremony as intention, beauty and invitation - not personal power, but participation
Ritual as ordinary acts infused with meaning - gratitude before eating, how we begin the day, how we hold a room, how we tend a conversation
Moving from I to We - rites of passage, maturation, community witnessing change
At seasonal thresholds something must die - a habit, a story, a way of leading, a way of consuming
In a time of climate emergency and confused leadership, we are invited not to be passengers but participants - small daily choices as a form of ceremony
Leadership without domination - strength without humiliation - integrating science without losing reverence

Show Notes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-88-ceremony-science-and-the-sacred/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
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44 min
March 09Ceremony and Eldership
Sitting by the fire with Annie Spencer, we explore ceremony as lived relationship - with spirit, story, blood, grief, and the long arc from initiation to eldership - and what it means to keep dreaming a life-affirming world in times that feel increasingly divided.
Topics include:
Sitting by the fire together becomes a doorway into relationship - gratitude not as a nicety, but as a way of remembering life is alive, and not guaranteed.
Ceremony, for Annie, starts with intention and beauty - not “performing a ritual,” but making a space that might genuinely invite presence from beyond the purely human.
Fire is treated as a being with its own kind of aliveness - honoured, spoken to, and offered things, as a practice of not taking life for granted.
A simple daily practice can be enough: choose a time, choose a place, return again and again until something responds - an “altar” as an anchor for attention.
This way of knowing doesn’t sit easily inside modern culture - it can feel like being pulled between realities, and that tension can be exhausting.
Annie names both the fascination and the danger: exploring other realities without a well-trodden path can unground people - tradition can be a rope that helps you return.
Stories shape what we believe is possible - we live inside the story we tell about our lives, and the same event becomes different “truths” depending on who is telling it.
Dreaming isn’t escapism: in times of political fear and widening authoritarianism, Annie suggests we can either feed a reality by fighting it constantly, or step back and hold a different dream with strength.
Birth and menstruation are framed as everyday ceremonies - women making “a rich nest for life” each month, and the radical possibility of honouring life-giving blood rather than normalising bloodshed.
Rites of passage matter because adolescence is a “loose” time - when identity isn’t fixed yet - and a strong experience of belonging, mystery, and beauty can orient a young person for life.
Eldership isn’t a label you earn at menopause - it can take decades of turning toward death, letting go of dominance, and learning humility, until you can truly hold community.
The elder’s offering is presence, acceptance, and perspective - holding what others can’t bear alone, sharing stories with teachings (without “you should”), and making space for ceremony and healing.
The conversation keeps circling back to one core truth: life is relationship and reciprocity - giving and being given to — and even death is framed as the final gift back into the living system.

Shownotes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-87-ceremony-and-eldership
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
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1 hr 20 min
March 02Saving Lives and Cultivating Health
In this episode, I step into what I’m calling the season of the amateur - asking big questions without claiming expertise. I explore how medicine is shaped by culture and worldview, what “evidence” really means, and how different systems - from biomedicine to Ayurveda - understand causation, illness and health.
This isn’t a rejection of modern medicine - it’s an attempt to widen the lens. To ask what keeps us well, not only what makes us ill. And to consider whether we can hold scientific rigour and relational depth in the same conversation - without collapsing into superstition, and without dismissing mystery.
Topics include:
Gratitude for what keeps us well: walking, breathing, rest, friendship, safety, purpose and for the years of disciplined study that form a psychiatrist: medical school, clinical rotations, exams, and over six years of specialist training.
What counts as knowledge in medicine - and who decides? Holding expertise and personal sovereignty in the same frame.
Medicine across civilisations - Babylon, Egypt, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, Greece - each emerging from a worldview, none “primitive,” all culturally shaped.
The rise of the biomedical model - anatomy, cells, pathogens, biochemistry and its extraordinary success in acute care and life-saving intervention.
Evidence-based medicine and the power of Randomised Controlled Trials - what they measure brilliantly and what they struggle to capture.
Psychiatry’s measurement dilemma - symptom clusters, self-reported scales, and the question of whether symptom reduction equals flourishing.
The placebo effect, expectation, relationship and meaning - what actually creates change?
Ayurveda as the “science of life” - balance, prevention, daily rhythms, and cultivating health rather than only treating disease.
Green prescriptions and nature-based practice - bridging biomedical legitimacy with relational, ecological models of wellbeing.
Safeguarding, discernment and humility - widening causation without abandoning rigour, and asking what it truly means to be well.

Shownotes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-86-saving-lives-and-cultivating-health/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
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32 min
February 23The Science of Life: What Ayurveda Can Teach Us
In this episode I’m joined by Dr Kanchan, an Ayurvedic doctor trained in India, to explore a radically different way of understanding health, not only as something we fix when it breaks, but as a lifelong relationship between body, mind, senses, environment, and meaning.
This is a conversation about prevention rather than crisis, and about what becomes possible when health is understood as a living, relational process rather than a purely medical one.
Topics include:
Ayurveda is described as a “science of life,” concerned with the whole arc of living - from conception to death - not just the treatment of disease
Health is understood as balance within the body, the mind, and the environment, while illness is a sign that something has fallen out of sync
Western allopathic medicine and Ayurveda are not in conflict; they serve different purposes, with acute medicine vital in emergencies and Ayurveda focused on prevention and long-term wellbeing
The body is seen as intelligent, with healing emerging when the right conditions are restored rather than imposed from outside
Ayurveda treats people as individuals, not categories, taking into account constitution, diet, climate, place, habits, and family patterns
The five elements and three doshas are not rigid “types,” but ways of understanding movement, digestion, transformation, and stability within a person
Ayurveda is framed as a life science rather than only a medical science, with protecting the health of the healthy as its first priority
Humans are not placed above nature but understood as part of it, with personal health inseparable from the health of the living world
The senses are described as powerful gateways shaping the mind, with overuse, underuse, or misuse contributing to imbalance and anxiety
Daily and seasonal rhythms — how we eat, rest, move, and attend — are presented as foundations for mental steadiness and resilience
Purpose and inner alignment matter, with illness sometimes arising when actions drift away from a person’s deeper values or moral compass
The invitation is not to adopt another system wholesale, but to widen our understanding of health, hold multiple ways of knowing, and remember that care, balance, and relationship sit at the heart of wellbeing

Shownotes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-85-what-ayurveda-can-teach-us/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
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1 hr 17 min