Prompted by Nature (Helen Forester)

Welcome to series 5, episode 4 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.

Action point:  Pop over to https://unfccc.int/ and https://www.cop27.eg/#/ to find out about the COP27 conference.  Also follow @mikaelaloach on Instagram or Twitter if you don't already, as she has been at the conference, both attending and presenting.

Catherine is a ceramic artist based in West Cornwall specialising in Raku clay ceramics, who draws on her English/Ghanaian heritage for her stunning pots. She is passionate about the Cornish landscape and uses this as inspiration for her work. Drawing on her African heritage, she specialises in traditional hand building techniques, such as pinching and coiling with many surfaces burnished to a smooth sheen using her favourite beach pebble.

Her work has appeared on BBC’s The Great Poetry Throw Down and her Raku ceramics are available through galleries in Cornwall, London and Scotland. Catherine also hosts regular open studio events where she demonstrates the Raku firing process.

She also runs grief retreats, using a combination of nature and art therapy create safe spaces for those going through grief and wishing to take time out within a supportive and nurturing community.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Catherine’s creative journey
• Embracing and celebrating her Ghanaian ancestry through her work
• Her work with the adinkra symbols and what they mean to her
• The meditative aspects of creating ceramics
• The creative process as ritual
• Where Catherine gains her inspiration
• Catherine’s love of the Cornish landscape
• Her grief retreats and the healing power of nature and creativity
• The importance of creativity in our modern world
• Art and hope
• The lesson she wants to pass on
• Her vision for the future

Just a note that my microphone cuts at one point - I am getting a new one imminently!

Episode that would be great to listen after this one:

2.3a Lorraine Tindale, Nature-based EMDR

2.8a Punam Sanghrajka, Skyscapes and Art as Meditation

3.7a Rosalind Lowry, Land Art: Celebrating our Boglands

4.10a Elizabeth Gleave, Restoring the Earth through the Arts

You can find Catherine at her website www.lucktaylorceramics.co.uk and on social media @lucktaylorceramics Definitely check out her shop, especially if you are looking for something extra special for yourself or a loved one.

As always, I’m www.promptedbynature.co.uk and @prompted.by.nature and @promptedxnature

Happy listening!

Helen x

Episode transcription available here:  https://www.promptedbynature.co.uk/podcast-transcripts 

Welcome to series 5, episode 14 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.

Action point: See episode page on my website.

Substack newsletter: Sign up for the free subscription via the link in the show notes or by searching ‘Prompted by Nature’ on the app. If you’d like to go paid, I’m offering this at 30% off the monthly option until 30th April.

Onto today’s episode!

LiLi K. Bright is a writer and workshop facilitator who’s obsessed with city nature. They write climate fiction and ecopoetry, and their main poetry project is about migration, liberation, London, Freetown, Accra, and the painted lady butterfly, exploring textile arts as part of their creative process. They love supporting people to connect with nature and creativity by facilitating writing workshops, climate science training and nonviolent communication training.

In this conversation we discuss:

• LiLi’s insights into a multi-media approach to their creativity
• The merging of science and art in their work and the ways in which these disciplines can interact
• Their relationship with nature, how it developed and how it has shifted and changed
• LiLi’s fascination with trees and birds
• Wellbeing for writers and reframing ‘time management’
• How LiLi approaches their creative practice

All link to the website and events that LiLi mentions in our chat are in the show notes on the episode page of the website. You can find LiLi on their website https://cherrytreewalk.com and Instagram @cherrytree_walk

Companion epiodes:

1.8a Ian Solomon-Kawall: Biodiversity, Creativity and Safe Space in Urban Settings

2.1a Avni Trivedi: Reconnecting with the Wisdom of the Body

4.5a Cheryl Duerden: In a Land of Giants, Empathetic Forestry

5.1a Bryony Benge-Abbott: Exploring the Intersections

As always, I’m on Instagram @prompted.by.nature and the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find upcoming nature writing courses and day retreats here in East Sussex.

Happy listening and I’ll speak to you soon. 

Helen x

Welcome to series 4, episode 13 of the Prompted by Nature podcast. So today is the final episode of the pod before I take a little break for the summer.

Today’s action point: Stop Jackdaw campaign are organising a week of action to push back against the approval of the Jackdaw gas field. All information about the week can be found on their website www.stopcambo.org.

Today, I’m speaking with the incredible Jackee Holder. A well seasoned walker of London streets, parks and green spaces with over 10,000 walking and writing hours under her belt, Jackee is a custodian of trees gathering stories and narratives on paper and through the spoken word to keep memories of our urban woods and forests alive. Jackee is an author, leadership and wellness coach and coach supervisor working in leadership and organisational development.

Jackee is the author of four non-fiction titles including  49 Ways To Write Yourself Well (which you can find in the PbN bookshop on bookshop.org) and Be Your Own Best Life Coach. Her published works includes the illustrated Writing With Fabulous Trees Writing Map and ReWilding The Page: Urban Forest writing maps, portable illustrated guides offer writing and journaling activities tips for connecting with nature and the environment. Jackee is currently a columnist for Psychologies magazine where she pens the Write To Flourish monthly column.

• Jackee’s connection to the nature of London
• The wisdom of tree and what trees and forests mean to her
• How her love of nature influences her work as a coach
• Her relationship with Sanctuary
• Jackee poses a question from her deck
• How the writing maps came about
• The beauty of the elder years
• What she’s learnt that she wants to pass on
• Her hope for the future

You can find out more about Jackee and her work plus buy her maps and card deck on her website www.jackeeholder.com and on her instagram @jackeeholderinspires

Conversation that would go well with this one are:

1.7 Nana Tomova, The Story Apothecary

1.8 Ian Solomon-Kawall (KMT), Biodiversity, Creativity and Safe Space in Urban Settings

4.5 Cheryl Duerden: Empathetic Forestry

4.11 Annabel Abbs, Walking into Creativity

As always, I’m over on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk I’m on instagram @prompted.by.nature and twitter @promptedxnature

Happy listening and I’ll speak to you soon. Bye!

In this prompt I invite you to go on a walk in your local area and do what I’m calling a ‘prompt per minute’ activity.  In the conversation, Annabel talked about ‘walking deep’ and this prompt encourages you to have a go at this whilst using it as a source of creative inspiration.

Instructions:

1. Go on a *slow* walk in your local area, for around 20 minutes if you can - remember to take a notebook and pen!  You can also do this in your garden if you have one and would prefer to stay closer to home
2. Find yourself a sit spot in which you feel comfortable
3. Set an alarm on your phone or watch to go off every minute for ten minutes
4. Every time it goes off, write one sentence about your surroundings.  Could be a metaphor, an observation, a sight, smell…whatever comes out when the alarm goes off but it can only be one sentence
5. Then sit and just be there until the next alarm goes off
6. Once you have done this, continue on your slow walk paying careful attention to your surroundings
7. When you get home, set your timer for around 15 minutes - more if you have time! - and write a piece that incorporates the sentences you’ve come up with

Variations:

• Do the same timings but write as you walk.  Depends on how comfortable you feel in the space.
• Just do the prompt per minute activity for 5 minutes, or extend it to however much time you have
• When writing at home afterward, don’t incorporate the sentences, just use them as inspiration
• Make it a longer session and extend the timings to writing a sentence every two, five, ten, 30 minutes or more!

Remember to reach out if you try this one.  

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Instagram @prompted.by.nature

Twitter: @promptedxnature

Facebook@promptedbynature

Happy writing!

Helen x

In this writing prompt, I invite you to explore your local area for plants that you can forage.  Go for a walk and look for plants like dandelion, nettle, cleavers, cow parsley, wild garlic - whatever is in season - and use these to create something you can eat or use in some way, such as healing balms, tinctures, infusions, soups, salads, teas...the list goes on...and then write about your experience of doing this.

I also give a couple of book recommendations:  

'Hedgerow Medicine: Harvest and make your own herbal remedies' by Julie Bruton-Seal and Mathew Seal

'Weeds in the Heart' by Nathaniel Hughes and Fiona Owen, who I interviewed in episode 1.3a

'Food You Can Forage' by Tiffany Francis-Baker, interviewed in episode 1.6a (not mentioned in this episode but definitely worth reading!)

A note on responsible foraging:

• Remember the 1 in 20 rule - if you can't see more than 20 of what you want to forage, don't take one.  
• If the plant is growing in abundance, still only take around a handful.
• Forage from different areas
• Clean your plants thoroughly before consuming
• Check with a professional if you are unsure as to whether the plant is safe to eat or put on your skin before using
• The PictureThis and iNaturalist apps are your friend if you are unsure as to the name of a plant :-)
• Have a look around the internet for recipes.  I love @NettlesandBees (of course!), @blackforager and @foraged.by.fern on Instagram for inspiration

I'll also be posting prompt as one of my bullet journal prompts on my Instagram page @prompted.by.nature and on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Happy (responsible) foraging and happy creating!

A guided meditation in which you will be invited to create and explore your safe space.  This could be done just for your own self-care to help with your creative writing or if you are working on creating depth in a character, narrative or setting.

I begin my guiding you into the meditation and then there is a gap of 5 minutes for you to explore and spend time in your space before you are guided out and invited to begin writing.

Enjoy!  

Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature

Hello! 

Welcome to series 2, episode 8 of Prompted by Nature. I hope you’re well! This week it feels like the weather has turned down here on the South Coast, with the first frost arrived a few days ago and the temperature taking a dip. I’m personally loving it as I adore the long nights and frosty mornings. We’ve just gone into lockdown again here in England so all but my online and one-to-one work is off so I’m getting stuck into more writing and taking any opportunity to keep myself well by getting outside. 

So today, you’ll be hearing my conversation with the wonderful Punam Sanghrajka, a modern abstract nature artist inspired by her Kenyan roots. I first came across Punam’s art on Instagram and was immediately taken by the overall mood of her feed - soft, gentle and calming, with some of the most beautiful sky and seascapes I’ve seen

As a child, Punam was surrounded by beautiful scenery, breathtaking nature and colours you can only imagine and this influences everything she creates as she brings the simplicity but boldness of colour into her work. Punam believes that Nature has the wonderful ability to transport the viewer away from everyday life and into their own magical space and her aim is to help you feel a little of the magic that Kenya & the African landscape gave me. As you’ll hear, Punam works in a way that she calls ‘structured abstract’ and works with brushes and palette knives, using colour and texture to bring the work to life. When you see her work, Punam wants you to take a moment and get lost in what you see. To stop, take a breath and let a memory come to life… Something from your childhood, a moment shared with a loved one, a holiday, anything that allows you to take a step back from your everyday life and pause. She wants you to feel nostalgic for something special – just like she does when she’s creating.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Her work and the inspiration behind it
• Her Kenyan roots
• How the 100 day project helped her to reconnect with, refine and redefine her art
• Her connection with the sky
• Her first memory of nature
• Her concept of ‘structured abstract’
• The power of the ‘silent conversation’
• Her work as an anchor point for meditation
• How she looks after herself and her creativity
• Her creative process
• What she has learnt on her journey and her hope for the future

For me, this conversation was such a tonic for the times that we’re in right now. Punam’s words reminded me to slow down and appreciate what’s above my head, not just beneath my feet.

You can Punam on the squares @artbypunam or on her website www.artbypunam.com where you can buy her work and enquire about a commission. She’s currently selling some beautiful winter-inspired wooden hangings and I highly recommend getting lost for a bit in her gorgeous work.

As always, I’m @prompted.by.nature on Insta and www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find more information about my new online nature-inspired meditation and creative writing sessions, which happen every Monday. You can find all the details for that in the events section of the website - I hope you can join me! I’ve also opened up some one-to-one slots if you are local and want to get outside and creating with me. Just pop to the ‘work with me’ section on my website for more information.

Remember to stick around until after the episode when I’ll give you a hint at the meditation and writing prompt that follows this conversation. Happy listening, and I’ll speak to you after.

In this writing prompt, I read a short extract of Ben's latest novel, The Perfect Golden Circle (pg 28) to get our creative juices flowing.  This prompt is all about seeing and feeling the heartbeat of the landscape around you - whether that's hills and mountains, the sea, or even a concrete jungle.  Nature is everywhere, sometimes we just need to look a little harder to find it.

A few idea to get you started:

Choose one aspect of nature, find something seemingly unrelated and connect them - perhaps, as in the extract 'the outlying hills are charcoal smears' - as if blended by an artist's hand; perhaps the crest of that wave reminds you of the candy floss you ate at the fair when you were five.  Maybe the bees don't buzz but hum a song to which only they know the tune.  Find the pulse in what's around you and think about how this particulate landscape can play a part in your creative work, a part that is wise, joyful, or even mischievous.

Let me know how you get on if you use this one and enjoy!  

Happy creating!

Helen x

www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature

www.twitter.com/promptedxnature

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

In this writing prompt, Rebecca kindly reads from an extract of her novel 'Earthed.'  Once you have listened to the extract, practise weaving two places together seamlessly.  Much of what Earthed teaches me personally is the intertwining of stories and how, though a place may not be the one in which I am rooted, it is one in which I can find myself through my imagination and which can enrich my own experiences, shedding light on my own connection to the land.

Rebecca reads from the section entitled 'August,' beginning with the line, 'I give into the thought that this oak of mine...' and ending with, '...giving death stares to the howler monkeys.' (Probably my favourite closing line!!)

Please do share your words with me either by emailing me hello@promptedbynature.co.uk or messaging my on instagram @prompted.by.nature

Happy writing!

Helen x

Welcome to series 5, episode 8 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.  This episode is a bit of a pep talk and a follow-up to my latest blog post, which you can read here:  https://www.promptedbynature.co.uk/writing-prompts/tending-the-compost

I discuss my own thoughts around new year's resolutions and why I use a 'word for the year' instead as well as how I'm using all the fear, doubt and indifference to compost what comes next.  Please do read the post as well as listen here.

As always, I'm over on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk and on the socials Instagram: @prompted.by.nature, Facebook @promptedbynature and on Twitter @promptedxnature

Happy creating!

Helen x

Ps.  Just a note that I talk about 'allum lilies' in the episode, but of course I mean 'arum lilies' - I don't know why I always get it wrong! :-D 

Hello and welcome to episode four, series two of Prompted by Nature. I’m really excited about releasing this absolutely fascinating interview on sustainability in tech and engineering with Eco-designer, Engineer and constant questioner Erica Purvis.

Erica does so much in her arena and set up as TechnicalNature, an independent design hub, 6 years ago to explore and question the “evolving role of a designer in a world that doesn’t really need more stuff”. She collaborates across sectors, business, NGO’s, policy and community, to inspire, connect and support taking creative action for people and planet though various “levers for change.”

As TechnicalNature she blends all of her experiences, perspectives and disciplines to “Cultivate Considered Design and Tech for Life – often working with electronic and product based organisations, accelerators and startups to seed ideas, build ecodesign and circular knowledge and develop holistic sustainability strategies that dig deeper into the root cause of problems and systems. A lot of her recent work has been on the growing global issue of e-waste.

Erica co-founded the Open Source Circular Economy Days a global campaign and practical action hub exploring and championing the role of open source in circular design. She has also published research on the role of “circular makespaces for redistributed manufacturing” and was on the drafting committee for the BSI 8001 Framework for implementing the principles of the circular economy in organisations. Most recently she has contributed to a book on the circular economy and design coming out in Brazil later in the year: https://www.sympla.com.br/circular-economy---global-discussion-brazillian-learning__980782?token=39f3b7e2d0e7021396803a4990a67720

Erica volunteers and champions great things going on in the local Reading area where she now lives, involved with bring the local community energy scheme Reading Hydro CBS to life and co-founding the Circular Economy Club in Reading. She is also an Environmenstrual ambassador and edits the London area Pituitary Foundation newsletter.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Sustainable product design
• The link between social justice and environmental justice
• The possibilities surrounding start-ups, product design and circular economies
• Repair cafes, E-waste and circular economies
• Recycling as a last resort and the need to focus on reduction and reuse of ‘waste’ products
• How she came to blend tech with her creativity and love of nature
• Biomimicry, zoomorphic design and looking to nature for inspiration
• The true cost of product design and the need for true leadership
• The need to honour indigenous wisdom and to take inspiration from their traditional design systems
• The concept of ‘trash into treasure’
• Her message for you as a ‘consumer’
• How she stays creative as an engineer an her hope for the future

You can find Erica over on her website www.technicalnature.org.uk and on Instagram and Twitter @technicalnature

You can find me over on Insta @prompted.by.nature or on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Happy listening!  Helen x

Re-connecting with the Wisdom of your Body

Hello and welcome to a new series of Prompted by Nature! It’s so good to be back! I have some amazing interviews with some incredible, inspiring souls for you and I’m very excited about getting starting up again! I hope you had a wonderful, if slightly different summer. We stayed in the UK and visited family in Somerset and London.

Onto episode one!

In this episode, I speak with Avni Trivedi. Avni is an experienced and intuitive practitioner using touch and movement to help people to connect with their bodily wisdom. She is a Women’s Health and Paediatric Osteopath, Birth Doula, Zero Balancer and Non-Linear Movement Teacher. Her podcast, Speak From the Body’ explores themes such as embodiment, stress, trauma, hormones and pleasure.

In this episode we discuss:

• Her relationship with touch and the importance of embodiment in therapeutic practices
• Her understanding nature and how it relates to her work
• Her advice for anxiety and overwhelm
• Her work and experiences as a birth doula
• The part her own creativity plays in her work and practice as a body worker
• Her work around grief and supporting people through their own grief
• Finding confidence in finding your own path and doing what works for you
• Her advice for avoiding burnout and the importance of ‘practising what you preach’
• Where she feels at her most creative
• What she would like you to know and her hope for the future

Avni has a regular gentle and online workshop called ‘Moving Through Loss’, which uses touch, breath and movement to connect with where loss is held in the body. It’s a safe space in which you can work privately. She also has a longer course based on the workshop, which she’ll be announcing soon. https://www.avni-touch.com/moving-through-loss

You can find Avni on her website avni-touch.com and on her beautiful podcast, Speak From the Body, which is available on Apple podcasts. She is also @avnitouch on IG and Twitter

As always, you can find me on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find my new outdoor-inspired blog, a few extracts of my own writing and all information about my events if you are a local and need to get out into the woods and re-connect with your creativity. There are a few spots left for my autumn day retreats and weekly writing classes so do pop over there if you’re local to East Sussex and need some forest time! I’m also on IG @prompted.by.nature where you can find my nature-inspired writing prompts and on my personal page @pbn_helen.

Remember to stick around after the interview to hear about the meditation that follows this episode inspired by my interview with Avni.

Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you after!

In this meditation and writing prompt, I guide you into stillness and then ask the following prompt questions to help you to create that creative space for yourself.

1.  Cast your mind back to a time in which you felt at your most creative.  See it in your mind vividly.

2.  What was the setting?  What were the circumstance?

3.  How did you feel in your mind?

4.  How did you feel in your body?

5.  What did you create as a result OR what were you in the process of creating?

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6.  What do you now need to do in order to recreate those circumstances?  NB.  If you were pregnant at the time, this doesn't mean you have to get pregnant again!  This is just in terms of the state of creativity you were in ;-)

7.  What needs to be released within you that would help you to move towards this space of creativity?

8.  What can you let go of or minimise in order fro you to create time for that creativity to arise?  e.g. Less time on social media/watching TV etc.

9.  If you had a daily creative practice, what would that realistically look like?   What do you need to do to create and commit to this?

10.  What about a weekly practice?  A time for you to spend longer on your creativity.  What would that realistically look like for you?  What do you need to do to create and commit to this?

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Once you have answered the questions, my only advice to you is to create!  Don't question your creativity or place judgement or expectation on it before you've even started.  Just create!

Remember I'm always over @prompted.by.nature on Instagram and on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Sending you love.  Speak soon, Helen x

Welcome to episode 10 of Prompted by Nature. I hope this one finds you happy and well wherever you are!

This week I’m excited to release the conversation I had with the lovely Jini Reddy back in mid-May.

Jini is an award-winning author and journalist, originally born in London to Indian parents who grew up in apartheid-era South Africa. She was in Montreal, Canada and has a passion for writing travel, nature and spirituality. She has been published in publications such as The Guardian, Time magazine, The Times, Sunday Times Style, National Geographic Traveller, and BBC Wildlife to name just a few! Her first book Wild Times, which I highly recommend, was published in 2016 and she is a contributor to the forthcoming Women on Nature anthology.

Her book Wanderland, which we discuss in the episode, is utterly beautiful and charts Jini’s search for the magical ‘Other’ through her travels around the UK. From the blurb, ‘along the way she tracks down ephemeral wild art, encounters women who worship the goddess, falls deeper in love with her birth land, and struggles, but mostly fails, to get to grips with its lore. Throughout the book she rejoices in the wilderness we cannot see and celebrates the natural beauty we can.’ This is a book full of magic and if you’re feeling a bit disconnected from nature, I highly recommend this as a gentle nudge to get back into it and remind yourself that you and nature are both as magical as each other!

In this episode we discuss:

• Her background and her inspiration for the book
• What she means when she talks of the magic in the landscape
• The concept of the magical ‘Other’ and how this relates to ‘Othering’
• Accessible nature and the need to shift the dialogue around visibility in green spaces
• The importance of hearing a range of voices in nature writing
• Following your intuition and the source of creativity
• Writer’s block and how she stays creative
• The link between Belonging and Nature
• Nature as an animate entity
• The joy of being given freedom to what the book you want to write
• The link between travel writing and nature writing
• What she would like to pass on

Before we get started, we had a few connection issues, which you’ll hear in the episode, it doesn’t detract from Jini’s words, but explains if there are a couple of fuzzy bits.

If you would like to find out more about Jini, you can find her on her website www.jinireddy.co.uk and on Instagram @jinireddy20 and Twitter @jini_reddy Jini also offers mentoring and consultancy for writers which you can find out more about via her website www.jinireddy.co.uk/work-with-me

As always, you can find me on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on the ‘gram @prompted.by.nature and if you like this or any other episode, please do leave a five-star review wherever you are listening or share with your circle via social media or in real life. I’m passionate about getting these words and voices out there, so anything you can do to share the podcast is always welcome!

Remember to stick around until the end when I’ll give a little insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode.

Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you soon!

Welcome to series 4 episode 10 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.

Action point for this week: Join the #stopEAcop campaign, which is calling on global insurance broker, Marsh, drop the east african crude oil pipeline. You can find all the information on their website https://www.stopeacop.net/home They are having a day of online action on Tuesday 28th June.  Go to the series 4 episode 10 post on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk (you can find it in the podcast dropdown menu).

Onto the episode. This week, I’m thrilled to introduce the lovely Elizabeth Gleave to the podcast . Elizabeth is the founder of Land Art Agency, an agency that puts nature and the environment at its core to ensure that the creative industry’s great ideas can be executed in a sustainable way, both highlighting environmental issues and at the same time transforming the landscape in which they are created. I feel like the Land Art Agency is and does so much that its hard to encapsulate it in a snappy bio. Elizabeth talks a lot about it and how it came about so I’ll let her do the talking. Go to their instagram @landartcollective to find out more about what they do and the absolutely stunning creatives that they represent and support.

Just a little note that Elizabeth joined me from her cabin and was hot-spotting from her phone so there were a couple of instances where the reception cut out. I’ve edited it as best I can but no meaning is lost, I just wanted to let you know so you don’t think ‘oh! What was that?!’ when it happens!

You can find Elizabeth photography over on instagram @elizabeth.gleave and on her website www.elizabethgleave.com and Land Art Agency is @landartcollective and www.landartagecy.com where you can find the information about the Sustainable Futures residency plus talks and workshops. I’ve also popped the information about the artists we mention below for you to look up and enjoy! 

Alternative photography collective:  http://www.londonaltphoto.com 

Hannah fletcher:  https://www.hannahfletcher.com 

I would also highly recommend going to the shop on the Land Art Agency’s website as all funds go back to directly supporting the artists and their pioneering sustainable methods. Also look out for their upcoming podcast, which promises to be absolutely incredible and I can’t wait to listen!

One final note that Elizabeth mentions the mountain that was awarded personhood status in New Zealand but we couldn’t think of which it was. Well, I’ve done a little ecosia-ing and found the following:

New Zealand granted legal personhood to the Te Uruwera forest in 2014, and to the Whanganui river and Mount Taranaki in 2017. An Indian court granted legal personhood to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in 2017, citing the Whanganui Act, and soon after Colombia awarded rights to the Atrato river.

As always, you an find me in the usual ways www.promptedbynature.co.uk, @prompted.by.nature on insta, @promptedxnature on twitter and (apparently!) @promptedbynature on Facebook!

Happy listening and I’ll speak to you soon!

Helen x

Hello and welcome to episode 13 of Prompted by Nature. How are you? It’s been a little while, hasn’t it! I admit I wasn’t expecting to take a break but I gave myself a moment to take a breath and now it’s over a week since I released an episode - perhaps I needed it! With lockdown beginning to ease, I’ve re-started my outdoor writing and meditation sessions in Brighton and Uckfield in East Sussex. My writing classes for women take place in the beautiful forest at Stanmer Park every Wednesday 10.15am-11.15am and I have a summer day retreat at the always magical Wilderness Woods in Uckfield, not too far from Tunbridge Well. My next one is Thursday 20th August 10am-4pm. All details for all of my events can be found on the events page of my website.

This week we’re in for another treat as I speak to the lovely Dawn Nelson.

Dawn Nelson, also known as DD Storyteller, lives in a village on the beautiful South Downs and has had a passion for stories all her life, from the epic sagas of the old worlds to the anecdotes shared between friends at the dinner table.

As a storyteller she writes and performs both interactive stories and traditional tales, as well as creating story-based events and workshops for all ages. The nature that surrounds her has influenced many of her stories and she loves to incorporate the outside world and ancestral wisdom into her performances for young and old.

She believes that one of the ways we can reconnect with the Earth is through story. Our ancestors left the answers right there, coded into their tales: be kind to each other, do not take your fellow animals for granted, create strong bonds and respect the earth.

She believes that, like nature, stories have a rhythm and once we have relearned the rhythms and patterns present in our ancestor’s tales, we will be able to hear when nature tells us its own stories, through its rhythms and patterns. What’s more, we’ll want to listen.'

In this episode we discuss:

• Dawn’s background and how she came to story-telling
• The process of losing her mother while becoming a mother and how this opened up a new side of her creativity
• The importance of passing on story and how these stories become a part of you
• Storytelling as a gateway to a liminal space
• The concept of rewilding and what it means to her
• The importance of connecting with our past and our ancestors in order to help re-tell stories in a way that we can connect with now
• Creating story within landscape and the art of ‘not pushing it’
• How she stays creative and nurtures her creative spirit
• Her advice for creating stories
• What she would like to pass on and her hope for the future

Dawn finished off our conversation with a beautiful telling of the story of ‘The Green Woman of the Hill’ (I recommend closing your eyes to listen - it’s so evocative!) and you’ll also find a little bonus story form Dawn in the writing prompt episode that follows this.

You can find Dawn at www.ddstoryteller.co.uk On her Patreon www.patreon.com/ddstoryteller On Instagram: @dd_storyteller on Facebook: @ddstoryteller and on Twitter: @dawnstoryteller

As always, I’m at www.promptedbynature.co.uk (remember to check the for my events if you’re a local) and over on Instagram and Facebook @prompted.by.nature.

Remember to stick around after when I’ll give you a little insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows. In the meantime, enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you after.

As I mentioned in the episode (listen below or on your favoured podcast platform), the images I wanted to add to this prompt are too many to fit under the main episode post so I’ve created a whole new one over on my website (https://www.promptedbynature.co.uk/series-four/44b-creative-prompt-for-lydia-needle)

In this prompt, you can listen to Miriam Sheppard talk about her piece ‘The Imperfect Perfect Lawn’ (pictured on the website) and use this as inspiration for your own writing or art.  I also mentioned the audio of the poem by Penny Stapleton, for her piece with Hazel Mountford, please find over on the website and have a listen to this gorgeous piece of writing.  Perhaps use it to inspire your own!

Most of the pieces I've included, including Lydia’s gorgeous bees, are available to purchase via the Ace Arts, again, all links are in the post on my website.

Enjoy this and let me know how you get on if you use it.

Remember to find me on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Happy creating!

Helen x

A mediation to follow up Anna's interview based on fire!

For this meditation you'll need:

• Something comfortable to sit on
• A candle
• Your notebook and a pen
• A quiet space in which you won't be disturbed 

Please do share your writing with me if you try this!  As always you can find me at www.promptedbynature.co.uk or www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature

Enjoy!  Helen x

Linked episodes:

1.10a Jini Reddy, Magic in the Landscape

2.10a Marchelle Farrell, My Garden, My Teacher

4.2a Rebecca Schiller, Earthed

4.7a Benjamin Myers, Writing with the Land in ‘The Perfect Golden Circle’

Hello!  Welcome to your writing prompt for my conversation with Kathryn Aalto.  I got a lot out of the chat with Kathryn and it was lovely to be able to catch up with her and go a little deeper into her own creative life and practice.

For this prompt, I’m combining two ideas that came up in the conversation.  Firstly, Kathryn’s definition of ‘sense of place’ and secondly her thoughts on ‘show don’t tell.’  Both of these concepts we covered in the course I took with Kathryn and the ‘show don’t tell’ technique is something I used to use a lot with my groups as a school teacher and still use now with my nature writing groups.

Kathryn spoke of ‘sense of place’ as being ‘That invisible layer of memories, history and emotions that covers a physical landscape with this invisible strata.’

For this prompt, I’d like you to create a description of a place.  This could either be a space new to you, or that you know well, a place in which you feel a sense of belonging.  Perhaps it is a space close to where you live, somewhere you once visited, or somewhere you’re new to.

Wherever it is, you are going to take your reader there using the show don’t tell technique.  For this, you are avoiding telling your reader anything but are rather trying to show them it.  For example, if you are in a woodland space, rather than telling them explicitly that that’s where you are, show them that that’s where you are.  If you need any ideas, consider the following:

• How does the air feel?
• If you close your eyes, what sounds can you hear - close up and far away?
• What colours, shapes and shades catch your eye?
• Consider Kathryn’s definition: what layers, memories, history and emotions exist in this place.  Maybe you have no emotional connection to this place as yet, and aren’t already aware of any history or memories held in the place.  What comes through when you are here?  What can you imagine about this place?

When you read your work through, any sign of you telling me something, edit it to be more descriptive.  Remember this is just an exercise in which you are training your descriptive muscles to be more perceptive, to create more detail and to entice your reader, inviting them into this world with you as their guide.

Please do reach if you use this prompt.  You can find me in my favourite online places - on the website, www.promptedbynature.co.uk and on Instagram @prompted.by.nature

Happy writing!

Helen x

Welcome to this meditation and writing prompt inspired by my conversation with Lucy Groves of the White Stork Project.

This prompt is a little different to what we usually do. I’ll be talking you through the prompt and then we’ll have the pleasure of listening to a White Stork greeting ceremony for a few of minutes to help get your centred and inspired to create a piece of work based on whatever comes up for you as a result.

I’d also recommend opening the white stork project website and look at the migration map on their ‘news’ page. The link is in the show notes for ease but you can find it at www.whitestorkproject.org/news and it’s the entry for 13th October 2020.

As I mentioned, this prompt is all about the storks that Lucy spoke about and her work with them. Here are some ideas if you listening to the soundscape and struggle with getting started:

• An ‘ode to the Storks’
• A piece entitled ‘Flying with the Storks’
• Research wildlife species that are native to your region or country and the initiatives working with these species and write something inspired by your findings
• Based on this research, why not envision a world in which these species live in abundance alongside humans? What would this world be like? How would it differ from our own?
• Listen to the soundscape and free write along with it

These are just a few ideas, just see where the prompt and the ideas brought up in the episode take you. As always, don’t judge your creativity before you’re started and enjoy the process!

I’m going to play the soundscape for three minutes and then it’ll fade out for you to either listen to again to start creating!

Happy writing!

In this writing prompt, I talk you through a creative writing exercise I use in my creative writing sessions that I created inspired by Grayson Perry.  In his Art Club programme a few weeks ago, he described his process for creating a piece centred around a red Fox as being 'making each mark a reaction to the previous one.'

How to do the activity:

You are given a line, in this case our line is, 'I grow and nurture my plants to see where they will lead.'  Now write another line that is a reaction to this one, then the next is a reaction to this second one and so on until you have five lines, each of which is a 'reaction' to the previous one.

The example I give in this episode is: 

1.  'I wonder what it is like, inside the earth.'

2.  Rumbles from deep within shake foundations and roots, like some soft but terrible growl.'

3.  She sits atop the highest peak and looks down on the valley, regal in her stature, focused on what lies below.'

4.  'Prowling at night, fur on end, hackles up, they creep...'

Once you have your four/five lines, choose one to be your opening line and one to be your closing line.  Write for as long as you wish but set a timer so you have an end :-)  See what happens when you try to direct your piece towards a final line.

If you'd like to join the April Writing Project over on Patreon, just pop over to www.patreon.com/promptedbynature and select a tier that works for you.

Enjoy!  Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

@prompted.by.nature

Hello, welcome to series 6, episode 5 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.  I’m your host, Helen, and this is the final episode for some time.  I’ve made the difficult decision to put the podcast on ‘indefinite sabbatical’ so that I can be more present and consistent with my writing.  I have a short solo episode coming up to talk about it but you can get all the updates on my Substack newsletter.  Just search ‘Prompted by Nature’ on the app or website. Onto today’s episode.  Today, I’m speaking with Lucy Power from Rowanbank Environmental Arts & Education.  This is a conversation we actually had before the summer and with summer holidays taking me away from anything other than my kids it fell by the wayside a little.  I’m so happy to be releasing it now though as it’s full of hope and creativity. Lucy is the director of Rowanbank.  Rowanbank Environmental Arts & Education CIC is a social enterprise, combining science with the arts to bring people together to enjoy and learn how to better care for their environment.  They engage people in an imaginative and inclusive way, helping them to connect with and experience the magic of nature. Lucy is a Climate Ambassador with Climate Outreach, and has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship in creative climate communication and education. Lucy is a qualified Forest School Leader and an EcoHomes and BREEAM Assessor. Lucy is also an aerial performer and teacher for All or Nothing Aerial Dance Theatre and Dance Base, Scotland’s national centre for dance.  Lucy has worked successfully with schools, community organisations, government agencies and the private sector. In this conversation we discuss: What Rowanbank is and how it came about How Rowanbank merges art and science to make environmental education more accessible and exciting The Natural Flights of Steps and the part it plays in Rowanbank The importance of carbon literacy and finding a variety of ways to teach this Rowanbank’s commitment to sustainable transport Rowanbank’s collaborative approach to creating stories Sustainable costume design The advice she would give to her younger self What she has coming up that she’s looking forward to You can find Lucy on her website www.rowanbank.org.uk and social media @rowanbank_environmental_arts Episodes that would go really well with this one are: 1.13a Dawn Nelson, Rewilding the Self through Storytelling 5.6a Angeline Morrison, Folk Music as Storytelling 5,10a Moya Lloyd, Building a Creative Community at the Boundary Way Project As always I’m on Instagram @prompted.by.nature, on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk and on Substack, where you can become a free or paid subscriber - Prompted by Nature. I’ll be back soon with the writing prompt that accompanies this episode.  Sending you lots of love.  Happy listening and I’ll speak to you soon.  Bye!

Hello, my love! Welcome to series 2 episode 5 of Prompted by Nature.

This week, I speak with Nick Hayes, author of the amazing new book Book of Trespass. Nick Hayes works as both an author and illustrator, and can convey an incredible amount of emotional context with a few very expressive images. Quiet and spare or bold and busy, all of his work comes across as thoughtful and sensitive. Nick specialises in providing lino prints, conceptual work and traditional illustrations for the children’s publishing, newspaper and magazine industries and he worked with Penguin Random House, The Guardian, New Statesman, British Council, Radio Times.

A little on the Book of Trespass: The vast majority of England is out-of-bounds. By law of trespass, we are excluded from 92 per cent of its land and 97 per cent of its waterways, blocked by walls whose legitimacy is rarely questioned. In The Book of Trespass, Nick Hayes takes us on an expansive journey over the walls of England, into the thousands of square miles of rivers, woodland, lakes and meadows that are blocked from public access. By trespassing the land of the media magnates, Lords, politicians and private corporations that own England, he offers a passionate defence of the natural world and reveals the real story behind its KEEP OUT signs. Packed with shocking statistics and weaving together the stories of poachers, gypsies, witches, ravers, migrants, ramblers, naturalists and campaigners, The Book of Trespass is a vivid exploration of the ownership of England, and a defence of everybody's right to access its great outdoors. Nick passionately believes that the great outdoors should be for everyone and can talk about the political, historical and social dimensions of unequal ownership of land, as well as his campaigning for land reform and his own trespassing tales from across the UK.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• What the book is about
• The concept of Trespass and the impact of the fence
• The link between our relationship with nature and our responsibility to it
• The importance of knowing one’s rights when it comes to the land
• The coincidence of land ownership and gender inequality
• The need for governments to encourage towards nature by opening up private land to the public
• The Crow Act and the responsibility for land-owners to provide open space for the public
• The mental health benefits of nature and the knock-on effects of access to nature
• Drawing as ‘meditation with your eyes open’
• His Right to Roam campaign

And 90s Eddie Izzard comedy even gets a mention!

With everything happening over at Benfield right now, this was a topic close to my heart so it was great to chat to Nick about land and our access to it in this way. And while we’re on the subject of Benfield Valley, I wrote an open letter to my local MPs and planning committee last week so if you’d like to have a read and take inspiration from it for your own letter of protest, it’s int he writing section of my website - link in show notes.

You can find Nick over on his Instagram @nickhayesillustrationr and can buy Book of Trespass published by Bloomsbury anywhere you get your books - although always try and buy from an independent seller!  you can find out about the Right to Roam campaign over on Nick's website www.righttoroam.org.uk.

As always, you can find me over on insta @prompted.by.nature or on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Remember to stick around until the end where I’ll share the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after.

Hello, lovely one! I hope you’re safe and well wherever you are. Welcome to the first conversation episode of Prompted by Nature.

We’re currently in week 7 of lockdown here in the UK but just before we entered this liminal space, I spoke with Anna Neubert-Wood of Wanderwomen, Scotland. Anna has been running WanderWomen Scotland Ltd for almost two years, encouraging groups of women to connect with nature through a combination of survival skills and mindfulness. A connector, facilitator, adventurer and wellbeing guide, Anna loves sharing her passion for the outdoors, inspiring others to pause and notice things, inside and out, and re-awaken the inner child. She firmly believes that we are all stronger than we think, and that we are so much more capable than we give ourselves credit for. Empowering and inspiring, WanderWomen has found an international market for re-connecting to self, to nature and to those around us.

I’ve known Anna for a couple years, having initially connected with her through the wonder of the Instagram yoga world. I’ve been following her journey setting up and running Wanderwomen since its inception and am constantly inspired by Anna’s big-hearted sharing and her ability to create and hold space for the women in her groups, whether that be on overnight wilderness camping trips or weekly sea-swimming groups. As she mentions, Anna runs Wanderwomen from her home in Edinburgh, seeking out the wild spaces around her and supporting the women in her groups, many of whom are taking their first tentative steps into these.

In this interview, Anna speaks about: 

• how her love of nature came in her early childhood growing up in East Germany in the then divided GDR, 
• the importance of boredom in not just children but adults too and how this creates rich opportunities for our creativity, 
• her dream for Wanderwomen  
• what she does to ensure that her cup remains full when giving so much to the women in her community. Anna also speaks of her hopes for what these ‘lockdown days’ could lead to, in nature and in ourselves.

It was a wonderful conversation and, for me personally, a real moment of calm amidst the chaos of the early Covid days here in the UK, when no one really knew what was going on but we had an inkling that things were about to change beyond recognition, something we also touch upon.

For more information about Anna and her work with WanderWomen Scotland go to www.wander-women.co.uk or you can find her on Instagram www.instagram.com/wanderwomenscotland 

Please stay around until the end when I’ll give you a little information about the meditation and writing prompt I’ve created in the follow-up to this conversation.

As always, you can find me over at www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on the Instagram squares with my daily writing prompts www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature

Until then, I’m sending you lots of love. Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you soon.

In this prompt, I introduce you to the Intentional Creativity workbook that I've created inspired by my chat with Eleanor.  You can download the workbook via my Substack newsletter - https://promptedbynature.substack.com - by visiting my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find the link.

Let me know how you get on and what you create if you use it.

Helen x

@prompted.by.nature

-------------------------------

*From the introduction of the workbook*

Welcome to this short Intentional Creativity workbook.  This book accompanies episode 5.3a of the Prompted by Nature podcast and is inspired by the conversation I had with writer and facilitator, Eleanor Cheetham,  In our conversation, Eleanor spoke about the part that embracing a more intentional creative practice has played in her work.

If you are a regular listener, you'll know that I usually create more specific writing prompts for each conversation but for this one, I wanted to do something more tangible that you could use in your creative life.

How to use this Workbook

Similar to the 30-Day Writing Prompt Project Workbook I created last year, this book can be started at any point.I've designed it so that it runs for 8 weeks, roughly the period of time between a fire festival, like Yule, to a cross-quarter festival, like Imbolc, but you can increase or decrease this timescale as works for you and your life.

The main idea is that you are creating a cycle of creativity with one or two creative projects in mind and a focus of mind that lasts for the length of that cycle, after which you'll take a break or work on your creativity in a more unstructured way.

A few things to consider:

• Be realistic about your end goal and the amount of time you can dedicate to this each day/week. Every day will be different so move and flow with your time and the demands on it so that you are enjyoing this process rather than turning it into yet another item on life's to-do list!
• If the more structured approach that I discuss in the episode doesn't work for you, feel free to adapt the daily planning sheets so that they do; everyone works differently and you know yourself the best.
• There is an invitation to have two 'rest and reflect' weeks, one in week 4 and in week 8.  These are to give yourself space to look at where you are and make any necessary adjustments.  Perhaps you could use the final week to look ahead at what you might do with this piece of work, write that pitch email,  or turn it into something bigger as and when you are ready for another cycle of creativity.

Enjoy the workbook.  I hope it helps you to create something you can feel proud of and maybe even share with others!

Welcome to series 6, episode 2 of the Prompted by Nature.  I’m Helen and I hope this finds you well.  Lots going on on this side of things but I’m going to jump straight into today’s episode.

If you enjoy non-fiction at the moment today you may have heard of today’s guest, Katherine May.

Katherine is an internationally bestselling author and podcaster living in Whitstable, UK. Her most recent book, Enchantment became an instant New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. Her internationally bestselling hybrid memoir Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times was adapted as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week, and was shortlisted for the Porchlight and Barnes and Noble Book of the Year. The Electricity of Every Living Thing, her memoir of a midlife autism diagnosis, was adapted as an audio drama by Audible. Other titles include novels such as The Whitstable High Tide Swimming Club, and The Best, Most Awful Job, an anthology of essays about motherhood which she edited. Her journalism and essays have appeared in a range of publications including The New York Times, The Observer and Aeon.

Katherine’s podcast, How We Live Now, ranks in the top 1% worldwide, and she has been a guest presenter for On Being’s The Future of Hope series. Her next book, Enchantment, will be published in 2023. Katherine lives with her husband, son, two cats and a dog. She loves walking, sea-swimming and pickling slightly unappealing things.

In this conversation we discuss:

• The weather!

• The importance of hope and magic

• The process of writing Enchantment

• Creativity as resistance

• AI and creativity in education

• Forms & lineages of creativity

• Mutation over survival of the fittest

• The process of ‘unknowing’ in her work

• Researching Enchantment

• The advice she’d give to her 15-year old self

• What she’s looking forward to

You can find Kathrine’s Substack newsletter and podcast over at https://katherinemay.substack.com/ - I highly recommend subscribing to this as it’s completely wonderful.  You can find all of her books at your local bookshop or library (and if they don’t have the one you’re after, ask them order it in) and I’ve also popped Enchantment in the ‘Discussed on the Podcast’ section of my bookshop over at www.bookshop.org 

Epsiodes that I think would go well with this one are:

1.10a Finding Magic in the Landscape, Jini Reddy

2.6a Art as Play, Beba Beeby

4.12a Soraya Abdel-Hadi, Finding my Creative Voice through Nature

5.11a Creating a Folklore of Place with Elin Manon

As always, you can find me on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find prompts, the pod and information about my upcoming woodland day retreat here in Sussex.  I’m also on Substack https://promptedbynature.substack.com or you can find me on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or Facebook and Twitter by searching Prompted by Nature.  Please do share, rate and review the podcast wherever you’re listening as this means the WORLD to me!!  And do tag me on social media if you’ve enjoyed this or any other episode.

I’ll be back in a few days with the writing prompt that accompanies this episode but in the meantime I’ll send you lots of love.  Happy listening and I’ll speak to you soon!

Hello and welcome to episode six of Prompted by Nature. How are you this week? It’s been a bit of a funny one all told, as we begin to tentatively emerge from our cocoons. I have to say, my little family and I are still remaining close to home and enjoying the delights our local area, learning about the newly-bloomed flowers and the bees, birds and butterflies around us.

In this episode I speak to Tiffany Francis-Baker, a write, artist and environmentalist from the South Downs in Hampshire. As with many people I interview, I came across Tiffany’s work on Instagram and was immediately drawn to her third book published through Bloomsbury, Dark Skies, which I quickly ordered and flew through. Here’s a little extract I loved from the book….

With a mixed background in the arts rural heritage and conservation, Tiffany’s work is fuelled by a love for the natural world and a passion for protecting it. She writes and illustrates for national publications and has appeared on Radio 4 and Channel 4 and was Writer-in-Residence for the Forestry Commission's centenary year in 2019.

In our conversation Tiffany speaks about:

• How her relationship with the dark skies began and her inspiration for the book
• Her earliest memory of nature and how she came to her work as a nature writer, artist and environmentalist
• The place of social media in youth activism
• Creative Conservation and how we as Creatives can contribute to the environmental movement
• Valuing your work and creativity
• Disconnection from nature and the power of risk-taking
• The importance of space in one’s creativity
• How she moves through creative blocks
• Her hopes for the future

Listening back to this this week has been a real tonic for me. Seeing images of how things have pretty much returned to earth-ravaging normality in many parts of the post-covid world this week has left me feeling bleak on so many levels, and reflecting on this conversation, which took place a couple of weeks into lockdown, has given me the little push I needed to pull myself up and remain active in doing what I can to be a part of the healing of our planet in any and every way possible, however small these actions may seem sometimes. I really do encourage you to get hold of Dark Skies, which explores our changing relationship with darkness in nature. Why not order it from your local small bookseller and then post a review on Amazon to help more people get to know tiffany and her work?

If you would like to connect with Tiffany, you can find her at www.tiffanyfrancis.com or on Instagram @tiffany.francis.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Please do stick around until the end when I’ll pop back and give you a little insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode.

And if you use the prompts from any of these conversations, please do share them with me as I love reading your words and am working on setting up a section of my website dedicated to your writing. You can find me on www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on Instagram and Facebook @prompted.by.nature And please do leave a five-star rating wherever you are listening and, if you have a little review would be wonderful too.

Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you after.

With winter upon us and the festive season around the corner, I wanted to do an episode on how we can support small businesses, makers and not-for-profits in our gift-buying decisions. In this episode, I showcase some of the nature-inspired small and micro-businesses, not-forprofits and social enterprises I love buying from and supporting .  The blog post that supports this episode can be found at www.promptedbynature.co.uk/blog/put-your-money-where-your-heart-is

This list is ever-expanding so do check back to see the new additions and feel free to email me hello@promptedbynature.co.uk with your recommendations <3

Enjoy the episode and I'll speak to you soon!

Helen x

Hello, my love! And welcome to episode 8 of Prompted by Nature - episode 8, can you believe it!

So, this week, I’m sharing with you the conversation I had with Ian Solomon-Kawal, co-founder of the May Project Garden in 2007 alongside Randy Mayers, back in May. Ian spent his youth as a carer for his mum who suffered from mental illness. When she died he wanted to do something positive in her memory and to set an example to others facing similar social and economic hardships.

MPG work with urban communities, to address poverty, disempowerment and access to resources and influence. They provide practical, affordable and collective solutions for people to live sustainably and disengage with power structures that don't serve their interests. In their own words, MPG thrive for an alternative system and lifestyle based on nature, community, biodiversity and creativity. Despite recent formalisation, they've remained independent, informal and egalitarian in their values as well as in how they work with people and interact as a team.

Some of the topics we discussed were:

• His background and what led him to create the project
• His desire to create safe space and the importance of safe space in encouraging creativity, confidence and trust in the young people with whom he works
• The impact of accessible green spaces on mental health, especially in urban settings
• Nature as art
• The importance of making mistakes
• Biodiversity and celebrating difference
• Looking inwards to create change
• Sustainability and environmental development as being central to political decisions
• Learning cultural assumptions and why it’s crucial to observe first, ask questions and then help
• Creativity as an internal practice and ‘doing the work to make the difference’
• The need for councils to invest in projects such as MPG
• His metaphor of trauma as compost and the power of listening

It really was an honour to speak to Ian, who serves a community in an area with which I worked as a teacher for a long time and many of his frustrations at the education system in particular echoed my own both during my time teaching in South London and now as I watch my own children move through the system (albeit the very early years). The work that Ian and the whole team at MPG does is of vital importance to our young people and I really enjoyed hearing about his commitment to diversity and inclusivity, and how he has created a safe space, something I speak of a lot, for the young people he works with to express themselves creatively and to enjoy and learn about nature, permaculture and biodiversity in an urban setting.

If you would like to find out more about MPG and their work, or to donate to them as I did - it’s really simple and you get a nice than you note from the team after, you can find them at www.mayproject.org where there are also links to their shop to purchase tracks and t-shirts, and what you can do to help them grow. To find out more about Ian and his creative work, garden workshops and opportunities to hire him as a speaker, you can go to www.3kmt.co.uk

If you’d like to get in touch with me, as always, my website is www.promptedbynature.co.uk or you can find me on Instagram @prompted.by.nature And if you’d like to leave a 5-star review wherever you’re listen to this, or share it with your friends in real life, that would be an amazing way to support all of the people behind the voices on this podcast.

Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you after!

In this meditation, I'll guide you through a breathing practice known as Bramhari, or bumblebee breath.  

In the first part of this episode, I explain how the meditation works; I then guide you into a state of focus and relaxation and then you will practice the breath in your own time.

For the breath, take a normal inhalation and then for the exhalation you make a humming sound until you have no more breath left to exhale (allow it to fade naturally rather than trying to make it as long as possible).  We practice three of these with hands below the navel, three with hands either side of the chest, three with hands either side of the top of the head.

Focus on the vibration that is created in your body and any images, words or phrases that come up.  You don't have to write about bees in this one, just allow whatever comes through after you've tried the breath to come through, without judgement or expectation.

Let me know how you get on.

Enjoy!

Helen 

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature

Hello and welcome to episode 14 of Prompted by Nature. And today is the final episode of this series. I’m now in the process of interviewing new voices and am so excited about what’s to come this year. Next week will be a solo episode from me summing up everything I’ve learnt from this series’ guests, where things are now and a hint at what’s to come. But that’s for next week!

So back to today’s episode. Today you’ll be hearing from he lovely Karen Collins of Scotland-based weaving and natural arts company, Naturally Useful. Naturally Useful is based at the Pole Barn, Marcassie Farm, a family-owned organic small holding nestled in the fertile plains of the Laich of Moray in north-east Scotland.

Karen’s has a passion for using materials that are locally-sourced or grown by herself using her own willow, which she grows on her own acre of land. Karen grows 25 different varities or willow and grows plants for plant dying. She also sources wool from local farmers which she uses in her non-skin rugs and tapestries. Karen is inspired by the land and gathering and sourcing her materials from the space around her, to then transform into beautiful, useful products that enrich people’s homes and enliven their souls. Karen uses her skills to teach and empower others through her gap year program and ongoing courses, which she runs at her workshop. She says that all anything takes is practice, practice, practice. For Karen, making is a meditation and as she says in the episode, when her hands are busy, her mind is still. She believes firmly that ‘learning by doing’ is a fundamental path to self expression and that through creative engagement in a task, we both connect to oneself, the natural world and the finished product developing confidence in ourselves.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Karen’s background in fashion design and how she came to found Naturally Useful
• Her workshop and living space in North-East Scotland
• Her passion for supporting local makers through natural crafts
• The effect that lockdown has had on her business
• Coffin and shroud-making and end of life care
• The beauty of imperfections
• Her gap year program and the importance of passing on skills that will empower others to create their own products
• What her creativity and her connection to nature means to her
• What her journey has taught her and what she’d like to pass on

I first found Karen on Etsy, when I was looking to treat myself to a handmade wicker basket for my bike (I have my son behind me so it’s easier than trying not to hit him in the face with my bag constantly). I was enamoured by the fact that Karen grows all the willow she uses just outside her own front door and hand-weaves them herself and so was thrilled when she agreed to be on the podcast.

You can find Karen on her website www.naturallyuseful.co.uk. The shop link there will take you through to her beautiful Etsy shop, which you can also find by searching ‘Naturally Useful’ on etsy.com and is full of hand-woven treasures like the hanging baskets Karen speaks about, urns, hand baskets (for all your foraging needs!), bike baskets like mine and lots more! You can also find her on Instagram and Facebook @naturallyuseful

As always, you can find me over on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk And if you enjoy this or any of my other episodes, please do give it a five-star review and leave a comment if you have time.

Remember to stick around until the end, when I’ll give you a little insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode.

Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you after.

Hello! Welcome to series 2 episode 6 of Prompted by Nature, I hope this one finds you well. In this episode, I’m speaking with the lovely Beca Beeby, a nature-inspired ceramics and jewellery designer. I first came across Beca’s work on a wild food-related facebook group and immediately asked her to be a guest as her work is incredible and entirely unique.

Beca’s work has a highly aesthetic component which is juxtaposed with the thoughts behind it: her work tending to sit precariously on that faint, wobbly line between ‘Art’ & ‘Craft’: her jewellery and ceramics are wearable sculptures, or ‘useful sculptures’ and an attempt to share my awe with others.

An obsession with a certain repeating morphogenetic pattern, or occurrence, termed ‘three way junctions’ by the Natural Scientist and Mathematician D’arcy Thompson in 1912, that she began noticing years ago, has inspired the majority of what Beca does. Se believes that this is an unappreciated phenomenon, which, as well as being the strongest and most economical way of using any material, it is also the most beautiful (in my view!).

Beca’s hope is that her work could be thought hewn from the earth, to have grown at the bottom of the sea, emerged from a cocoon or constructed by a society of huge insects. Usually made in metal: Steel, copper, brass., bronze and silver, she also works in porcelain and stoneware clays, wax, lime/limecrete and biomaterials. Beca utilises plants and insects in her work, making sculptural pieces to ‘deform’ plants natural growth patterns or placing objects in her honeybee hives, encouraging them to build ‘wild’ honeycomb’ to use, and experimenting with Mycelium and ‘mycotecture’ -the use of mycelium in building structures and objects. Experimentation is a huge part of her practice, each piece of work inspiring and informing the next.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Her work and inspiration
• Her love of bees and wild bee-keeping
• Wild honeycomb as inspiration for her work
• How she keeps her work sustainable and eco-conscious
• Incorporating her love of folklore and blacksmithing in her work
• The distinction between art and craft and the fuzziness in-between
• Art as play
• Her own connection to nature
• What she would like to pass onto you
• Her hopes for the future

I highly recommend going to Beca’s website and looking at her beautiful work - I have my eye on one of her wild honeycomb bracelets - it’s just stunning!

You can find Beca on her website www.becabeeby.com or on @becabeeby

As always, I’m on www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on instagram @prompted.by.nature Remember to leave five-stars and a review if you can and stick around until the end of the episode when I’ll give you a little insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows this. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after.

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Gorgeous, wasn’t she? In the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode, we’ll be drawing on the idea of art and creativity as play. Happy writing and I’ll speak to you soon!

Welcome to series 5, episode 2 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.

Action point: Find out more about the Right to Roam campaign www.righttoroam.org.uk that Amy speaks about.

Amy-Jane Beer is a biologist and nature writer. She earned a doctorate studying sea urchins before swapping the microscope for a keyboard. She was editor of Wildlife of Britain magazine, and of Wildlife World magazine for the People’s Trust for Endangered Species, and is author of several non-fiction books on science and natural history. She writes regularly for The Guardian, BBC Wildlife and Countryfile magazines, and is working on her first, nature-inspired novel. She contributed to the 2018 People’s Manifesto for Wildlife, commissioned by Chris Packham and sits on the steering group of Networks for Nature. She lives in North Yorkshire with her husband, nature- and Lego-obsessed son and turbo-charged Border Collie.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Amy’s work and writing practice has shifted in recent years
• Amy’s relationship with water and kayaking
• The inspiration behind her book, The Flow
• Water and stories
• Water as shapeshifter
• How writing the book strengthened her connection to the land
• How Amy connects to nature
• Access to nature and creativity
• Amy’s work with the Right to Roam Campaign
• How nature interacts with her creativity and vice versa
• What she’s learnt on her path that she wants to pass on
• Her vision for the future

You can find Amy on social media @AmyJaneBeer on both Instagram and Twitter. Her book The Flow, is out now wherever you get your books - and you know we love an independent bookshop! Remember you can purchase any books discussed don this podcast and lots more in the Prompted by Nature Bookshop over on bookshop.org - I get a little kickback when you buy through the bookshop, which helps me to fund all the things on the pod! The address is: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/promptedbynature

As always, I’m on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk , on Twitter @promptedxnature and Instagram @prompted.by.nature

Hello! Welcome to series 3 episode 4 our Prompted by Nature. Spring is now officially springing and the sun has returned…kind of, although it’s still a little chilly, not quite t-shirt weather yet!

In today’s episode, I’m so excited to share with you the conversation I had with Grace of Green Soul Grace last week.

Grace Hull is an environmental educator who created Green Soul Grace, a personal blog, shop and podcast to explore what conscious living really means, in the most holistic, inclusive and accessible way, and Earth For All, an environmental education organisation. She takes pleasure in encouraging and facilitating folks to begin or further their journey of holistic sustainability, and in celebrating how our cultural heritage shapes our sustainable practices. I first fond out about Grace’s work via Instagram and bought a couple of her gorgeous cutlery wraps for my two children for when picnic weather comes again!

In this conversation we discuss:

• Her work with Veolia and how it prompted her to set up Earth for All and Green Soul Grace
• The importance of consuming less, repairing, and reusing over recycling
• How redundancy and the passing of her mother gave her time to create something new for herself
• What ‘holistic sustainability’ is and how it informs her work and life
• The importance of representation and relatability in green, sustainable spaces
• The influence of her Grandmother in her work
• What Earth for All is and the motivation behind it
• The part that her creativity plays in her work
• Her connection to nature and how she uses this to help inspire others
• What she’d like to pass on and her hope for the future

This was such a wonderful conversation and, really, I could have spoken to Grace for hours about her work! You can find Grace over on her social media @greensoulgrace, on her podcast of the same name, which you can find on Spotify, Apple and wherever you get your podcasts. Her websites are www.greensoulgrace.org on which you can also find her beautiful shop, and www.earthforall.org.uk where you can find out about Grace’s speaking gigs and her schools’ workshops as well as her business consultancy and longer term projects.

As always, I’m over on Instagram @prompted.by.nature and on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find out about my in-person events starting up again in April and my online offerings. If you’d like to join my Patreon, where I’ll be running writing projects, offering workbooks and e-zines plus a ton more, you can go to www.patreon.com/promptedbynature

If you like the podcast, I’d love it if you’d subscribe and give it a five-star review, it all helps to get these voices and this work ‘out there’!

Remember to stick around until the end when you’ll hear all about the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after!

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Thank you so much for listening - I absolutely loved that! In the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode we’ll be starting with the concept of ‘reduce, reuse, repair’ in all of its guises and seeing where it takes us! As always I’m sending you lots of love. Happy writing and I’ll speak to you soon.

Welcome to your writing prompt for my conversation with Moya Lloyd of the Boundary Way Project. In the conversation, Moya talked about her love of using found objects such as plants, mushroom and pieces from her family history to create art. For this prompt then, the invitation is to get creating using things that already exist.

Perhaps you will create a collage out of old books (although I kind of shudder when I think about tearing up books, even old and decrepit ones!), photographs, till receipts, play programmes, your own drawings or sketches, photographs of the landscape, leaves, dried flowers or similar.

Maybe you’d like to stick to writing and find old work that you’ve never done anything with and create new piece - a word collage perhaps, a kind of tapestry of old phrases you’ve already conjured up and then sew them together with newer ideas.

The idea is here is to create something new out of the old. Make the most of what you already have and reshape and refashion it into something completely different. This is similar to a prompt I did way back in series 3, episode 4, inspired by my conversation with Grace Hull so do go and have a listen to 3.4b (and the accompanying conversation, of course!) if you want to extend this idea. That one also includes a short meditation, just to get your creativity flowing.

I’m going to take a break from writing for this one and create a collage similar to the style that Moya uses in her personal work. I’m then going to write a short story or poem inspired by whatever comes out in the collage. I’ll post both on my socials and blog once they’re finished and I’d love to see yours if you try this.

Remember no judgment on your own creativity, please - just experiment and enjoy!

Happy creating and I’ll speak to you soon,

Helen x

In this prompt, I encourage you to try something new - painting, sculpting, writing, sewing!  Life is about variety and we can nourish our creatives selves by trying out lots of different things, something Soraya spoke of in the conversation.

Let me know what you try and how it helps you in your main creative practice.

Happy creating!

Helen x

Hello and welcome to episode 12 of Prompted by Nature.  This week you are in for a treat as I’m releasing the conversation I had with the wonderful Dr. Sheree Mack a couple of weeks ago.

Sheree is the Project Coordinator for a Heritage Lottery Funded project where she works with Northumberland National Park Authority, Durham Wildlife Trust and the National Trust, to offer opportunities to BAME communities to spend time outdoors to develop and deepen their relationship with nature.

Sheree’s practice manifests through poetry, storytelling, image and the unfolding histories of black people. She engages audiences around black women’s voices and bodies, black feminism, ecology and memory and facilitates national and international creative workshops and retreats in the landscape, encouraging and supporting women on their journey of remembrance back to their authentic selves. She is currently writing a mixed-genre memoir around a black woman's body with/in Nature.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Her background and time as a teacher in inner city schools
• Her desire to support and encourage BAME creatives in the North East and beyond
• Her own connection with nature and her passion for sharing this with others
• The inspiration behind her Earth Sea Love project and some news about her new podcast supporting this initiative
• The importance of BAME visibility and representation in natural spaces and the marketing of nature-based brands as well as the need to motivate a new generation of black women leaders
• The financial side of accessibility in nature
• Land as holding trauma and associations with enslavement
• Nature as a space of oneness
• Trauma and grief as a manifestation of our disconnection with nature
• Self-care as a revolutionary act
• Love as the source of everything and the importance of being in nature in order to re-connect with this
• Her first memory of nature
• Her hopes for the future and what she would like to pass onto you

Sheree contacted me a couple of months ago and I jumped at the chance of having her on the podcast. We had had the conversation ‘booked in’ about a month before it happened and the week we spoke turned out to be a real tipping point in our history with the death George Floyd happening just a few days before and the Black Lives Matter campaign ramping up with protests and marches across the globe. The conversation then became all the more pertinent and important in discussing the link between social justice and environmental justice.

You can find Sheree at www.earthsealove.com and on Instagram @earthsealove and also Sheree’s personal page www.livingwildstudios.com and on Instagram @shereemackwrites

As always, if you enjoy the interview, please give it a five-star rating and a positive review - it really does help to push these voices out there. And you can find me over on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on my instagram @prompted.by.nature

Remember to stay around until the end when I’ll be giving you a little insight to the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode.

Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you after!

The Climate Reframe list can be found at www.climatereframe.co.uk

I'm thrilled to announce that Prompted by Nature has been shortlisted in the podcast category for a Bookshop.org Indie Champion Award. This was completely unexpected and I immediately felt sick when I got the initial email a couple of weeks ago!

I wanted to record a quick episode to share this news, and a little about my writing sabbatical, with you.

Thank you for listening and supporting this podcast. I'm so happy you're here; I'll be back soon (and remember you can always find me on Substack www.promptedbynature.substack.com , on Instagram @prompted.by.nature and my bookshop.org shop is here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/promptedbynature )

And of course a HUGE thank you Bookshop.org for recognising the podcast and for having it on your shortlist - it means everyhing to me.

Sending you lots of love,

Helen x

In this writing prompt I invite you to get to know the species in your local area who might be on the conservation amber or red lists, or who may at threat of endangerment.  I go through the list of species that Sophie covers in her book, Forget-Me-Not, and offer up the possibility of using these animals as creative prompts for your own work.I also share a mindfulness practice that I like to use whenever my eco-anxiety comes to tea. 

I hope you enjoy - let me know how you get on if you use either of these.

Happy writing!

Helen

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

@prompted.by.nature

Hello! Welcome to episode 11 of Prompted by Nature. I hope you enjoyed your Solstice and were able to make the most of the extra long day!

In this episode, I’m speaking to Jan Stannard, founder of new rewinding charity, Heal Rewilding.

Jan Stannard is a co-founder of Heal, the new UK charity which is crowdfunding for rewilding. Jan has a business background and is a resilience specialist and former coach. She still serves on the boards of two businesses she helped to found. Her work with wildlife has been local and very practical. She founded a swift group which has the world record for the most swift boxes installed in under a year; she was a co-founder of Wild Maidenhead and leads the group's Wild About Gardens scheme; and she project managed the largest installation of amphibian rescue ladders in England. Nature is what makes her heart sing, she says.

Heal's mission is to buy land for rewilding in the English lowlands, to help with nature's recovery, to combat climate change and for wellbeing.

In this episode we discuss:

• Jan’s background and how she realised she could make a difference
• How Heal Rewilding came about and Jan’s desire to create a large scale refilling project that we could all feel a part of
• What Heal is and how it works plus a look into their Heal 3x3 initiative
• The importance of affordability and accessibility and ‘doing this together’
• Definitions of rewilding and some core considerations
• The role of semi-wild animals in the project
• The role of education, young people and their Heal Future initiative
• Creativity and nature and Heal centres as artistic as well as scientific bases
• The need to loosen the grip on gendered approaches to nature e.g. women as caring about nature vs. men as the scientists
• Her advice for staying creative and what she would like to pass on
• And Jan asks me a question

I’m really excited by everything that Heal are up to and the possibilities that it could open up for the UK. If you’d like to donate to the charity, as I did, you can find them at www.healrewilding.org.uk You can also find the team on Twitter and Instagram @healrewilding

As always I’m at www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on Instagram @prompted.by.nature. Remember to stick around until the end of the episode to hear about the meditation dn writing prompt that follows this episode.

Enjoy the episode and I’ll speak to you after!

Helen x

Hello and welcome to episode 9 of Prompted by Nature. Today I’m speaking with Lucy Jones, the author of the amazing book ‘Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild.’

I came across Lucy via the Extinction Rebellion Rewilding group on Facebook, where someone shared the book when it had just come out. The title took me and I immediately bought it from Waterstones. What I love about the book is that not only is it beautifully written, mixing forms and genres, but it is also thoroughly researching, covering every aspect of the argument for ensuring accessibility to high quality green spaces for all in our journey to see everyone in mental wellness.

Lucy Jones is the author of Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild (Allen Lane). She previously worked at NME and the Daily Telegraph, and her journalism on culture, science and nature has been published in BBC Earth, BBC Wildlife, The Sunday Times, the Guardian and the New Statesman. Her first book, Foxes Unearthed, was celebrated for its 'brave, bold and honest' (Chris Packham) account of our relationship with the fox, winning the Society of Authors' Roger Deakin Award 2015.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Her journey through addiction and post-natal depression using nature as her ally
• The opening and ending of the book and the power of mixing genres
• The importance of accessibility to high quality green spaces for all
• How nature influences her own creativity
• The scientifically proven mental health benefits of nature and the power of sharing our stories
• The creativity of pregnancy and early motherhood
• The physiology of awe and seeing Beauty in the seemingly mundane
• Techno-nature and the studies surrounding its use
• Her hopes for the future
• What she wants you to know
• The balance between urgency and hope

This is such a pertinent conversation to be having right now. Lucy and I had this conversation back at the end of April and the subjects we cover show just how complex a topic this can be whilst at the same time highlighting that more needs to be done not just by governments and local councils, but by us as individuals and communities. This conversation follows on beautifully from my conversation with Ian, which I released last week, and is the scientific grounding we need to prove why projects such as his work. I urge you, whenever possible, to get this book and be inspired by all the amazing things people are doing to support those facing mental health challenges. And I really did mean it when I said a certain someone in power needs to read this book! Maybe I’ll send him a copy!

Lucy has given me permission to read a little extract from the book, which begins as a look into a collective dystopian future (after which it switches form to non-fiction) so I thought I’d start with the opening pages.

You can find Lucy over on her website www.lucyfjones.com and on Instagram @lucyfjones You can buy her book over at Waterstones. Why not buy it from here or from your local small bookshop and then post a review over on Amazon?

As always, I’m at www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on Instagram @prompted.by.nature and if you’re local to Brighton, keep a look out for some new small-group meditation and writing events for women popping up from July onwards in woodlands in and around Brighton and East Sussex. And if you’re able to a 5-star review wherever you’re listening to t his would be amazing and really helps gets the podcast and these voices and conversations out there!

Remember to stick around until the end when I’ll give you an insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows.

Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you after

Welcome to your writing prompt for my conversation with Victoria Bennett.

Writing prompt, some news and an apology for this episodes tardiness! Thank you for your patience. <3

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When I listened back to the episode with Victoria, what I remember most is her thoughts around the use of time in writing a memoir.  She describes the process as engaging three forms of time:  deep time, long time and momentary time. 

‘I think that that combination of deep time in the Earth and long time in our sense of humanity and momentary time, all exist together, so in memoir writing, memories from my early childhood would sit alongside memories as a mother - with my son - so experiences of present moments and then memories of my mother are in there, and then her memories of her childhood.  And so all these memories would kind of interweave with each other and speak to each other.  But looking back into memories was a bit like that, finding these pottery shards in a garden because I would start and I would look back and think, ‘that's a terrible memory’, and then it's like, ‘that's a wonderful bit of pottery!’  So I'd find these moments that would be as alive and as present as the one I was in, and their stories that they had would be as present and and as revealing.  I suppose if I'd written it all off as being terrible I wouldn't have bothered…’

The invitation here then, is to create three pieces: one that engages with deep time, one with long time and one with momentary time.  These could take the form of journal entries, be three pieces of free writing, poems on the themes or something completely different.  This is the sort of thing I like to write about in my morning pages as I find that in that liminal spaces between night and day,  I’m the most alert to more abstract concepts such as time.

Enjoy this one and let me know how you get on if you use it.

Happy writing!

Helen x

https://promptedbynature.substack.com

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

@prompted.by.nature

Welcome to my meditation and writing prompt for my interview with Jini Reddy.  For this one, it's more of an explanation.  You'll decide on your own prompt - fractals, patterns, similarities, synchronicities, details, reflections and such - and use a walking meditation to help you to slow down body and mind into a state of deeper 'noticing.'  

At the time of recording we are in the latter part of 'lockdown' and so if you are still shielding, this is still possible to do inside your house, in a community garden or in your own garden.

Please do let me know how you get on - www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature or www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Happy writing!

Helen x

In this prompt I give you four words to get you started on a creative piece.  I hope you enjoy it!  Remember to share anything you create with me either via my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on insta @prompted.by.nature

Happy writing!

Helen x

A meditation and writing prompt for my interview with Tiffany Francis-Baker in which you will guided through a visualisation that takes you under a night sky.

As always, if you find your mind running somewhere you don't want it to go, stop, take a few moments and come back to it.  It that doesn't work, stop and come back another time, releasing all judgment of yourself.

Please do share any writing that you create from any of my meditations and writing prompt with me - I love reading your words!

Find me on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Happy writing!

Helen x

Welcome to series 4, episode 9 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.

Today's action point:  Visit Hannah's website to find information and resources for connecting and protecting nature on your doorstep:  www.hannahbournetaylor.com/resources

Today I speak with writer and nature advocate, Hannah Bourne-Taylor.  After careers in both equine photography and copy-writing in the branding industry, Hannah moved from London to Ghana in 2013 where she lived for eight years. She has ghost-written and edited best-selling books and FLEDGLING, her debut memoir, is a celebration of the wild and is being published by Aurum in April 2022.

For context, before the main conversation Hannah had been telling me about the swallows she was trying to help after soffits were created during their migration south meaning that they couldn’t get back into their nesting spot.  Hannah heard about this on social media and got to work trying to help the birds.  I also told her about the Benfield Valley Project.  An update of the swifts situation is that since our chat, the landlord of the property involved has agreed to put up nesting boxes on the house that is their home.  I mention these points as we refer back to them in the conversation.

In this episode we discuss:

• Her passion for looking after the individual
• What the finch and birds in general have taught her
• The finch as representative of ‘voices of the wild’
• How her experience as a ghost writer and photographer influenced her ability to tell the finch’s story
• The parallels between Hannah’s experience of caring for a finch and my own experience of early motherhood
• The importance of feeling empowered to help with even the ‘smallest’ things
• The place her upbringing played in how she encounters nature
• The process of ‘looking to see’
• The importance of enthusiasm in adulthood
• The emotional aspect of writing the book
• Hannah’s experience opening up about her anxiety and OCD
• The importance of not losing hope

Recommended previous episodes to accompany this one:  Lucy Jones 1.9, Lorraine Tindale 2.3, Anita Bagdi 2.11, Lucy Groves 2.12, plus Sophie’s episode last week 4.8.

Find Hannah on her website www.hannahbournetaylor.com and @hannahbt on twitter or @writerhannahbt on instagram.  Fledgling is out now and is published by Bloomsbury.  I now have a shop over on bookshop.org, where I’ll get a little kick-back on anything you purchase through it.  This will help me to fund future episodes of the podcast.  The link is on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk, where you can find all episodes and upcoming course dates, or you can go directly to bookshop.org and search for ‘Prompted by Nature.’

I’m really excited about sharing this conversation with you as it’s with two people whose work I adore. Nathaniel Hughes and Fiona Owen are the writer and artist behind the incredible book Weeds in the Heart. As I mentioned in the episode, I found their book completely by accident in a little bookshop in Stroud when I was away with my partner and children over the new year. It was Fiona’s artwork that first drew me in and upon opening the book I felt myself transported into a world of plants, weeds and utter magic!

As they mention, Fiona and Nathaniel have been working together for around six years creating the Weeds in the Heart books, a living, breathing project that will continue to develop and change with the seasons and the years.

In this conversation, we cover:

Their paths into Herbalism

Working with plants as spirits and allies

Why we don’t always have to ‘consume’ plants as food (something I needed to hear, as you’ll see when I speak of my hunt for wild garlic!)

The need to find our own herbal medicine path that is unique to the place in which we reside

I really do encourage you to practice the meditation that follows this conversation to really get a sense of what Fiona and Nathaniel are speaking about. I also encourage to get their book - it really is the most therapeutic book to read; the combination of Fiona’s illustrations and Nathaniel’s words creates an ethereal experience and it’s a book I often sit and gaze at when my brain needs some time out. It would be a perfect gift for someone need some reassurance or comfort at any time.

You can find the book on the main website:

www.weedsintheheart.org.uk

And Nathianiel’s main school page is:

https://www.schoolofintuitiveherbalism.weedsintheheart.org.uk

And Fiona’s stunning artwork can be found at:

https://johnandfionaowen.weebly.com

Please stay around until the end when I’ll give you a little information about the meditation and writing prompt I’ve created in the follow-up to this conversation.

As always, you can find me over at www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on the Instagram squares with my daily writing prompts @prompted.by.nature

Hello! Welcome to series two, episode 10 of Prompted by Nature. I hope this one finds you well. It definitely feels like we’re well on the way to winter here in the UK, with cold snaps aplenty and lots of my favourite cold, crisp, sunny days I can spend outside.

Today’s episode is all about the wonderful Marchelle Farrell, also known as @Afroliage on Instagram.

Marchelle Farrell is a gardener, writer and mother, born in Trinidad and Tobago, but has spent the last 20 years attempting to become hardy here in the UK. She has worked as a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist in the NHS, and currently spends much of her time getting to know her country garden, and writing about the things the garden teaches her about herself.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Her relationship with and connection to her garden
• Allowing herself to listen to her garden
• What houseplants taught her about working with her garden
• The connection between her work in her garden and her work as a psychotherapist
• Gardening as a creative practice
• The importance of listening to the land
• The garden as a metaphor
• The need to face certain patterns in order to change them
• The garden as a transitional space

And so much more - honestly, that summary doesn’t even scratch the surface of our chat!

I first connected Marchelle after following her on social media and becoming inspired by the words and images she posts about her work with and relationship with her garden.

As we discuss in the episode, Marchelle’s work has played a big part in my own learning and understanding of gardens as spaces of privilege as well as empowerment and her words around the place that colonialism plays in each of our relationships with nature and green spaces have deepened my own understanding of the role I can play in helping to dismantle the systems that we have all, in one way or another, inherited from our ancestors.

Marchelle is humble, wise and always thought-provoking and I’m so grateful to her for agreeing to be a part of this podcast. You can find her on her Instagram, where she posts images of her garden accompanied by the insights that come from her work in it, on @Afroliage and you can also sign up to her wonderful newsletter through the link in her bio there.

As always, I’m on @prompted.by.nature on Instagram or or your can find me over at my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can sign up for my weekly online nature-inspired meditation and creative writing sessions (bit of a mouthful!) and find out more about my work.

Remember to stick around until the end of the episode, when I’ll give you an insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows the conversation.  Happy listening, and I’ll speak to you after!

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Thank you so much for listening - wasn’t Marchelle just wonderful! In the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode, you’ll be looking into your own relationship with green spaces and asking questions around how you (and I!) can listen more deeply and play a bigger role in ensuring that nature is an enriching and accessible space for us all. As always, I’m sending you lots of love. 

Happy writing, and I’ll speak to you soon!

Hello and welcome to episode five of Prompted by Nature! How are you? Have you been able to get out and enjoy the sunshine?

It’s World Bee Day this week so I thought, what better way to celebrate than to share my second bee-inspired conversation? A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of chatting with the lovely Faye, the Founder and Creative mind behind BeeVive. I first came across BeeVive via Instagram and was immediately drawn to their ethics and commitment to helping to protect and care for our bee friends.

By way of introduction to Faye and BeeVive, twenty-six year old Faye is an enthusiast for fashion design, saving bees and creating sustainable, healthy ways of living! Together with her partner, on the outskirts of Exeter, she founded BEEVIVE, a product-based company (and soon-to-be initiative - they have some exciting plans, as you’ll hear!) inspired by a spontaneous encounter with a tired Bee whilst on holiday in Cornwall. BeeVive is bee revival keyring that help you to be ready to help a bee in need. Each keyring is a plastic free pod that contains a glass vial of the same sugar solution used by beekeepers like Jonathan, who we heard from in episode four.

In the last year their community has grown and they are thrilled to have the revival kits stocked around the world, from Australia to Brazil team of Bee-savers, equipped to rescue a Bee in need and spread the word, meaning that even more people have an essential solution for a tired bee to help it continue its mission pollinating planet Earth. Faye and her partner design and assemble each keyring (by hand!) in Exeter, UK and have a strict no-plastic policy - my kind of people!

In this episode we discuss:

Their company ethics including their packaging and supply chain choices

What the product actually is and what’s it’s for

How to know if a bee is in trouble

Their vision for the future and future plans

How Faye herself stays creative

Her views on ‘fast fashion’ as a ‘sustainable fashion’ graduate

The joy of saying ‘yes’

Faye’s enthusiasm for her work was infectious and I was genuinely inspired by both the product and her company’s plans for the future. At the time I didn’t yet have a revival kit but I have since bought one and love it. My six-year old daughter especially loves it and is constantly looking for bees to ‘save’ - I’ve told her we’ll know one when we see one and that we can’t just go shoving sugar water down bees’ throats if they don’t need it! It’s on her next birthday wishlist too :-)

If you’d like to found out more about BeeVive and buy a kit, just go to www.beevive.com or you can go to their socials to found out how people are using theirs. I especially love their instagram feed, where they often share videos of their customers reviving flagging bees they come across in their areas - very much cuteness! Their instagram is @beevive_uk and their facebook is @beevive.

As always stick around until the end when I’ll give you an insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode. Remember to come and say hello on any of my platforms: my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk and on instagram or facebook @prompted.by.nature. And please do pop a five star review wherever you get this podcast as it really does help to push these conversations and prompts ‘out there.’

Enjoy the conversation,

Helen x

Hello and welcome to series 3 episode 6 of Prompted by Nature. I hope this one finds you well. so we are finally emerging slowly from our third period of lockdown here in the UK and I’m thrilled that my in-person events are starting up again. If you are local to Brighton and Hove or Sussex, my forest-based creativity day retreat at back at the wonderful Wilderness Woods and I now have new monthly sessions at both forest and seaside locations down here in Brighton and Hove. Just pop to the website for more information and to book onto any of those. And if you are feeling a little lacking in inspiration, my Patreon is now in full-swing with the start of a 30-day writing project for April plus there are a number of other nature-inspired creative writing resources including write-with-me sessions there for you if you’d like to join the community. Subscriptions are £3-£9 per month. Just go to www.patreon.com/promptedbynature to find out more.

So back to today’s episode. Today, I’m speaking with artist and illustrator, Jamey Anne Redway. I first saw Jamey on a Springwatch Instagram live in which she spoke about her love of the natural world and how she evokes this through her stunning illustrations.

Jamey is a self-taught artist & illustrator based in the beautiful Suffolk, who has always taken inspiration from nature, as you will see throughout her work. She paints with watercolours and Indian ink, with the window open listening to the sounds of the Swifts during the Summer and the Tawny Owls in the Winter. Jamey is currently an MA Illustration student at Falmouth University. She works for the British Trust for Ornithology and is a Trustee for the Norfolk Badger Trust.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Her work as an illustrator and her journey
• The part that storytelling plays in her work
• How she uses watercolours and Indian ink to create movement and to capture the ‘aura’ of the animal
• How art evokes conversation about the natural world and its conservation
• Art as communication and literacy
• The need for more support and encouragement for creatives
• When she feels at her most creative
• The place that mindfulness plays in her creative process
• Her creative self care practice
• What her journey thus far has taught her
• Her hope for the future

This was such a lovely conversation and Jamey’s passion for her work and for the natural world is infectious. I know you’re going to love this one!

You can find Jamey on her website www.jameyanndesigns.com and on Instagram @jameydraws or over on Twitter @jredway95

As always, I’m on www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find more information about my Patreon community, my upcoming events as well as my own writing and words.

Remember to stay around until the end of the episode when I’ll tell you about the writing prompt that follows this conversation. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after!

Hello and welcome to your writing prompt for my conversation with Katie Holten.  For this one there are a couple of invitations.

The first is to, of course, download Katie’s tree alphabet as a font to your computer and have a play.  It’s really fun turning your words into a forest and seeing that forest come alive on the page. You could write something new, inspired by the letters as trees, or translate an existing piece into the tree alphabet.

www.treealphabet.ie  

The second invitation is to put the title of this episode on a sheet of paper and see where it takes you.  The title is ‘I write with the trees.’  I love this title because it could go in any and all directions.  for me, it conjures up images of future communities and societies in which humans dream things into being in collaboration with the trees and the more-than-human world.

It might be that, having listened to the conversation, or even read the book, you have been inspired to created something totally different from these suggestions, in which case, go for it!

Have fun with it and let me know how you get on if you use this one!

Happy writing!  Bye!

As always, if at any point in the meditation you feel that your mind is running away from you or your thoughts are taking over and you can't come back to it by focusing on the breath and letting those thoughts pass, just stop and come back another time. <3 

In this meditation, I talk you through a visualisation inspired by Rebecca's own practice.  The writing prompt is based on whatever comes through as a result of the visualisation.  Allow it to be a starting point for something that might end up being totally unrelated :-)

Let me know how you get on!

Happy writing!

Helen x

@prompted.by.nature

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Hello my love! Welcome to series 2 episode 11 of Prompted by Nature. How are you? How this week been for you? I’m not going to lie, this full moon has had me all over the shop - that of course, and the fact that we have a new house mate in our abode. We are over-wintering a baby hedgehog, Carrie, who was very poorly and underweight when she was found in a garden nearby on Halloween, and is now too young to hibernate so the lovely Carole, who runs the local hedgehog rescue group and who has been amazing in helping and advising me in setting up the Benfield Valley Project, asked if I wanted to look after her now that she is doing better. Suffice it to say, it feels like a huge responsibility, especially with hedgehogs being on the ‘at threat of extinction’ list, but she’s settling in well and we love her already! I’ll keep you posted as the weeks go on as to how she gets on.

Anyway, onto today’s conversation. In this episode I speak with Anita Bagdi. Anita is a self-taught freelance illustrator, a book lover, coffee addict, Mum of two beautiful girls and a worried warrior of climate change. She loves creating mood, capturing everyday feelings, finding different, sometimes funny ways of telling stories and showing beauty in colours or in black and white.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Anita’s inspiration and how she got started in illustration
• Her art as a way of understanding her eco-anxiety
• The conversations that her art brings up with her children
• Her personal connection to nature and her memories of her childhood in Hungary
• Her creative process and how she stays inspired
• Anita’s connection to Mothers Rise Up and Parent’s For Future and how this has influenced her creativity
• Her hope for the future
• What her journey has taught there that she would like to pass on

As I mention in the conversation I first connected with Anita through the parent climate change group, Parent’s for Future, which we joined at the same time and then were part of the group who worked on the Open Letter to Boris Johnson calling for a ‘Green Recovery’ earlier this year. Anita shared a few things about her artwork in the WhatsApp group and I followed her on insta and was immediately enamoured by her use of colour, structure, and the powerful messages about our natural world in her creations.

You can find Anita over on instagram @anitab_art or on her portfolio website, where you can find the link to her shop www.anitabagdi.com

As always, I’m over on insta @prompted.by.nature or on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find link to my Etsy shop, gift vouchers for my in-person outdoor retreats and creative writing sessions as well as information and bookings for my Monday night online nature-inspired meditation and creative writing sessions.

Please do give the podcast a five-star review if you have time and share with your community on social media or in real life. Thank you to those who have already done this, it’s making a huge difference in getting the meditations, writing prompts and these voices ‘out there.’

Remember to stick around unit the end when I’ll give you a little hint at the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after!

I absolutely love the Land Art Agency tagline, 'restoring the earth through the arts' - so much so that I thought I'd use it as a starting point for the writing prompt for this episode!

In this episode I give you some ideas as to how to might approach this.  Remember to check my social media feeds for the bullet journal prompt that accompanies this episode as there will likely be fresh inspiration there too :-)

Instagram: @prompted.by.nature

Twitter: @promptedxnature

Website: www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Happy creating!

Helen x

Action point: Earth Hero app.  Download the app via your app store or go to their website for more information: https://www.earthhero.org/app/

A little apology for the tardiness of this episode.  I was hit by a car whilst cycling to work last Thursday and it pushed everything back a bit.  I’m ok with thankfully just bumps and bruises to recover from and the only thing that broke was my helmet - thank goodness for helmets!

I was thrilled to have been included in a list of the 7 best nature podcasts for wildlife enthusiasts on www.bestpodcasts.co.uk

Onto todays’ episode…

Bella Gonshorvitz is a multidisciplinary fashion practitioner, author, natural dyer and allotment plot grower. Her debut book ‘Grow, Cook, Dye, Wear – From seed to style the sustainable way’ was published this year by DK/Penguin Random House. The book captures her miniature circular economy process through the prism of five crops: grow-your-own and foraging advice; vegan recipes for the harvest; instructions to creating natural dye from the cooking waste and full-size patterns with sewing instructions to creating your own Onion dress, Nettle duster, Rhubarb bolero, Blackberry shirtdress and Cabbage shorts.

In this episode we discuss:

• How the book came about
• Her work in clothing design and (truly) sustainable fashion
• Making gowns for hospital staff during COVID
• The magic behind the book
• The importance of emotional connection with the clothes that we wear
• Connecting with the soil
• Community and unlikely friendships
• Composting as a creative process
• Tips for natural dye newbies

Bella’s book, as well as the book she mentions, Wild Colour by Jenny Dean, is available in the Prompted by Nature bookshop over on bookshop.org .  Buying through bookshop.org is a great way of supporting the podcast as for ever order I get a little kick back, which helps me to create more of these episodes and lot more free content for you to enjoy!

Bella’s website is www.bellagonshorowitz.com and you can find her @bellagonshorovitz on social media.

A few episodes that would link well with this one:

1.11a Heal Rewilding, Jan Stannard

1.14a Supporting Local Economies through Land-Based Crafts, Karen Collins

2.4a Creative Sustainability and the Joy of Buying Less, Erica Purvis

2.10a Marchelle Farrell, My Garden, My Teacher

3.1a The Plant Scientist, Rebecca Lazarou

3.4a Holistic Sustainability, Grace Hull

3.5a The Timeless Wisdom of Plants, Barbara Wilkinson

Remember you can find me on www.promptedbynature.co.uk on Instagram @prompted.by.nature, where I’m currently adding more prompts and extracts of my own writing.

Happy listening!

Helen x

A solo episode in which I discuss my own creative exhaustion and just some of the ways I help my body and mind recover from the times when I've pushed them just that little bit too hard!

I have a new weekly online nature-inspired meditation and writing session starting every Monday 8-9.15pm.  More information here:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nature-inspired-meditation-and-creative-writing-class-tickets-127694857757 

Find me on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Happy writing!  Helen x

In this visualisation, we take a journey into the Merlin's Cave of your creativity, collecting objects to inspire your writing.  

You are guided into the cave and then there is a three minute silence for you to explore the space.  We finish with a grounding practice and you are invited to start writing, using the objects you found to create a piece of imaginative writing.

Enjoy!

Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Welcome to this writing prompt for my conversation with Bella Gonshorovitz.  For this one, it could be done purely for writing but I feel like it’s more of a general prompt for whatever creative practice you want to try at this point.

Bella talked a lot about her process in terms of the circular economy structure and the inspiration that this can provide to not just our work in the garden or growing things but in our creativity.  I want to encourage you to choose one of the verbs, grow, cook, dye or wear (as in, sew) and see where it takes you.

Perhaps you could take some time to think about what you’d like to grow come Spring, or do some winter seed sowing for your garden, window sill or balcony space.  Maybe you’d like to dive into foraging and what might be around at this time of year - Bella’s book, as well as my conversations with Ebony Gheorghe (4.2a) and Nathaniel Hughes and Fiona Owen all the way back in 1.3a, are great for finding inspiration for this - and how you can plan your year in foraging to really get to know the plants and how they can support you and your health.

Perhaps you have a few bits of fabric scraps lying around or have some budget to raid the charity shops for the amazing fabrics they so often have in stock and want to experiment with sewing your own clothes or something simple, like a tote bag or a face cloth to help you gain confidence in sewing and making clothes if you don’t already.

Once you’ve decided, you could sit down and plan - perhaps three month ahead or so - how you might develop this knowledge or skills set.  So for me, for example, I’d like to try the full process that Bella suggests but I don’t want to overwhelm myself so I’m going to get to know onion a bit better, purely because I can hold of it at this time of year and Bella’s glow when she spoke about it was infectious!  I want to save the skins and start to experiment with dyeing with it.  Then, once my garden is ready for planting, I’m going to try and plant some of my own.  I’m following Charles Dowding’s No Dig method, so I’m going to follow this and what Bella says in her book about tending to onions and see how it goes.

I’ll then use this process as creative fuel for a Solarpunk piece I’m working (and if you don’t know what Solarpunk is, just get on Ecosia and give it a search.  You can thank me later ;-).  I want to see how it feels to grow something that I will later eat and then use to create something that I will wear.  I want to experience how it feels to fully close that circle.

I’d love to hear from you if you use this prompt and how you get on.

Remember you can get hold of Bella’s book, Grow, Cook, Dye, Wear via the PbN bookshop on bookshop.org - the link is in the show notes or you can go over to their website and search for the Prompted by Nature shop and have a browse.  There’s also a direct link on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Happy creating!

Helen x

A meditation that takes you through the five layers of the energetic body to the space of oneness that we all have.  

First I guide you into the visualisation of moving through each layer surrounding the body and then into the centre of the rib cage, the still, unchanging space in which we can find peace and unity.

You are then left for 3 minutes to focus on this space and then invited to write whatever comes up and through.  As always, no judgement, no expectation, just write in whatever way you feel drawn to at that moment.

Enjoy!

Helen x

In this meditation and writing prompt, we begin with a simple breathing exercise to bring the awareness to the breath and the body in order to help you move into the creative mind.  Inspired by Grace's words on the importance of repairing, reusing and repurposing over recycling, I then discuss the idea of repurposing, repairing or restarting a creative piece or idea that you may have put down, put away or completely disregarded.  Nothing is wasted!  Everything you've every created, 'good' or 'bad' can form the basis of something else.

Enjoy!

Helen x

@prompted.by.nature

www.promptedbynature.co.uk 

A little glass of water (I don't like coffee :-D ) and a catch-up!  An impromptu solo episode in which I speak about:

• how things have been going with the Benfield Valley Project
• The South Coast 100k challenge in aid of the Sussex Wildlife Trust
• my new Patreon offering 
• and offer you three questions about your own creative practice

Enjoy!

Helen x

www.prompedbynature.co.uk

www.patreon.com/promptedbynature

www.justgiving.com/helen-forester123

My guest today is the wonderful Ebony Gheorghe. Ebony is a trained Geoscientist, currently working also as a Lab technician. She is the owner of Nettles and Bees, a small business focused on wildcrafting. plants/herbalism, reconnecting with nature and foraging. Ebony’s aim and passion is to bring those forward and merge them together through different products and projects. Ebony’s studio makes and creates foraging products and herbal products as well as working on different projects and workshops with other initiatives.

Ebony’s passion for Herbalism and for sharing this practice with others, especially those who may not have come across it before really comes through in this episode and I can’t wait for you to listen and get as enthused about it as she is.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Her definition of rewilding and wildcraft
• Her journey with Herbalism
• Her experiences with different plants and why she prefers to spend a long time with one plant rather than rushing
• Her earliest memory of nature and her love of the outdoors
• What being creative means to her
• How she overcomes creative blocks
• How new motherhood has affected her creativity and productivity
• The importance of patience and gratitude
• Teachings from her Aikido training

You can find Ebony’s offerings in her Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/NettlesandBees and she showcasing her products and shares her wisdom on her Instagram page @nettleandbees and on Facebook www.facebook.com/nettles-and-bees

Please do share a review of the podcast if you’re enjoying it and pop over to my website where you can find my own writing, offerings, and all the links to my buy me a coffee page and subscribe to my substack newsletter.  My website is www.promptedbynature.co.uk and you can find me on Instagram @prompted.by.nature

Happy listening!

Helen x

In this interview, I speak with nature documentary-maker, Nina Constable.

Nina is an award winning self-shooting director based in Cornwall, UK. Her films have screened in festivals globally and her work has featured in a number of broadcasts including BBC Springwatch, BBC Countryfile, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, CNN,The Guardian Online & WWF UK and her photography has featured in BBC Wildlife Magazine, WWF Action Magazine, BBC News Online, ITV News online and in a number of other publications.  Journey to the Sea, a 6 part series directed, filmed and edited by Nina for WWF UK now sits on Sky NATURE and another short film produced for WWF on Basking sharks was shortlisted for the Global Sustainability Film awards. Nina was the Winner of Cornwall Film Festival's Golden Chough Film Award 2015 & was named as one of Cornwall's 30 under 30 businesses to watch class of 2018 by Cornwall's Chamber of Commerce.  From conservation filmmaking to social documentary, Nina has a keen eye for filming and a talent for storytelling. Often working completely independently Nina's work offers an intimacy and honestly that underpins her unique style.  Dedicated to capturing and exploring the world we live in Nina believes in the power of film and photography to educate and inspire and, ultimately, to protect.

• The story behind her Wild World series and the things that have come out of it and the support she received for this zero-budget project
• How she cam got film-making
• Her process
• How she prepares for her shoots
• Her own creative practices
• The most frustrating thing about her job
• Her work with the Cornwall Beaver Project
• The power of saying no and giving a project its due time and space
• How she stays creative
• Her advice for budding filmmakers
• The power of listening
• Her hope for the future
• Sustainable filmmaking and the need for affordable transport
• The importance of just asking

This was one of those interviews that just flowed. Nina is naturally as keen to talk as I am and her experience, expertise and enthusiasm for her work shines through everything she talks about.

You can find more about Nina as well as view her freely-available series, Wild World, which we discussed in the interview, on her website www.ninaconstablemedia.co.uk and on her Instagram @ninaconstablemedia.

As always I’m over at www.promptedbynature.co.uk and on Instagram @prompted.by.nature and on facebook @promptedbynature and on my personal page on Insta @pbn_helen All being well I have a few spaces left for my October day retreats for women. Pop over to the events page on my website for more information about those.

Remember to stay around until the end of the interview to hear about the follow-up meditation and writing prompt I’ve created for you inspired by my chat with Nina. Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you after.

Hello and welcome to my interview with Nana Tomova from The Story Apothecary. So, how are you? Things are changing quickly, aren’t they? I hope you’ve been able to find space to breathe, write, and do whatever you need to stay creative and centred.

Nana is a storyteller based in Sussex. She is a storyteller of oral stories, of poetry and of images through her photography. She is drawn to stories about nature and our relationship with her. Nana loves to tell transformational tales about strong women, and Bulgarian and Slavic Stories. Nana was born by the Black sea in Bulgaria and loves telling stories of the deep blue sea and translates and tells Bulgarian tales which have not been heard before. Her telling has been described as “An ocean of inspiration”, “Spellbinding” and people say that she "Has the power of making the audience feel in safe hands".

Nana’s background is in mental health where she worked as a pharmacist for a decade, and this inspired her to create the Story Apothecary podcast where she dispenses medicinal and healing stories for the whole world. Nana’s inspirations for her poetry and photography is nature, which she finds rich, beautiful, inspirational, wise, and healing. When writing about or photographing nature, she is in conversation with her.

In this conversation, we talk about:

• Nana’s background as a mental health pharmacist and how she merges this with her work as an outdoor story-telling.
• Psychiatry and the stigma surrounding mental health pharmacy
• Her exciting plans for the future and her creation of a ‘real life’ ‘Story Apothecary’ along with her beautiful podcast
• Her ‘wild’ childhood in Bulgaria, the transition from this to an urban setting and her journey back to ‘wildness’
• The liberating effect of Nature
• The joy of being an enthusiast
• Her journey to embracing her Bulgarian roots and how this influences her creativity and story-telling
• The responsibility she feels for respectful updating of traditional Bulgarian tales
• How she takes care of herself and her creativity
• Her hopes for the future
• And Nana shares a story with us, which was such a treat!

Nana has the most calming energy and I loved listening to her thoughts and insights. Please do go and listen to her new podcast and get signed up to her new Patreon, and be soothed by her stories and words. Stories have the power to transform emotions and mindset and therefore the world, and I’m such a big believer in the impact that these stories can have on our actions, especially traditional stories, which, when we explore their teachings and bring them into our own contexts, can expose us to perspectives we perhaps hadn’t encountered before.

You can find Nana on Instagram @Nana.Tomova and her storytelling walks are @walkinthewild.uk. Her website www.nanatomova.com and you can find more information about her Patreon on www.patreon.com/nanatomova

As always, stick around until the end and I’ll pop back to give you an insight to the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode.

And if you use the prompts from any of these conversations, please do share them with me as I love reading your words and am working on setting up a section of my website dedicated to your writing. You can find me on www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on Instagram and Facebook @prompted.by.nature And please do leave a five-star rating wherever you are listening and, if you have a little review would be wonderful too.

Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you after!

Ps.  The link to Layla Saad's, Me and White Supremacy book is here.

Hello! Welcome to episode one series THREE! of Prompted by Nature. It’s so lovely to be back and speaking with some amazing people who I know you will love.

A few updates from me before we start. Things have been busy on this side of things as Benfield Valley Project becomes an official CCG (regular listeners will know this story but you can catch up with the goings-on with this in most of my solo episodes), and I’ve also been getting more involved with the Climate Change pressure group Parents for Future.

I’m also really excited that I’m going to be launching my Patreon very soon! This is something I’ve toyed with the idea of for a while; I knew I wanted to begin to create more of a community around the podcast and the work that I do on my website, social media and in my online and in-person sessions but really wasn’t sure how it would work. I’ll be using Patreon as more of a membership platform so look out for all the information in my newsletter, the first of which I’ll be sending out next week (sign up via my website), and on social media and I’ll go into a bit more detail about the offerings in the next episode.

Due to all of this, I’ve decided that episodes will be released every two weeks rather than every week, just to give myself a bit of breathing space. I’m so excited about upcoming conversations and am so happy to be back at it again after a lengthier break than I had anticipated!

So back to today’s conversation. Today I speak with the wonderful Rebecca Lazarou, otherwise known as Las the Plant Scientist.

Rebecca is a medicinal plant researcher at Kew Gardens, an editor for the academic Journal of Herbal Medicine, science teacher at schools of herbalism including Botonica, a writer and educator. She is also the proud founder of Laz The Plant Scientist, an educational platform for holistic wellness, science and plant medicines and where she’ll soon be offering her gorgeous botanical creations.

In this conversation we talk about:

• What a Plant Scientist is and how she came to study Ancient Greek Medicines at Kew Garden
• Research around psychedelics
• How she came to do what she does
• Awe and her work
• How she came to work with Kew
• The importance of creating a record of quality for plant medicines
• The importance of connection to indigenous wisdom and the land in plant sciences
• The part that her own creativity plays in her work
• How she grounds her energy and uses visualisation in her day
• Plants to help with your creativity
• Her hope for the future
• What she has learnt that she would like you to know

You can find Rebecca on Instagram @laztheplantscientist and sign up for her newsletter over on her website www.rebeccalazarou.com

As always you can find me over on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find all the details of my upcoming in-person outdoor creative writing sessions and creativity day retreats as well as my online versions of these offerings. My Thursday evening session is the highlight of my week and I’m considering starting another Monday night one. Please do join in when you can.

Today's guest is Georgia Wyatt-Lovell an artist, creative and the founder of Wyatt and Jack, a business that turns UK-sourced broken inflatables and deck chairs into the most beautiful bags!

Georgia studied ceramics at Chelsea School of Art before continuing her studies at Swansea uni. As we’ll hear, she started Wyatt and Jack when she found out what happened to deck chair fabrics and got inspired to try out turning them into something else.  Wyatt and Jack have been innovating since 2010 and Georgia runs the business with her husband Steve and Marianne, who does customer services.  Georgia handmakes each and every bag herself and stockists include the National Trust and The Barbican in London. W&J have collaborated with, amongst others, Surfer’s Against Sewage, Refuge, Coppa Feel, Lucy and Yak, the Royal Navy and Marines charity (recycling old life rafts!) and Surf Sistas and have been featured on the One Show, BBC News, The Metro to name a few.

This conversation doesn’t following the usual structure as we started talking really quickly and the conversation developed naturally - we ended up chatting for and hour and a half; we start mid-way through the conversation and we’ve already spoken about the need for open conversation in the climate movement and Georgia is talking about the need to choose where she puts her energy and her nerves around launching new collections.

There are a few swears so be aware of that if you are sensitive to that.

We discuss:

• Choosing where you put you energy
• The sudden growth of her business and how she dealt with that
• Definitions of success in business
• How the idea of Wyatt and Jack came about
• Her work with corporate businesses and the need for boundaries
• The importance of the little things and not aiming for perfection
• Th importance of mental and physical health in running a product-based business
• Creating achievable price points
• The work that goes into entirely handmade products
• The importance of creative exchange
• Knowing your limits and sticking to them

Georgia shares so many stories and anecdotes all of which outline her dedication to her work and creativity and I really appreciate how Wyatt and Jack as a company are driven by the designs and the innovation that comes with that and are solely focused on that.

Find Georgia over @wyattandjack on the socials plus on their website www.wyattandjack.com

As always I on insta @prompted.by.nature and on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk and you can buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/promptedbynature

Please do rate and review.

Happy listening!

Helen x

In this writing prompt, we explore the ideas conjured up by Bryony in her interview around gaze and using our creativity to interpret nature.  The prompt questions I ask are:

• What’s your earliest memory of nature?
• What part has that played in how you see nature?
• What landscapes are you most drawn to in your creative practice?
• How do you feel when you encounter nature and how might that influence your creative voice?
• How can you use your creative practice to explore different landscapes and those which you have less knowledge of?
• How can you play around with tone in your writing and experiment with ways of expressing your ideas that feel less familiar?

You can answer the all the questions thoroughly, or just use them as jumping off points for an exploratory piece.

Have fun and let me know how you get on if you use this one.

Happy writing!

Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk 

@prompted.by.nature

Welcome to series 5, episode 1 of the Prompted by Nature podcast!

Action point: Go to RSPB, Wildlife Trust and sign the petition/email your MP regarding the changes in law regarding:

• Lifting the ban on fracking in England
• Removing important laws that protect nature
• Considering scrapping plans to reward farmers for managing land in a nature-friendly way

https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/rspb-news/rspb-news-stories/uk-government-attack-on-nature/?from=hphero

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/get-involved/our-campaigns/defend-nature

Onto the episode…

Bryony Benge-Abbott is an interdisciplinary artist working closely with scientists, activists and community groups to explore our relationship to the natural world. She explores the potential for art to transform our relationship to nature can be unearthed in the space where science, social justice and spirituality meet?

We talk about:

• The intersections that exist in the ways that we approach nature and what these mean to her
• The capacity for art to explore these intersections
• How her artistic practice started and how it developed
• The ways in which her work at museums has enriched her creative practice
• Her work around Pre-Raphelites and how this gave rise to her work on ‘gaze’ and natural world
• What climate anxiety did for her creativity
• Art as ritual space
• Bryony’s Colour of Transformation project and how the life cycle of a butterfly inspired this work
• How Bryony’s for has developed as a result of working with different practitioners in Colour of Transformation
• How her connection to nature influences her creativity
• Her vision for the future
• Her hope for the future

You can find Bryony on her website https://bryonybengeabbott.com where you can also find out about her Colour of Transformation project, on Twitter @BryonyBA and on Insta @bryonybengeabbott

As always, I'm at www.promptedbynature.co.uk and on Insta @prompted.by.nature as well as Twitter @promptedxnature

Happy listening!

Helen x

Meditation and Writing Prompt for my conversation with Jonathan Alawo (episode 4a).

As always, if you find your mind wandering off to somewhere you don't want it to go, and you can't bring it back to the focus point, stop and come back later releasing any judgement or expectation.

If you'd creating a piece from this prompt, I'd love to read it and share it on the blog.  Just pop to the website and go to the contact page www.promptedbynature.co.uk/contact or share it with me on www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature 

Happy writing!

Helen x

The first episode of series four and I’m back after almost a year away!  Really excited to be here again and getting reacquainted with you all.  I have missed the podcast so much but was in dire need of some creative respite.

I hope you enjoy this short bridging episode in which I get you all caught up on what I’ve been doing over the past 11 months and let you in on what’s to come in series four.

Here’s the website I mentioned for the amazing newsletter:  www.seedlings.media - Enjoy!

Happy writing, lovely ones!  Helen x

Hello! Welcome to Prompted by Nature series three episode seven. How have you been? I hope things are going well for you right now.

This week I’m speaking with the wonderful Chloe Valeria Harmsworth, a nature writer and illustrator from St. Albans, Hertfordshire. Chloe uses her work to encourage others to engage in the natural world in a variety of ways and has been published in print magazines such as Breathe, Bloom, Be Kind and Oh magazine, and on websites and blogs such as Bloom in Doom, Creature Candy and Sustainable St Albans. Her work and art covers various environmental and conservation issues and explores how nature aids mental well-being.

She was the Creative Manager and Editor of the latest issue (Volume 3) of Bloom in Doom Magazine, which is on the theme of 'Forests'. In this role she called upon her passion for nature and her experience as an educational publishing editor to commission articles, interview people such as Darren Moorcroft (CEO of The Woodland Trust) and me! You can buy the wonderful and fascinating issue by going to https://www.bloomindoom.com/shop

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Her nature-centred childhood and how she came to be a nature writer and illustrator
• How her local natural space helped her to reconnect with her creativity and aid her mental health
• Creating a nature diary as a way of learning about wildlife and local biodiversity and how this led to writing articles and being published
• Why we should worry about knowing ‘all the things’ when engaging with the natural world
• Seeing the value you in your own work and finding your voice
• The importance of putting your own projects first
• Her writing process
• Her favourite memory of nature

Valerie is currently writing a book about woodlands, which will describe the wonders you can see throughout each season in this magical environment and is due for publication in 2022. To find out more about this, her previous projects and articles, and to see her nature photography and art, visit https://www.instagram.com/chloevalerienatureart/ Many of her articles can also be seen at https://chloevalerienatureart.wordpress.com/writing/

Just a little note that for some reason the sound quality of this episode wasn’t great. I’ve worked some magic in the editing process to help it and it doesn’t get in the way of Chloe’s words but I wanted to mention it before we got into it.

As always I’m over on www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find all of my writing prompts and blog post as well as news about my upcoming events such as a writing residential with the Field Studies Council. If you’re an Instagram user, I’m @prompted.by.nature and if you’d like to sponsor me for my 100k charity run in aid of the Sussex Wildlife Trust please go to my justgiving page www.justgiving.com/helen-forester123 I’m currently 26% towards my target and I’d love to have your support if you are able to spare a little money.

If you enjoy this episode or any of the others, please rate and review it on whichever platform you’re listening on.

As I mentioned I’m currently taking some time out from the meditation and writing prompts but rest assured that this will follow in the coming weeks.

Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after!

Welcome to series 5, episode 7 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.  I hope you’re doing well and keeping warm if it’s as cold where you are as it is here.  Well, it’s the final episode of 2022 and I’m very excited that this week’s guest is the one who will help us draw it to a close.  i’ll be taking a short break but will be back to continue series 5 in the new year.

This week, I’m speaking with Dr Rebecca Beattie.  Rebecca is a Wiccan Priestess with a PhD in Creative Writing, whose childhood growing up on Dartmoor gave her an early appreciation of the power and joys of nature.  She has been practising solitary witchcraft for twenty years and an initiate of the Gardnerian Wiccan tradition for fifteen. She is acclaimed for her highly informed teaching of witchcraft subjects at Treadwell’s Books in Bloomsbury. By day she is a professional in a major charity, with advanced degrees in Literature and Creative Writing.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Rebecca’s creative journey
• How Rebecca found modern Paganism and how this led her to find her path as a Wiccan Priestess
• ‘Life as a Training Ground’
• How Rebecca approaches creative blocks
• How her ‘Wheel of the Year’ book came about and what makes it different
• The connection between creativity and spirituality
• Walking as an opportunity for stillness
• What the wheel of the year is and how it can be used
• The interfaith nature of the wheel
• Storytelling as a learning tool
• Rebecca’s early life living on Dartmoor and what drew her back there
• Connecting to nature in an urban setting
• Hiraeth is the word Rebecca uses to describe her feeling of homesickness
• Rebecca’s tips for connecting with each festival

You can find Rebecca’s book, ‘Wheel of the Year: A Nurturing Guide to Rediscovering Nature's Seasons and Cycles’ is available at all good booksellers and in the Prompted by Nature bookshop over on bookshop.org (link in show notes).  Remember to support your favourite indie bookshop by buying through them and then post a review on Amazon.  Rebecca's website is www.rebeccabeattie.co.uk and she's on Instagram @rebeccambeattie

Some episodes that would go well with this one are:

1.10a Jini Reddy, Finding Magic in the Landscape

3.2a Stella Tomlinson, Priestesshood and Earth-Based Spirituality

4.11a Annabel Abbs, Walking into Creativity

4.12a Soraya Abdel-Hadi, ‘Finding my Creative Voice through Nature

As always, I’m on www.promptedbynature.co.uk and on the socials @prompted.by.nature on Insta and Facebook.

The writing prompt for this episode is available straight after this one if you want to use it to inspire your Winter Solstice celebrations.

Have a wonderful festive season, whatever you’re celebrating.

Happy listening and I’ll speak to you in 2023!

Helen x

In this prompt, I use Jackee's beautiful writing maps for inspiration.  We look at the prompt, 'bark mask' and the directions we could go in in writing using this title.  I read the extract from the 'Writing with Fabulous Trees' map and share thoughts on how you might use this in your own writing.

Some ideas:

• 'Writing about ways in which surfaces protect us...about your own or your character's masks, and the importance of surfaces.' (JH)
• Put the title, 'bark mask' at the top of the page and free write for at least 10 minutes (15-20 minutes if you have it!) on the theme
• Get outside and put your hands on a tree trunk; or forage a some sticks and see how the textures differ when you are back at home

Please do share your writing with me as I love to read your words!

Jackee's writing maps and the Inner & Outer World Self-Discovery deck can be found in the shop section on her website www.jackeeholder.com

Find me on Instagram @prompted.by.nature and on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Happy writing!

Helen x

Hello and welcome to series three, episode seven of the podcast. I’m so happy to introduce to you today’s guest, the incredibly talented land artist, Rosalind Lowry.

Rosalind Lowry is an award winning artist born in Northern Ireland who attended Chelsea College of Art and Central St. Martins before returning to her native land to set up her studio. Her practice is based on environmental themes and concerns, and using art as an intervention. She works in sculpture, land art and installations. Rosalind has completed a number of residencies across the world, from Rathlin Island to a North Vietnam residency awarded by the Arts Council which focused on natural dyes, another in Quebec dedicated to derelict old buildings, and a recent residency in 2019 for the State Government of Alaska in the national parks. Rosalind lived and worked alone in a remote area of the Alaskan wilderness creating a land art trail to attract people into the state parks. In 2018 Rosalind was one of 100 female artists across the UK chosen to create an artwork for the Artichoke Trust UK to celebrate 100 years of women having the vote. In early 2020, just before lockdown, Rosalind installed a commission of a large environmental sculpture in Belfast Cathedral called The Ark created from fallen branches of local native trees. For the past 2 years Rosalind has been Artist in Residence on the boglands of County Tyrone in Ireland for the Heritage Lottery and Lough Neagh Landscape Partnership, creating a series of installations across the bogs with a view to encouraging preservation of the land and highlighting the endangered animal and plant life on the boglands.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Rosalind’s work and how she came to be a Land Artist
• Her and art work as funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to raise the profile of and people engagement with the peat and bogland of Northern Ireland as well as at the Belfast Cathedral
• Her eventful time creating in the wilds of Alaska
• Her artistic process from commission to finished piece
• The ecological and health benefits of peat and bogland and why it needs to be protected
• Creating art through championing of the ‘under dog’
• The space in which she has felt most inspired
• The need for her to release attachment from her work
• How she stays creative, her hope for the future and what she would like to pass on

Just one thing to note is that the reception was a bit touch-and-go at times but hopefully that doesn’t come through too much - it’s just a note for a couple of patches where Rosalind goes a bit fuzzy.

You can find Rosalind stunning work over on her website: www.rosalindlowryartist.com and on Instagram @rosalindlowry

As pretty much everything I put out is free, it would mean the world to me if you would rate, review, subscribe and share this episode and any others you have enjoyed so far. And if you would like to go a little deeper, my patreon community starts from £3 per month and I share extra prompts, zines, workbooks and recorded ‘write-with-me’ sessions. That’s over on www.patreon.com/promptedbynature

Remember to come and say hello on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or pop over my my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find all of my workbooks and zines to purchase. I’m taking a bit of a break from most teaching for now but events will go up there when things start up again.

Welcome to series 5, episode 9 of the Prompted by Nature podcast. I hope this one finds you well. 

Action Point: WhenToPlugIn app: https://www.nationalgrid.com/cop26/when-to-plug-in-app

Today, we hear from one of my teachers, the wonderful Kathryn Aalto.

Kathryn Aalto is an American teacher, designer, speaker, and New York Times best-selling writer of creative nonfiction. For the past twenty-five years, her creative practice has fused nature and culture: teaching the literature of nature and place; designing beautiful and sustainable gardens; and writing about the natural world. Based in England, she teaches popular online and live writing courses, mentors emerging writers, and leads writing retreats in England and the United States. Kathryn is the author of three books including Writing Wild: Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World (2020), The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh: A Walk Through the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood (2015), and Nature and Human Intervention (2011). Her personal essays and book reviews, appear in Smithsonian Magazine, Outside, Sierra, Buzzfeed, Resurgence and the Ecologist, and more.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Kathryn’s childhood and youth growing up in Southern California
• How her love of the personal essay came about and how this influenced her writing
• How Kathryn’s connection to nature and place has changed and developed through her life
• Her definition of sense of place
• How her perception as an ex-pat enriches her understanding and encounters with nature and landscape
• The circumstances that surrounded her stepping into what she always knew she was meant to do
• The impact public speaking has had on her writing
• Kathryn’s writing tips and what it means to ‘show, not tell’
• The lesson she’d like to share with you (and it’s a good one!)

I took Kathryn’s nature writing course last summer and absolutely loved it. I’m not often able to invest in myself or my ongoing learning so it was amazing to finally take a writing class. I’m so used to teaching that it was joyful to be a student again. I can highly recommend any of Kathryn’s classes and workshops. You can find Kathryn and all information about her forthcoming writing courses at www.kathrynaalto.com and over on social media @kathrynaalto. I’ve also added Kathryn’s books to my bookshop over on bookshop.org so please do pop over there and have a browse. https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/promptedbynature

As always, you can find me over on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk and on social media @prompted.by.nature on Instagram, @promptedxnature on Twitter and @promptedbynature on Facebook. I have a few local in-person courses and day retreats coming up so do have a look on my website events page if you’re local to Brighton and Hove.

The writing prompt that follows this episode will be up on Tuesday.

Happy listening!

Helen x

The transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.promptedbynature.co.uk/podcast-transcripts

Hello and welcome to your writing prompt for my conversation with Caro Giles.  So, obviously, this one is going to be moon-related!  I often write with the moon and have created materials helping others to do the same.  About 7 years ago, back when challenges were in, I ran the Follow the Moon challenge, followed by the ‘Create by the Moon’ challenges a couple of years later and this latter piece of work I’m in the process of turning into a workbook, which will be out in the summer - free to Substack subscribers on the paid level.

To get us started though, I wanted to think about how we can use the energy of each moon phase to influence our writing and then extend this to consider the names of each full moon, as Caro does in Twelve Moons, and how these can form ongoing prompts for our words.

Over on the blog, you’ll find a post about turning each phase of the moon into a character (link is in the show notes) and this is a really good exercise to familiarise yourself with the energy of each phase if you’re newer to it all, or just want another perspective.

So going from new to full moon:

• New moon - intention setting
• Waxing crescent - planning
• Waxing half - balance, making decisions
• Waxing gibbous - problem-solving
• Full moon - manifestation, clarity and understanding
• Waning gibbous - self-evaluation, patience and letting go
• Waning half - cleansing and transformation
• Waning crescent (balsamic) - reflection/introspection
• Dark moon - quiet/silence

Once we are familiar with the energy of each moon phase, we can start to see how these could be articulated in the settings and characters we create.  For example, a setting that might reflect the waning half moon, could be a cascading stream in the early hours of the morning.  How might that feel?  What does the natural world feel like at that time of day?  If the full moon were a character, perhaps they might be a creator or agitator, an activist or someone who works to shed light on a subject.

Then you might like to start looking at the different names given to the full moon by different cultures and traditions throughout the world.  There’s the wolf moon, the cold moon, the harvest moon and more!  Use your imagination and envision settings and events that might happen under each moon, each taking on the energy and meaning given to it by the ancestors.

Pop over to the post on the blog for more ideas, get researching and see how you get on.  I love working with the moon in my own life and using its phases as a creative prompt is such a wonderful way to enrich your own practice, especially if you’re ever feeling a bit lacking in inspiration.

Keep looking up, my friends!

As always you can find me on www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find links to my Substack newsletter and get information on my forthcoming day retreats and nature writing courses down here in East Sussex.  I’m also to be found @prompted.by.nature on Instagram.

Happy writing and I’ll speak to you soon!

Helen x

Welcome to series two of the Prompted by Nature podcast.

In this episode I talk about:

• The Benfield Valley Project that I mentioned in my last episode of series one
• How to help your local green spaces if they are under threat of development
• The WWF Living Planet report 
• David Attenborough's Extinction: The Facts documentary
• Eco-grief, -anxiety and -guilt
• And I read an excerpt from Elizabeth LaPensée's amazing article 'Continuum of Continuance' to provide you with some food for thought.  You can find the full article here:  https://www.humansandnature.org/continuum-of-continuance

Please go to www.promptedbynature.co.uk for all information or you can find me on Instagram @prompted.by.nature and Facebook @promptedbynature and for all information and updates about the Benfield Valley Project, you can go to @the.benfield.valley.project on Instagram or @benfieldvalleyproject on Facebook.

For my personal page in Insta, you can find me at @pbn_helen

Enjoy!

Helen

A short episode in which I talk about the concept of art as play as it relates to your own creativity and how you might like to take the playful approach to your art.

Enjoy!

Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature

Welcome to this meditation and writing prompt for my interview with Avni Trivedi.  In this meditation you will re-engaging with your sense of touch in a simple lying down meditation using the hands to ignite your creativity.

As with all prompts, place no judgment on your creativity - just start! :-)

Happy writing, Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

@prompted.by.nature

Hello lovely!  I wanted to take a little opportunity to say hi and see how you are.  In this episode I talk mainly about the ways I've been keeping myself connected to my creativity and to nature in this time of disarray.  I hope my suggestions help. <3

Remember you can always find me over on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can also book onto my weekly nature-inspired meditation and creative writing sessions.

See you in a couple of weeks for series 3!

Happy writing!

Helen x

Welcome to series 6, episode 3 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.  I’m Helen and I’m really happy to be back with this conversation with Katie Holten.  As I mentioned previously, because art and nature are so inextricably linked for me, this week’s action point, should you wish to get involved, is on the episode page for this conversation over on the website. This week we’ll be hearing from the very wonderful Katie Holten.  Katie Holten is an artist and activist based in New York City and Ardee, Ireland.    For over twenty years Katie has made unconventional works that intersect art, activism, ecology, language and history. At the root of her practice is a commitment to fighting the climate and biodiversity emergency. Her collaborative research-based work explores the inextricable relationship between Humans and Nature, between organic systems and human-made systems.  Several years ago, recognizing a looming crisis of representation as our species adapts to life in the Anthropocene, Holten created a Tree Alphabet and published the book ABOUT TREES, offering readers a language beyond the Human.  During lockdown, Holten made an Irish Tree Alphabet (2020) to explore language ecosystems and the importance of our words and the stories that we share.   In this conversation we discuss: Her new book, the Language of trees, how it came about and Katie’s process in putting it all together Katie’s NYC Tree Alphabet and its wider implications The magic of the Irish Tree Ogham Art as facilitation of ideas The book as a merging of science, poetry, journalism and music Art as activism The impact that her upbringing in Ireland has had on her work The importance of community spaces in environmental activism The creative advice she would give to her younger self and what she’s looking forward to I love how far-reaching art and creativity can be when it comes to communicating about the urgency of climate collapse and climate justice as well as how connected we all are in order to inspire people to get involved in whatever way they can. The Language of Trees is a stunning book filled with the words of some incredible writers from all genres and the beautiful artwork created by Katie’s tree alphabet.  It’s out now and you can get it at your favourite independent bookshop.  I’ve also popped in the Prompted by Nature bookshop over on https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/promptedbynature . You can download the font here: http://www.nyctrees.org/ Episodes that would go well with this episode: 5.2a Amy-Jane Beer: The Flow 5.1a Bryony Benge-Abbott:  Exploring the Intersections 4.13a Jackee Holder: Writing with Trees in the Urban Landscape 3.7a Rosalind Lowry: Land Art: Celebrating our Boglands You can find me in the usual places - on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk  You can subscribe to my Substack newsletter over on Substack by going to https://promptedbynature.substack.com/  Thank you to my paid subscribers who help support this podcast and get lots of treats like the e-zine and write-along bonus episodes.  Please do consider becoming a paid subscriber if you are able to. I’ll be back in a few days with the writing prompt that accompanies this episode but in the meantime I’m sending you lots of love.  Happy listening and I’ll speak to you soon! x

Hello and welcome to series three, episode five of Prompted by Nature. I noticed recently that I’ve had a few more listeners to the podcast so I thought I’d just say a quick hello and give thanks to the countries we now have tuning in each week. I’m Helen, nice to meet you! And hello to listeners in the following places (run through list). Even if you’ve only listened in once and never again, thank you for being a part of this community!

So, back to today’s conversation. This week I speak with Medical Herbalist, Barbara Wilkinson of the Herb Society.

Following a lifelong passion for health and nutrition, Barbara qualified as a Consultant Medical Herbalist in 2012. She is a member of the College of Medicine and Integrated Health, and runs The Springfield Clinic of Natural Healing in Cheshire. Barbara is an advocate of cultivating the use of plants in everyday life and keen to empower people with the confidence to embrace food as medicine.

As well as running her own practice, Barbara is a Trustee for The Herb Society and has appeared as a guest speaker at numerous events and conferences. She has an allotment, where she grows produce that is used for medicines within the practice, and has worked with The Herb Society on designing gardens for the RHS Flower Show Tatton Park.

In 2018, she appeared in the BBC’s coverage of the RHS Flower Show, as part of a special segment looking at fermented foods. She recently supported Horticulturist Alys Fowler in producing her new book A Modern Herbal.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Barbara’s work and the part the her upbringing plays in her work
• Her grandparents and parents work running a temperance bar and how this influence her work
• Barbara’s personal connection to nature
• Her work with the Herb Society
• The importance of consultations in herbal medicine and working with a qualified herbal therapist
• Her advice for working with and growing plants
• How her work and creativity intersect
• What she wants to pass onto you
• And she speaks passionately about her hopes for the future

Barbara is a font of wisdom and it was so lovely to learn about her relationship with plants and how this influences every part of her life. If you’re like to connect with Barbara, you can find her over on the Herb Society Instagram, where she posts about her allotment and information about how to grow herbs and plants as well as an abundance of wisdom about their therapeutic and medicinal value. The instagram is @theherbsocietyuk and website is www.herbsociety.org.uk

As always you can find me on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find all the information about my upcoming in-person events re-starting down here in East Sussex very soon plus my online classes. If you’d like to join the growing Patreon community, you can go to www.patreon.com/promptedbynature to find out more and sign up. Subscriptions are £3-£9 and you get a lot for your money! I’m on instagram @prompted.by.nature if you’d like to connect there.

Remember to stick around until after the conversation to hear about the writing prompt that follows this. episode. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after!

The transcript for this episode can be found here: https://www.promptedbynature.co.uk/podcast-transcripts

Action point: donate if you can, to the Turkey/Syria Earthquake fund appeal through the DEC (www.dec.org.uk) if you’re in the UK or through the charities working in your country to help. Please ensure they are legitimate, reputable charities before donating.

Before I tell you about today’s conversation, I wanted to remind you that my Substack newsletter is now available via the Substack app or in your inbox when you sign up. You can sign up for a free or paid subscription - £5pm or £40pa (a saving of £1.70 on the monthly price). All information about what is included in each option is over on my Substack page https://promptedbynature.substack.com/ and in the show notes for the this episode. I hope you’ll join me for more prompts, workbooks, e-zines and nature-inspired creativity and community.

Back to the episode!

Today, I’m thrilled to release my conversation with the lovely Caro Giles, whose book, Twelve Moons is now available and published by HarperNorth.

Caro Giles is a writer based in Northumberland. Her words are inspired by her local landscape, the wide empty beaches and the Cheviot Hills. She writes honestly about what it means to be a woman, a mother and a carer, and about the value in taking the road less travelled. Her writing appears in journals, press and periodicals, including a monthly column in Psychologies. In 2021 she was named BBC Countryfile's New Nature Writer of the Year.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• The story behind the memoir and how Caro came to write Twelve Moons
• The part a master’s played in Caro’s work
• Accountability in your writing practice
• How she found her unique voice following motherhood and the breakdown of her marriage
• How her role as a parent-carer has impacted her voice and the way that she approaches her work
• Caro’s personal relationship with the moon
• How Caro approached the book and her writing process
• Caro’s life as a singer and musician
• What she’s learnt that she wants to pass on
• Her vision for the future

You can find Caro on Twitter and Instagram @carogileswrites and her book Twelve Moons is available via the Prompted by Nature bookshop on bookshop.org or at your local bookshop.

Accompanying episodes:

2.10a - Marchelle Farrell, My Garden, My Teacher

3.2a - Stella Tomlinson, Priestesshood and Earth-Based Spirituality

4.2a - Rebecca Schiller, Earthed

4.7a - Ben Myers, Writing with the Land

As always, I’m over at the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find information about my upcoming day retreats and writing courses in East Sussex as well as all the links to the bookshop and the Substack newsletter. I’m always on @prompted.by.nature on Instagram.

I hope you enjoy the episode. The prompt that accompanies this will be out on Tuesday. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you soon!

Helen x

Welcome to your writing prompt for my conversation with Rebecca Beattie.  Something Rebecca said really resonated with me while we were speaking and that was her approach to creative blocks.  I’ve done episodes on creative blocks before (links below to previous episodes and blog posts on the website here: https://www.promptedbynature.co.uk/series-five/57-rebecca-beattie-rediscovering-natures-seasons-amp-cycles if you want to have an explore) but I loved when she said ‘find where you’re not blocked.’

The idea of focusing on what is working rather than what isn’t, isn’t a new one but sometimes it can be so powerful to be reminded that blocks are a. not forever, and b. may not even exist at all.  It all depends on your perception.  The areas in which I personally feel most blocked when it comes to my creativity, and especially my writing, is in the actual action of creating.  I have all the ideas and all the notebooks containing many, many fragments of these ideas, but I often struggle to actually sit down and start.  I know for myself that I benefit from working with others in a writers’ circle, having a mentor or setting myself clear but small goals for anything I want to write.

You may not need this prompt right now, but I want you to bookmark it for the times when you might do in the future.

So, if you are feeling blocked creatively right now, I want you to do the following:

1. Firstly consider whereabouts you are blocked.  Which part of the creative process feels hard for you right now?  The beginning, the middle or the end?  Is it approaching one particular piece of work?  An article you want to submit, a poetry competition you’re trying to create something for, or writing anything at all down on the page?  Only you will know how to answer that.  For me, for example, I often feel blocked out of fear that what it is I want to create won’t be as good as I want it to be and that I’ll just let myself down and then be worse off than if I hadn’t started at all.  I often compare myself to others, telling myself that they, whoever ‘they’ are, could do it better than I could so I shouldn’t even start?
2. Secondly, to help you find where you’re not blocked, just create anything.  So, for me, that always seems to look like the morning pages, or some kind of stream of consciousness practice in which I just sit down, set my timer for thirty minutes, or tell myself I’m going to write just three pages in my notebook, and then start writing.  For you, it might be that you would benefit from experimenting in an entirely different way.  So, if you are a writer, do some doodling or painting, or play with clay.  If you're a painter, do some writing or sculpting and so on.  What about getting out into nature, collecting whatever natural objects, like pine cones or leaves, you can find and making some seasonal decorations.  Sometimes we need to totally change our perspective to jolt our brains out of this blocked state and return to ‘manufacturer’s settings.’
3. Lastly, do this for as long as you need to before you return to your regular practice or that piece you have been working on and can’t get through.  Perhaps return slowly and just create some small, manageable goals for yourself - one paragraph at a time, work on a different section of the story, poem, or piece you’ve been stuck on.  Take it slowly and see what happens.

The idea is that you give yourself whatever time is available to you (and I realise if you’re up against a deadline, things can become pressing!) to move through whatever has been getting in your way.

As I say, you may not need this right now, but feel free to save it and come back to it whenever you need.

Happy creating,

Helen x

In my conversation with Katherine, she spoke about creativity as a form of resistance.  This is something that really resonates with me as it kind of underpins everything I do.  When we stay present and connected, think creatively and allow this to guide us through the world, we are actively shaping the world we want to see; not just that but we become active participants in our own individual lives, which then feeds into a stronger, more rounded and imaginative collective.  

Often it can feel as if being creative doesn’t contribute in any tangible ways but we only need to look at groups like Writers Rebel, Cape Farewell, Julie’s Bicycle and Human Nature (all links in the show notes) so see that creative, artistic practice can feed into the move to a better future.  Art invites us to think about topics or ideas in new and interesting ways, challenging our pre-conceptions and unconscious biases.

For this prompt, create something that explores the idea of creativity as resistance in your own work.  The first thing that comes to mind when I consider this is the word resistance and how, by just forming that word in my mind, I feel a resistance.  It evokes thoughts of anger and oppression in me, and makes me think of all the times someone has told me I couldn’t or shouldn’t do something I knew was the right thing to do, even if it wasn’t the most comfortable at the time  - or the times when I’v told myself I couldn’t do something because of imposter syndrome or not feeling good/capable/knowledgeable (fill in the blank!) enough.  Conversely though it makes me feel like what I’m doing means something; it makes me feel powerful and strong.  I am actively resisting the things I know are not right and am trying, in whatever small way I can, to make a difference.  There are so many nuances to the word ‘resistance’ and working with it as a starting point is something you might consider doing.  

What about asking what it is you are resisting?  Explore this idea to its limits and then begin.  Perhaps go through the same process with the word creativity.  Then put the two together and see what emerges.

Most of all, if you are a creative - and I imagine that you are if you’re listening to this podcast - please keep going with your creative work, whatever form that takes.  The more of us who are sharing our experience of the more-than-human world as a response to biodiversity and climate collapse, the more we inspire others to do the same.  Art as a form of expression and protest is by no means a new thing and we can all be a part of what nurtures that into the future.

Please do let me know if you use this one - even if just to share one word on my Substack or in a story, which you can tag me in on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or you can mention me in a note over on Substack if you’re a user, and I’ll restack your note.

Thank you as always for listening.  Happy writing and I’ll speak to you soon.  Bye!

A meditation centring around envisioning a utopia constructed by your hope and optimism for the future.

I guide you into the meditation and then stop speaking for three minutes.

The prompt is to create a description or other piece of writing around the world that you see in your imagination and to then write a set of action steps that can help to create this world.

Happy writing!

Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature

In this meditation and writing prompt you are invited to engage with your imagination through the senses and the visualisation of a path.  You are invited to create a description of the path and the creatures, nature, life that you encounter as you walk along it, tell the stories of this creatures or something completely different.

As always, place no judgements or expectations on your creativity and the way in which it comes through.  Enjoy the process!  Enjoy the path!

And if you'd like to share any of your writing with me, you can contact me via the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk or find me on Instagram @prompted.by.nature

Happy writing!

Helen x

Welcome to series 5, episode 3 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.

Action point: Contact your MP about standing up for nature, whether that be asking them to speak out against fracking, reading the state of nature report and asking them what they’re doing to support the transition to renewable energy, or the move away from fossil fuels. Here in the UK you can contact you MP or local councillor through the website www.writetothem.com .

Onto today’s episode…

Today you’ll hear my conversation with the wonderful Eleanor Cheetham.

Eleanor is a writer, editor, mentor and teacher, intrinsically connected with the land, inspired by ancient British folklore and stories, and the soulful relationships that our ancestors had with the more-than-human world. She believes that words and stories are medicine for our mind and food for our soul, and that we are all storytellers. You'll find her at Creative Countryside, an independent publishing press, Wild Writers, a sacred space for soulful words, and The Wild Academy, a home for untamed learning.

In this episode we discuss:

• What the concept of creative spirit means to Eleanor
• Her creative practice and how she removed the pressure
• The importance of following our own creative flow
• Finding our ‘tilt’
• Creating an intentional creative practice
• Eleanor’s journey of creativity
• The problem with permission slips
• How Creative Countryside and the Wild Academy about
• Intentional, sustainable publishing
• How Eleanor overcomes creative blocks

A little note before we start that I seemed to have had microphone issues in this conversation, which I didn't realise until after we had recorded.  Hopefully it's not too distracting and Eleanor's is fine so I don't think it detracts from the chat.

You can find Eleanor on her websites www.creativecountryside.com and www.thewildacademy.co.uk and on Instagram @creativecountryside

Episodes that would accompanying this on well are:

1.8a Ian Solomon-Kawall - Biodiversity, Creativity and Safe Space in Urban Settings (composting words)

1.13b Dawn Nelson - Rewilding the Self through Story-telling

2.10a Marchelle Farrell - My Garden, My Story

3.2a Stella Tomlinson - Priestesshood and Earth-Based Spirituality

As always, I'm www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on Instagram @prompted.by.nature and Twitter @promptedxnature

Bookshop:  https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/promptedbynature

Welcome to series 2 episode 3 of Prompted by Nature!  In this episode I speak with Lorraine Tindale, a nature-based EMDR therapist.

Lorraine is a warm, approachable, caring and supportive trauma-focused BACP, EMDR & UKCP Accredited Psychotherapist with over 16 years of counselling and psychotherapy experience specialising in trauma and PTSD symptoms that are co-morbid with anxiety, abuse, anger management, depression, dissociation, intimacy. Lorraine offers her clients a safe and confidential, often outdoor, counselling space in which they can explore their feelings of pain and distress freely without being judged.   Lorraine believes that you know what you want from therapy and "what hurts and where your difficulties lie,” so together with her clients, Lorraine works at their pace and helping to resolve problems and trauma.  Much of Lorraine’s work takes place outside through walking therapy as she believes strongly in the therapeutic benefits and liberating effects of nature, walking and the outdoors.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Her experience of walking the Camino de Santiago
• The first time she unwittingly came across nature-based EMDR and how it changed her life and work
• What being a therapist means to her
• Her experience of PTSD and what it gave her
• How nature-based EMDR differs from ‘traditional’ EMDR and the benefits of taking therapeutic practices outside
• The therapeutic, liberating and empowering effect of nature
• What EMDR is and how it works
• The importance of honouring your own needs as well as the needs of others in order to avoid ‘martyrdom’
• Her perspective on the psychological impact of lockdown
• What her journey has taught her
• Appreciating and taking advantage of the nature around us

Lorraine also tried out the technique on me (and I’m sure I did it wrong!) and, actually, wasn’t sure if I should leave this in but I decided I would as it demonstrates how Lorraine works and her nurturing, highly knowledgable way. Lorraine really is the epitome of practising what she preaches and I can only imagine how wonderful she is as a therapist. This was our second attempt at recording as we had connection issues the day before so I’m very grateful to Lorraine for taking the time to record a second attempt. I also learnt that she’s an absolute hoot and such great company on a personal level!

You can find Lorraine over on her website www.lorrainetindale.com where you can also read about her practice and research on nature-based EMDR, her upcoming camino retreats for EMDR therapists and practitioners and therapeutic clients with PTSD comorbid syptoms such as anxiety panics disorders, intimacy and self-esteem. I loved reading about these retreats on her website as, as she discusses in the conversation, this was something she was hoping to create and it’s wonderful to see it coming to fruition!

As always, you can find me at www.promptedbynature.co.uk or over on Instagram @prompted.by.nature If you’re local to Brighton and Hove, my small group outdoor meditation and writing sessions are now under way in the gorgeous Stanmer Park Woods and at my beloved Benfield Valley. Pop over to the events page on my website to find out more about those.

And if you’ve enjoyed this or any other episode please do subscribe and review the podcast as it really does help push these voices and stories out to a wider audience.

Remember to stay around until the end of the conversation to hear about the meditation and writing prompt that follows this.

Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you after!

A little solo episode reflecting on the wonderful people you’ve heard from over the past few months.

I speak about:

• What I’ve personally taken from the series and the stories
  
• The action that the podcast has inspired me to take in my own area
  
• A little pep talk for you if you’re feeling a little nervous about getting more ‘active’ in conservation in your own area
  

As always, find me at www.promptedbynature.co.uk and on Facebook and Instagram @prompted.by.nature

Have a wonderful summer and I’ll speak to you soon!

Helen x

In this writing prompt I invite you to write with water.  You will need to be in a quiet space in which you feel comfortable to take some time for yourself.  We begin with a short breathing practice to get you feeling a little more relaxed and to help release off any tension.

You will then hear a soundtrack of a stream running through a forest.  This last for about 10 minutes.  

Please feel free to write as you listen or wait until the end to start writing.

Enjoy!

Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk 

@prompted.by.nature

Action point:  www.accessiblecountryside.org.uk A fantastic resource for those with mobility considerations in the UK.  Gives a comprehensive range of maps to accessible routes around the UK countryside.  Definitely pop over there and have an explore and pass it on to anyone you think might find it useful.

On to the episode!  Annabel Abbs is a writer of fiction and nonfiction and in this episode we discuss her book 52 Ways to Walk.  We had this conversation a few weeks ago and with everything that’s going on in the world right now, it’s been so lovely editing it and just listening to a chat about walking!

In this episode we discuss:

• Her journey in walking (pardon the pun!)
• Her no-car promise to herself
• How an accident that left her immobile caused her to recognise her privilege in being able to walk and inspired her to write about women walking
• Why she prefers walking to running
• The value of walking in creative thinking
• The part that walking plays in Annabel’s creative process
• Endocannabinoids and walking
• Walking as rebellion
• The concept of ‘walking deep’
• The joy of graveyards!
• Lessons from her journey and her hope for the future

Great episodes to accompany this one are:

• Anna Neubert-Wood, WanderWomen Scotland 1.2a
• Lucy Jones, Losing Eden 1.9a
• Jini Reddy, ‘Wanderland’  1.10a
• Dr Sheree Mack, Representation in Nature as a Path to Oneness 1.12a
• Lorraine Tindale, Nature-based EMDR 2.3a

You can find Annabel on her website www.annabelabbs.com or on Insta, Twitter and Facebook all @annabelabbs I’ve added 52 Ways to Walk as well as Windswept, one of the books we discuss in the episode to my bookshop on bookshop.org so please feel free to have a look over there.  I’ll get a little kick back if you order through my shop, which helps me to keep the podcast going.  Thank you! You can also pop to your local library if you’re a library user and ask them to order it in.

As always I’m www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on the socials @prompted.by.nature

Remember to listen in to the writing prompt that follows this episode.

Happy listening!

Helen x

Welcome to your writing prompt for my conversation with LiLi K Bright and the final epsiode of series 5.  This one isn't so much of a writing prompt specifically as it is an invitation to do something different in your creative practice (as the title suggests!). 

LiLi talked about the inspiration they gain from attending ecology and naturalist talks and events as well as joining writers hours and social events.  I was hugely inspired by this as something of which I don’t do nearly enough is attending events and courses which will shift my focus in unexpected ways and help me to engage with like-minded folk.  

Since my chat with LiLi, I’ve signed up for some free and paid events in the coming months that I hope will both inform and enrich my writing, providing different perspectives - both scientific and artistic - that will allow me to go deeper into my understanding of the mechanisms of nature and where they intersect with a range of diverse creative forms.  I think when you’ve been teaching and creating and holding space for people for as long as I have, it’s really easy to become quite isolated.  This hasn’t been intentional but I’ve always been very ‘do it myself’ even when I don’t have to be; sometimes this can be a good thing and sometimes it can work out to my detriment.  

So for you then, think about how you might want to diversify and expand your creative practice, or gain insights into areas you’ve always wondered about.  There are lots of free and low cost events out there now as well as paid for courses.  I’ve popped a couple of resources below and on the episode page of the website if you want to have an explore.

So that’s it for series 5!  I told myself I’d stop for this series after 13 episodes and I think you’ll agree, we’ve ended on a high!  I’ll be back in a few short weeks after I’ve had a bit of a break to tend to my writing and facilitating.  If you’re interested in attending any of my future events - online or in-person - just pop through to the events page on my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk  Otherwise you can always find me on my Substack (where I’ve been really enjoying posting my weekly prompts and getting to know a few of you a bit better!) promptedbynature.substack.com and Instagram @prompted.by.nature.  All links can be found in the show notes and on the episode page on the website.

In the meantime, please do reach out if you have any insights from any of these episodes and conversations or if you use any of the prompts and want to share how it went.  

Happy writing, happy creating and I’ll speak to you very soon. 

Helen x

Free course platforms:

https://www.mooc.org/

https://www.edx.org/

https://www.conservationtraining.org/

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/nature-environment/free-courses

Also look into your local conservation charity if you're looking for nature-related courses. Sussex Wildlife Trust near me, for example, often runs tree and wildlife ID courses.

In this episode I speak with Lydia Needle.  Lydia is an ecological artist working in Somerset.  In her work, Lydia contemplates what we bring to the planet and our communities - what we can add, what we support.  She also examines waste, erosion, weathering and what we leave behind.

Lydia is the Lead Artist and Curator of the ongoing collaborative creative project called ‘FIFTY BEES: The Interconnectedness of All Things,’ which we discuss in this episode.

In this episode we discuss:

• What the Fifty Bees project/exhibition is and how it came about
• What the artist’s brief was
• Her unconventional path into the art world
• Playing a small part in the bigger picture
• The rise in the profile of weeds
• How art creates hope
• Lydia’s creative process
• What being an eco-artist means to her
• The importance of accessible art
• The lesson she’d like to share with you
• Her hope for the future

All links to the exhibition, pieces mentioned in the episode and to Lydia’s social media, website and Folksy shop are in the show notes, so do go and have a look at those.  Lydia’s website is also a haven of art and inspiration, showcasing her work.  Please have a look over there and marvel at her incredible needle felt bee creations - they are amazing!

Remember to have a listen to the creative prompt that follows this episode, which will go out on Tuesday and which will shed a light on a couple of the artists involved in the exhibition.

Pieces mentioned (all pieces can be found on the Ace Arts Fifty Bees website www.acearts.co.uk):

Dandelion (What the Bee Saw) - Sue Spence

Weeds? (Stained glass graffiti) - Sarah Roberts

The Perfect Imperfect Lawn - Miriam Sheppard

Andrena Lepida - Beca Beeby

Lydia's Links:

Instagram:  @fifty_bees and @lydianeedle

www.lydianeedle.com

www.fiftybees.uk

https://folksy.com/shops/LydiaNeedle

As always you can find me on www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find links to my Substack newsletter and buy me a coffee page, and I’m on Instagram @prompted.by.nature

Enjoy the conversation and remember to have a listen to the creative prompt that will follow and let me know how you get on if you try it.

Sending you lots of love,

Helen x

The prompt for this episode is a little different to what I usually do.  Dawn kindly told two stories, and this prompt is based on the second of those stories, Banorie.

My suggestions for this prompt are as follows:

Listen to the story lying down with your eyes closed and allow Dawn’s voice to guide you through the story.  Then stay for a while and begin writing whatever comes through inspired by the themes, characters, motifs, conversations

Take notes as she speaks

Write a conversation between different characters, develop a plot line, create you own story or poem based on one or the characters - perhaps a back story of bring them into the modern day

Write a song based on the story…

There are so many ways you could engage with this piece and the only limit is your creativity! ;-)

Enjoy!  Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature

Welcome to series 5, episode 6 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.  THANK YOU for the 10k downloads!!

Action point: Go to on my website to see this week's action point and all the links that I suggest. 

Onto today’s episode!

Angeline Morrison is a singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who explores traditional song with a deep love, respect and curiosity. Angeline mostly makes music
in the genres of wyrd folk and psych folk, her work infused with elements of soul music, literature, ‘60s beat pop sounds, folklore, myth and the supernatural.

With a feral approach, a handmade sonic aesthetic and a belief in the importance of tenderness, Angeline’s original compositions and re-stitchings of traditional songs focus on storytelling and the small things that often go unnoticed. Sounds like solitude, memory, nostalgia, a rainy walk amongst trees…

In July 2022, Angeline was announced as the fourth winner of the prestigious Christian Raphael Prize at the Cambridge Folk Festival. Her latest album, The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs of Black British Experience (released October 2022, Topic Records) is a work of re-storying. The historic Black presence in the UK dates back to at least Roman times, yet is often hidden, forgotten or  unacknowledged.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Where Angeline’s love of folk music and where that comes from
• How her uncle instilled a love of playing and performing music
• How she overcomes creative blocks
• Angeline’s creative inspiration and her practice of ‘welcoming ideas’
• The natural voice and story-telling
• ‘Creative singing intervention’ and how the Sorrow Songs came about
• Angeline’s concerns around creating Sorrow Songs and why she did it anyway

Just a little note about the connection in the first half of the conversation. We had a few problems and then it cut out completely. The sound quality was much better after we reconnected but it doesn’t get in the way of the interview, I don’t think.

You can find Angeline on Instagram @angelcakepie and on her website www.angelinemorrisonmusic.com You can also buy any of her EPs or albums via her Bandcamp page www.angelinemorrisonmusic.bandcamp.com 

As always, I’m over on the socials @prompted.by.nature on Insta and @promptedbynature on facebook. I have some in-person nature writing courses and day retreats up on the website too so go to www.promptedbynature.co.uk and follow the link to the events page.

Thank you once again for the 10k downloads, I’m utterly thrilled. Thank you for your support as always.

Happy listening and I’ll speak to you soon, Helen x

Books mentioned in the episode (all are available on my Bookshop.org page):

• Daphne Du Morier, Monte Verita (from The Birds)
• Sharon Blackie The Enchanted Life, If Women Rose Rooted
• Amy Ray, https://www.amy-ray.com/ , https://countryqueer.com/stories/interview/amy-rays-queer-country-story/

Angeline's Jools Holland performance:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBnahOo1GBo 

Happy listening!  Helen x

Hello!  

I thought I'd share something a little different for this prompt - a 'minisode', if you will!  

In this prompt, I give you a few ideas for turning your trash to treasure.  If you'd like to share any ideas with me, I'm always @prompted.by.nature on Instagram or you can contact me via my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk

Take care and I'll speak to you soon!

Helen x

Action point: All the Elements, the CIC founded by today's guest. Go to alltheelements.co and have a look around at their resources pages, the directory and everything they’re doing and have coming up. You can also find them on Instagram and Twitter @alltheelements_

Today I’m speaking with Soraya Abdel-Hadi. Soraya is a powerhouse of creativity.  She is an award-winning writer, artist, and advocate for women and diversity in the UK outdoors. She believes in taking a holistic approach to making the world a better place, and writes about sustainability, nature and adventure travel. Soraya is Lonely Planet Sustainable Storyteller 2021 and founder of the All The Elements – a community working to increase diversity in the UK outdoors.

• Soraya’s journey into her creativity and how she came to combine her love of writing with her love of nature and the outdoors
• How she inspires and engages with her creativity through multiple mediums
• How burnout inspired her to create more
• What working for a magazine taught her about her creativity
• Finding her voice through blogging
• The power of creative community
• How her interactions with nature influence her creativity
• The power of storytelling
• Her work with All the Elements
• And so much more

This was such a rich conservation and, for me personally, highlights why I love having these conversations so much - it was all about nature, creativity and all of their connections and intersections.

To find out more about Soraya and her work you can go to www.soraya.earth or @sorayaearth on Twitter and Instagram.

As always, I’m on www.promptedbynature.co.uk, Insta @prompted.by.nature Twitter @promptedxnature and facebook @promptedbynature

Happy listening!

Helen x

Hello!  Welcome series 6 episode 4 of the Prompted by Nature podcast.  I’m Helen, your host and today I’m thrilled to release a conversation I had earlier this week With Marchelle Farrell.  Long-time listeners of the podcast will remember Marchelle from series 2 episode 10 - a conversation we recorded what feels like a lifetime ago, in November 2020.

Marchelle has a new book out, Uprooting, and it was wonderful to chat up with Marchelle and talk all things gardens and writing.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What Marchelle has been up for over the past two years
• Her new book, Uprooting, what’s about and how it came to be
• The reciprocal nature of the garden
• Redefining difficult conversations
• The importance of grief and mourning
• Non-verbal communication and writing
• The creative advice she’d give her younger self
• What she’s looking forward to

Uprooting has already won an award in the shape of the Nan Shepherd prize for underrepresented voices in nature writing.  I urge you to read this book - it is profound and complex and explores Marchelle’s relationship with her garden as well as how these brings up connections to her beloved Trinidad.

Uprooting is out now in your local bookshop or library - and remember that you can always ask them to order it in if they don’t already stock it.  Marchelle is usually to be found on Instagram under the handle @afroliage and on her website www.marchellefarrell.com where you can find upcoming dates of her book tour and speaking events.

Just a little note that the connection was a little sketchy at times but I don’t think it affects meaning.

Episodes that would go well with this one:

2.10a - My Garden, My Teacher - Marchelle Farrell

6.1a - All My Wild Mothers - Victoria Bennett

5.9a Writing in Place - Kathryn Aalto

As always, I’m on instagram @prompted.by.nature or on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk .  You can also sign up for my Substack on www.promptedbynature.substack.com

Sending you lots of love. 

Happy listening, and I’ll speak to you soon.

For this prompt, you are invited to ‘look to see,’ something Hannah speak about in the episode. I talk you through some ideas for what to do on a walk to you local green space or favourite natural spot, such as breathing and allowing your breath to bring you back into the present and looking at what’s around you with the aiming of ‘seeing.’

Some recommended guided meditations from previous writing prompts:

Episode 1.10b - Searching for Magic in the Landscape (my prompt for my conversation with Jini Reddy)

Episode 2.5b - Quiet Enough for Nature (my prompt for my conversation with Nick Hayes)

Enjoy and let me know how you get on if you use t his one!

Happy creating!

Helen x

www.promptedbynature.co.uk

www.instagram.com/prompted.by.nature

www.twitter.com/promptedxnature