In this series of conversations, where we will explore how to restore our communication with Earth and all of our more-than-human brothers and sisters. The conversations are an exploration of how my guests experience this communication; how the communication is through their lens and feels in their being, as well as, their experiences and hopes for the future.
The intention is to provide the Earth and all
It is also my hope that these conversations will inspire others to delve deeper into a conversation with Earth.
Podcasts are available here on this page and on SoundCloud and iTunes.
5. July 2020 – Earth Conversation Podcast with guest Susan Eirich, Ph.D
“I so want to share with you, my fellow humans, the beauty of the animals and the Earth. To enjoy it together, marvel at it, be healed by it; be moved to treat the wonder of creation with great respect. We would be healed then, humans, animals, and the Earth.
“But what we do not attend to cannot reach us.”
Known as a pioneering conservationist, spiritual ecologist, and practical visionary, Susan B. Eirich, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist, biologist, educator, writer, and sought-after speaker. Twenty years ago she founded the Earthfire Institute, a unique wildlife sanctuary and retreat center located on forty acres just west of Grand Teton National Park. Earthfire was named after a passionate earth-mother wolf with a fire in her belly to protect anything vulnerable.
Ever since she can remember, Susan had an instinctive understanding of the value of all living beings and how important it is to treat them with respect, for our sake as well as theirs. She founded Earthfire Institute with a mission to change how we humans see and therefore treat wildlife and nature, by helping us make an emotional, heart-opening connection with the rescued wild animals of Earthfire. Connecting deeply with individual animals serves as a portal into the wonder and magic of all living beings.
Living with bears and wolves, cougars and coyotes, badgers and buffalo over their lifetimes, Susan has seen astounding events which have opened windows into the nature of Life. It is these stories she wants to share, deepening our understanding of wild animals. Forging a richer relationship between these wonderful creatures and humans, taking them into true consideration, will help us make conservation and policy decisions that bring the world back into balance.
Susan has taught at universities around the world; worked as a psychologist in maximum security prisons; developed a university counselling centre; directed a Nature Conservancy Preserve; and spent time with peoples in remote corners of Nepal, the Northwest Territories, and the Amazon rainforest, always seeking to see through other’s eyes. Then she founded Earthfire as a way to explore seeing through non-human eyes. She knew that loving wild animals deeply shift our perceptions and helps us feel the power and companionship of a more-than-human-centred perspective.
Twenty years later Earthfire, started as a journey towards connecting with an ever-expanding circle of Life, has become a powerful global “seed centre” of ideas and fresh perspectives on our relationship to nature. Earthfire reframes the discussion of conservation by including the voices of living beings usually outside our perceived community, stimulating actions to help preserve them, and ourselves. Susan works closely with her staff to maintain a professional organization that contributes to a new world view and story, through global outreach and educational programs. She continues to oversee animal welfare at the Institute as she travels and speaks around the world, finding time to personally research the latest developments in holistic medical care for her beloved animals. Susan is currently working on a book of these stories.
You can see more about the Earthfire Institute and Susan’s work here.
21. June 2020 – Earth Conversation Podcast with guest Angela Fischer
Angela Fischer is a mystic who has been sitting and working with people individually and in groups since her twenties. She is the author of several books in German and writings in English on feminine spirituality and mysticism, the particular path of how transformation works for women, the relationship of the feminine and the earth, and the role of women in the transformation and healing of the world. She has led seminars and retreats for almost 40 years and has held regular meditation meetings at home for 25 years.
Born in a remote little village, she spent her early years blissfully close to nature. From her early childhood, she remembers a constant feeling of unity and dancing effortlessly between the worlds which lasted almost undisturbed for her first ten years of life.
After graduating from university, receiving a diploma in social sciences, Angela quit her previously intended academic career, gave away all of her small material possessions, and in order to uncover an innate knowing and rediscover ancient ways of healing the earth, she travelled, leading a nomadic life, visiting ancient sacred sites of the Mother Goddess, living – literally – in nature and on a land in a women’s community in Denmark, caring for animals and doing organic farming, and later on receiving different training in bodywork and energy healing in Berlin and Denmark. Being asked to continue a particular work of energy healing in Germany, she founded a centre for meditation and healing.
Finally, at the age of 29, she met her real teachers and from then on has been following the Sufi path. With that, her work and her life profoundly changed. She began living a family life with her husband and children, still taking care of a meditation centre integrating into her work the love and experiences she was given through the grace of the Sufi path. She founded a kindergarten with principles based on spiritual values and love for the earth that was was kept for about ten years by people from her community. Later on, with more free time from family duties, she occasionally travelled to conferences giving talks and seminars.
She recently retreated from offering public events. At present she dedicates her time to family, keeping the small meditation centre and taking care of the garden, writing and working with only a small group of people who have belonged to this circle for many years.
Angela is married, mother of four grown children and grandmother of one, and lives with her husband in the countryside of northern Germany.
5. June 2020 – Earth Conversation Podcast with guest Leslie Davenport
Leslie Davenport brings the role of psychology into interdisciplinary dialogues that advance creative and effective solutions to climate change. Leslie is a founding member of the Institute for Health & Healing, one of the first and largest hospital-based integrative medicine programs in the United States. Her 25 years of medical experience developing an empowering and collaborative approach to resolving crises has informed her climate psychology model.
She is the author of three books: Healing and Transformation through Self-Guided Imagery, Transformative Imagery: Cultivating the Imagination for Healing, Change, and Growth (Ed.), and Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change. Her upcoming book, to be released in August 2021 with Magination Press, will provide kids with resiliency tools for navigating a warming world.
Currently, she serves in a Climate Psychology advisory role to Project InsideOut and the CO2 Foundation. She has participated in interdisciplinary climate think tanks hosted by the Post Carbon Institute and Institute for Policy Studies.
Leslie is a licensed psychotherapist practising in California and Washington and is also the creator of the Deep Imagination program at John F Kennedy University, and Associate Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
You can find out more about Leslie’s work on her webpage here.
8. March 2020 – Earth Conversation Podcast with guest Cynthia Jurs
Cynthia Jurs is a Tibetan Buddhist lama and a Dharmacharya in the Order of Interbeing of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh whose source of refuge and spiritual inspiration is Mother Earth; Gaia. In 1990, she made a life-changing pilgrimage to meet the hermit and meditation master, Kushok Mangden Charok Rinpoche, a 106-year-old lama living in a remote cave in Nepal from whom she received the practice of the Earth Treasure Vases when she asked him “What can we do to bring healing and protection to the Earth?”
For thirty years, Cynthia has been building a global community committed to planetary healing and collective awakening in partnership with elders and activists around the world. Cynthia teaches an innovative blend of engaged Buddhism and sacred activism through the Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Project, the Open Way Sangha in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the international Gaia Mandala Community. Through her nonprofit, Alliance for the Earth, Cynthia has worked in Liberia, West Africa with former combatants and the women who stopped a war, building peace, teaching mindfulness and co-founding the Peace Hut Alliance for Conflict Transformation. Cynthia’s book, Summoned by the Earth, is forthcoming.
On the following links you can explore more of Cynthia’s work and join in on the Full Moon Meditations and Workshops mentioned in the podcast:
– Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Project.
– Get Involved by subscribing to our monthly newsletter, etc. The newsletter is the best way to stay informed about our activities, courses, calls, and pilgrimages.
– Register for the Full Moon Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Meditation which is a free monthly call via Zoom. Recordings are sent to all who register.
Tara Gaia Practice Retreat this year in July and November. Dates TBA soon. Let Cynthia know you are interested here.
– Gaia Calling; Being a Vessel for Global Healing & Collective Awakening — 7-week course co-taught with David Nicol. The dates are April 29-June 10th. We will do a free introductory call on April 4th. Registration opens soon. Let them know you are interested here.
26. December 2019 – Earth Conversation Podcast with guest Tiokasin Ghosthorse
Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota, is an international speaker on Peace, Indigenous and Mother Earth perspective.
A survivor of the “Reign of Terror” from 1972 to 1976 on the Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River, and Rosebud Lakota Reservations in South Dakota and the US Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding and Church Missionary School systems designed to “kill the Indian and save the man,” Tiokasin has a long history of Indigenous activism and advocacy. He spoke as a 15-year-old at the United Nations – Lake Geneva, Switzerland.
He is an active board member of Simply Smiles, Green Cross International, and The Center for Earth Ethics. Tiokasin speaks frequently at venues such as Yale University’s School of Divinity, Ecology and Forestry focusing on the cosmology, diversity, and perspectives on the relational/egalitarian vs. rational/hierarchal thinking processes of Western society.
Tiokasin was a 2016 Nominee for a Nobel Peace Prize from the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy.
Selected for 2016 Native Arts Cultural Foundation Fellowship, and a Nominee for a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship 2018, National Native American Hall of Fame Nominee 2018, and 2019 Indigenous Music Award Nominee for “Best Instrumental Album” for “From the Continuum.”
A master musician and a teacher of magical, ancient and modern sounds, Tiokasin performs worldwide and has been featured at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Apollo Theatre, and the United Nations, as well as at many universities and concert venues. Tiokasin serves on boards of several charitable organizations dedicated to bringing non-western education to Native and non-Native children. Tiokasin is “a perfectly flawed human being” and a Sundancer in the cosmology of the Lakota Nation.
Tiokasin is also the host and producer of First Voices Indigenous Radio
27. November 2019 – Earth Conversation Podcast with guest Lisa Podosin
Lisa Podosin started her professional career with horses when she moved to Byron Bay in 2007 and became an accredited Level 1 General Coach with Equestrian Australia
She was fascinated with connecting with horses using less and less gear. Her passion led her to work with many top trainers such as John Chatterton, Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling, and Mark Langley.
What began as an inquiry learning from experts who connect with horses in a compassionate way evolved into a journey of personal growth and transformation and eventually into a book. These extraordinary people paved the way to an alternative path that is as much about connecting with horses as it is about becoming the best version of yourself in the process.
Ultimately, Lisa is interested in people radiating their authentic selves and interacting with horses as both an advocate as well as a student.
Her main interest is supporting people to break through their current beliefs and create the life of their highest passion through their relationship with horses.
Read more from Lisa on her website One With Horses.
28. September 2019 – Earth Conversation Podcast with guest Ilarion Merculieff
Ilarion (Larry Merculieff) was raised in a traditional Unangan (Aleut) way and received his Unangan name Kuuyux. The name is given to one person in each lifetime amongst his people. Kuuyux means an arm extending out from the body, a carrier of ancient knowledge into modern times, a messenger. Today he is living the legacy of his name.
Larry Merculieff has over five decades of experience serving his people, the Unangan of the Pribilof Islands and other Indigenous peoples around the world in a number of capacities. His reach has been broad and varied—a few of the positions he’s held include; City Manager of St. Paul Island, Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Commerce and Economic Development, President and CEO of Tanadgusix Corporation, Chairman of the Board of The Aleut Corporation, Co-chair of the Japan-Alaska Fishery Cooperative, Chair of the Alaska State Bond Committee, Vice-chair of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Committee, and Deputy Director of the Alaska Native Science Commission.
From 2000–2003, Merculieff served as the Director of the Department of Public Policy and Advocacy in the Rural Alaska Community Action Program. As Director, Merculieff led the largest subsistence rights march in Alaska’s history and emceed the subsistence rally after the march. The march was instrumental in protecting Alaska Native subsistence rights, which were legally contested by the State of Alaska, to fish for salmon along Alaska’s rivers. He also successfully led a four-year effort to gain federal and state recognition of Alaska Native subsistence rights to catch and eat halibut throughout coastal Alaska.
Merculieff is co-founder and former chairman of the Alaska Indigenous Council on Marine Mammals; former chairman of the Nature Conservancy, Alaska chapter; former co-director of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, Alaska chapter; as well as co-founder of the International Bering Sea Forum, the Alaska Forum on the Environment, and the Alaska Oceans Network. Merculieff served on the National Research Council Committee on the Bering Sea Ecosystem and presented at numerous scientific conferences. He chaired the Indigenous knowledge sessions (that involved representatives from 80 nations) at the Global Summit of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change, chaired the scientific working group for Snowchange that involved representatives from 8 Arctic nations focused on climate change, and served as the U.S. chair for the 2008 North American Gathering of Indigenous Peoples for the Healing of Mother Earth in Merida, Mexico
Close to Merculieff’s heart are issues related to cultural and community wellness, traditional ways of living, Elder wisdom, climate change and the environment. Having had a traditional upbringing, Merculieff has been and continues to be, a strong voice and activist calling for the meaningful application of traditional knowledge and wisdom obtained from Elders in Alaska and throughout the world in dealing with modern-day challenges. His present work is with a new organization he has founded called the Wisdom Weavers of the World, www.wisdomweavers.world to take the messages of Elders from throughout the world to global attention.
Merculieff has shared Elder wisdom locally, nationally, and internationally, and his writings and interviews have appeared in such publications as the Winds of Change, YES, Red Ink, Alaska Geographic, Smithsonian, National Geographic,
Merculieff was featured in National Wildlifean “American Hero”, having called national and international attention to major adverse changes in the Bering Sea ecosystem, resulting in closure of a major bottom fishery trawl zone in the Bering Sea. The closure remains today.
Merculieff’s life and teachings are featured in a chapter of a book titled: Native Men of Couragepublished by Second Story Press. He co-authored a book about traditional worldviews and cosmology entitled “Aleut Wisdom: Stories of an Aleut Messenger” that was released October 18, 2009, by French publisher Les Intouchables. His lifelong efforts on behalf of his people and the environment have been honoured with the Buffet Finalist Award for Indigenous Leadership (2007); the Alaska Forum on the Environment Environmental Excellence Award for lifetime achievement (2007); the Rasmuson Foundation Award for Creative Nonfiction, 2006); the Alaska Native Writers on the Environment Award from the Alaska Conservation Foundation (2004) and the Wisdom Fellowship Award given by The Sacred Fire Foundation (2017).
Merculieff published a book about
You can also read more on grill.org or on
16. July 2019 – Earth Conversation Podcast with guest Dr Jude Currivan
Jude integrates leading-edge science, research into consciousness and universal wisdom teachings into a wholistic whole-world-view. This underpins her work aimed at enabling transformational and emergent resolutions to our collective planetary issues, raising awareness and empowering fundamental change and sustainable solutions to global problems.
She holds a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Reading in the UK researching ancient cosmologies and a Masters Degree in Physics from Oxford University specialising in cosmology and quantum physics.
She is the author of six non-fiction books currently available in 15 languages and 25 countries including CosMos – a co-creator’s guide to the whole-world co-authored with Dr Ervin Laszlo. Her first fictionalised e-book Legacy is available on amazon.
Her latest is The Cosmic Hologram- In-formation at the Center of Creation, the first book of the Transformation trilogy and which won a silver Nautilus Book Award for 2017. She is currently writing book two Gaia: Her-Story.
Her international corporate career culminated in her being the Group Finance Director of two major international businesses. She has extensive experience and knowledge of world events, international politics and global economic and financial systems and has spoken on transformational reforms in the UK, US, Europe, Japan and South Korea.
For the last seventeen years she has also travelled around the world in service to planetary and collective healing, some of which is described in her books The 8th Chakra, The 13th Step and most recently HOPE – Healing Our People & Earth.
In 2010 she was presented with a CIRCLE Award by WON Buddhism International cited for her ‘outstanding contribution towards planetary healing and expanding new forms of consciousness’.
In 2014 she was invited to become a member of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle that includes Deepak Chopra, Barbara Marx Hubbard and Jean Houston.
In 2017 she co-founded WholeWorld-View as a growing community of global
You can also read more on Jude’s personal website here…
21. June 2019 – Earth Conversation Podcast with guest Katarina Felicia Lundgren BA, MiMer
Katarina’s passions are understanding and working with equines and humans in therapy, so it can benefit both clients and horses.
She is involved in research and educational projects to spread knowledge, awareness of ethics, welfare and best practices when we work with Equines in Therapy. The research she is involved in focuses on equine-equine and equine-human interaction. She is currently writing her master’s thesis on equine-human interaction in Equine Assisted Psychotherapy.
She is an Equine Professional who works in teams and offers experiential learning and therapy with horses. She travels the world to educate about teamwork, the equine’s role and welfare needs and the Equine Professional’s role, need of knowledge, awareness and responsibility in Equine Assisted Activities and Therapies.
She is a co-founder and chair of the board in MiMer, a small independent education, research