Episode Details

In this final episode of Season 13, Marina looks at how the endings of autumn invite us to slow down, honour our ancestors and grieve together, and why sharing our feelings in community, human and more-than-human, can help us feel more alive and connected.

• Why being busy keeps us from feeling (“you can’t hit a moving target”), and why slowing down is one of the keys to connection
• The end of October as the close of the Celtic year: a natural time for endings, reflection and asking “what can I let go of so that new things can grow?”
• Endings in nature are not really endings. They are change and transformation.
• Remembering our ancestors: making an ancestor table, lighting a candle, and noticing the patterns and unresolved grief we inherit
• What stays unreconciled in our lives and cultures, and what we might be passing on to future generations
• The problem with “connecting with nature”: how the phrase assumes we are separate, and the move towards feeling that we belong
• Arne Naess, deep ecology and the ecological self, plus John Seed’s idea of experiencing yourself as “the forest protecting itself”
• How feeling deeply connected changes the way we feel loss, and grief as an expression of our capacity to care, not a weakness
• Therapy, ecotherapy and wider healing: where trained professionals are needed, and where communities can hold therapeutic space
• Being listened to without being fixed: the healing power of groups gathered by a river or in a woodland, and of rituals and ceremony
• Elders at the centre of the village, and a culture that hides away ageing and death
• Modelling for children and peers: how we handle fear, disagreement, sadness, anger and repair teaches more than our words do

Show Notes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/104-the-grief-that-connects-us

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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