Embodied Pathways

Rewilding Our Lives: A Journey Through Nature Connection with Peter Cow

• Adrian Harris

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In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Peter Cow, a passionate advocate for nature connection and community living. Peter's work integrates permaculture design, rewilding, and the wisdom of the Eight Shields model, emphasizing the importance of both human and nature connections in our lives today.

We began our conversation by reflecting on our shared experiences during the environmental protests of the 1990s, particularly the successful campaign to save an ancient woodland from development. Peter shared vivid memories of living in a tree-house at Lyminge Forest, highlighting how that experience ignited his passion for nature and community living. He described the profound sense of purpose and connection that emerged from living in such a vibrant, purpose-driven community.

Peter then talked about his time at the Steward Community Woodland, where he deepened his understanding of permaculture and the importance of living sustainably. He emphasized the need for humans to recognize their integral role within nature, advocating for a shift in perspective that sees us as part of the ecosystem rather than separate from it.

We explored the principles of permaculture, which focus on creating positive impact living by observing and mimicking natural ecosystems. Peter explained how these principles can be applied not only in agriculture but also in social structures and community living.

The conversation also delved into the Eight Shields model, which offers a framework for human optimization based on the practices of indigenous cultures. Peter described how this model can help us cultivate attributes such as happiness, empathy, and connection, ultimately fostering a more supportive and compassionate community.

As we wrapped up, Peter shared his insights on the importance of play in nature connection and the need for cultural support to nurture our relationships with the natural world. He provided listeners with resources to connect with his work, including his year-long Nature Connection course and the Nature Culture Network.

Overall, this episode was a rich exploration of how we can reconnect with nature and each other, drawing on the wisdom of past experiences and indigenous practices to create a more harmonious and regenerative future.

Peter's inspiring journey reveals a fundamental truth: we are part of nature, and human culture can be intimately woven into nature connection.

More about Peter's work:
An introduction to the Eight Shields course starts on January 29th: Nature's Blueprint

Join the Nature Culture Network newsletter: http://eepurl.com/du0h05

 Adrian:

In this episode, I'm talking to Peter Cow. Peter helps individuals, groups and organisations access their power and their creativity by using permaculture design, rewilding and the wisdom of the Eight Shields model. His work weaves together nature connection and human connection, which is something we desperately need right now. Curiously, Peter and I have moved in the same circles several times over the years. We both attended some of the Eight Shields gatherings in Scotland and were both involved in the environmental protests of the 1990s. I'm really looking forward to exploring some of these common strands and hearing how Peter has brought them into his life. Great to have you on Embodied Pathways, Peter. Welcome!

Peter:
Thanks. It's very nice to be here and catch up with you. 

Adrian:
We'll talk more about Eight Shields and permaculture in a moment, but I wanted to start by taking us back to the late 1990s. So for those of us who maybe weren't around those times or don't remember, this was a time of intense protest to protect the natural world. Margaret Thatcher, the UK Prime Minister, had announced what she described as the biggest road building program since the Romans. Suddenly, ancient woodlands were under threat from development, and many of us dug in to try and save them. We were both involved in some of those protests, and you were part of a particularly successful campaign. You helped to stop Lyminge Forest, being turned into a holiday camp. I wonder if you have any particular memories of those heady days?

Peter:

Yeah, so they were going to build a kind of Center Parcs and loads of golf courses on Lyminge Forest in Kent, and I was part of two camps there. The second one was called Camp Asterix. And I remember I spent a summer there while I was at university. And I remember I lived in a scaffolding net between three trees, and I would abseil down each morning to go to the fire for breakfast. And it was so beautiful to wake up swinging amongst the trees and then look down to the forest ground below me and yeah, start the day at 30 meters height and then be able to abseil down to meet everyone down on the fire pit area. Living in community in nature with such a strong common purpose is something that has really lit up something in me, inspired me, connected me to something that's important with me. It's given me a blueprint of living that I've kind of been chasing ever since.

Adrian:
It's interesting because I spent several months living a low-impact life on a number of protest sites in woods, and it was such a powerful experience. And a bit like you, it had this profound impact on my depth of nature connection. So it'd be good to hear how that was for you. How were the days there?

Peter:

Really, really full. I remember standing on a walkway singing a Radiohead song to my friend as we built a new tree-house at the top. And I love to build things, so I got to build loads of things in very strange and unusual ways from recycled materials. But I think it's really the sense of being in community there, being with other people in this really strong, purposeful community. and sharing and people giving their own gifts with the cooking, with the cleaning, with building, with public relations, creating flyers. I mean, it wasn't perfect in any way, or maybe some ways, but there's a lot of dysfunction there as well. And there was a real beauty to the way that people could arrive, flow in, find their niche, do their thing to support the community. And humans, I believe we have this real need to feel of purpose and to find our way of giving to the village around us, to the community around us. And there was a really clear pathways for doing that in those communities. And such a strong sense of connection with each other, helped by this kind of common enemy, which isn't the best way of connecting to each other, but it does work really well. And as you say, it was a successful campaign. There was, I don't know, 15, 16 different camps at different times in that woodland. There were tunnels being dug underground, there was one under the village I was in, in Asterix, and they never evicted us. We actually took down the tree-houses ourselves because there was a private company, Rank, that was hoping to develop the woodland into a holiday park and they gave up. The government doesn't give up so easily because it has a lot more to lose, but Rank gave up and the forest is still there. I'd love to go back and visit it. I haven't been there since we took down the tree houses. We had this kind of celebration, I don't know if you were there or not, the celebration gathering to take down tree houses, take down the walkways, fill in the tunnels and celebrate that the woodland didn't get destroyed because we put our bodies on the line to save it.

Adrian:

Wonderful. We lost quite a number of the battles, but it's good to remember the ones that we won, which was notable for that. From my own experience and from talking to other people who've lived on these camps, there's a different level of connection to nature than we normally experience.

Peter:

I mean, certainly for me, it really blew my heart open, being in those places. And I guess because I was so aware that all those trees might get cut down, they might get bulldozed and turn into a car park. That made me so, and we talk about being fully alive, really awake to the moment and knowing that it's going to pass, that everything is going to die. And really with that vitality of like, here, these things are alive and they won't be forever, and maybe they'll get bulldozed tomorrow. I guess that gave me a real strong sense of the precariousness and the fact that life ends and that helps me to love things even more, even though I know I'll lose them and have to grieve them. But that the preciousness of life that exists at the moment, it definitely gave me that. But also just just being just living in the woods. I mean, it's like it's like a camping trip, but so much more because we were there for months in community and it was our home. And that amps things up a lot. Yeah.

Adrian:

And you worked at Steward Wood for quite a long time as well, weren't you?

Peter:

Yeah, so after I finished university, I was then looking for places to live in community on the land again, with this kind of blueprint from protest camps. I wanted it to be a bit more solid and kind of well designed. And I got involved in one eco village and then This other one came along, Steward Community Woodland, it was a group of activists. I think about half of them had been at Lyminge Forest. Merlin and Rebecca and Seth and Mel had met them all there, and Devin. And the other half were from the Mac Libel campaign that Helen Steele and Dave Morris were fighting against McDonald's through the courts for, I think it was the longest trial in British history. And the support campaign for them was another part that kind of came together at Steward Wood. So it was a lot of different activists coming together, wanting to create a positive future, as well as fighting against things, fighting against the destruction and against the corporate takeover. Actually, how do we create a life that is the positive life we want to promote? And I got interested in permaculture through the idea of positive impact living, positive impact living. not just fighting the negative, but actually bringing in the more positive, the more regenerative, that's the word we'd use these days, having a regenerative effect on life. So Steward Wood was designed to be regenerative, a community living in the woods in the long term. We owned the woods, we bought them here on Dartmoor where I live, not in those woods, but I live on a farm and I'm part of Dartmoor. But there was 11 of us and we bought that woodland, we moved in, We started off in tents, we built structures, we surveyed the woodland, managed it, grew food, had a protracted planning battle with the Dartmoor National Park. And after 19 years, those that were still there then got evicted. And for 19 years, we did live there. I lived there for seven years myself, and we still own the woodland now. And we're about to replant a thousand trees, having cut down a load of conifers to keep regenerating that woodland for wildlife now, not for humans to live there. for humans to visit and for wildlife to live in. It's still a really important place in my heart. I mean, my nature connection really grew there in a very kind of unschooled, untutored, but organic way. I remember just loving the fact that to go to the compost toilet in the morning, I'd walk past thousands of beings, you know, trees, insects, flowers, trees, and I'd notice how they were each time. And I had a relationship with them all as I go to the compost toilet and back each morning. And my compost toilet humanure would go back to feed the trees as well afterwards. So I was very much in that woods and a part of that woods. And that's one thing I think we've so missed in our modern understanding is that we are part of nature. The idea that we're not part of nature is one of the most destructive, dangerous thoughts that we have. Because as nature, we look after ourselves rather than something else when we look after the world around us. So that's one thing I'm really keen to bring in my permaculture courses is that we are nature and the importance of knowing that, feeling that, being that. And living at Steward Wood helped me to understand, to connect to nature and fall in love even more deeply with trees from the time being there in community. I remember asking trees if they were willing to be felled or not when we were doing our kind of firewood collecting. And if we got a no, we didn't cut them down. And again, the living in community, there was a lot of challenges. There was a lot of things to work through. Learning to share is quite a journey for me, for modern humans, I believe. And it's a really important one. and finding structures that help us to cooperate and trust each other and give, knowing that we'll get back from the community, the organization, the village, the town we live in is really important. I've been trying to set up a new community for the last four years. I'm a bit between community projects at the moment, but I'm still really committed to finding a way of living on the land again. somewhere with a strong rewilding focus these days, because that's a really, really important calling for me at this time of dying off, killing off to be able to steward land in a way that helps life to thrive and come back and be reintroduced and stopping some of the desecration that we do with our farming and our other land management is ever more important to me.

Adrian:

Permaculture is an important part of this weave, is that right? Yes. Listeners will hopefully have heard, at least heard of what permaculture is, but it be great if you could give us a brief introduction to some of the principles of it.

Peter:

Yeah. So again, this phrase, positive impact living, that was what got me into permaculture. I was at Glastonbury Festival in 1997 or 8, running a stall there for the Cardiff Bay Barrage, which had been a campaign in Cardiff when I was at university. And I saw this flyer for a positive impact living gathering. And I was like, wow, I want to have a positive impact. I want to leave things better than I find them. So I went to this gathering in Kent, the Natty Trust ran it. It was a month of peer education in all the things you need to learn to live sustainably, low impact on the land. And permaculture isn't just about living in a small group on a piece of land. It can be applied anywhere, in a city, in a tower block, on a farm. Its principles are basically patterns of how nature, how the living systems around us, the ecosystems, thrive and interact with each other? Things like cooperation. How do we harvest sunshine? How do we use biological resources? How do we find uses for anything that is considered a waste? The outputs of one system, how can that be an input of another? So how can the food waste from your meal become compost to grow your food for the future? here there was a polytunnel that was taken down and I've made a new polytunnel smaller from that polytunnel top rather than throwing it away or buying a new polytunnel plastic. So these kind of cyclical systems are a song called Living in Circles which is honoring the idea that in natural systems, in ecosystems, things get cycled. They're not linear systems of work and pollution with the use of it in the middle. Like, you know, you buy a hairbrush and it's been made with oil that creates pollution that use a lot of energy to build it. And then you throw it away when it breaks and it's then a waste that pollutes. But if you find a way of using some twigs to brush your hair, for example, then they can compost down or you can use them as firewood afterwards. they've been created by sunshine. So permaculture is about understanding the patterns of ecosystems, thinking like an ecosystem. That's one of my favorite descriptions of permaculture. How would a forest solve this problem? That's kind of what permaculture is about. And it's got loads of applications in terms of social setups, running communities, organizations, finances. as well as the more traditional gardening, farming, house improvement, house design. I mean, for me, it's been a foundation of my life, really. A lot of what I do in the Eight Shields is kind of a social permaculture, and rewilding is very much more of a kind of land-based design for wildlife. So for me, permaculture was the first kind of deep body of work I got involved with. And it came from Tasmania in the 1970s. There was an oil crisis. The oil prices got really high and this Tasmanian and Australian university professor and graduate, they were looking at the rainforests in Tasmania and how do they survive without oil, they thought. These are such rich, vibrant ecosystems and no one is there spraying with chemicals or bulldozing them or replanting them. What are the things that this rainforest is doing that we can learn from? So they develop systems for agriculture and then buildings and then society and culture based on the learnings of how a rainforest manages itself. such abundance and diversity that is ever increasing as well. It isn't a static fixed thing. It's like it's finding new niches for things to live in, finding new ways for life to come and thrive. And that's what we need to be working on as human beings. How do we create more opportunity for thriving?

Adrian:

And that quite nicely brings us to rewilding.

Peter:

Yeah. Yeah, the rewilding journey for me has been one of a lot of grief, actually, kind of learning how the landscape here in England is so degraded, how there's been so many centuries of people being paid to kill hedgehogs and wipe out life because the cheetahs were concerned they might be taking milk from cows and very seldom strange ideas. But yeah, we've really wiped out a lot of life here in this country. And rewilding is about trying to regenerate that, find ways to quickly, easily using biological systems in the same way the permaculture does to create a habitat that allows life to regenerate itself. And some of it is us getting out of the way, and some of it is bringing back things that we've removed, like the big herbivores, the predators, that kind of manage those systems in ways that we haven't allowed because we've wiped them out mostly from this country. So rewilding for me, on the small to large scale, it's really what makes my heart sing and I feel such a strong passion for at the moment. are finding ways to be involved with land, to help bring back species or manage it using human tools and human volunteers to create places for the birds, the insects to come back and to thrive and to feed each other and have that dance of life going more strongly again.

Adrian:

You've mentioned the Eight Shields model a couple of times. We both attended some of the Nature Connection gatherings in Scotland way back.

Peter:
Yeah.

Adrian:
How would you describe the Eight Shields model?

Peter:

It's a really beautiful, simple and complex set of patterns for human optimization. It's based on the work of John Young and it's mapped to the cycle of a day. So it's very much in the patterns of life. It's based on Jon Young and others' observations of indigenous land-based cultures in North America, in Africa, other parts of the world. and learning what do they do in their cultures that we might have lost because we've been colonized by the Romans, by the Normans, by the corporations, and they've taken away our power by disempowering us, by getting rid of the intergenerational connections between elders and bards and children and schools. It's kind of a rewilding of human beings to a certain extent, or a social permaculture. So it kind of maps onto my other two bodies of work quite nicely. I like to frame it as permaculture is observing what happens in a rainforest and how we can use that to design our land and our structures. And The Eight Shields is looking at the people in the rainforest, living in an intact, uncolonized life. What are they doing? How do they bring up their children? What importance do they give to grieving? What are their structures around leadership? What can we learn from that? And without taking their practices or copying them, how can we shift our focus towards creating spaces for grieving, for example, or ways to connect grandparents and children in a better way, or just asking good questions and catching each other's stories? So there's a whole cultural encyclopedia of these patterns that have developed over thousands of years in these cultures. And they're still, they're changing, nothing's fixed. But there's patterns that they see work, and they use them. And we can learn so much from that to create. The Eight Shields is about creating awesome human beings, basically. And cultures, where they rely on each other directly, they do that, because that's what works in the long term, to have awesome human beings around you. And the eight shields, each shield has a kind of north star that that shield is bringing out in human beings. And the list of them is happiness is the first attribute that it's about bringing out. A kind of childlike happiness that has such a bubbling energy of joy and excitement and welcome and safety. And then vitality in the body, movement, electricity, play, connection to the physical self. Commitment to others is the third one, wanting to support and mentor and be with other people and support them in the best way you can. Empathy is the fourth one, that understanding of other beings and what they need. How can we get closer to what is important to them? And then being truly helpful is number five, finding ways to support each other. And number six is the one I mentioned already, that truly alive. this understanding that as in love we are with everything, we also know it's all going to pass and change and the tenderness of that and how it can actually make the love even stronger, that full aliveness. And then love and compassion is the North Star of the Eight Shields, bringing out love and compassion for all beings. And the last one is quiet mind, which is kind of the opposite of what our phones do to us. It's about quieting down our mind, bringing in our senses, our bodies being present to the moment, our mind being in service to our body rather than the other way around. So those are the eight attributes of human connection, which are based on seven Lakota principles, and one more that was added in. And that's the kind of the Eight Shields is about. All the practices, the activities, the invitations in Eight Shields are about bringing out one or more of those attributes of connection. And the vision is to bring them out for all human beings on the planet. And just imagine living in a community where everyone had those eight attributes firing fully and how that would be to live in that village with that support, with those alive, curious, playful people around us. So full of love and compassion and empathy.

Adrian:

 Wow, yeah that's that's how we would all choose to live isn't it? yeah I'm curious because there's there's eight Shields and the previous episodes of Embodied Pathways we were looking at the wheel of the year yeah which also has eight points is there any kind of crossover or they they don't connect yeah there's a lot of crossover and the eight shields is mapped to times a day

Peter:

The seasons, times of the year, are less universal because, for example, in the equator, they have kind of hurricane season, dry season, wet season. So it's not the same as northern latitudes and southern latitudes. But I mean, in the northern hemisphere and in Australia and New Zealand as well, there's ways of using this pattern of eight directions through the year. And at the moment, we're between the winter solstice and Imbolc, to give it its Celtic name. and that's between north and northeast, and it maps very beautifully onto the seasons here in the UK. The north is a time of leadership and quiet and reflection, so that's summer solstice, winter solstice, time of pausing, midwinter, alongside the celebrations and the family gatherings and connections that happen. There's a real moment to kind of reflect and make plans for the future. New Year's Resolutions is a kind of remnant, I'd say, of cultural practices around renewal and planning ahead to the new year that I understand happened in Europe and around the world at this time of year, kind of reflection. And then the Northeast is the in-bulk. That's the Northeast Shield. And that's beginning of February. And that's if North is the seed, Northeast is a seed starting to sprout. It's the mystery of life coming back after this winter pause. So the Northeast is that time of beginnings. It's in the cycle of the day. It's pre-dawn. So it's not yet even dawn. It's like, is that light on the horizon? I'm not totally sure. There's a mystery to the Northeast. It's like, is it winter? Is it spring? It's snowing today. And then it's sunny. Yeah, it's quite a mysterious one, the Northeast. And you can go around all eight in the pattern of the year. And it does map very beautifully here in Europe. And also, it doesn't map so well in other parts of the world. But it works really well here. And on my courses, we celebrate and we do a poem at the start of each weekend where we make up a poem. Everyone gives a line based on what they've seen the world around them like, the night sky full of stars. And we made this impromptu organic poem that we then read out to ourselves. Each person has given a line of it, of what they've experienced on their sit spot at that time of day. So if pre-dawn sit spot or a sunrise sit spot, we get these beautiful poems that helps us to really feel into the shield, the direction, the time of year. I feel like I spiral every year into deeper and deeper connection with the seasons and how they affect the land around me. And it's also, you know, kind of wobbling and climate chaos is making things less reliable and patterns are changing. And it's, yeah, I love to track which birdsong I start to hear when I've got it in my Google calendar, when I hear the great tit singing or when I hear the song thrush singing each year. And they're all a bit earlier this year, that's for sure. But that's part of my nature connection is to have those relationships when those birds start their singing and to kind of honor them and send love and appreciation to them when I hear them. And yeah, best wishes for their mating season, because that's what they're doing here in this coldest part of the year. They're starting to think about mates and having babies and eggs and nests and all that right in the teeth of winter. It's amazing.

Adrian:

And the different strands you've talked about, the Eight Shields and the permaculture and the rewilding, my sense is they all come together in the nature culture network that you've created or you're involved with.

Peter:

Yeah, so that's, um, it's very much based on the Eight Shields and it's, it's to, it was, it was called originally Eight Shields in the UK. We found Nature Culture Network was a better name for people to come towards who didn't understand what shields meant and whether that was some kind of live action role play. It put me off for a while. But in fact, it's about cultural wisdom from land-based cultures mapped out to the directions and times of day. So the Nature Culture Network is run from the UK, but it very much caters to a European and a little bit global audience. There's a newsletter. We run a camp most years called the Nature Culture Connection Camp. It's going to be happening again next August in Bedfordshire. It's about networking people that are passionate about nature connection and culture repair, as we call it in the Eight Shields, and people promote their courses through it. There's a networking part of the website where you can find songs and list where you are in the country or in the world, and putting out what you do so people can connect with you. And it's really a way to help people find each other, find resources and connect and be reminded of these patterns of connection because it can be easy to be distracted by phones, screens, modern culture, away from these nourishing, slower patterns of connection. Yeah.

Adrian:

I've mentioned that I'm working on a book about nature connection and I'm trying to distill down what I've learned from Eight Shields and other approaches into three keys. So there's slow down, get curious, and use all your senses. Does that resonate with you? Does it sound like I'm on the right track with that kind of simple framing?

Peter:

Yeah, absolutely. Those are three such key pieces, parts of the jigsaw. The slowing down. I did a day-long wander and I was really bored. And in that boredom, I had the most amazing experiences. the kind of the slowing down, getting boards are really important part of nature connection. That's what I realized. And getting cold as well. But you can wear more clothes to stay warmer. But slowing down, I can be in such a busy pace of life when I'm working and when, you know, in international connections via computer and phone, I can be so in my head, thinking about things and the slowing down, getting my body and my senses as well. You know, the quiet mind is part of eight shields. And that's about getting to our senses into the present moment. You know, what can I smell now? What can I taste? What can I hear? Even just closing my eyes helps me to allow the other senses to come forward more because eyes and thinking are so connected. On my Nature Connection, we like to do a sensory meditation where we just get everyone to stand in a circle and close their eyes and just see what they can smell. What can they hear around them? Where do they hear it? What can they taste? What can they feel on their skin? What can they feel inside their body? What can they feel on their face? just to bring out these senses, which can be so under, undervalued, underused in, in modern life. And there's, there's, there's loads more than five as well. I mean, sense of balance is clearly one that's majorly important and isn't on the usual list. And I've seen a list of 52, which some of which I thought were quite questionable, but there's definitely more than five senses and the Kalahari Bushmen - the Khoisan, as I like to call them these days - the Khoisan, they, they can know where things are, you know, tens of miles away. That's a sense that we have because we're the same human bodies as they are. We just haven't been trained to use that. So there's loads of senses that we have underdeveloped in modern culture. So the more we can bring our senses out, the more we'll connect with the world around us. And that is such an important part of it. And the curiosity that you bring in, that's the part of the mind that's the most useful. Well, it's one of the parts of the minds that's really useful for nature connection, that sense of curiosity. I remember falling in love with someone and just being so curious about them, wanting to know more and more about that person. They're so fascinating. And what if we had that with a plant, with an animal, that sense of such a strong desire to fill myself with knowledge about them? And that's what curiosity is. And it's such a gateway to connection, understanding, knowing another being. And the more we can fall in love and get curious and fascinated by the insects, the plants, the flowers, I learned a few years ago, grasshoppers, they lay eggs. That's how they survive the winter. They lay eggs inside bits of nettle stem and bits of dying vegetation. And that's why leaving dead vegetation is important, because it might have insect eggs inside it. And if we cut it down, they might then not survive through to the next season. And I watched a grasshopper laying eggs inside a nettle stem, and that's how I worked that out. I looked it up on the internet afterwards. But that kind of curiosity, like, what is this plant doing here? Why is it here? That's such a big part of permaculture and observation as well. So I love your three keys to nature connection. One thing I'd add to that is that there's these kind of solo experiences that that would lead to, the senses, the curiosity, the slowing down. But there's also this kind of cultural holding that's needed, that when you come back from seeing the grasshopper, If the first person you talk to says, that's stupid. Why are you looking at grasshoppers? There's work to do. You need to paint this wall. Then your connection to that grasshopper kind of gets squashed by that reaction. But if that person says, that's amazing. Can you show me where it is? I want to learn that. I want to see this grasshopper. That really awakens it in you. So there's something about the cultural holding. And we call it storytelling and story catching in the eight shields. Like when you tell your stories of your experiences in nature, who is there that can catch that story and kind of tug on it and make it deeper, help you make more meaning from it. That's an important part of nature connection as well. This having a community around you, which can catch and develop your understanding, your empathy, your connection is important. And in our courses, in the one we do that runs through the year Ecological Homecoming, we do one session that is introducing a nature connection activity, one of the core routines of connection. And the second session is hearing people's stories of doing that over the two weeks in between the two evenings. So, you know, as much as we emphasize giving the activity out, we also want to hear the story of it afterwards and help people to understand and make meaning and hear each other's stories and get inspired by that. So there's, there's the nature connection experience and there's a cultural holding that needs to kind of wrap it and they both work together. So I'd add that in there somewhere. How can we train people around us to help us to connect to nature? And the Art of Mentoring camp originally in the UK was, it was designed for adults to help them to support their children. Because John Young was about, you know, creating amazing trackers from training children in nature connection. And he realized that it wasn't working because their parents weren't supporting them when they went home. So we then started to train the parents to support the children. So the art of mentoring, the eight shields model, it's a kind of understanding of how do we create a culture that can support children and adults to become awesome nature connected trackers that are in connection and in love with the world around them. So that cultural part is a really important aspect of nature connection as well.

Adrian:

Yeah, that's key, isn't it? Do you have a favourite nature connection practice?

Peter:

That's a great question. I think I've got two actually. One is going running on the moors around where I live and really being in my body in that kind of Southeast vitality and what I get from that as well as feeling like an animal. and the kind of exposure of skin to water and mud and getting in a stream afterwards, is I get to see the life and the land changing around me. I get to see the trees. I realized that holly trees have a bit of a, they drop their leaves in one go in December. They did this year anyway. And because I was running up these same tracks again and again, like three times a week, I get to see how things change through the seasons. And that's a really important part of my nature connection to have that really embodied animal aliveness and to be out on the landscape and seeing how it changes. The other practice I really love and do more often is sitting in an armchair under a bit of a roof next to my garden and being there for like 20 minutes, half an hour, maybe having a snooze and just seeing what's happening there. I was there for the sunrise this morning. It was so beautiful, this red, red sky, red clouds kind of folding across the sky. And I see the wren and the robin there in the honeysuckle bush next to my armchair and see them all through the year in the honeysuckle bush. I've now had that sit spot for a year and I've seen the honeysuckle in its kind of winter, dead brown, branchy state and then the leaves sprouting out in the spring and then I can't see into it anymore and I think the red nests are there but I can't see. It's a bit of a mystery. And then the flowers come out and they're so, so beautiful. I love honeysuckle flowers. and the smell from them and the bees and the hoverflies that come along and then those flowers become berries. And I saw the coltits eating the berries. I didn't know they did that from the honeysuckle in the autumn. And then we're back in this winter part of the cycle now and it's just a kind of brown, I call it the fortress, the honeysuckle fortress. I love to name different parts of my garden because that builds my connection to them. There's the Sparrow Towers, the Dunwick Gateway, and this is the Honeysuckle Fortress. And the Wren and the Robin, I imagine they go in there to feel protected and safe and to get out of the winter weather as well. And once, when I was in my sit spot, the Wren, I think I'd just fallen asleep and woken up, and the Wren flew onto the table next to me and then landed on my shoulder. And this tiny, tiny little Wren, I could feel its weight. It's a very tiny weight. I could feel it like hop down my arm. And I was just beside myself. I was being very still and calm and tried to be relaxed. But I was so, so touched by this little being trusting me so much. And I'm sure it had seen me from the honeysuckle bush. And it's the one that kind of flies around the garden singing its song a lot of days. And yeah, that it trusted me to be on my shoulder and just hop down my arm was such an honoring. Yeah, a beautiful moment. So Doing a sit support in the same place again and again throughout the year, you build relationships with these animals, with the plants, with the seasons in a deep way. And yeah, those are my two.

Adrian:

Wow, beautiful story that. That's just so lovely. Just talking to you and listening to you in other contexts, I get a real sense that the play is an important part of nature connection for you. Is that, have I got that right? Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Peter:

I remember being told that some anthropologists kind of look down on indigenous people because they tend to play a lot, and they thought they're childish because they're still playing. But actually, yeah, I think play is a way of being, you know, it's quite different rules when you're playing. It doesn't need to be about getting to an end point particularly, it's about being in the moment. I mean, there's many different ways, many different things that are important to me. And playing, me and my partner, we have quite a kind of slapstick playing with each other, singing, playful singing. We do that quite a lot. That's one practice that I, yeah, making out words to songs, taking a melody and adding new words to it to amuse ourselves. Yeah. These ways that we are in the moment playing with an aliveness and creativity as well. Play is so much about creativity.

Adrian:

Yeah. That's been quite inspiring actually to hear of how you've taken all these different models and woven them together into this beautiful pattern of nature and humans together. Really this sense of we are nature and it's overcoming that division. Really lovely to hear.

Peter:

Thanks.

Adrian:

So just to close, I'm imagining people are going to want to know more about your work and where they can connect or find out workshops. How can people find out about you?

Peter:

So the Ecological Homecoming year-long Nature Connection course, you can find out about that through bringing it home dot life, which is our website, bringing it home dot life. And there's also, I run a permaculture course in Greece on a Greek island in May. Livingincircles.com is the website you can find that on. And the Nature Culture Network, I'm the lead event north, as we call it, for the Nature Culture Connection Camp. It's happening again in August. And the Nature Culture Network website is the place to find more out about that. Natureculturenetwork.org.

Adrian:

Wonderful. Thank you. That's been a delight, Peter. Thanks for coming along and chatting to me. Pleasure.

Peter:

It's really nice to reconnect with you.

Adrian:

Great. All right, you take care and have fun out there. Thanks. And you. Take care. Bye-bye.