Embodying Nature: A conversation with improvisational movement artist Stephanie Gottlob

Stephanie Gottlob is an improvisational movement artist who takes her work into the wild. Stephanie has spent extended periods living and dancing in different biomes across North America: rainforest, swamp, freshwater lake, arctic tundra and many more. Stephanie talks about the profound nature connection that emerges from this kind of deep engagement with place. We explore art, embodiment, relationship, activism, spirituality and the mysterious ways that these are all connected. You’ll hear why we need ancient forests to be fully human and how you can touch the wild wherever you live. 

Transcript

Embodying Nature: A conversation with improvisational movement artist Stephanie Gottlob
 
 Keywords:
 nature, biome, relationship, place, animism, dance,  improvisation, somatic 

Adrian:
Welcome everybody to my very first podcast. This is really exciting for me because this is such an opportunity for me to talk to some of the most interesting people I've come across over years of working in the field of embodiment and related areas. So, to give you a sense of what this podcast is going to be about - and today's guest is perfect for that - one of the core themes I want to explore is the relationship between the bodymind and place. Now, I think most people get what the bodymind is, but quite often, they won't grasp the fact that we're always located somewhere. And that's crucial. There are thoughts you can have in a wood that you simply won't have in a shopping mall. I might even go as far as to say that where you are is part of who you are, and we could explore that a little bit as we go along. If there are some eyebrows going up and you’re going ‘Really?’, bear with me guys, because I think what we're going to be talking about today will make that clear. So this all brings me nicely to the work of Stephanie Gottlob, who is an improvisational movement artist. Most dancers work in a studio, but Stephanie was interested in what happens when she got out into nature. So for the last couple of years, Stephanie has spent extended periods of time in various natural biomes of North America, lakes, forests, tundra, swamp grasslands, rivers. Now what happens when you start dancing improvisationally in those sort of natural environments? That's kind of where we're exploring, and I've been talking to Stephanie about this on and off over the last couple of years. It's been a fascinating conversation, which we're going to continue today with you guys as the audience. So Stephanie, welcome.

Stephanie:
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Adrian:
So I'm wondering: I just listed some of the biomes you visited - I think there are others since I got that list. Do you have a favourite biome?

Stephanie:
Often, people ask me that. I feel each biome has its challenges. And each biome reveals something different. So I'm not going to necessarily pick one as the favourite. But issues that have come up is: What is a familiar biome? And that would definitely be the one I grew up in, which is in the Midwest. So this is a deciduous forest biome. So that biome I would say feels familiar. But other interesting things happened, like when I was in the swamp, and I started to improvise, and I'd sink deeper and deeper into the mud. That started to feel familiar. And I wasn't quite sure how is this happening? I've never visited a swamp. Is it something from childhood? Are there innate landscapes inside that I'm hooking into? So that question - I don't actually have a favourite, but there's certain ones that sort of spoke to me as memories or something that feels familiar. But I feel if you're asking me which one feels like a home, interestingly, it wasn't a biome. But what felt most like home is when I was in a creative or aesthetic space, in a biome. That space for me, being artistic with land when that hooked, that felt like home, or the more I left civilization, the further I got from the road, and the deeper I got into the forest or into the tundra, it felt more and more like home. So it wasn't necessarily a biome, but these sorts of experiences.

Adrian:
So there's something coming up there around the relationship that you have with the place that made it feel more like home, is that right?

Stephanie:
That's correct. 

Adrian:
And relationship is so fundamental to your practice. And it’s something I really want to get into, so that’s lovely way in. You've said you have a relationship with place and it's like you're never dancing alone when you're improvising in the wild. Is that the kind of thing that's coming up?

Stephanie:
Yeah, definitely. That was that was the first sort of insight when I was in the forest. That was the first one I did, with the lake. It felt like - I never not have a partner. There's always something that I'm relating to. I can't extricate myself from that situation. And so it was the sky or it was the tree or the soil or was the needles of the leaves. So that was the first insight - I'm never alone. And the other; this is active, this other entity here is active in the improv just like a partner you would have in the studio. So that is how the relationship began. The other is with sort of these somatic experiences or felt senses on the inside. Some of it was this sort of kinetic relationship - hanging on the trees moving the soil, it's responding. It's like playing with me, as I'm improvising with it. But there was also then this internal world that was hooking up with the external, and this is where we get into the felt senses and the somatic. So that's why when I improvise, I like to say I do somatic improvisation because it has a lot to do with those internal sensations hooking up with nature's external qualities.

Adrian:
So you pulled up the felt sense there, which some of our listeners will be straight in and go ‘Yeah, felt sense. I know about that’.  Other people might not be quite so sure what that means. So how would you explain what the felt sense is for you? 

Stephanie:
For me, I call it a felt sense. I can also call it a somatic experience. It's the sensations you feel on the inside; expansive, or heavy or swirling or darting or dense. These feelings you feel on the inside, and they're in response and in relationship to nature. It can be something you see, it could be something you touch, it could be something that you heard. I began to see that nature has these qualities - she's expansive, and airy and dense and tumbling. And those external qualities - what I call them are nature's qualities. And my internal qualities or sensations were hooking up. And so I started to play with this. I would sit and I would say, ‘Oh, what's a quality I see in nature? Oh, I see that the leaves are dappling, or the light on the leaves are dappling. Oh, how does that feel? On the inside? Oh, yes, I can feel that kind of sensation too. Okay, what am I feeling? Oh, I'm feeling a sensation inside. It's very heavy and dense. Oh, oh, I look in nature. And I see, oh, the roots, and the rocks are very dense and heavy’. There's a relationship that starts to happen this way. So then I, you know, I develop into that more deeply, you know, there's many qualities, they don't always have to mirror exactly, that can be opposite. So this kind of merging of the inner sort of and outer world is where I started. And that's where I started the improvisation. So it wasn't a tree - I'm trying to be a tree. It was more: ‘What are the qualities this tree embodies?’ I can embody those qualities. And through that is where we meet.

Adrian:
Wonderful. So there's kind of a sense of a melting between the self and the other distinction. Is that right?

Stephanie:
I think after doing this for the three years, there's many ways it manifests. So that's one way - that there's a melting, right, the inner and the outer melt together. That's not the only way. We can get into other ways I have felt this connection if you want to get into it, but in terms of the felt senses, yeah, that's what it feels like: A melting, a dialogue, maybe. It's not that we become exactly the same, it's that we sort of enter the same realm, and we can kind of play in that area. But that is one way. That's how it started, that kind of melting.

Adrian:
Okay, so this is important, because if there is this kind of, ‘I'm melting into whatever it is I'm with’, or that you're dancing with, there's no relationship, because there's just one. So it's a different kind of thing. And other times there'll be a distinctive ‘you’ dancing with or experiencing a distinctive ‘other’.

Stephanie:
Yeah. So that's in the beginning, you know - it's especially when I'm being more kinetic with it, dancing around it hanging on it, and it's pulling me in a certain way. So we're having this push and pull together. Yeah, so you want to remain distinct, you want to meld, but I when I was looking back and saying. ‘Is that it? Is that is that where my process stopped?’, I was like, no, actually, what happened when I started to get into the swamp, the grasslands and the river, is place began to emerge as an active participant in this relationship. So now it wasn't me and the tree, or me and the rock. All of a sudden, that didn't need to happen anymore, because place came up and held all of us. Now it's all happening in this place; presenting certain things to me or making space for certain things to happen. So for instance, in the grasslands, you wander around, everything's really empty, it all looks sort of the same. And then certain places... You know when you walk into a theatre, the lights are there, all the play is set, but nobody's yet on the stage and nothing's been said yet? That's the feeling in the grasslands. All of a sudden, one tree with one rock next to it felt like that - like about to say something. And now this wasn't me in the tree merging in our senses or qualities. Something else was happening that I was entering. And that is the third step, I guess of, of how relationship began. At first, I was waiting. I was like, ‘Okay, I'm waiting for the play. I'm waiting. Okay, I'm listening. I'm waiting’. But nothing was said. Until I realised, no, it wants me to go in there and to start the saying. And it doesn't have to be me. I'm saying it could be anybody. I think everybody needs to come in and do and say something where they feel they're drawn to say. So I would call this the next part of how relationship developed for me in the biomes.

Adrian:
Wow. So let me just let me just capture that, because there's an invitation there for anybody to step into this place where there's almost like - it's like it's waiting for them to come and engage.

Stephanie:
Exactly, exactly.

Adrian:
Wow. If I wanted to do that, how might I go about that?

Stephanie:
If you're stepping into the biome, you mean - How do you open yourself up to experiencing that?

Adrian:
Yeah, well, I want to give - because this sounds like a huge opportunity for people listening. I’d be like, ‘Whoa, I want to do that! Can I go to my local wood and do that?’ I'm guessing, sure you can, but I'm wondering if you could give people a few clues as to how they might begin?

Stephanie:
Well, for me, I have to do it in nature. And it has to be something big enough that I can walk around in it. So a lot of times I start by just walking. We've talked about this before. And there's different ways I can tell you about how to walk where you are, opening yourself up and the land up in a way that starts to invite this. So, sometimes it's hard if you're like in a garden, where it's already set up for you. You know, sometimes it's best if it can be slightly more wild. I mean, there are things we can do in a garden, we can talk about that. But if you really want the place to come, the more it’s itself and hasn't been manicured in a way, this is more helpful. So there's certain sitting activities working with your somatics. There's certain walking ways you can do this, certain things you can do with writing while you're in the space. And these are ways then that you can begin to allow the landscape to beckon in you, in a way.

Adrian:
Mindfulness is coming to mind. Is it some sort of mindfulness exercise? 

Stephanie:
Yeah. It's not meditation, right? It's not a specific meditation, but certain ways, like ... Well, I can give you an example. When I was in the desert, one thing is I lay down, I look up at the blue sky. Now there's no clouds, because there's not much precipitation. And the landscape is kind of low. So all I see is blue. So I'm just laying there. And you can do this, you know, in your own space laying there and just looking at at the blue sky, and you're just waiting, and you're waiting, and you're waiting, and then eventually you start to feel things and you start to feel a kind of connection there. And for me, I kept looking for, okay, I'm gonna have a sense of space here, because it's so big, or you know, but none of that happened. So sometimes you have to be open to not knowing what's going to happen. And the more I looked at, the more it felt like I'm not in blue, I'm not like blue, I just am blue. And I start to feel this might be being - this is about just being and you get really still and it just sort of permeates. So when I start to feel that, then I start to improvise. So it's a trajectory; you enter a space, there's a lot of sitting, a lot of walking, a lot of waiting, a lot of questions, a lot of not knowing - something will happen, and then the improvisation will start.

Adrian:
So just being curious. 

Stephanie:
Yup.

Adrian:
I have to say curiosity is one of my favourite things, because it just opens up. Just not just going; ‘Oh, yeah, right. This is a wood. It's got lots of trees in it and I know what I'm looking for. Oh, that's an oak tree and that's a lime tree ...’. No, it's just you go there: ‘Whoa, what is this place? I’m here, I'm really curious about what this is ... ‘ Is that the kind of attitude?

Stephanie:
Yeah, curiosity, and I noticed you named a lot of things - you kind of have to move away from that. So some of that is like you have to let go of certain tendencies you have, like to name things, to orient yourself, know what time it is. There are these certain things you bring with you. Even if you don't have your watch on sometimes it's still in your head. To just start to peel away that. For me the deeper I go into nature, the more those peel away for me naturally, but you know, it can you can even do that consciously. So those kinds of things, taking away names, taking away time, what time it is, what time you have to be back, taking away you know, your orientation: ‘I know I'm in England’, or ‘I'm in this garden’ or you know, you start taking those things away and it starts to open up to ...

Adrian:
So stripping away all the preconceptions, all the labels. 

Stephanie:
Yup.

Adrian:
Just being with whatever it is that's there for you. 

Stephanie:
Exactly, exactly. Yes. 

Adrian:
One of the things that I've done – and I was seeing references to something similar In your work - is the medicine walk.

Stephanie:
Oh, yes. Okay.

Adrian:
Which, to give people some context,  is used in ecotherapy and it's also coming out of indigenous traditions because it's been around in lots of different ways. But let's call it a medicine walk for the sake of this. So in that way, I would be usually with somebody who’s acting as a kind of a sounding board. I'll just go on a walk somewhere, and just let the place guide me and then see what attracts my attention. ‘Oh, wow. Oh, what's that? What's that about?’ And being curious. So is that a helpful way in, when you talk about the ways of walking?

Stephanie:
Yeah, that's definitely one way. For me because I come more from an artistic, I like to play a little bit there. So we've talked about this. So when I walk, I'll go where I'm interested, ‘Oh, I see that tree. It interests me. I'll go there’. ‘Oh, I see these rocks over here. I'll go there’. And it was always interesting because I was interested. But then I'll walk around, and I'll say, ‘I want to go where I'm not interested. You see that mucky stuff over there? I'm not interested in that. I'm gonna go walk there. Oh, that over there. There's all prickly over there. I'm not going there. I'm going to go there’. And then that was interesting. And then I said, ‘Well, what if I go to a place that's just looks boring that I'm not either interested or not interested in?’ And I go there - maybe it's a rock that's just white, it's just sitting there nothing. And that became interesting, or I'll walk backwards the exact way I came and thought, ‘Well, I already saw it, so maybe there's nothing there either’. And there was. And so I continually play with these - so I won't just walk, but I'm going to play with this. And this starts opening up a creative space or a dialogue or these moments to come in. I never would have gone to that place, because I was never interested in it. And yet it has something to reveal. So you're opening to things that you would have missed. And in this way, now you're receptive to nature, she's going to start talking to you now, because you've started opening up into these areas that you normally would not attend to.

Adrian:
You brought in nature there as a personality: ‘she will’, which begins to get a little bit closer to the whole concept of nature as alive, as some kind of intelligence that we can tap into. There’s a phrase you used, a sense that: ‘The forest is a process of ‘being with the elders’. I’m wondering whether we could open that up a little bit?

Stephanie:
Yeah. I think this was bringing in a question of animism. Is this where you’re taking this?

Adrian:
Yeah, that's where I’m coming from.

Stephanie:
Okay. Well, I'm just curious, how would you define animism?

Adrian:
So in the Western spiritual traditions generally, things like trees and rocks, they’re just trees and rocks. They don't have any agency. They're not beings in any sense. I can probably safely say in pretty much every indigenous tradition - and in the indigenous tradition that was here - I live in the UK – the tradition that was here and still is to some extent, rocks, trees, the whole thing, it's alive. Everything's alive, everything is alive in animist terms. So if it's alive, it has agency. And if it's alive and it has agency, then I as a human being can have a relationship with whatever it is, and potentially learn from it. That's animism in a nutshell.

Stephanie:
Okay. Yes, in that definition of it, as you explained it, yes, that definitely happens. And I think for me, I didn't come from there, right? I came from dance in the studio. I work with kids with special needs in a studio, we did movement. So I didn't come from in that kind of animistic… I mean I love nature, I love to go out in nature, but I don't know if I sort of crossed into that threshold yet. Until I started dancing out there. And I think for me, what happened was, I do improvisation. And when you improvise, that's about the moment, that's about following impulses. That's being receptive. Even in a studio, when you improvise with someone you don't know who's leading and who's following the impulse. The third thing between you is what's leading. So you're already ripe for something else to sort of be guiding the situation and the moment, and you pair that, I think with the body - my practice is obviously a body practice - there's nature in your body and the animism you might potentially feel is going to come through sort of a physical relationship with nature, and then you put under that landscape, now you're doing that which you could do in a studio, right? You could – you’re somatic, you could improvise in the studio. You put that in landscape, and then all of a sudden, that entity which is alive and active starts infiltrating into the improvisation or co-creating into the improvisation. It becomes even more animate. And I think what finally really brings it to something for me is that I'm looking at it from an artistic process. And when you create art - or I really feel you find art, you don't create it - you're with landscape and you're entering an aesthetic place. To me, art has to do with sacred or sanctifying, or finding a meaning, but not a specific meaning, but meaningfulness, because you're entering into some sort of aesthetic space. Now, it's like at the peak: So somehow I feel all of those together - you have the body, you're in an improvisational process in place, reaching for something artistic. That all together, I feel is what to me brings the animism. And it was different in every biome - the way it manifested was different.

Adrian:
It really brings out where I started: the place you are in becomes completely tied up with how you are, the way you're being, the kind of thoughts you can have. All of that is going to be coming in. Are there particular moments that come to mind of certain biomes or things?

Stephanie:
Yeah, I'd like to just tell you the story that happened to me in the desert. So this is maybe my fifth or sixth biome into my process, I was dancing in the sand and moving it around. And, you know, my partner was filming me - because I do record the improvisation through film - and I'm improvising. And as I'm improvising, I'm responding to the sand and in the patterns it's making, and it was good. It was good improvisation. And then when it's done, I step back and I look at the design that's in the sand. And it looks like you know, interesting, abstract expressionistic, lights and darks and swirls. So my partner leaves and then I just started walking around the desert. And then I had this experience with a raven. So there's usually not many animals that come by. This huge raven comes by and he starts circling around me and starts figure eighting. And he's looking right at me, and I'm looking right at him. And he's, you know, he's flying, he's getting closer and closer. And we have this like, intense interaction or connection. And then I get kind of scared. I'm like, ‘I don't know where this is going!’ And I break it. And then I look back, and he's still there. And then finally he meets his partner - another raven - and leaves. So it was this really intense experience. Maybe I was just very receptive after doing the improv. The next day, I go out for a jog and I'm walking and jogging around and I go, ‘Let me go back and look at those patterns I made yesterday, the improv’. And I go back, and I look at it and the picture that is made - the same one that was there – now looks specifically and clearly like a raven. That somehow that design - the wings, and then there's a figure, six inches away from it, which looks exactly like the perspective I had, and I'm like, ‘How is this happening?’ You know, and I said, ‘Alright, let me walk around this, maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me. I'll just walk around my picture, the design, and maybe it'll, I'll see something else in it’. But I didn't, I kept seeing the same thing. It was clearly the moment I had after the improv. And I started to like, this is where I'm like, she's now - nature is now infiltrating my creative process! You know, what used to be me out here and we're connecting or I'm on landscape. She's entering the process and in a way that I can't control - I don't know what's happening. And that really showed me that I don't know what's happening and also what is left behind after the creative moment? She started to bring that question into my mind. What's left in the world, what's left in the landscape or in the bird or in yourself? What is left if you do art on and with land, what is left? What endures? This is where that relationship we talked about reaches another level! <laughs> Where it's not in control. And she's really infiltrating the process and asking that question. I don't have an answer for that question, but I never asked that question. What endures, what happens after as well as, how did she get in there? You know, get into the process. So that's one example that happened.

Adrian:
That's such a great story! It's ringing bells with some stories I've heard from others -  well, myself, to some extent, but other ecotherapists - who've worked a lot in the wild and the way that, well let's call it the kind of animism, the animistic dimension of nature, or Jung would talk about psyche and nature interacting in some way. There's some weird... but it's fascinating.

Stephanie:
Yeah. There's a reluctance to, you know, because I wasn't even improvising as a bird, my original improvisation. So there's a reluctance at first, but it doesn't even matter - it will happen eventually, I feel. But yeah, there's a lot of reality checks. Also because for me, my aesthetic preference is more abstract. Like pictorial isn't really - I had certain biases against that. This biome was showing me the power of something, pictorial that something artistic can come in the form of pictorial and literal and be just as meaningful as something that's abstract. But yeah, most of my experiences when they come, there is this reluctance: ‘Wait a second. That can't really be happening. Let me double check this’.

Adrian:
I find that very valuable, because there isn't just like an assumption: ‘Oh wow. Yeah. It's nature talking to me, man!’ It's like, what is actually happening here?

Stephanie:
<laughs>

Adrian:
But an openness. So having the curiosity to what's happening - not pre-empting or making the assumptions and being curious. So, all of those coming in there. I guess that's the artist's mind coming in.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Also that it's gonna happen differently every time. I'm I can't go to my next biome, the rainforest, and be like, ‘I know what's gonna happen. You know, there's gonna be some kind of bird tree experience here’. It doesn't like work that directly. You gotta start from the beginning again, reopen, take away those things or shed those things that, you know, are sort of preventing a connection or opening to new things. And then something happens, I guess it does come from a lot of humbleness or something like, or a lot of, ‘I don't know’.

Adrian:
So your next biome is the rainforest?

Stephanie:
Uh, no, I did the desert rainforest and boreal since last we talked. So my next one is marine.

Adrian:
How's that gonna work?

Stephanie:
<laughs> I don't know yet! I think I wanna try to be on the Pacific and the Atlantic and I wanna go under the water. See if I can, you know, scuba dive or, someone can take me under the water cuz that's where it is. So it's gonna be a combination of outside the water, on top of the water and hopefully underneath the water, into the reefs.

Adrian:
Something that's happened fairly recently through the process, is you beginning to get a bit more of an environmental - I guess, concerns coming up about where we're at - and that's bringing up new feelings and that's somewhere we might explore next.

Stephanie:
Okay. So that really happened for me in the rainforest. And again, I think it was more, or I was just thrown into the situation. So I went to British Columbia and I went to Vancouver Island and the first thing was, it was hard to find nature there that was remote enough that I could access. I mean, you could like rent a plane and maybe they could land you somewhere, but it was hard to access. And when you drive around the landscape is shaved. I mean it's like clear cut. So obviously - it almost was shocking. Like, I mean, come on, like you're not even hiding it anymore, you know, behind a veneer or something! It was so obvious. And at the same time they were logging and there were blockades going on. So the trees that I wanted to get to - and the old growth I wanted to immerse myself in - was up for logging and there were blockades there. So this, this wasn't what was happening in the grasslands. Every biome has their problem. So, you know, there's problems in every biome in terms of environmental issues. But this one was live and active now. Okay. <laugh> I think I had to deal with that. I had to figure out what that meant and how to figure out how I felt about it and what was going on. There was indigenous land rights issues. There's obviously the whole biodiversity thing. And then there's the economy of logging and all of this was coming to a head. Well, first of all, when I saw the trees, I have never seen trees that big. That changed me. I couldn't call it a tree anymore. Tree was a thing that was so high that you could kind of climb and ... <laughs>. Like, this was a whole other entity. And it's hard for me to see how someone can't see the epic, miraculous sacredness of that thing that's there and that's that big. It's just, it's so obvious. It's not like, oh the grasslands, you know, maybe that's hard to inspire somebody. This is like, you're picking the most inspirational things and this is what you're logging. So the tension was really high there. You're talking about some of the most obviously spiritually emanating, huge - even just the size of it. Just to be with something that big that's alive, like a whale. You know, even if you don't believe in the animism part of it, you can't help but be moved by it. And you have people logging it in the most unethical ways, you know. That was the environment I went into. So I stayed in the blockades with them and talked to them and hung out with them. And the trees - I danced with the trees that were, you know, they were protecting. There was this feeling of, ’Now! You’ve gotta do it right now. It might be gone’. There's this like impending, like, come, you know, it's important because now, because it might be gone, you know, and that really moved me. Also talking to the indigenous people there and talking to the people of the blockades. And the kind of community they were building there of non-violent communication, and everyone had sort of a mission there, you know, making boardwalks for free for people to walk through these old growth forests that were about to be logged. It was a great community, I felt, open. You had different opinions going back to the campfire and it didn't matter. People were like, you know, open and accepting. I didn't wanna necessarily get arrested, but I did wanna show support and they're fine with that. They were like, ‘It's fine. You don't have to do the other, just come look at the trees. That would be enough for us’. So I felt a lot of really positive values and support that way. This is what I felt about the old growth forest is that when I was dancing in the old growth, there was this kind of mythical - It's kind of like a surrealism art aesthetic. Faces and morphing. And it's very mythical and magical all over the place. It's so dense and constantly ... and it enlivened the imagination I felt. And your unconscious - I call it ‘the unconscious imagination’ or ‘ecological aesthetic’, something like this. And I felt as soon as I got to a road or a clear cut, it was gone. Like that imagination, it just went poof! It was just was gone. And then you go back in. My opinion is - I feel that's where your imagination is, and if we cut those, we're gonna potentially - this is my theory or my point of view - we're gonna lose that ability of the imagination. That it is part of our evolutionary process. It's part of nature and we can't do it without her. And so, yes, I'm for indigenous land rights and for biodiversity, you know, I'm for all of that as well. My personal perspective is our potential for imagination: We need the forest to be human and without it, we're gonna lose that. So that's where then I started to feel more compelled to, with the work that I do - sharing videos, I'm also creating like movement activities or somatic activities, activities, or prompts, I guess you could call them or invitations, for how people can get more connected with nature right where they are at their home. When I go to artist residencies, I build experiential trails. So I go to the residency, I'll dig out a trail that someone can walk through the forest. And then I make seating with wood, or my partner helps me or the director helps me. And then I make these cards that have an invitation of how to experience nature. I laminate it and I staple it into the seat. And so the person walking has like eight different stops along their quarter mile experience where they can experience the woods, for instance, from these different points of view. And I feel that's a way, another way. I feel people have responded positively to that, where they walk, they sit, they look down, they read the invitation. It might give you a spatial experience or a temporal experience or a smelling one or a listening one. Because I feel the more people are experiencing nature and find the connection, people will become more active in their community and in something greater - is through a personal, and I would say somatic, meaning my body actually feels this difference with the environment. ‘I'm I feeling more, I'm hearing more here. I see these very interesting artistic things that I'm sort of creating as I'm looking through, I'm looking at nature or I'm seeing all more colours. Now it's in me and now I'm motivated to act in a certain way that treats nature with more respect and nurturing’.

Adrian:
Yeah, totally. There’s a phrase I sometimes use: embodied ecology. Feeling it in our bodies, really feeling that connection. I love that phrase you used: ‘We need the forest to be human’. That goes back to what I was beginning with: That there's thoughts we cannot have if there are no woods. Right? If there's no forests, those human potentials have gone forever.

Stephanie :
Yep. I feel that, especially when I saw those trees, I'm like, you cut those … Okay, you can have a second growth forest. It's not the same as an old growth forest. It is not. Personally, I feel it's not the same and the imagination and the miraculousness and the mythical feeling you feel when you're with something that big that's alive, it's not - you can't tell somebody about it. I mean, you can, but it's not the same as if you live with that. you dance with it, you do mindfulness with it. Even just sitting with it, you can't replace that. It is irreplaceable and you need it. You need it, obviously for the greater biodiversity and the environment, and you need it to be a human being.

Adrian:
Whoa. So whenever we touch into this sort of these topics, I find it really emotional and I get quite choked up about it. And something you said, which I found really helpful. You're talking about trust. I'm gonna read the quote because it's a real gift for me. So you write: ‘I somehow am able to give up or give in. And an overwhelming sense of trust emerges. I feel trust. A new kind of trust. A trust in life, not in an only-positive-things-will-happen-to-me trust. But a trust in the inevitableness of what is and what will be and in how things are’.

Stephanie:
Yes, I guess that, that was a, yeah, that was an early experience I had in the forest when I was afraid. It came from fear. And then this trust came out of that and I have had a couple more experiences like that. That's the way to get through something like this. I get more angry <laughs>. You get more, you know, choked up from the situation. A little like this is ridiculous. And how can you not, you know? But I feel that feeling of trust does help you. And I think it helps you sustain and stay healthy while you still go forwards with what you want to do to help change the world. It is just still coming back to that realization that this is how things are. I also feel though one experience I had in the boreal - just to give us another shade on this - is where I had another fearful experience. I was kayaking, I mean, canoeing. I was by myself - I did a solo for 15 days. So I'm out in this lake by myself. I'm canoeing. I wanna go see this hill. The wind is picking up. The waves are picking up and I'm on my way back to the campsite. And I was like, ‘Maybe I shouldn't have done this. This might have been a mistake’. And you know, the waves are coming and I'm fearful, right? I'm not sure cuz it keeps pushing me. The wind is pushing me away from where I need to go. And the same thing happened. I got afraid. And then this trust came over me and this trust was similar - that this is what's happening, but my intention - I can't fight this wind with my muscles, I'm not strong enough. I can't fight the wind with my bones and my, you know, effort in my body. I lose. But where I feel I have a force of nature with her is my intention. I intend to get to that campsite and she's gonna intend to blow me this way and the waves are gonna intend to rise. And that's all good. I'm part of this play of forces, but it's not my body. That's part of nature. It's my intention. When I felt that I felt this sort of realization that I'm not intending like I'm destroying, or this is the only way. There's gravity, there's wind, there's Stephanie's intention - a human's intention. It's one of the plays of forces of natural forces that play together, not fight. They play together or they interact and that's just as powerful. And so I guess, maybe as a positive part of it is accepting, this is just the way things are. And I feel part of it is if you have an aligned intention, that's not a destructive intention, but a human intention that's aligned and positive, it can play within the other forces of nature as part of her.

Adrian:
Wonderful. That really speaks to the kind of activism I think we need - that kind of engaged in harmony with nature, sort of working with and using our own particular qualities. What is it? What's the spark? What have you got? What it can you bring to this? And nobody else can.

Stephanie:
Exactly. And you're not dominating with your intention. You're not destroying, you're not saying this is the only way. I like to feel that what you're intending is somehow playing with these other forces of nature. And that is a way of being with landscape. So the way I was with landscape and the canoe, you know, my muscles and you know, I wasn't able to meet her there, but I could with my intention and I'm human, I'm allowed to have an intention. You know, I can have a somatic experience with her. I can have an aesthetic experience with nature, but my intention also is playing in that realm of landscape.

Adrian:
That's been a lovely journey. Feels like we've gone through all of the different dimensions. Have we missed anything? Is there anything there that you would particularly want to talk about before we close?

Stephanie:
No, I guess just that there are many ways to explore with nature and I feel, you know, walking is one way, meditating is one way, but there are plenty of other creative ways to do that. And I hope people go out and you know - you don't have to follow somebody else's thing to feel that's your only way. And that just going out, being curious, being creative in the way you feel will yield positive connections for you. So you don't have to go ‘Well, that guy has the approach and let me follow. Oh, it's not really working for me’. Or, you know, ‘I have to walk. That's what they said is the way to do it’. You can look into yourself, find what interests you, find what you're curious about. And if you follow that, you will find a way to connect to nature.

Adrian:
Perfect. I think that's a lovely way to close; just for people to find their own way. Because it'll be unique.

Stephanie:
Yes. I feel nature's asking for that. In my opinion, she's asking for everyone's unique way of connecting with her, and expressing with her and being creative. Not one way or not just one group's way or not just one method. I feel like now we need everybody. We need all bodyminds and all their quirky, interesting and unique ways of expressing with nature and being with the land. Not one way - I feel we need all the ways.

Adrian:
Diversity.

Stephanie:
Exactly. <laughs>

Adrian:
Brilliant. Thank you, Stephanie. That's been a lovely exploration, a lovely conversation and lots for people to take forwards. I would urge people listening, go out to your local woods, your local park, beach, whatever it is that's near you. And just draw on some of what Stephanie's been talking about today. Find your way of connecting, whatever it is. We've had some ideas, but they're just suggestions. Right?

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Adrian:
So go and find your own way and connect to nature in whatever way feels right for you, Stephanie. Thank you again. It’s been lovely.

Stephanie:
Thank you so much.

Adrian:
Bye Stephanie and goodbye to all our listeners and I'll see you again on our next podcast. Thanks very much. Bye.