beneath the stream

12. Ghosts in the Darkness

May 11, 2019

Night distorts the human world and, as we become separated from what is not human, is the night the way we reconnect with that experience? Sat in a final fragment of Dunwich’s 10th century Greyfriars Monastery, near a single tombstone of All Saints Churchyard, we record this podcast at night in one of the “most haunted places in England”.

With ‘A Natural History of Ghosts’ by Roger Clarke, filling our minds, we contemplate why should ghosts - whatever that phenomena might be - appear more often at night? As night ‘falls’ (or does it rise?) we consider the fears that we lay at night’s door, seen from the corner of one’s eye. A time of danger and the ‘other’, night is filled with terrors for modern humans.

Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:

A Natural History of Ghosts - Roger Clarke

Bram Stoker

11. Wild Wood

April 9, 2019

“To enter a wood is to pass into a different world” said author Roger Deakin, and in this episode, recorded in ancient Staverton Thicks forest, we explore why it is that there is a history of humans going to the woods to grow and learn, and to travel to find ourselves, often by getting lost. Why is it a place of story-telling, of fairy tales, of childhood imagination?

Disorientating for many modern humans, is there a density of ‘otherness’ in forest, and is this why for us the wild wood is it place of fear but also a place that we love? Sit with us on a mossy fallen tree as we question whether these are places to hide, to escape and adventure, or ones to fear where the non-human - or perhaps human - is watching us.

Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:

Blair Witch Project

The Legend of Boggy Creek

Staverton Thicks

Pollarding

Gossip from the Forest - Sara Maitland

Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

As You Like It - William Shakespeare

Walden - Henry David Thoreau

Wood - Andy Goldsworthy

The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorn

The Consolations of the Forest - Sylvain Tesson

Wild Wood - Roger Deakin

Woodlands - Oliver Rackham

The Witch - Robert Eggers

Grizzly Adams

Olympic National Park

Massachusetts

Polish Jewish villages

10. Myth and The Woodwose - feat. Thea Smiley

March 7, 2019

We humans have long made sense of the non-human world around, and beyond us, through storytelling and myth. Folklore has much to say about hairy wild men, and women, and their relationship to us, past and present. Exploring these motifs, stories and the creative process, we focus on these ‘woodwose’, their presence on church fonts, and their probable origins as creatures and symbols.

We speak with playwright Thea Smiley who, with theatre company Wonderful Beast, has written about The Last Wildman and The Woodwose. With her we ponder what we should learn from wild places and wild people, and the 'mythical' beings who perhaps know more than we do about how to live.

Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:

Wonderful Beast theatre company

Return of the Wildman

Green children of Woolpit

Orford Ness

Ted Hughes ‘Wodwo’

Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Almasty

9. Tracks

February 7, 2019

In this podcast we explore the proscribed routes, the safe paths, the trackways; and how they affect our perception of the land and our experience of the non-human world. What lives beyond the path? Are we an animal making paths of convenience or is there a human need for paths, boundaries and way markers - is it that our species deliberately wants to make marks on the land?

On a windswept autumn day we explore The Ridgeway and ancient Wayland’s Smithy discussing trading routes, pilgrimage, and how to avoid getting lost on tracks that may even be born of the Earth itself.

Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:

The Ridgeway

Oxfordshire Downs

Wayland’s Smithy

Uffington White Horse

Plague village of Eyam

The Old Straight Track

A Line Made by Walking

National Trust

Tristan Gooley

8. Night

January 7, 2019

Night makes us focus on our human experience of the darkness. Night is a place where the non-human world thrives: both in reality through wild predators whose senses exceed ours, and also in imagination as, for humans, the darkness often harbours our fears and is home to the unknown, the half-seen, and the mis-heard.

We explore what is special about night, In what ways does night reveal itself that goes beyond simply the interval between the light of day? How do we respond as the night-time takes away our senses? Maybe night is when we see ourselves most clearly.

Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:

Heart electromagnetic field

The Darkness is Light Enough

Visions of Johanna

7. Wind

December 2, 2018

In a windswept locale we explore how both we, and the inhabitants the non-human world, respond to the wind. Wind spirits, the voice of the wind, hurricanes, and the sense of ‘aliveness’ that it has all affect us. Why does it makes us feel a certain way? How is it perceived by many indigenous human cultures?

For birds, insects, trees, seeds, oceans and more, the way the wind moves across The Earth is fundamental to their lives. And so it is to us. Indeed during this podcast you cab get the wind in our voices.

Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:

North Wessex Downs

The effect of wind on children

Gerard Manley Hopkins

6. Sounds 1

November 8, 2018

We explore some of the most evocative sounds in the natural world and examine the power that the acoustics of the non-human world have over us. As we listen in Part 1 to Ian’s choice of sounds, we discuss how we navigate the natural world with sound and how it gives us a sense of place.

Are we acoustic creatures? What is the ‘voice’ of the non-human world? How does it speak?

How does sound link to a sense of place and calendar and what is it power to stir memories in us? What indeed is its power for one species to ‘speak’ to another?

Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:

David Abram, Becoming Animal

Spring Peeper

Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

5. Fear - with guest Robert Lloyd Parry

September 9, 2018

The non-human world, in it’s many guises, can often be a place where we face our fears. Recorded in Cambridge at Mill Road Cemetery and the 12th century Leper Chapel of St Mary Magdalene, this episode features an interview with Robert Lloyd Parry, an outstanding performance storyteller, who specialises in classic literary ghost fiction, in particular the work of Montague Rhodes James.

We explore Fear: as a human adaptation; as a heightened sense; as a part of our experience in the wild; as something ‘unnatural’; or something we experience in solitude; and how we experience it in our sense of familiar and unfamiliar places.

We would like to thank our wonderful guest Robert Lloyd Parry. To discover more about him visit http://www.nunkie.co.uk

Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:

Arthur Machen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Machen

The Cruel Mother https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cruel_Mother

Malcolm Sinclair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Sinclair_(actor)

Julian Hoffman https://julian-hoffman.com/irreplaceable/

Ray Bradbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury

Kenneth Grahame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Grahame

Robert Macfarlane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Macfarlane_(writer)

M R James https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._R._James

A Warning to the Curious https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Warning_to_the_Curious

Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Oh,_Whistle,_and_I%27ll_Come_to_You,_My_Lad%27

Cambridge Leper Chapel https://www.cambridgeppf.org/Pages/Category/cambridge-leper-chapel

Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Alberic%27s_Scrap-Book

1. Light

September 4, 2018

The qualities of light, and how the natural, human and non-human world can be viewed and impacted by light is under discussion in this episode of the podcast. References you might wish to follow up include:

Watership Down, Hampshire, UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down,_Hampshire

John Aitchison, cameramen and broadcaster http://johnaitchison.net

The Native American medicine wheel https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/exhibition/healing-ways/medicine-ways/medicine-wheel.html

Songlines by Bruce Chatwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Songlines

Ladysmith Black Mambazo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladysmith_Black_Mambazo

Baja California, Mexico https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baja_California

Extremadura, Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremadura

The Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) http://swla.co.uk

Darren Rees, artist http://www.darrenrees.com

Lars Jonsson, artist http://www.larsjonsson.se

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Jonsson_(illustrator)

Barry Lopez, writer http://www.barrylopez.com

4. Fire and the human imagination

August 1, 2018

What is it about fire that draws us to its side? It brings warmth and safety, yet it carries a destructive threat. Recorded on location by the fireside in Suffolk, this episode explores our long relationship with fire and how it links us to our landscapes. We talk about how it has bound us in belief, and its role at the centre of communities and belief systems.

Some of things we discuss in this episode

Beltane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane

Native American sweat lodge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_lodge

Polly Wiessner https://www.humansandnature.org/polly-wiessner

The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/history/The-Biggest-Estate-on-Earth-Bill-Gammage-9781743311325

Yellowstone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_National_Park

Great Fire of London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London

Must Farm http://www.mustfarm.com/

Phoenix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)

Salamander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander

Pyromancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyromancy