beneath the stream

Around the world there are over 100 human names that mean ‘The Sun’; perhaps the clearest evidence of us humans being inspired by, and acknowledging the significance of, a 4.5 billion-year-old yellow dwarf star, a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. Its benevolence and its destructive capacity affect all aspects of our being, our cultures, our artworks, and take The Sun away and Polar Night makes us sad, detached, without energy, struggling to concentrate, struggling to stay awake. Give us too much of it and we cannot survive its power.   With music from Colin Williams   Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here: Equinox Rush 2001 A Space Odyssey Richard Strauss ‘Sunrise’ Sun Studio RKO Pictures Isla Santa Catalina Helios U2 Kiribati Hopi New Mexico Mexico FIFA 1986 Serotonin The Road - Cormac McCarthy Carrington Event Svalbard Carl Nielson

A high tide coming Will eat the land A tide no breakwaters can withstand. Act 1 Scene 1 Peter Grimes, Op. 33 Benjamin Britten, libretto Montagu Slater On a cold winter's day, we go down to a river that becomes the sea and, in an exploration of the complex human relations with the tide, we go with the ‘ebb and flow’, feel the currents, watch the high water mark and study what gets cast up. We are waiting to see what the tide brings and what it takes away; especially at this time in human history.  With music from Colin Williams. ‘JUST AS THE TIDE WAS FLOWING’ BY JON BODEN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST https://www.jonboden.com  Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here: River Alde  Benjamin Britten  Corhampton  Svalbard  Moby Duck Wild Man of Orford  Wadden Sea  Just as the Tide was Flowing  Isle of Iona  Dunwich Woodhenge  Doggerland  Cockles Julius Caesar; William Shakespeare

We live in the age of the 6th Mass Extinction; one that is human caused. Yet, amidst all this loss, we are still finding so called ‘Lazarus’ species; creatures that we believe we had extirpated but have been re-found. And some that have not been proven, but many fervently believe are still alive, clinging on to existence away from human gaze and knowledge; ready for a second coming. Why are we so reluctant to let go of that which has demonstrably gone? Why do we hold a desperate desire that some creatures are still there, but we didn’t care enough at the time to stop their eradication? In this episode we explore stories of the Tasmanian Tiger, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and others, and wonder why do so many of us ache for natural loss not to be final. With music from Colin Williams Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here: Ivory-billed Woodpecker Thylacine Arthur Conan Doyle Cottingley Faeries Sixth Mass Extinction Yangtze River Dolphin Passenger Pigeon Honshu Wolf Mexican Grizzly Bear Tasmanian Emu Tasman Starling Coelacanth New Zealand Storm Petrel Mahogany Glider Mountain Pygmy Possum Adelaide Pygmy Blue-tongued Skink Bridled Nail-tailed Wallaby Night Parrot Aldo Leopold’s ‘Sand County Almanac’  Darren Rees Ghosts of Gone Birds BirdLife International Carolina Parakeet John James Audubon Galapagos  Lonesome George Natural History Museum, Tring Sam Keen  

Of all the ways we relate to the natural world it could be said that the human sense of smell is by turns our most powerful sense and yet also our weakest link with the rest of Nature. Scents can transport us, can help us form enduring memories, proves the link between our olfactory system and our limbic system. The human nose and brain can detect 1 trillion different odours yet we have inadequate language to describe them, often amalgamate them into collective smells (“it smells like a forest”) and struggle to quieten our mind in Nature and become one with the odours. With contributions from Ella Roberts, Sam Lee, Devi Singh and Gina Gow, we attempt to make sense of scents. Music from Colin Williams   Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here: Jasmine  Tom Robbins  Sam Lee Nature Moroccan souk Herb Robert   Peak District Patrick Süskind   Freshwater Mint Meadowsweet   Adam Thorpe Wiltshire Downs   Hiraeth   Cistus Wild Thyme   Cairngorms   Cuban cigar   Fern Schumer Chapman   Balsam Poplar   Tamarack Song   Aldo Leopold   Red Fox Henry Beston   Sagebrush Yellowstone   Western Meadowlark   White Sage   Bay of Fundy Bougainvillaea   Fungi Amanita Neroli Rosemary 

Is song connected to even deeper roots than time and place? Can music and song can bring us closer to the non-human world? Does musical meaning arise from the experience of inhabiting the world and is it shared freely between humans and birds and trees and ‘all our relations’?  We explore all this and much more with the wonderful Sam Lee. A highly inventive and original singer, folk song interpreter, passionate conservationist, song collector and successful creator of live events. Alongside his organisation, The Nest Collective, Sam has shaken up the music scene breaking boundaries between folk and contemporary music and the assumed places and ways folksong is appreciated. And he is the author of the acclaimed ‘The Nightingale’, a book about a bird whose presence and reassurance of nature represents an English totemism, a symbol of a visceral relationship with the natural world, myth and identity. Mixing grief, hope and vision for the future, we explore how Nature projects on to us, not us on to Nature. Sam Lee website   The Nightingale book  Old Wow album    Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here: Jeannie Robertson - MacCrimmons Lament  Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan  Bernard Butler  Buzzard  Totem   Anthropomorphism   Heron   Kestrel Ornithology   Totem Pole Ray Mears  Shamanism Music Declares Emergency   Wembley Stadium   Hans Christian Andersen   J M W Turner   Hawthorn Supermoon   Ecology Solastalgia   Caroline Lucas MP   Benedict MacDonald - Rebirding Monsanto   Siren Calling   Fridays for Future 

An archetype, a creature that we impose human ideas, ideals, values and characteristics upon? A real, spectral being, visiting us from the demonic world? Or simply our domestic companion for thousands of years that we have venerated, commemorated and depicted in myriad ways? Hounds have been - and continue to be - all of these for us humans. As a denizen of the wild around them, humans have encountered wolves, jackals and dogs dependent upon geography, and those cultures have found ways to bring those relationships into myth, legend, worship, movies and more. In this episode we ponder Anubis in Egypt and the Beast of Bray Road, Robert Johnson’s ‘Hellhound on My Trail’ and the legend of East Anglia’s ‘Black Shuck’. THEME MUSIC BY COLIN WILLIAMS Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here: Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh Black Shuck East Anglia The Hound of the Baskervilles Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban  Flag Fen Caldicot Shamanism Saint Christopher New Testament Bog bodies River Styx Spanish Water Dog Anubis Sirius Tutankhamun  Werewolf Dogman Encounters Radio Beast of Bray Road Jung Archetypes Jackal Osiris Sumarian Goddess Bau The Omen Lycanthrope Beowulf Grendel Scucca Hellhound on My Trail Robert Johnson Delta Blues Gospel music Caerwent Staines Leiston Abbey Felixstowe Gorleston Long Island Ipswich

The power of place, our fascination with what is not human . . . these have been cornerstones of Beneath the Stream since we began. But so too is the power of the human mind, our perceptions, our telling of stories and perhaps, most of all, the telling of stories to ourselves through culture and memory and the tricks and truths we encounter. The work of author Ed Parnell is a powerful illustration of all of the above. His acclaimed book Ghostland has been described as “Parnell’s moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – and what is haunting him. It is a unique and elegiac meditation on grief, memory and longing, and of the redemptive power of stories and nature.” Ghostland was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley 2020 Award for memoir. Speaking in the book of his memories he says, “All of it was real, I think”. Ed Parnell’s website https://edwardparnell.com    INTRODUCTORY AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC: Colin Williams singing ‘Breaths’ by Sweet Honey in the Rock Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here: M R James https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._R._James  Algernon Blackwood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Blackwood  Stonehenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge  Garth Marenghi's Darkplace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Marenghi%27s_Darkplace  Boston, Lincs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston,_Lincolnshire  Holbeach Marsh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holbeach_Marsh  New York - Lou Reed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_(album)  Fata Morgana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)  Pilgrim Hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim_Hospital  Illustrated London News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illustrated_London_News  The Willows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Willows_(story)  The Danube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube  Lakenheath Fen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakenheath_Fen_RSPB_reserve  Golden Oriole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_golden_oriole  Arthur Machen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Machen  Alan Garner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner  Weirdstone of Brisingamen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weirdstone_of_Brisingamen  The Moon of Gomrath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_of_Gomrath  Hemmingford Grey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemingford_Grey  Robert Lloyd-Parry http://www.nunkie.co.uk  Waterland, Graham Swift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterland_(novel)  The Wash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wash  Jodrell Bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodrell_Bank_Observatory  E F Benson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._F._Benson  Borth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borth  William Hope Hodgson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hope_Hodgson  Folk Horror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_horror  The House on the Borderland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_on_the_Borderland  The Blood on Satan’s Claw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blood_on_Satan%27s_Claw  The Wicker Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicker_Man  Witchfinder General https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchfinder_General_(film)  Psychogeography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography  The Blair Witch Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project  Lapwing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_lapwing  Bella Lugosi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bela_Lugosi  An American Werewolf in London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Werewolf_in_London  Tolkien https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien  Harry Potter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter  The X-files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files  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  Watership Down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down       

“There are many songs in the landscape”, says Ed O’Brien, guitarist and member of Radiohead, “it roots you in what it means to be a human being; what are we doing walking on this planet”. In this podcast it’s our delight to have time with Ed as he describes the making of his solo album ‘Earth’ in retreat in mid-Wales, amidst a timeless, rich vein of Celtic tradition, and in Brazil amidst the polyrhythms of insects that are at the heart of samba. Landscape, belief, aliveness, quantum physics, spirituality, and reading poetry aloud in the mountains, the interview dances through concepts, connections and contrasts, from a man who continues to be creating contemporary music that is a record of time, place, resonance and emotions. “Nature and landscape are not always easy places to be but you couldn’t feel more alive”. Ed O’Brien and ‘Earth’ https://www.eobmusic.com  INTRODUCTORY AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC: Colin Williams    Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here: Led Zeppelin  Bon Iver  Jack Kerouac   Snowdonia Radiohead  Brazil  Oxfordshire  Vale of the White Horse  Mid-Wales  Cambrian Mountains  Jay Griffiths - Wild  Rhayader  River Wye   Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass   William Blake  Dylan Thomas  Celtic Nations  The Shard  Plynlimon  Rebecca Solnit - Wanderlust  Barry Lopez  Aberystwyth   Ezra Pound   Dead Poets Society  Atheism   Agnosticism   Buddhism  Aldous Huxley - The Perennial Philosophy   Sufism   Kabbalah   Hinduism   Samba   Laura Marling   Nick Drake   New Mexico   Arizona   Dehli   Rajasthan   Bhutan   Sámi   Aretha Franklin   Quantum physics   Paul McCartney 

Gillian Burke is a biologist, TV presenter, public speaker, voiceover artist, writer and mother, and she joins us to discuss how people can relate to, and tell stories of, the human and non-human world. At a critical time for our environment scientists and artists can tell stories, especially when every single person and every single organism has a story to tell, about staying alive. With her African, Asian, European, Native American, Oriental and Polynesian ancestry she uses different perspectives is to push past boundaries and discover greater empathy and connection with each other and the world we live in. A passion for science and storytelling reside in the universal themes of defeat and victory, endurance and resilience, the light and shade of being alive. Gillian Burke’s website http://www.gillianburkevoice.com INTRODUCTORY AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC: Colin Williams    Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here: Kenya  Nairobi   University of Bristol   Blow Flies   Power lifting Cool Earth   Professor Wangari Maathai   Green Belt Movement Kenya   Survival International First Nations   Celtic   Cornwall   Beltane   Stonehenge   Matt Chatfield, The Cornwall Project Medieval   Druids 

Entering wild water we have the chance to become one with the river, the kingfisher, the sea, the seal. Or instead the visceral thrill of breaking the surface ice can leave us, in Karen’s words, “screamy flappy and trying to quieten the survival part of your brain”. It all depends it seems on what intention you set out with - a personal wild experience with no safety forms to complete. With Karen of the glorious Swim Wild podcast as our guide, we explore how everyone comes to wild swimming for different reasons. How magical places and times of day are enhanced simply by being held by the water. As she says, each wild swim is unique and once it trickles through your fingers it’s gone, you can’t hold it, and there its no other recourse than to plan your next one. Swim Wild podcast ~ the podcast for the wild swimming community. Interviewing members of your tribe about iconic swims, personal challenges, the friends they have made, the impact on their health and well being and finding a deeper connection with the natural world. Testing out the theory that, whenever and wherever we swim outside, we "emerge from the water better versions of ourselves". INTRODUCTORY MUSIC EXPLORING THE BLUE BY LUKA BLOOM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST Luka Bloom https://www.lukabloom.com  Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here: Lake District, Cumbria UK Great North Swim  Gilly McArthur  Jini Reddy, Wanderland  WhaleFest  Sunderland  Terns  Kingfisher