Lexicon for Life

In this special bonus episode of the podcast, Jay Griffiths reads from her book, Nemesis, My Friend: Journeys Through the Turning Times . “It is twilight. And at the waking edge of night, a crescent otter surfaces looping up from its dive. In its mouth, a fish shines silver, a little crescent moon. Night chases day like one otter cub chasing another. A pine martin races quicksilver through nearby...

Every human culture has some kind of ritual to connect with something bigger than the self. Whether through organised religion or other spiritual practices, it appears to be a deep need in humans, but also in some animals, to acknowledge and celebrate wonder. In How Animals Heal Us , Jay describes the chimpanzee engrossed in a waterfall dance: “His enthusiasm (from en-theos , the god within) jubil...

Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths — Joseph Campbell Dreaming, and what we learn from our dreams, are a fundamental part of being human, part of every culture on earth, but we are not the only dreaming animals. “Spiders. Rats. Cats. Dogs. Zebra finches. Humans and other primates. Dreaming happens among many animals,” writes Jay in How Animals Heal Us . You can watch baby jumping spi...

“If the imagination were an animal, it would be the hare. The mercurial hare races quicksilver, like a flash of thought swiftly appearing and instantly gone.” From cave paintings to fables and children’s books, for thousands of years, animals have shaped human thought and our urge to connect with them has given rise to imaginative art. “The full imaginative reach of being human needs the animals,”...

Anxiety is rife, caused variously by the fear of climate change, by the destabilising of political structures and the speed of technological development. No-one can be free of anxiety while being aware of what is happening in the world. “Young people are suffering a never-before-known sickness, eco-anxiety, as time is running out for the climate, the soil, and the oceans and so many creatures are...

Trickster archetypes exist in many human cultures, with a very defined set of characteristics. He is charismatic, funny, but utterly undependable, a little bit of a thief, but moving the story forward, making change happen, blasting away the status quo. Joanna reads from Jay’s book, Nemesis, My Friend: “He bends the truth till your head hurts. Trickster is shameless. The quiet, inner voice of cons...

“ Vitality is zest, enthusiasm, fizzing like a vitamin in the psyche. Vitality is the inextinguishable life force, the sap-rising iridescence. Vitality is not necessarily correlated with age, and an eighty-year-old, drinking in vividness, can be elastic with vitality as a core inner strength. It is a key measure of psychological health, the mind's appetite for life and vigour, the vivid experience...

Grace is one of Jay Griffiths’ favourite words; its connection to gratitude, to charisma, to that something more than was asked for. “It’s in the grace notes of music, the thing which is not strictly necessary, but the beautiful extra that gives life that quality of given, cherished, unearned beauty.” There are moments, she says, where we are in a state of gratitude for something of astonishing gr...

Loneliness , Grace, Vitality , Anxiety , Dreaming , Trickster , Spirituality , and Imagination . All these words have a special resonance in the work of the award-winning writer Jay Griffiths (author of Wild: An Elemental Journey , Why Rebel? and How Animals Heal Us ). In each of the eight episodes, Jay takes one of these words for a walk – exploring how they connect us to the past, bind us to the...