The Wild Minds Podcast

In this final episode of Season 13, Marina looks at how the endings of autumn invite us to slow down, honour our ancestors and grieve together, and why sharing our feelings in community, human and more-than-human, can help us feel more alive and connected. Why being busy keeps us from feeling (“you can’t hit a moving target”), and why slowing down is one of the keys to connection The end of Octobe...

In this tender and wide-ranging conversation, Grief Walker Aralyn Doiron joins Marina to explore how facing death, feeling our grief and remembering our ancestors can bring us more fully alive. Topics include: First encounters with death: Aralyn and Marina share childhood memories of loss, from standing at the casket of an eight-year-old neighbour to being kept away from a grandparent’s funeral. W...

In this episode I'm looking back on our Circle of Life Rediscovery 'Green Health Virtual Gathering, Embedding Nature in Practice – From Vision to Delivery'. It brought together psychiatrists, a GP, psychotherapists, nurses and NHS teams to explore one idea: nature is a co-healer alongside people, and the healing happens in relationship, with each other and with the land. Topics include: • Reflecti...

In this episode, Marina looks back at the questions that came up at the *Outside for Everyone* webinar and asks why we adults find it so hard to take learning outdoors, and what we can do about it. In this episode: Why experiential learning sticks, and why we still find it so hard to take education outside "Backlinking": Juliet Robertson's idea of offering hands-on outdoor activities and linking t...

In this 100th episode of The Wild Minds Podcast, I'm in discussion with Michael James and Stefania Donzelli. We explore what Forest School and autism can teach us about difference, belonging, relationship and the ways we create environments where people can genuinely be themselves. We discuss: Why autism is far more than a diagnostic category, and what changes when we listen to autistic people’s o...

Welcome to episode 99 which was recorded in the middle of a sleepless night. A quiet, unscripted reflection on gratitude, grief, wildness and the autumn question of what needs pruning and what is ready to be harvested. In this episode: Begins with a gratitude practice for the stillness of the night, for time, and for simply being present. Reads Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese and reflects on letting “the...

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr Ralph Mortimer-Roome, a GP based in Brighton and Chair of the Kent, Surrey and Sussex regional group of Greener Practice. We discuss what changes when we stop seeing health as something that sits only inside the individual body, and begin to include climate, community, relationship and the living world in how we understand healing. In this episode, we explore: Why...

For this episode, I’m joined by my husband Geoff Robb - musician, composer and co-director of The Outdoor Teacher, to explore his lifelong relationship with music and nature, and the story behind The Music of Trees . We discuss.... Geoff’s journey from classical guitar and years of busking to becoming a professional musician, composer and creator of The Music of Trees . How his early experiences w...

As I record this onthe Summer Solstice - a moment when nature stands in its fullest expression, it feels like the perfect time to reflect on a season of conversations that, in different ways, have all pointed towards one essential human need: belonging. At the Summer Solstice, when the light reaches its fullest expression, we are invited to pause and ask what has ripened in us, what is ready to be...

In this conversation, GP Dr Tim Rigg explores how nature, community and healthcare might come together to create a more humane, preventative and scalable model of wellbeing. Tim speaks from his experience as a GP, bringing together clinical practice, social prescribing, nature connection and a wider understanding of what helps people become well He explains that around 90–95% of healthcare contact...

In this reflective solo episode, Marina explores how getting to know the plants around us can deepen our sense of connection, belonging and wonder. Drawing on a day spent teaching in the woods, she shares simple ways to slow down, engage the senses and discover the food, medicine, stories and lessons hidden within the plants we often overlook. Key Takeaways Why learning the names and qualities of...

In this episode, I’m speaking with Mo Wilde - forager, research herbalist, ethnobotanist, author of The Wilderness Cure , and founder of the Wild Biome Project. Mo has spent decades learning from plants, fungi, seaweeds, medicine, soil and the seasons. Her relationship with the wild began in childhood, and has grown into a life’s work exploring not only what plants can offer us, but what happens w...

In this week's episode I am discussing how climate anxiety is not the problem. I will explore how we educate, support and practice in a time of climate breakdown without overwhelming young people or asking them to numb themselves to reality. Topics include: Climate anxiety is not the problem; unsupported climate anxiety is. Climate education cannot just give young people facts - it has to help the...

Today I’m speaking with Jessica Newberry Le Vay, Senior Researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, and part of Climate Cares - a global initiative based at Oxford and Imperial College London, working to understand and respond to the links between climate change, mental health and wellbeing. Jessica leads the Compass Project, a research programme exploring how climate c...

This episode explores the tension between “just play” and the deeper understanding of what children truly need to develop and thrive. Topics Include: Play is not a break from learning but the primary way children engage with and make sense of the world physically, socially, and emotionally True play is child-led, intrinsically motivated, and process-driven, and when these qualities are removed it...

In this 1st episode of Season 12, Restoring the Occupation of Childhood, I’m joined by Angela Hanscom, a paediatric occupational therapist, Author of Balanced and Barefoot. She is also the founder of TimberNook that programmes designed to immerse children in sensory-rich, authentic play in nature and are found in over 51 locations in 4 countries! Angela’s work invites us to look again at the risin...

In this final episode of Season 11, Marina reflects on ceremony at a seasonal threshold, where science, spirituality and everyday life meet. As the light shifts toward spring in the North and autumn in the South, this episode explores what keeps us well - personally and collectively - and asks whether we are living as passengers or participants in our time. Topics include: Living at a threshold -...

Sitting by the fire with Annie Spencer, we explore ceremony as lived relationship - with spirit, story, blood, grief, and the long arc from initiation to eldership - and what it means to keep dreaming a life-affirming world in times that feel increasingly divided. Topics include: Sitting by the fire together becomes a doorway into relationship - gratitude not as a nicety, but as a way of rememberi...

In this episode, I step into what I’m calling the season of the amateur - asking big questions without claiming expertise. I explore how medicine is shaped by culture and worldview, what “evidence” really means, and how different systems - from biomedicine to Ayurveda - understand causation, illness and health. This isn’t a rejection of modern medicine - it’s an attempt to widen the lens. To ask w...

In this episode I’m joined by Dr Kanchan, an Ayurvedic doctor trained in India, to explore a radically different way of understanding health, not only as something we fix when it breaks, but as a lifelong relationship between body, mind, senses, environment, and meaning. This is a conversation about prevention rather than crisis, and about what becomes possible when health is understood as a livin...

In this episode, Marina explores why climate education is a health issue by looking at what actually keeps us well, and what happens when the systems we depend on begin to destabilise. This is a reflection on the living world, on physical reality, and on why informed climate education matters at a time of change. Key points: She begins in gratitude for the living world, and how amazing this biosph...

In this conversation, Professor Hugh Montgomery names climate change for what it is: A survival crisis driven by “radiation gain” and accelerating feedback loops. He cuts through denial, delay and mixed messaging with five simple moves anyone can make now - switch your power, move your money, change your food, shift your travel, and talk about it - then shows how asking seven others can cascade in...

Episode 82 invites listeners to arrive into 2026 with honesty, care and a sense of shared responsibility - not as individuals carrying the world alone, but as part of a wider web of life. Drawing on reflections from Jane Goodall’s work, seasonal change and lived experience, this episode explores how we stay present without panic. It asks what it really means to act with courage, dignity and relati...

Today, I’m joined by Rosemary Reed, trustee of the Jane Goodall Institute UK, and Jasmina Georgovska, Director of Outreach for Roots & Shoots UK — the global youth programme Jane founded to support young people to take action for people, animals, and the planet. In this episode, we talk about what it means to raise changemakers without breaking spirits. About listening, really listening, to ch...

As winter gathers and the days shorten, in this final episode of the season, Marina reflects on the Rowan tree, the act of wintering, and the hidden life beneath stillness.  Here are some of her reflections: The Rowan as a winter guardian, its bright berries offering sustenance and protection in the dark months. The solstice as a time of descent, when we enter the heart’s cave and tend the in...