The Wild Minds Podcast

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 own experiences and perspectives.
Moving beyond the deficit model and questioning the assumptions of neuro-normativity.
Forest School as a micro-community where relationships, trust, autonomy and belonging can create different possibilities.
The triangle of trust between practitioner, participant and environment and why all three matter.
The social model of disability and how barriers can sometimes sit in our environments, communication and expectations rather than in the individual.
Sensory differences and the outdoor environment, including why nature itself may need to be adapted rather than treated as something fixed and untouchable.
The importance of flexibility, communication and listening - recognising that the participant may be the greatest expert in their own experience.
Power and authority in Forest School, and what happens when we create spaces where people can question, negotiate and do things differently.
Intersectionality and Universal Design for Learning, and the value of anticipating different ways of participating, communicating and expressing ourselves.
Nature as an active participant, including a beautiful story about a non-speaking child, a wisteria and the possibility of seeing behaviour differently.
The importance of place, repeated encounters and embodied experience, and what the woods can offer beyond a prescribed programme of activities.
Curiosity, disagreement and connection in a polarised world, and why sometimes the answer might be to go to the woods, light a fire, have a cuppa and talk.

Show Notes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-100-forest-school-and-autism/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
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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 soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
Marina sits with grief and unease about the climate crisis, noticing dry ground, stressed trees and early leaf-drop in the woods.
Explores the autumn equinox as a moment of balance between light and dark, and what that might mirror in our own lives.
Shares a simple woodland practice using rowan berries to notice where life feels in balance and where it does not.
Reflects on grounding through the senses, including getting to know the soil while imagining a future forest garden.
Uses the image of pruning an apple tree to ask what habits, patterns or inherited ways of being may need cutting back.
Considers wildness not as chaos, but as something that can liberate us while still asking for care, attention and tending.
Looks ahead to Episode 100, a conversation with Michael and Stefania on inclusion, neurodivergence and autism in Forest School practice.

Show Notes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-99-what-needs-pruning/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
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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 the climate crisis is also a health crisis — and why solutions for planetary health can also support human health.
What older medical traditions can teach us about health as balance, rather than simply the absence of disease.
The idea that illness has not only biological causes, but also social, political and environmental dimensions.
The tension between the transactional and relational sides of medicine — treating illness while also helping people feel heard and understood.
David Abram’s influence on Ralph’s thinking, particularly the idea of the healer as an intermediary between the human and more-than-human world.
Why mental distress can be understood through multiple lenses — biomedical, psychological, social, trauma-informed and spiritual.
How loneliness and social isolation can contribute to ill health, and whether nature disconnection may operate in a similar way.
Why doctors may need to recognise their own relationship with nature before they can notice nature disconnection in others.
What a green prescription can actually look like — from signposting and access to green spaces, to walking groups and supported outdoor care.
Why simply moving healthcare outdoors is not enough — and the difference between being outside and developing a relationship with nature.
What a more embedded nature-based care pathway in Sussex could look like, including outdoor consultations, local sites, social prescribing and primary care.
Ralph’s closing idea of nature as a gift rather than something to consume — rooted in reciprocity, care and the possibility of healing.

Show Notes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-98-what-if-nature-is-part-of-medicine/
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:
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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 with Reiki and healing opened questions about music, creativity and where inspiration might come from.
Geoff’s lifelong relationship with the outdoors, from Forest School Camps as a teenager to the deeper nature-connection practices we later explored together.
What it means to listen to nature, ask permission and build a relationship with individual trees - without needing to claim certainty about what is happening.
How the willow became a turning point in Geoff’s composing, and how music sometimes seems to arrive unexpectedly rather than being consciously created.
The story behind The Music of Trees - combining original guitar music with folklore, ecology, storytelling and the remarkable lives of trees.
Ancient yews, tree protectors, Julia Butterfly Hill and the people who have stood up for trees when trees cannot speak for themselves.
How COVID brought Geoff’s work as a musician almost to a standstill, but also gave him time in the woods to write more music than he had written in the previous several years - much of which became Music of Trees.
How that period also brought Geoff into The Outdoor Teacher, combining his technical and business experience with our shared commitment to helping more people access nature.
The changing reality of being a musician in the age of Spotify, streaming and AI and why supporting live music and independent artists matters more than ever.

Shownotes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/97-the-music-of-trees
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!
This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!
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Mentioned in this episode:
30% Off All Courses until 5th October
Go to: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/courses/

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 bear fruit, and what kind of power we wish to carry into the darker half of the year.
The shift from Oak King to Holly King reminds us that true strength is not domination but stewardship - how can the warrior within us create the conditions for feeling, tenderness and relationship?
Belonging begins with safety. Before we can feel deeply, we need to feel held. Yet the natural world offers a remarkable invitation: trees, rivers, birds and plants ask nothing of us before we speak.
Angela Hanscom reminded us that children belong through their bodies first. Movement, risk, balance, play and sensory experience are not extras; they are part of how we come to know ourselves and our place in the world.
Children often meet the world as a community of living subjects rather than objects. Perhaps part of adulthood is remembering that capacity for relationship with the more-than-human world.
Jessica Newberry Le Vay challenged the idea that climate anxiety is something to be fixed. Grief, worry, anger and sadness may be healthy responses to a world under pressure - evidence not of pathology, but of care.
Emotional resilience does not come from avoiding difficult feelings but from learning how to hold them together, in community, with purpose and agency.
Mo Wilde brought us back to ancient relationships between people, plants, food and seasons, reminding us that health has always been rooted in reciprocity with the living world.
Many people arrive at the GP with symptoms that cannot be neatly explained or measured. Sometimes what hurts is not simply the body, but loneliness, grief, burnout, disconnection or the absence of belonging.
Health may not exist solely within the individual. It may also live in relationships, communities, purpose, access to nature, and our connection to something larger than ourselves.
Outdoor consultations, walking groups, community gardens, shared fires and time in nature are not soft alternatives to healthcare. They may be part of the medicine itself - helping people regulate, connect and remember they are not alone.
This season has returned again and again to one simple truth: health is more than the absence of illness. It is connection. It is movement. It is meaning. It is relationship. It is belonging.

Show Notes:
https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-96-the-medicine-of-belonging
Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com
Please Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show!
This really helps me to spread the word to more people like you, and to empower more people to take their practice outdoors!
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Also, if you haven’t done so already, "follow" the podcast, as if you’re not following, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out.
Mentioned in this episode:
30% Off All Courses until 5th October
Go to: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/courses/