Many thanks to Eimear Burke for hosting the Four Hundredth Tea with a Druid!

And here is episode 401:

The photo was from a tree-planting held last weekend in Sussex with The Children’s Forest project. The poem read out is: “By Crook Rather Than Hook” © 2026 / Frank Inzan Owen / The Luminous Procession: Poems From Within and Beyond the World of Red Dust. See https://www.theluminousprocession.com/ In Tea with a Druid, join a worldwide community of like-minded people interested in nature-based spirituality for a weekly exploration of a spiritual topic and meditation. Live Streaming every Monday at 20:00 UK time. Learn more about the Druid community and training at https://www.druidry.org To find all the Tea with a Druid meditations on the ‘Yewtube’ Outdoor Woodland Cinema, go to: https://zodogo.com/yewtube/ The music used in the opening title is ‘Druid Circle’ by Charlie Roscoe.

Wishing everyone a joyful Equinox! At this moment of stillness – the light and dark perfectly balanced – may we find some peace and equilibrium. Spring and Autumn Blessings! /|\

Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.
~ Rumi

In this episode, Philip Carr-Gomm and Shelley explore how he provided a light in the darkness in his family dynamic for the spiritual and care of his sister, who struggled with schizophrenia. In a short conversation, I could see the constellation of his family, where his role in the family dynamic was of utmost importance to his sister’s well-being at times. To love someone unconditionally without fear who lives with this complex mind is deeply honorable and beautiful. Philip is a guide for us all as he dives into the spiritual esoteric to help participants find meaning and expansion. Philip Carr-Gomm is a father and grandfather, a psychologist and author, with a particular interest in combining the insights of psychology with spirituality. In addition to training in adult therapy, he has also trained in play therapy for children with Dr. Rachel Pinney and in Montessori education. He founded the Lewes Montessori School and has created an online school, The Art of Living Well, to offer courses that combine psychological and spiritual understanding. His books include The Gift of the Night: A Six-Step Program for Better Sleep, and he holds a weekly live YouTube broadcast, ‘Tea with a Druid’.

Karma Yoga is the path of selfless action and service. In this episode Philip explores this path in relation to Druidry, and mentions this web-page: https://druidry.org/about-us/annual-r… And this book ‘Moral Ambition’ by Rutger Bregman whose BBC Reith Lectures for 2025 are a must-watch. Start with: Are we living through the fall of civilisation? A Time of Monsters – The Survival of the Shameless    • Are we living through the fall of civilisa…   In Tea with a Druid, join a worldwide community of like-minded people interested in nature-based spirituality for a weekly exploration of a spiritual topic and meditation. Live Streaming every Monday at 20:00 UK time. Learn more about the Druid community and training at https://www.druidry.org To find all the Tea with a Druid meditations on the ‘Yewtube’ Outdoor Woodland Cinema, go to: https://zodogo.com/yewtube/ The music used in the opening title is ‘Druid Circle’ by Charlie Roscoe.

“I believe that though the Reign of Peace may be yet a long way off, it is drawing near; and that Who shall save us anew shall come divinely as a Woman – but whether through mortal birth, or as an immortal breathing upon our souls, none can yet know. Sometimes I dream of the old prophecy that Christ shall come again upon Iona; and of that later prophecy which foretells, now as, the Bride of Christ, now as the Daughter of God, now as the Divine Spirit embodied through mortal birth – the coming of a new Presence and Power; and dream that this may be upon Iona, so that the little Gaelic island may become as the little Syrian Bethlehem. But more wise is it to dream, not of hallowed ground, but of the hallowed gardens of the soul, wherein She shall appear white and radiant. Or that, upon the hills, where we are wandered, the Shepherdess shall call us home.”  Fiona Macleod in The Winged Destiny

See Mara Freeman’s great post here.

I was delighted to chat with Shelley Karpaty on her wonderful podcast Spicy Soul Mama.

The title of our chat is Stories of Supporting a Loved One and Alternatives to Mental Health Support

You can listen to the podcast here.

Thanks so much to Richard Tyler for giving me permission to share his beautiful poem:

Those who shape the soil

They do not stand apart from the forest.
They are where the forest slows down just
enough to speak.

You’ll recognise them
by the way the ground gathers itself
around their roots, by the patience of their shade,
by the way birds trust them
with unfinished songs.

An elder is not old
in the way the clock insists.
They are old the way mountains are—
because they have stayed,
while so much has passed through them.

They have learned
what to keep
and what to let fall.

Their bodies hold weather.
Their voices carry seasons.
Their silence is not absence,
but a listening refined
by long devotion to what lasts.

The young move quickly,
like saplings testing the light.
They lean, they bend,
they reach without knowing yet
what will hold them
when storms arrive.

The elders do not pull them back.
They do not hurry their growth.
They stand close enough
that when the wind comes,
the young can feel
another way to stand.

This is how wisdom travels—
not as instruction,
but as proximity.

The land remembers this arrangement.
It has always worked this way.
The oldest trees do not dominate the canopy;
they shape the soil.
They make the forest possible
by what they give beneath the surface.

Their rings are not trophies.
They are records.
Fire. Drought. Loss. Renewal.
Each year held without argument.

Discernment grows this way—
slowly,
through having survived enough
to recognise what matters
and what will pass on its own.

Eldership is not authority.
It is responsibility
to hold the long view
when others cannot yet see beyond the bend.

It is knowing when to speak
and when to let silence
do the teaching.

It is becoming a bridge
made not of certainty,
but of trust—
strong enough to cross,
humble enough to disappear
once the crossing is made.

The young do not need elders
to tell them who to be.
They need elders
who have made peace
with who they are no longer becoming.

That peace is felt.
It settles the nervous system of the village.
It steadies the hands of those
just learning to carry their own lives.

When an elder falls,
the forest feels it.

Light changes.
Space opens.
Something new begins its long reaching.

But nothing is lost.
The wisdom does not vanish.
It moves underground,
into story,
into memory,
into the way the land continues
to teach those who are willing
to stand still long enough.

If we are listening,
the elders are still speaking—
through bark and bone,
through breath and soil,
through the quiet instruction of endurance:

Stay.
Pay attention.
Let your life become something
others can rest against
while they find their way.

~  Richard Tyler

The wonderful Adventures in Nutopia is back with a fourth series with six new documentaries exploring the big themes of anarchism, biomimicry, animal medicine, panpsychism, The Internet of Animals and magic. Yes, big topics, but approached with a lightness of touch.

Guests include Chumbawamba’s Dunstan Bruce, neuroscientist Anil Seth, lecturer Carissa Honeywell, natural navigator Tristan Gooley; authors Sally Goldsmith, Susan Greenwood and Jay Griffiths; philosophers Philip Goff, Peter Sjoestedt Hughes and Hedda Hassel Mørch; Internet of Animals author Martin Wikelski, chosen chief druid Eimear Burke, chaos magician Dave Lee, comedian Andrew O’Neill and author Efa Lois.

Adventures in Nutopia is a documentary series in search of new stories, radical movements, new systems, myths and ideas that just might steer us into a more inclusive, networked and ecological future. In Nutopia all are welcome. We’re just as excited to share the ideas of pagans, panpsychists and psychedelic pioneers as we are of scientists, economists and cognitive historians. Don’t worry about poe-faced beard-stroking, there’s plenty of mischief and weirdness to be had.

The presenter, David Bramwell, is a Sony-Award winning presenter for BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4, having made programmes on subjects ranging from Ivor Cutler and public speaking to time travel. He has won awards for ‘outstanding theatre’ and ‘best comedy’ for his one-man shows and is the author of The Haunted Moustache, The No9 Bus to Utopia, The Cult of Water and The Odditorium. He is a regular contributor to the Guardian and has appeared as guest on Radio 4’s Museum of Curiosity and Saturday Live.

www.drbramwell.com

You can listen to the first episode here.

EPISODES

1. Viva Anarchism! Part One: Seeds Beneath the Snow

‘I am an anarchist! I am an antichrist!’ sang the Sex Pistols’ butter-loving John Lydon in 1976. But, as we’ll discover in the first of this two-parter, anarchism has far more to do with allotments, lifeboats, mutual aid, self-organising and inclusivity than it does with nihilism and destruction. Thanks to our guests we will explode some of the misconceptions around anarchism, learn its key principles, consider whether it needs a rebrand and discover that most of us, at heart, adhere to many of its principles.

With Robin Gray and Katherine Hallewell from the theatre show Three Acres and a Cow, Chumbawamba’s Dunstan Bruce, Warren Draper and Cath Muller from A Commune in the North and Anarchism author Carissa Honeywell.

2. Viva Anarchism! Part Two: Anarchy in Action

In this episode we meet those who are putting anarchism into action through community building, including the founders of Doncaster’s A Commune in the North and Bristol’s Rockaway Park. We’ll learn about Three Acres and a Cow, a theatre show which teaches audiences about land rights and we’ll go on a special adventure with Chumbawamba’s Dunstan Bruce. We begin however, on the outskirts of Sheffield to visit Edward Carpenter’s century-old queer, anarchist, socialist, feminist, vegetarian, nudist, sandal-wearing utopian retreat known as Milthorpe and which scandalised the local vicar.

With Robin Gray and Katherine Hallewell from theatre show Three Acres and a Cow, Chumbawamba’s Dunstan Bruce, Warren Draper and Cath Muller from A Commune in the North, author Sally Goldsmith and Mark Wilson and Marta Jachimowicz from Rockaway Park.

3. Animal Medicine

For the Greeks and other ancient cultures, animals played a key role in the diagnosis and healing of humans. In this episode we’ll learn just how much animals are medicine to us, psychologically and physically, and explore the idea that certain things what we think of as being quintessentially human – morality, ethics, game-playing etc – may even have been taught to us by animals. We’ll also take a deep dive into the behaviour of animals in our own woodland environments and what they can teach us, and learn that some of our two, four, six and eight-legged friends are capable of undertaking palliative care of dying humans, recognising diseases like cancer and appear to have their own rituals of bereavement and awe.

With Jay Griffiths, David Hadrill and Tristan Gooley

4. Panpsychism: The Quiet Dreaming of Atoms

Science has long wrestled with what is known as ‘the hard problem’ – how did consciousness arise out of matter? But what if we’ve been approaching the problem wrong, all this time? Thanks to some of the world’s leading philosophers, neuroscientists and psychedelic researchers, this consciousness-expanding episode delves into panpsychism, the theory that mind is a fundamental property of the universe.

Along the way we’ll discuss psychedelic experiences, why we won’t be downloading our minds onto a floppy disc any time soon and how panpsychism could even be good for our mental health.

With Anil Seth, Philip Goff, Peter Sjoestedt-Hughes, Mark Vernon and Hedda Hassel Mørch.

5. Biomimicry & the Internet of Animals

Biomimicry, the science of learning from nature’s genius, is helping us in areas as diverse as architecture, pollution, air conditioning, clothing, robotics, fire-resistant materials, flooding and leadership. The internet of animals is a vast, ever-growing network of data provided by mini-transmitters on everything from bees and birds to rodents and bats. It is providing us with a better understand the natural world. Through biomimicry and the internet of animals we’ll discover how trees, limpets, pine cones, bats, sharks, spider webs, birds, beavers and termites – to name but a few – are helping us re-shape our world for the better.

With Nicola Peel and Martin Wikelski

6. The Magic Hour

The word ‘magic’ derives from the Old Persian ‘magush’ – to have power and wisdom. Nowadays the word has multiple meanings including stage illusions, awe and wonder, and the kind of fictional sorcery found in Harry Potter, Buffy and Shakespeare. And then there is magical practise (also known to some as witchcraft).

A somewhat ambitious final episode, in sixty minutes The Magic Hour attempts to cover the history of magical practise in the west – from Ancient Greece to present day – offer advice on how to start a magical practise and demonstrate that magic isn’t fanciful nonsense or mere superstition as some might believe but a dance between our imaginations and the material world, and something that lies at the heart of every culture.

With Dave Lee, Eimear Burke, Susan Greenwood, Mark Wagner, Andrew O’Neill and Efa Lois.