Today’s Guest

Table of Contents

I’m back with another co-hosted episode with the fabulous Jo Casey!

We’re back with another woo-based episode, which is kind of the theme for our new season of podcasting together. Today’s episode is all about how to connect with yourself through connecting with Nature, which has been a big journey for both of us. We share our own personal journeys, including how we’ve connected with Nature, and how you might want to get started deepening your own connection with Nature.

About Jo Casey

Jo Casey has over 20 years experience of working as a trainer and consultant in the corporate, public and third sectors. Her flashy clients and workplaces have included Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC), The NHS, BT, Toyota Motors, Peugeot Business School, The Welsh Assembly Government, The Girl Guides UK, Vets4Pets/Companion Care, several Local Government Authorities, and The Department Of Work And Pensions. But she’s also worked with many no less wonderful smaller ventures, micro businesses and SMEs.

She’s a self-confessed nerd and has taught at college and university levels and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Chester. Jo has a Masters Degree in Coaching and Organizational Development and she’s an NLP Master Practitioner, MBTI qualified professional certified Emotional Intelligence EQi 2.0 consultant.

She’s been coaching for over 15 years now – clocking up over 1000 hours of coaching experience. Basically, she carefully treads that line between being passionate and a tiny bit obsessive about what she does (obsession often wins). Jo runs accredited coach training programs and coaches people from all over the world via the power of the internet.

Listen to this episode

What You’ll Learn

What our own personal journeys in connecting with Nature have looked like
Whether the land has a feeling, and how to connect with that
What happens when we’re disconnected from Nature
What it means to connect with Nature and how to do it
Why we should even bother: the benefits of connecting with Nature
Whether or not this is for everyone: should everyone connect with Nature?
Whether or not you have to spend hours hiking every weekend, or if there are other ways of doing it
Whether or not it matters what sort of Nature you hang out in
If some places are more ‘magical’ than others
Where to go? When to go? What to do?
How to get started connecting with Nature

Things We Mentioned

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into The Woods podcast, episode 286. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another co-hosted episode with the fabulous Jo Casey. This is the second episode in our kind of woo series, where we are taking a look at some of the more spiritual sides of life.

So, today, we are going to talk about how to connect with yourself through connecting with nature, which has been a big journey for both of us. Now you will probably have heard some of my path, we go into it that a little bit more deeply and you will also hear what Jo’s journey has been like, in terms of connecting with nature. So we share our own personal stories, including how we have connected with nature, and how you might want to get started, deepening your own connection with nature, and why you might want to do that.

So, here is what you will learn: what our own personal journeys is in connecting with nature have looked like; whether land has a feeling and how to connect with that feeling. We talk about what happens when we are disconnected from nature; we discuss what it means to connect to nature and how to do it. We talk about why we should even bother; the benefits of connecting with nature. We discuss whether or not this is for everyone, I mean should everyone really connect with nature? We discuss whether or not you actually have to spend hours hiking every weekend, like I do, or if there are other ways of doing it. We discuss whether or not it matters what sort of nature you hang out in. We ask the question: are some places more magical than others? We share where to go, when to go, what to do, how to get started with connecting with nature and how to know if you are doing it right — and is there a right or wrong?

So, I hope you find this episode interesting and useful, I know that a lot of people in my life have kind of through osmosis become connected to nature through hanging out with me, because that’s such a big part of my life. So, since you are listening to this, I invite you to come with me on this journey of connecting with yourself, through connecting with nature, and I hope you find this interesting and useful.

Jo: Hi everybody it is Jo Casey, I am here with Holly Worton.

Holly: Hello!

Jo: We are here with another joint episode, and for those of you who listened to our last episode you will know that we are back for another season of doing these monthly, joint, episodes but with a slightly different focus, partly triggered by the fact that Holly’s life, and work, is taking a slightly new direction. Partly, because, I think one of the things that has always been really good fun, both for listeners, and for us, with Holly and I, is that we are not exactly an odd couple, but we are on different stages, and on different paths. I find that always have seven million questions for Holly, because she is so much more evolved, and further down her path towards embracing all things woo, whereas I feel like I am open, but I am much more of a beginner with this stuff. So, today, we are going to be talking about something that is close to both of our hearts, which is the connection between intuition, to woo, to spirituality and nature. This is something that Holly is, I think it is kind of fair to say it is almost central to your work these days is it not?

Holly: Yes, absolutely, and I have made a lot of recent changes in my business and life and books and writing to be more focussed around nature, rather than the mindset stuff.

Jo: So, we are going to be talking about things like: how to connect with nature for those of us at the beginner stages, I have got, as I say, seven million questions about this. I wonder, Holly, if you would expand on the conversation that we were having on our last monthly podcast, and obviously listeners of Holly’s regular weekly podcast you will be much more familiar with this, but would you mind just sharing a bit about what your journey to this point has been and where you are at now?

Holly: In terms of my connection to nature, or in general?

Jo: Well both, because I think they are really intertwined.

Holly: Yes, yes, yes, they absolutely are. So nature is something that has always been important to me in different ways throughout my life. So I grew up in a house with a very large garden full of fruit trees, and nut trees, and every summer my family would plant tomato plants and a full vegetable garden, I kind of just grew up with that as normal. My grandmother, who lived with us for a while and eventually moved out to an apartment, always had a balcony full of flowers, so I came from a fairly botanical family and, when I was 15 years old, and I got my first job, it was at a garden centre, because I loved gardening, I loved plants so much. That was my first connection to nature, I was a child, I used to play out in the garden, there was this tree I used to climb, and I just really liked being outside and being with the plants, my first job was absolutely delightful, I worked there for seven summers, throughout high school and university and I just kept coming back because I loved working there, I loved helping people find the right plant for their garden. At the same time I started hiking, I lived right down the street from this state park, it had a little mountain on it, it was the Mount Diablo State Park.

Jo: I love that, we don’t really have that so much in this part of the world, “we had a state park with a little mountain in it”. {laughing} We do in Wales, I guess, or if you go more towards Wales there is Snowdonia National Park and things like that but yeah…

Holly: {laughing} There was literally a mountain at the end of the street, you just walked down the street and hiked a mountain!

Jo: Oh okay!

Holly: So, as I say that, I am aware at how lucky I was to grow up with that, and my poor friends from high school, they weren’t as into it as I was, but I would drag them up the mountain on weekends {laughing} and during the summer and I loved it, I loved exploring. Now that I have spent so much time this year doing navigation courses, and advanced navigation, and working with maps and map reading, it is kind of terrifying how I used to just, at the age of 16 or 17, just set off and explore new trails on this mountain. {laughing}

Jo: The parent in me is now going: woah!! Saying we don’t have mountains around here, we do have lots of areas of natural beauty really not far from us, where I live we are right on the edge of Derbyshire, which is the Peak District, so I used to work with a couple of people who, of a weekend, would volunteer for the mountain rescue and were regularly telling me tales of: yeah, we were up all weekend rescuing these people who had gone out and didn’t have enough water, the weather came in really fast, they didn’t have enough warm weather clothes with them, so, yeah, the parent in me, the risk averse person is going: oh! 16-year-old Holly, please don’t do that!

Holly: {laughing} And as I am saying this, I am not sure if my mother even knew if I was doing those things? I am not aware of hiding it, I wonder, did they know how much time we spent up on the mountain? {laughing}

Jo: There are so many things as a parent to be worried about but part of me is thinking, well, at least it was good, healthy, outdoors living you weren’t down outside the back of the mall taking drugs or something.

Holly: {laughing} Good point, good point! So that was my early kind of part of my journey in terms of connecting to nature, so through hiking and through gardening, and then I kind of forgot about that for so many years. I went away to university, lived in a really beautiful part of the State, I was in San Luis Obispo, so there was tons of nature all around me, but I wasn’t really taking advantage of it. Then I moved abroad, lived in Spain, Costa Rica was obviously full of gorgeous nature and so I did kind of touristy nature things, but I didn’t do the connecting to nature things until I moved here, to the UK, and that was kind of the next big stage in my journey to connecting with nature.

Jo: So, how did that happen, I have always been curious about this because you grew up in California, I have been to California, it is beautiful, but it is very different in terms of climate, very different in terms of landscape to the UK. We are a damp, little, country, {laughing} I say that with great affection because it means that we are very, very, green, that’s what I tell myself on the days like today when it is absolutely pouring down, and I am thinking: oh god I have got to take the dog out in that! It means that we are very green, we are quite hilly in places, but we don’t have a lot of mountain ranges and things like that, so I am really curious about whether there was a real kind of affinity when you first came here, or did it take some adjusting? I am really curious whether it was something about the UK land that you felt this real connection with straight away?

Holly: Absolutely, yes. So, from a practical perspective the area that I grew up in was East Bay of California, so very kind of rolling hills, the mountain at the end of the street, but lots of rolling golden hills. The area that I live in now is the Surrey hills which is rolling green hills. It is very similar landscape but in a different colour. So, from a practical perspective I am seeing similar landscape, but from a more spiritual perspective, from the second we landed in this country and I started looking around and getting to know things, I felt at home. I have not felt that anywhere else that I have lived, and I have lived in several different countries, so there were many stops along the way between California and England, but I absolutely feel a deep, deep, connection to my land {laughing} — to my land!!

Jo: That’s so fascinating – have you ever done your genealogy or anything like that?

Holly: No, I am really curious about that, I know that I am English and Welsh on my father’s side of the family, so it makes sense, and I do feel like I have had many, many past lives on this land. I just feel such a strong connection here, when I ever try to imagine what would it be like to move somewhere else, it just doesn’t feel right, it would just feel very disconnected.

Jo: I find that wild, I love it. I love just little details like that and that feeling of being at home. I love it, love it, carry on, carry on! {laughing}

Holly: {laughing} It is something, it is kind of difficult to explain from a logical perspective, I don’t know how many people are aware of this kind of feeling, but having moved a lot in my life, I lived in several different places in California, I lived in Spain, I lived in Mexico, a couple of different places, Argentina, a few different places, Costa Rica, I never felt that connection to the land. I have lived in beautiful places, I love all the places that I lived, I am very grateful for those opportunities, but it is here that I really feel that sense of connection, that sense of being home, of coming home, of finding my place in the world.

Jo: There is something really powerful about that, that sense of finding my place in the world, it almost feels like you are describing something clicking in alignment, everything kind of going…and lining up.

Holly: That’s exactly what it is, it is like an energetic alignment with the land. So, yes, very happy here!!! {laughing}

Jo: It is not just a connection with the land, I know lots of people who say: I really like being outdoors. For you, it has gone so much deeper, I feel like you are so much more attuned to the stuff that the land gives us.

Holly: It is definitely an energetic thing, for me, it is more than just: I like going out for a walk, and I like the scenery that I am walking through here, it is just this gut feeling that I belong, it is a deep connection to the energy of this land. It is hard for me to describe because it is something that I don’t fully understand, but I just feel like this is where I meant to be, at least now at this point in my life.

Jo: I think that is one of the things in the modern world we struggle with, I know that is one of the things that I struggle with as well, the fact that so many things are happening, we are aware of so many things that we can’t quite explain properly, and so therefore we dismiss them because we haven’t got a way of logically, or intellectually, describing it.

Holly: Yeah.

Jo: I think one of the things certainly for my journey, as I have got older, I much more veering over to the Elizabeth Gilbert view on things, of: I’m very comfortable with uncertainty and not knowing the reasons why, just accepting the reason is.

Holly: I like that.

Jo: So I is like I am very open to the fact that this could be magic, or it could be my imagination, and it doesn’t matter really matter to me either way which it is.

Holly: Yeah, I like that and I think that is a really difficult place to get to for a lot of people, because we always want to know why, we want to understand the reasons behind, the background, the how does it work? Because that’s how we are so used to approaching the world, so I think it is very challenging for a lot of people to come to that place of: I don’t understand this, but it feels good, it feels right, I like it, so let’s just roll with it.

Jo: It is so funny, because at the same time, we have so many more people, I suppose, saying that they are open to different belief systems, so many people even doing things like believing in angels, or UFOS, even “conspiracy” theories. I think the fact is that we have this huge part of us as humans that is very open to belief, and for me belief is simply things that we don’t have necessarily the logical, or the scientific, evidence for. Yet, there is still part of our brain that goes: I need the evidence. I also find it fascinating how our brain can go off and find evidence. {laughing} Have you ever looked at those studies, they have done things where they have closed off, I don’t know the left or the right hemisphere, or done something, or people with brain injuries, their two hemispheres of the brain can’t communicate. They have done this experiment, it is something to do with if you close one eye for somebody who has this type of brain injury, so the left and the right hemisphere can’t communicate, if you close off the right eye, just by covering it, the left brain can’t take in any information. They do things like give them a drink and then uncover the eye and suddenly this drink has appeared, and this person’s brain can’t compute where it has come from, and it makes up a reason, so they ask: where did that drink come from? And they said: oh I was thirsty, so I went out and got it, and they clearly hadn’t, but it is like the brain has to come up with a logical reason as to why this has happened.

Holly: Yep, yep, yep – I love that!

Jo: So, I do think our relationship with our logical brain, the intuitive side of ourselves, is really fascinating. I do think that there are some things that evidence is really good for, like climate change, and things like that, you know. and I love science, but I also acknowledge that there are things that clearly science hasn’t got round to be able to explain yet.

Holly: Yeah absolutely and that’s one of my favourite definitions of woo, it is that woo is just science that we don’t understand yet.

Jo: Would you mind just talking about a little bit, because this has become a real spiritual journey for you as well?

Holly: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and that kind of sparked a massive change in my spiritual path earlier this year, when I left a group that I had been in for 12 years, because I felt like I needed to kind of shift my spiritual focus towards deepening my spiritual connection to nature. That was when I found the Druid course that I am on now, and I am just kind of wrapping up my first year in that, and that’s been a massive part of my journey this year and it has really given me a framework for kind of deepening my connection to nature, adding more layers to it, and just making me even more appreciative of this connection that I feel to nature.

Jo: So, can I ask about Druidism because I know so little about it, even though some of the only bits that I do know is that it is one of the longest-standing, and oldest, religions of England and Wales, was it also Ireland and Scotland as well?

Holly: Britain is where it originated, and people would come from Ireland, people would come from, what is now France, Europe, to study this, years and years and years ago in pre-Roman times. Of course it was when the Romans came and brought Christianity that it kind of got squashed out, and went into kind of hiding, and wasn’t openly practised for many, many, years. It is actually making a massive kind of comeback now, and it has been for decades, but I think now with the Internet people have so much more access to this type of information and are learning it, that it makes it a lot easier to spread the message and spread the concepts and spread the ideas. So, yeah.

Jo: If at any point you just kind of go: you are just going to have to go away and read a book but could you give some of the ideas… what are the key concepts? I know it is something to do with nature, what are some of the key ideas, and the key concepts?

Holly: So, I am still very new to this, I am just completing the first year of my three-year course. So, this year is the bardic grade, so we have been looking at stories, I don’t want to say folk tales, but you get the idea, and ancient stories and the different layers of teaching that those stories come, and how they relate to nature and the different elements: earth, air, fire, water, looking at that, and our connection to that, and how those elements show up in our lives and the turning of the seasons, that kind of thing. So that has been the primary focus for my studies this year and going out into nature and doing a ritual with these elements and seasons and things.

Jo: And so are the gods and the spirits in there?

Holly: So, there has definitely been mention of goddesses and things, but it hasn’t exactly been a study of ancient gods and goddesses so far, I don’t know if we are going to get into that, or at what point we are going to get into that, but it has been more about focussing on the elements and the seasons, and our connection to that.

Jo: So much of that seemed to make such sense, because we are, as I think about it, I wonder if one of the reasons why maybe somewhere like Britain feels, one of the reasons why you feel that deep connection, is almost like you can’t ignore the seasons here. Somewhere like California, and I have been to California, one of the laments that people sometimes say is: ah we don’t really have seasons. I know they do, but not in the same way, it is really clear when Autumn is here, it is really clear when Spring is here, it is really clear when it is Summer. So they are very kind of un-ignorable, the seasons, and the turning of the year, it is almost kind of in-your-face in a way.

Holly: It is, and the more time you spend outside, the more you see that. I know when I am going out on my walks when the snowdrops are going to be starting to appear, when the daffodils are out, when the hawthorn berries are out. I love it because it is kind of like seeing old friends, because you know they are going to come back, they show up, they are beautiful, you see them, and it is like deepening that relationship and looking out for them and knowing they are going to show up, and I don’t know it is hard to explain, but the more time you spend outside the more you get to know this stuff.

Jo: I know that, because we have had Lucy, our dog, for two years now and I know that if I ever went for a walk I would tend to go, before we had Lucy, it would tend to be the Summer, the Spring, or the nice sunny winter days, whereas when you have a dog you have to go out every day, twice a day. I remember that first year of having her, coming home, to the point where my husband was kind of rolling his eyes going, ‘oh, really’. Because I was going: this is amazing you walk every day on the very same path and you see the different changes every day. I am really lucky that we have a river and some green space just five minutes away, and there is such a comfort, and a joy, in being able to witness that and see the seasons. Whereas I think in the times where I would stay indoors, or maybe go into town shopping or something like that, I wasn’t able to notice all of that stuff, in anything like the same way. There was a real joy and comfort in seeing those subtle changes, almost like you are reminded daily of: yes, we are all in constant flux, and constant evolution, and constant turning, turning of the seasons, turning of the moon, it just connected me to so many other aspects of my life, just that daily walk. I am a bit of a creature of habit, in some areas, and I do tend to walk the same route every day, and I think one of the reasons that I really enjoy doing that is because I can see those subtle changes on a daily basis. It is wild, I love it!

Holly: I know” So what’s your journey been like? I feel like you have done a lot of connecting to nature, more and more since I have known you?

Jo: It is really funny, because as you were talking about you first job in a garden centre, I really wanted my first job to be in a garden centre.

Holly: Wow!

Jo: It wasn’t, my first job was on TV, and that was very different, that is a whole other episode. My dad was always, and still is, a really keen gardener and every house that we had, my dad was never fussed about what the house was like, how big it was, anything like that, so long as it had a garden. So, I can remember even from being really young, being out there planting peas, and doing all that stuff and then when I was a teenager, in my very early twenties, I kind of rebelled a little bit against that: it’s so boring, so boring out in nature. Then I remembered getting I think in my early twenties, when my first major bout of depression hit and I was, we were also having to move out, I was going through a divorce, it was a very dramatic time in my life. So, I had to move out of this house that we had, and in this house when my marriage was breaking up, I took real solace in the garden and there was something really soothing about just going out there and digging and plating things and the fact that you couldn’t rush it, you planted your seed and nature would take its own schedule for that seed to sprout, I found something immensely comforting about that. So when I had to move out of that house it was really important that, even though it was a flat that I moved into, that it had a garden, this little patch of earth. So, gardening came a real significant part of my life again, probably right up until two kids, I found with two kids I just didn’t make enough time for it; for me, there is something absolutely delicious and incredibly soothing about being able to go out on your own, and just be with the earth and the soil and all of that. I found with having kids, I am not very good at sharing the space. {laughing}

Holly: Yes.

Jo: It is just a very different experience when you have got kids, they want to help you dig, they want to help you plant things, and you are kind of going: no, don’t put it there. {laughing} It just became very different and I haven’t really got back into gardening in anything like the same way, but it was kind of one of my first passions really.

So, being disconnected to nature, is always really bad for me, I remember I had this idea at one point, before I discovered I was pregnant with my son, so this is going back nearly 20 years, I wanted one of these urban flats in the centre of town. So I moved to Manchester and paid a ridiculous amount of money each month for this flat and immediately, almost immediately, within days, was like: there is no green, it is all concrete, there is no green and really having this existential feeling of: there is no green, almost a physical reaction to the fact that I was really missing green space.

So, I think that has always been there, but then, this past couple of years, getting Lucy, getting the dog, and having something that forced me to get out every day, has been immense. Then, there has been something about working with you so much, being able to have these conversations, and I have to say I have another client, and friend, called Tracey Nicholls, I would love to get the three of us having a conversation at some point. She lives in Philadelphia, has done a lot of work with organisational ecosystems and very into nature-based-therapy, works a lot with folks who are highly sensitive. She is a aromatherapist, she is a body worker, and so she talks along similar lines to you, in many ways, but from a different perspective, you have different energies, but you are so similar. Anyway, I think for the past two years, particularly having these in-depth conversations with both of you, suddenly one day I was out walking, and I noticed I was putting my hands on the trees, I had this real urge to put my hands on the trees as I was walking. I just got this really nice energetic, almost like connecting, you know in school when you do electrical circuits and there has to be a connector there to make the electricity flow, it was like me putting my hand on the tree was connecting that circuit, I could almost feel this kind of energy around me and the tree, when I put my hand on the tree.

Holly: I like that!

Jo: For many months, I was kind of like: well, that’s weird. {laughing}

Holly: That’s not normal! {laughing}

Jo: That’s not normal no. After a while I just felt like the trees were talking back to me.

Holly: Mm so you felt like the trees were talking back to you?

Jo: Yes.

Holly: So what was actually happening?

Jo: This still happens now, and I say to my husband, and my daughter: I am just talking to the trees. My daughter, who is nine, will say: you know they don’t talk back don’t you? And I say just because you can’t hear them, doesn’t mean they don’t, and I swear that they do! Sometimes, it is more like quite a clear voice that I hear. Other times, it is more like a sense of what they are saying, it is a different way of communicating. Now, I have to say, I wrestled with this for quite a few months before I was even going to tell anybody, if I didn’t know you and Tracey, I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it to anyone. I remember mentioning it to Tracey, because you and I hadn’t spoken in a bit of a while, and she went: oh great! {laughing} like it was the most normal thing in the world!

Holly: I was so excited to hear that from you!

Jo: Then, when you and I reconnected I said: did you know, that I talk to trees? You nearly fell off your chair laughing because you said: you know what my next book is about! I don’t know, it might have been some kind of thing that one, or both of you, have done. It is almost like these channels have opened it up in me.

Holly: We have infected you with the virus.

Jo: So, yes, I have conversations with the trees, and they are always really wise and reassuring, and when I went to Arizona back in May, we went to Sedona, and they have what they call the vortex trees over there, because there are meant to be these energy vortexes, that make the trees grow all twisty. We had gone hiking one day and I my hand on the tree and I swear the tree said: please don’t do that I am really delicate. I was like: of course you are, of course you are, because these trees are all twisted and their bark almost looks like it is shredded and so I put my hand just above it, and the tree was like: oh thanks that’s much better.

Holly: Wow!

Jo: It was, that was the clearest that I had ever heard them. I will admit there is part of me right now feeling a little bit: oh god, people are going to listen to this, and…but there is also a part of me that is just, that’s what is true to me. I take great comfort in the fact that I just find the trees so comforting, and benevolent, and they are so wise. I go out on my walk each day and there is a group of trees, about a three-minute-walk from my house, and I will say: hello darlings! Or: hello my beauties! Or something, and they are just gorgeous, and they are just lovely. I don’t know any more than that, it is almost like one of those things where I don’t even want to go down the route of questioning it, because it just is, and it just feels really right and that is my experience. It is one of those experiences that despite trying to…I can’t talk myself out of, and I don’t want to talk myself out of anymore, that’s my reality I go and talk to trees every day.

Holly: Excellent!

Jo: Yeah! {laughing} I also started playing about with tarot cards, and I say playing about, because I did a bit of a course, an e-course, where you are meant to learn a card each day and I just found all of that was too…I don’t know intellectualising it for me. I just actually prefer to pull cards and I don’t quite know what they are officially supposed to mean, but I take the things from them that I need to. So, that’s what I mean, I feel like I am a real novice with this stuff, what I struggle with, and I think a lot of people struggle with, is: is it okay for me to just dabble in this stuff or am I being disrespectful? I know the tarot has a real history to it, am I being really disrespectful if I just play about with them? Yeah, all those kinds of feelings with it, and yet something intuitively says: this is the right thing to do.

Holly: Yeah, I think the difference here is that you are kind of doing more of an experiential learning rather than formal learning about it. So you just went out and started talking to trees, you just, as you say, dabble in your tarot cards, rather than taking a formal class in channelling tree spirits, or learning the tarot.

Jo: You can do a course in channelling tree spirits?

Holly: I don’t know! I am sure, there is a class on everything. {laughing} I don’t know.

Jo: You should totally do one of those! {laughing}

Holly: There may be some workshops in the future, we will see. That’s the thing, I think we are so used to placing value on formal education, that we don’t value as much, these kind of experiences of learning by doing. That’s what it has been like for me, this whole journey with my tree book this year has been learning by doing and connecting with the trees by doing, I don’t have, I have never taken a class on how to talk to trees, we do. {laughing}

Jo: So can we talk about the tree book?

Holly: Yes, we can talk about the tree book.

Jo: So, listeners, I swear to god this is how the conversation with Holly and I went, we hadn’t spoken in four or five months.

Holly: Yeah, it was like five months.

Jo: So I think it was from May, up until we connected a few weeks ago. So we are recording this in early December, so it was kind of end of October we connected.

Holly: Yeah, I think so.

Jo: And so we were saying: so what’s been going on with you? And I burst out: I talk to trees now! {laughing} You nearly fell off your chair laughing, and you were like: guess what my latest book is about!?

Holly: The stories of trees!

Jo: The stories the trees are telling you.

Holly: Yes.

Jo: That’s how I knew, it was you, it was you who affected me with this thing! Or opened up this gift with me is probably a better way of putting it. So, the stories of trees, how did that happen? Did one of them just one day say: oi, I have got a story to tell you?

Holly: Yes, actually, exactly, that was it. I was on this forest bathing meetup, at Newlands Corner.

Jo: Sorry, what’s forest bathing?

Holly: Yes, so forest bathing is this fantastic concept of reducing stress and improving your health through being out in the woods. I believe this concept originates in Japan, where it is actually a therapy that they will prescribe to patients in their National Health Service. It is considered a legitimate type of therapy. It is going out there and soaking up the chemicals that the trees have and the natural energy the trees have in these forest environments. So, they talked a little about the science behind it, at the beginning of the meetup, and we did different ways of connecting with the forest, and the trees, and smelling, and using all the senses. One of the last things that we did, towards the end of the meetup, we were in this grove of ancient Yew trees, and they said: pick a yew tree and just connect with it. The second we walked into that grove, I saw this one yew and I knew that was the one, I kind of went straight over to him, and hugged the tree, and just started talking. I was working at the time, I was working on this fiction book that I was really struggling with because I don’t write fiction, it is new, it is hard, and it wasn’t going well. So the tree said: I have a book for you that is going to be a lot easier than the book that you are working on, so I suggest that you put that on the backburner and do this instead. He said: the trees have stories, we have stories to tell, and it is very important for people to hear them. And you need to take these stories and put them in a book and get them out in the world because people need to hear this. From the second I received the idea I was really, really, excited about it and as I would go on my walks in the days, and weeks, and months after that, trees would speak up to me and say: I am in your book, I am in your book. Usually I would make a mental note and come back later to collect the story and that’s what I have been doing the entire year, collecting the stories of trees.

Jo: Oh I think that’s wild. So I am really curious then, do you hear them really clearly as, like as a voice in your head?

Holly: Yes, yes that’s exactly how it is.

Jo: I was going to say that first tree was very articulate, most of mine just kind of have a few little words of wisdom for me, yeah, wow.

Holly: It has been a real journey for me with my channelling, because this is essentially channelling. What I started doing was, when I would collect the story, I would speak, I would allow the tree to speak through me. I would record it and then get transcript done for the book, and that has been a huge journey, because I have really second-guessed myself. A lot of the stories have been consistent with things that are going on in my life, so something would happen to me, or something would come into my awareness in my life and then the next tree story would be kind of about that. It was like part of me was going: am I making this up? Is this for real? Is this the story of the tree? Why is this so consistent with my life? Now the awareness that I have come to is, those things were coming into my awareness so that I would have the framework to understand what the tree was going to be talking to me about.

Jo: I love that! I love that so much! I can’t wait to hear what the trees have to tell us.

Holly: Well it is all about connecting with ourselves through connecting with nature, and getting to know ourselves, and finding our true north, and trusting ourselves through connecting with nature.

Jo: So, when we are talking about connecting with nature, what does that actually mean? I know my version of it, I would love to know your version of it.

Holly: Right, so I think the important thing to say here is that there is no right or wrong way to connect with nature, it is whatever is right for you. Your way is going to be different from my way, which is going to be different from everyone’s way. So, for me, for the longest time it has been walking, walking is one of the ways I connect with nature, gardening is a way I connect with nature, being outdoors. But one of the things I have heard, this year, through the stories of tees that I have collected, is that it is about being still I nature and that has been a massive shift for me because I was so used to going out and just walking, walking, walking. I do the Walk1000Miles challenge every year, so every time I go outdoors it is about getting the miles in and the trees have really encouraged me to, that’s fine, but also make some time to be still in nature and just observe and feel and experience.

Jo: I am immediately thinking, I walk a lot in nature and sometimes I do it faster, or slower, but a lot of it is about walking, but I never really thought that much about sitting and being still in nature. I suppose we still have this idea, or certainly I still have this idea that most experiences have to be active experiences which, as somebody who practices and teaches mindfulness, is ridiculous, even as I say it out loud {laughing}.

Holly: I think part of it was also feeling safe doing that, because one thing is walking alone in the forest and another thing is sitting with my eyes closed, silently, meditating, in the forest, you know that feels a lot more vulnerable. So that took a while for me to get used to as well.

Jo: Yeah, I can imagine.

Holly: So how do you connect with nature, what does it mean for you to connect with nature?

Jo: For me, I do love being by myself, or with the dog, which is pretty much the same as being by myself, because she is just so in the moment. I have started doing a bit of photography in nature as well, and just noticing different things. I find even if it just taking my phone out with me, it just trains my eye to notice different things and beautiful shapes, and the different colours and exploring the different parts. Occasionally it does occur to me: it is really quite isolated around here, is this the smartest thing to be doing, to be walking on your own? I mean I have the dog with me, but she is no guard dog but, yes, for me, I have really primarily stuck to walking. I know you did your walks along the South Downs Way and things like that, but that very often would you camp overnight?

Holly: Well, no, when I have done my national trails, and the longer multiple day walks, I would usually stay at a B&B. I didn’t start camping until this year, I went on a wild camping course, in Wales, and that was fantastic, and then I bought my own camping gear, and went hiking and camping at camp grounds to try out my gear. My next thing, for next year, is to do more wild camping, do more walking and camping, because I love camping. It feels so good to just be sleeping outdoors. It is interesting that you bring up these longer walks, because, for me, those are such a deep way to connect with nature, because I do them alone, I am out walking for 6 or 8 hours a day, for 6, 7, 8 days in a row and that really takes me away from my normal life, from the normal world, and helps me to deeply connect with myself.

Jo: I find it really appealing the idea of spending longer periods of time out in nature, you mention this idea of the forest bath?

Holly: Forest bathing.

Jo: And how this is prescribed, almost medically, in Japan and there is, from what I believe, some quite kind of striking research about the actual effects on us physically, and emotionally and psychologically. I know that Audible have produced a podcast called the three-day effect, which is about the kind of therapeutic benefits of, even for quite complex trauma, and long-standing depression, and things, of spending extended periods out in nature and how that can be really soothing and beneficial to our spirits, I guess, and our psyche. I am really intrigued by this idea about the different energy, I know if I have spent a long day on the computer, doing lots and lots of computer work that it is almost as if I have a buzzing feeling in my head, I have tired eyes and things like that. I know it feels very differently and things like that, almost as if my cells are able to breathe properly, when I am out walking. I know that I am out of sorts if I don’t get my walk in every day.

Holly: Yes, I feel very unsettled if I am not spending time out in nature on a regular basis.

Jo: Do you think it matters what sort of nature that we hang out in?

Holly: No, absolutely not, because I think everyone is going to have their own preferred type of nature. So, whether it is an urban park, or a forest, or the beach, or a lake, or a river, or a stream, everyone is going to have their preferred kind of scenery, landscape and nature experience. I think there is no right or wrong, it is whatever you feel drawn to, and trust your gut on that. If all your friends are beach people, and you couldn’t be bothered, because you would rather go to the lake, fine, go to the lake, or a pond, or whatever you feel drawn to. I think it is a very, very, individual thing.

Jo: So there is no (this is my type-A brain!) there is no way of getting this right, so I can’t get it wrong?

Holly: No, no, no, it is trusting your gut, and doing what’s right for you. Some people are going to prefer that kind of comforting canopy of trees overhead that you get in the forest. Some people are going to want the wide, open views of rolling farmland, whatever you need to experience in terms of what you see, the landscape; what you feel; and weather also, some people are going to love walking in the summer, and going outside in the summer, some people are going to hate that because it is too hot. Whatever is right for you in terms of time of year, seasons, vision, it is very, very, individual.

Jo: So, do you have to…are some places kind of more magical than others, or is that kind of not even that relevant, now that I ask that question?

Holly: No, I think it absolutely is. So absolutely, I think there are some places that are more magical than others, either because they have different energy, because they have more, higher concentration of nature spirits, but there are absolutely places. The first place that comes to mind when you ask that question is a place called Swallowhead Spring, near Avebury, near West Kennet, Long Barrow, and people say that it is a place where the elementals hang out, where there is a lot of that kind of energy. But it is the kind of thing where you kind of walk through this field to get there, and then you have to climb over a little fence, and it is like you are in this bubble of different energy. There is the spring that comes out in the winter and there is a little stream and you have to cross these stones to get there and there is this beautiful tree that people have covered with wishing ribbons, and it just feels very magical. I recently took a friend there who had never been there, and didn’t know anything about it, and the second we got there she said it is like we are in, not another dimension, it is like we are in this bubble of different energy. You couldn’t even hear the noise from the street in the same way, it was kind of muffled. It was very, very, different, so absolutely I think there are some places that are more magical than others, for reasons that we may or may not understand, but I think even if we don’t believe in faeries or those kind of energy, nature spirits, I think we can feel when we go to these special places, I think we can feel that some places are more magical, different or special than others.

Jo: I think that is definitely true, I always think…even, a friend of mine is buying a house at the moment, and she was looking and looking and going to visit all these houses. Then she just found one, and she said: what is it, this house is nothing special, it just feels right. I think we do pick up much more on the kind of energetic imprints of things and, so, like you say, for whatever reasons, maybe it is ley lines, maybe it is there are ancient, magic, fairy dust there or something, some places are more connected, potent, I don’t know.

Holly: Concentrated, yes.

Jo: I guess what we are saying, though, is that you don’t have to seek out those extra special places, those magical places, to start on this journey of connecting and opening up to the effects of nature and that kind of connection between them.

Holly: Absolutely, your local park might be the right place for you, just go where you are drawn. It is like when I was getting the stories from trees, I kind of felt, at one point, that I should maybe seek out the more famous, ancient, trees in Britain. Then I thought: no, all the trees have stories, I don’t want to go to the special, famous, trees, I want to go to whichever trees are speaking to me. In the same sense, don’t feel like you have to go to a stone circle, or this place, or that place, or well-known places, go to whatever draws you interest, whether it is famous or not.

Jo: So, is that how you recommend we get started, just kind of get out there, experience it?

Holly: Just get out there, if you don’t feel a connection to a place, if you don’t feel drawn to a place, then just go somewhere local, somewhere that is easy, whether it is a park or a little wood, or somewhere, just get out there, start doing it, and then tweak as you go. If you went to the woods and you hated it, then go to some open fields, go to the beach, go to some other type of nature, but just play around with it, and experiment and see what works for you. And maybe nothing works for you, maybe you hate nature {laughing} maybe you don’t like the elements, maybe you have resistance to this, that’s fine too. Maybe you will pick it up again in a few years, maybe not, this is also not obligatory, I don’t think everyone needs to do this, I think it would be fantastic if more people did it, it is not an obligatory part of existing on this earth.

Jo: For those of you who live in cities, I live in a city, I live in the outskirts of Manchester, and one thing I do love about, certainly about UK cities, there still tends to be, in most of them, anyway, green space, really easily accessible. I live in the suburbs, I live on a really busy main road, I am literally ten minutes from three motorways, and yet I can walk outside for five minutes and I am by the Trans Pennine way, the river Mersey is down there, and there are trees, there is nature, there is water, and you would not know that you are in the middle of the city. I spent many, many, years in Liverpool, huge, great big parks there, Sefton Park and Princess Park, and it doesn’t have to be: let’s drive out to the middle of the countryside and find some ancient well, for many of us there are green spaces relatively nearby.

Holly: Also I want to say you don’t even have to go outdoors to do this, maybe you just start cultivating houseplants, maybe that is your connection to nature. Maybe you just start buying houseplants and having one in every room or having one in your primary spaces where you hang out. Maybe that’s how you get started and maybe that’s the only way you connect with nature, that is fine too.

Jo: Anything else that we need to cover today?

Holly: One last thing, I am very connected to the trees, and to the plants, and to the green things, but nature is not just the plant realm, it is also the animal realm, it is also the mineral realm. So maybe your way of connecting with nature is playing with crystals, healing with crystals, or your pets, maybe you are a cat person and that is how you connect with nature, it is not just the plant realm. So there are so many different ways out there and there are so many different ways to connect with nature that we haven’t even mentioned today, so do what is right for you.

Jo: That is such a good point, that is such a good point, because both of us are animal people, but I think you and I are particularly drawn to the plant world, whereas I know people who would be like, not interested in trees, but have this amazing connections with animals or can feel the energy radiating off crystals, whereas I am: okay this one feels nice, but I don’t have that same kind of intensity of experience, so maybe all routes lead to the same kind of destination.

Holly: Absolutely.

Jo: This has been fascinating, I love getting to talk to you about this stuff.

Holly: I am loving these episodes! {laughing}

Jo: Excellent! {laughing} So we are still well up for your suggestions on what you would like us to talk about, we are more than happy to get guest experts in, if there are areas that people really want us to find out about, but neither of us are that kind of experienced or knowledgeable, let’s face it I am not that experienced or knowledgeable in most of these areas, so please let us know: [email protected]

Holly: And [email protected]

Jo: You can connect with me on Facebook: JoCaseyB is my Facebook page and I have the Facebook group: The Coaches and Healers Collective, Holly you are not doing the whole kind of Facebook group, and social media thing, in anything like the same way?

Holly: I am instagramming my outdoor stuff a lot, so that is good if you want to see the kind of places I walk, and then I have moved my community from Facebook over to Patreon, so that’s where I am mostly hanging out these days.

Jo: Okay so we will include the links to all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much Holly this has been ace, it has been really interesting and juicy, and chewy, it was just really good.

Holly: I love talking about trees!

Jo: {laughing} Thank you so much for listening, and we will speak to you very soon.

Holly: I hope you enjoyed this episode, please drop me a line and let me know what you thought of it, you can email me: [email protected] or find me online and get in touch. Thank you so much for listening if you enjoyed this episode please give me some feedback and leave a quick review on Apple podcasts.

I will be back next week with another solo episode and that’s all for now!

Remember to visit: https://www.hollyworton.com/286 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you.

286: Jo Casey + Holly ~ Connect With Yourself Through Connecting With Nature