Nature’s Wisdom and the Art of Play
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During this podcast episode, we are joined by Chris Holland - a leading inspiration in the field of nature connection and environmental education for families, schools and businesses. Chris has a natural talent for working with groups of people, telling stories, sharing bush craft skills, foraging, creating environmental art and he’s also a ‘world class’ didgeridoo player!
He wrote his first book, ‘I Love my World’, in 2009 which author Michael Morpurgo described as ‘a must for all’. He has also created several CPD and nature connection courses online. Chris has created a suite of musical nature connection activities, celebrations, games and rituals now used by some of England’s National Park Rangers.
NATURE’S WISDOM AND THE ART OF PLAY
Chris shares with us how his love of Nature began as a child, playing in the garden and getting his hands in the dirt. He talks about the benefits to both children and adults that connecting to Nature can bring. He mentions how it can help them on their soul journey, as well as deepen their sense of connection with the planet – and a greater sense of oneself.
He describes how play, including playing music, can bring about a sense of oneness with the world around us, and how education takes place in the heart and body – not just in the head. He believes that play is how we all learn best.
We discuss how adults can lose that sense of being playful, because it’s drummed out of us by society. Chris explains that we need to deconstruct the conditioning that our education system impresses upon us – and he stresses the importance of playing without having to compete.
Chris describes his passion for surfing and his musical improvisation as his own way of playing. He believes that Nature invites us to play and interact. As adults, we need to protect a child’s right to play as well as find that playful energy ourselves. Sometimes we find that sense of play in the elements, as well as a sense of awe and wonder.
Through teaching people didgeridoo, Chris has taken inspiration from nature, using landscapes or shapes from nature to shape the sound that is created. As well as imaginative freedom, this creates a merging of the senses, using visual and aural influences. Chris has also run forest school workshops using body percussion and place to create meaningful yet fun activities.
Chris describes his spiritual connection to different places, such as Dartmoor, and tells us about an amazing experience of ‘waking up the energy’ of a stone circle in Scotland through dowsing and playing devotional music. Chris talks about the book Song Lines by Bruce Chatwin, which describes how aboriginal people connect with the land through song. He also believes his spirit can leave his body and journey, through physical space.
We chat to Chris about storytelling – how it has transformed over the years thanks to TV and radio. Traditional oral storytelling invites you to use your imagination and can be enhanced by the energy of the storyteller. It can also be interpreted differently by each individual person. Ancient myths and tales are still relevant to our modern age, and we can still learn from them. Music and movement and expression all play a part in storytelling.
Through his family camps and other activities, Chris hopes to facilitate ways of meeting the common human need for a sense of belonging, where everyone has a place, feels more at home on Earth and more connected to Nature and one another. For people he works with, he aims to promote rest, relaxation and kindness while nurturing a heartful connection to themselves, each other and Planet Earth.
Chris asks us about our own insights after the conversation. Sally shares her pull to live in a more off-grid way and experience community differently, and her desire to get out in Nature and play music, while Sibby speaks about a yearning to becoming a leader of her family - inserting more opportunities into their family life to connect with Nature, as well as building a more direct communication herself through her poetry.
You can find out more about the wonderful work that Chris does with children and families, as well as his one-to-one mentoring and coaching, foraging and bird language courses, and other training and team building activities for individuals or businesses by visiting: www.natureconnection.co.uk or naturalmusicians.co.uk.
Here's a coupon for you listeners to get 20% off some of Chris’s resources: https://www.natureconnection.co.uk/?coupon=WHISPERS. This covers I love my world as a book or ebook, a family storytelling and nature connection online resource called NEST and the Acorn plant of the week sheet. It costs £1 - but you get 5 of the Plant of the week sheets for that, absolutely amazing offer!
If you’d like to just get the Acorn plant of the week sheet, you can do so by clicking here as a separate link: www.natureconnection.co.uk/potw-bonus-2-oak.
If anyone wants to know about the family camps then please go here: www.trillonthehill.co.uk/family-camp.