Animate Earth Talks
Enjoy a selection of free online talks as we explore an animist worldview with a host of Animate Earth friends, contributors and speakers. Follow our Youtube channel for regular updates.
Upcoming Talks
Animate Earth 2024 Confluence
Recorded Talks
Breathing The Oceans Alive with Eleanor O’Hanlon
Eleanor is a writer and conservationist, with a passion for re-connecting with the inner, spiritual dimension of our relationship with wild animals and the natural world. Her book Eyes of the Wild Journeys of Transformation with the Animal Powers takes the reader on a remarkable journey of close encounters with whales, wolves, polar bears, brown bears and wild horses, in the company of indigenous guides and field biologists who are renewing ancient ways of finding inner connection with the wild.
Trauma & The Land
Subtle Energies of Nature with Patrick MacManaway
A talk with ‘the land whisperer’, Patrick MacManaway. A renowned psychic who works with farmers all over the world, he will be exploring how we can use the subtle energies and flows of nature to better manage our relationships with the land, the crops and the animal and human communities.
The Land Speaks: Irish Myth & Magic with Manchán Magan
Our ancestors developed a uniquely nature-focused society, centred on esteemed poets, seers, monks, healers and wise women who were deeply connected to the land. They used this connection to the cycles of the natural world – from which we are increasingly dissociated – as an animating force in their lives.
Manchán Magan traces the footsteps of our animate ancestors across the bogs, rivers and mountains of Ireland, unearthing remnants of myth, magic and language to remind us that we can still listen to the land speak.
The Essentials of Ritual with Colin Campbell
Many of us are beginning to realise that the challenges we face, both personally and in our collectives, are not being solved by the logical, rational, materialistic interventions we are making in the world. A different way of working is required, which calls us into relationship with the unseen forces and flows and deeper levels of reality that surround us.
Ritual is one way of working with these invisible processes and all who have used these archaic and magical processes are aware, from experience, that calls are answered, that the world itself does respond, that there is possibility for reciprocity and conversation with the ineffable. And many are also aware that when we make these calls, when we perform ritual together, within a wider circle, we increase the potency of the working, both for ourselves and beyond.
Here we talk with Colin about what we mean by ritual, what is involved, why it works, and what room is there for us to develop our own practices as we cultivate a life that is in deeper relationship with the hidden world around us.
Divination with Colin Campbell, Angharad Wynne & Rachel Fleming
What if we lived in deep conversation with the ensouled world?
According to Thomas Berry, Nature itself is “the primary text” that contains all the instructions we need about how to live on the earth, balanced, interconnected, in awe and respectful of all things seen and unseen.
As long as there is wild nature the information remains, but in these times, we have forgotten how to read it. We have lost access to this interactive field of information that allows us to belong and work within the natural tides, cycles and flows of the world.
Conversations With the Land with Brid Walsh
We are delighted to share this online talk as part of our Contemporary Animism programme with Angharad Wynne and Brid Walsh, talking about ‘Conversations With The Land’.
Bríd grew up in rural Ireland, in West Cork in the South Western part of Ireland. She was immersed in traditions of language, culture and deep connections to land and environment – listening to the rhythms of the land. Farm holdings were small and local practices worked with the rhythm of the seasons with respect for the land allowing co existence in harmony with the natural environment. She is the third generation in her family to carry close communication with land and trees. The daughter of a forester, she developed a practice of spending time listening to the land – being present – holding heart at the centre of her receptivity. She has opened up a sensitivity and a receptivity for the energetics we can see in the world and also the spaces in-between.
The Common Wild Tongue with Patrick Jasper Lee
Is there a language that exists in the natural world that we as humans have forgotten? Is it possible that the world speaks and it is only us that can no longer hear? In this free event we talk with Romani Gypsy Patrick Jasper Lee about the old understandings of the common wild tongue and how we might begin to understand it again.
Land and Lineage with Daniel Foor
Many of us have been displaced from our lands and our lineages, from our relationality with the kin we evolved with and the ancestors who were buried in the ground we inhabit. Join us for this free conversation and practice session with Daniel Foor as we explore the possibilities of reconnection, belonging and participation in the world and the times we find ourselves in as a result.
The Spirit of Ubuntu with Sicelo Mbatha
Is it too late for humans to restore their belonging within the natural world? In this free event we talk with Sicelo Mbatha from the Zulu tradition about his potent and transformative approach to being in community in the wilds of South Africa, and how this urgent recovery of primary relationship with our other-than-human kin is essential for survival.
The Matter with Things with Iain McGilchrist
Who are we, what is the world, how can we understand consciousness, and can we really neglect the sacred and divine? These are all questions that are posed in Iain McGilchrist’s wonderful new book, The Matter With Things.
The Lore of the Land with Sharon Blackie and Carolyn Hillyer
What would it take to truly belong on this earth?
How might we start the task of restoring balance and connection between ourselves and the rest of the living natural world?
Animism and Alchemy with Stephan Harding and Colin Campbell
Animism is the belief that we are one small part of a greater intelligent whole and within this whole we all have a part to play. This is a belief shared by our ancestors for thousands of years and with indigenous traditions around the world.
What would it mean for us to believe again?