Eatweeds Podcast: For People Who Love Plants

In the 17th century, Descartes, Galileo, and Newton transformed a living world into mechanical clockwork. 

Descartes drew the fatal line between mind and matter, rendering everything beyond the thinking self inert and available for measurement. 

This lens birthed science and medicine, but cost us what Goethean scientist Craig Holdrege calls living thinking - thought that is responsive, relational, and shaped by what it encounters.

Goethe knew perception isn't passive: to truly see a plant, you must let it work on you. Through Domei's sustained attention, observer and observed dissolve into a meeting of subjects.

This Episode Is Brought To You By
Robin Harford
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Edible and Medicinal Wild Plants of Britain and Ireland
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Chris Holland has spent over three decades helping people - young and old - find their way back to the natural world. In this warmly personal conversation, Robin and Chris reflect on the threads that have woven their lives together: a shared love of plants, the legacy of plant mentor Frank Cook, and the quiet revolution taking place in nature connection education.
Chris is the author of I Love My World, widely regarded as the unofficial Forest School manual, and the founder of Natural Musicians. A practice that democratises music-making in wild places, inviting children and families to listen deeply and celebrate landscape through sound. 
His work sits at the intersection of nature pedagogy, John Young's Eight Shields framework, and a profound belief that connection to the other-than-human world is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
They explore how children learn differently when handed a stick and a stone instead of a worksheet, why making music in a stone circle might change the listener more than the landscape, and what it means to truly stay — with a plant, with discomfort, with belonging.
For educators, parents, and anyone who has ever felt the pull of a hedgerow, this episode is a quiet reminder that the wild is always closer than we think.

This Episode Is Brought To You By
Robin Harford
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This episode
Connect with Chris Holland

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Books
I Love My World
Plant Of The Week
Sharing Nature With Children
The Heat Will Kill You First
Courses
Natural Musicians
People, Places and Things Mentioned On The Show
Buzzard Yurt
Kingfisher Yurt
City of Bath Roman Baths
Fluxus Art Movement
Frank Cook
New Age Fraud
Pam Horton
Pauline Oliveros
Sandor Katz
Schumacher College
Trill On The Hill
Related Resources
30 Days of Domei
Domei Newsletter

Robin Harford meets storyteller Clare Viner beneath a flowering hawthorn tree in Devon to explore the living tradition of oral storytelling.
Clare shares how stories belong to everyone - not fixed texts handed down by celibate monks, but breathing, evolving things shaped by the teller's felt sense and relationship with land.
They discuss how patriarchy silenced women's stories, how rivers and plants carry their own narratives, and why giving yourself permission to tell an imperfect story is a radical act.
The episode closes with Clare's spellbinding retelling of Merlin and the Lady Nimue - a love story rooted in hawthorn, heart medicine, and the dreaming earth.
About Clare Viner
Clare Viner has been a storyteller for 26 years.
Her roots are personal. As a child, her grandfather wove fairy tales for her. That inheritance stuck, and eventually became a vocation.
She has told to audiences of every age and disposition: toddlers, teenagers, the elderly, festival goers. Clare has performed in the children’s tent at WOMAD for the last 15 years. She works without books or props, and no two tellings of a story are ever the same.
Her book, The Emerald Dragon and Other Magical Tales of the Blackdown and Quantock Hills, reimagines the folklore of two beloved British landscapes from the perspective of someone who trusts and loves the earth. It was funded by a DEFRA grant.
She was writer in residence for Connecting the Culm, a river conservation project that culminated in a four-day River Story Pilgrimage, walking and camping along the water's edge.
She runs workshops exploring the folklore of British wild animals and trees, including Spirit of Hare, Spirit of Deer, and others. Having once been terrified herself, she takes particular pleasure in guiding the terrified through the process of finding their own storytelling voice.
She takes old stories and dreams them new, again and again.
This Episode Is Brought To You By

- Robin Harford
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Connect with Clare Viner, Storyteller
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Things Mentioned On The Show
A Women's Book of Herbs by Elisabeth Brooke
Connecting The Culm
Stories of the Culm
Related Resources
Hawthorn T-Shirt

Show Notes: Understanding Domei

This episode explores Domei, a contemplative practice designed to bridge the gap between humans and the living world through sensory engagement and "deep listening."
Domei Resources
The official Domei website
30 Days of Domei: A Month of Botanical Attention
Key Takeaways
The Origin of Domei: A neologism blending the Gaelic roots Domhain (deep) and Éist (listen).
Beyond the Ears: Listening is defined as a whole-body experience—feeling into the environment rather than just hearing sound.
A Shift in Perspective: The practice moves the participant from seeing nature as "scenery" to recognizing plants as "neighbors" and fellow beings.
De-emphasizing Analysis: Domei encourages "wordless knowing," where the goal is to be with a plant without the need to identify, categorize, or extract information from it.
The Practice: How to Engage
The core of the practice is rooted in voluntary, unhurried attention.
Find a Plant: Locate a living thing, even just beyond your doorstep.
Quiet the Mind: Move away from analytical thinking and botanical classification.
Physical Awareness: Notice how the presence of the plant affects your own body—your breathing, your balance, and the weight of your feet on the ground.
Sit in Companionship: Spend as little as five minutes simply being present with the organism.
Philosophical Foundations

Domei draws from centuries of Western contemplative traditions. It suggests that humans possess an internal "sensory map" and guidance system that is revealed once they slow down enough to receive natural signals. Ultimately, it is a path toward realizing a lack of separation from the earth.
"Domei is not only a practice. It is a way of being."

In this new short-form episode, Robin Harford challenges our relationship with common sorrel (Rumex acetosa) – a plant we've dismissed for centuries simply because it grows freely everywhere.
This episode introduces a new podcast format: short observations (2-5 minutes) with a call to action. Robin doesn't want you to just listen, he wants you outside, engaging with plants where you are.
Safety note: If you suffer from kidney stones or sensitivity to oxalic acids, avoid sorrel due to its high oxalate content.