Today Lizzie is joined by Ryann Morris, an Ayurvedic chef, nutritional health coach, and founder of Food Brilliance. Ryann shares how her health crisis of MRSA, five months of IV antibiotics, and a silenced vagus nerve led her to Ayurveda and completely transformed her relationship with food. She explains what Ayurveda actually is: not a restriction, but a gentle and loving way to live in harmony with your body and the natural world. If you've ever thought of cooking as a chore, this episode will offer some medicinal reframes.

Key topics discussed:

• Why your emotional state matters as much as what's on your plate
• The most overlooked part of receiving nourishment
• Cooking as gift to self and community
• The community garden as second home: how a small food forest in the heart of downtown Delray Beach became Ryann's greatest teacher in patience, presence, and connection
• Three Ayurvedic plants worth knowing: Tulsi (calm and clarity), Ashwagandha (stress resilience and sustained energy), and Amla (vitamin C, skin glow, cooling energy)
• Potlucks as portals into other people's stories, cultures, and memories

If this episode nourished something in you, share it with a friend who loves to cook, a fellow foodie, or someone who needs a reminder that taking care of themselves can start in the kitchen (or garden)!

Ryann Morris: foodbrilliance.com @food_brilliance

Film: Food is Everything, a short documentary about cooking with intention, spices, growing food, and how food gathers people. Releases on YouTube June 21st for one month.

Swinton Community Growing Project: The Delray Beach community garden where Lizzie and Ryann first met and the food forest that inspired so much of this conversation.

Sacred Treehouse: Mindfulness classes, retreats, coaching www.sacredtreehouse.org

In this Nature Series on The Bonded Podcast, Lizzie takes the episode outside — literally. Recording from her Florida backyard, surrounded by cicadas, wind, and bird song, she explores what sound and sight actually do to our bodies, our nervous systems, and our capacity to heal. From the womb to the wild, this episode is part science, part philosophy, and part prescription to get outside!

In this epsiode Lizzie explores:

• Hearing as the first sense we develop in utero, our nervous systems are already learning to read safety and threat through sound.
• Noise pollution is a public health issue: chronic exposure to man-made noise has been linked to elevated blood pressure, impaired memory, and increased hyperactivity in children.
• Bird song is ancient medicine: a 2022 King's College London study found that hearing or seeing birds improved mental well-being for up to eight hours — even in people with depression.
• What we see heals us too: patients with tree-view hospital windows went home sooner, needed less pain medication, and recovered faster than those facing a brick wall.
• Green views build community — apartments with more natural views had up to 56% fewer violent crimes, and residents reported stronger trust and belonging.
• The prescription is 20 minutes: sitting or walking in a nature-adjacent space is enough to produce the greatest measurable drop in cortisol.
• And the big question: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it — does it make a sound? Lizzie has an answer.

If this episode resonated, try this week's eco-mindfulness invitation: go outside, close your eyes and just listen — then plug your ears and just look — then let both senses come together. Your ears were built for this before you were even born.

Can a forest, a river, or a favorite tree offer the same qualities we seek in our closest relationships?

Could nature help us heal attachment wounds and remember our belonging to the living world?

Explore these questions and more in this deeply moving conversation, we sit down with author, researcher, eco-chaplain, and founder of the Heartwood Institute, Dr. Lindsay Branham, to explore the profound ways nature can support healing, belonging, and reconnection in a disconnected world.

From secure attachment with trees to the language of the body, erotic ecology, eco-grief, and collective healing, this conversation invites us to remember that we are not separate from nature—we are nature.

Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world, longing for deeper connection, or curious about eco-mindfulness practices, this episode offers wisdom, hope, and practical ways to begin cultivating kinship with the living world around you.

• The concept of secure attachment with nature and why it matters
• Why Lindsay uses "they/them" pronouns for nature
• Queer ecology, belonging, and what nature teaches us about diversity
• Allowing safety, boundaries, and consent to support healing sexual trauma
• How the body serves as our primary language with the natural world
• What "erotic ecology" means and how nature invites us back into aliveness
• Eco-anxiety, eco-grief, and how grief can become fertile ground for transformation
• Lessons from trees, forests, and mycelial networks about cooperation and community
• Why healing ourselves and healing our relationship with the Earth are deeply interconnected

"Nature is not going to cross those boundaries of consent or violate them. There is a profound safety available in relationship with the Earth."

• Heartwood: The Wisdom and Healing Kinship of Trees by Lindsay Branham: Review the book on Amazon to help spread the wisdom!
• Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass
• Joanna Macy's work on Active Hope and Deep Ecology
• Suzanne Simard's research on forest communication and mycelial networks

Stay connected with Lindsay on Instagram: @lindsaylaurenne https://www.heartwood.institute/