In this seasonal immersion with Isla Macleod, we step into what it means to meet this fertile, abundant, eros-filled threshold where the land has fully awakened, and something in us stirs awake alongside it. Together, we explore Beltane as a living field of relationship, one that invites us into deeper intimacy with our bodies, our creativity and the more-than-human world.

These special seasonal episodes move between reflection, story and gentle ritual invitation.

At the heart of this episode is a remembering that “we are collaborators and co-creators of life unfolding.”

Beltane becomes an invitation to turn towards what enlivens us; to follow the subtle currents of desire, sensation and beauty. To slow down enough to feel the world again, listening to the body as a site of knowing and allowing the inner artist to emerge.

As Isla shares, “When we witness beauty, our natural response is to create beauty in return.”

There is also something playful and tender in this… stories of dancing with the stag beneath the moon, of gathering blossoms and making ritual with what is already at hand, of allowing life itself to be the ceremony, with a gentle loosening of the idea that ritual needs to be elaborate. What matters is attention, presence and willingness to be in relationship.

This is, as with our core intention at Rooted Healing, an invitation into intimacy with Life. Into what Isla names so beautifully as “making love with creation.”

You might listen while walking, while sitting with a tree, or simply letting the words move through you. However it meets you, may it soften the edges of separation and remind you of your place within this living, breathing world.

With special thanks to the music in this episode, from Mango Lassie, Telling the Bees, The Children’s Forest, Mae Bird and Cynefin.

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Sima Basel is a Palestinian-Ukrainian therapist and the co-founder of Grassroots Village, an emerging eco-village in the mountains between Oman and the UAE.

We spoke about multiplicity and what it means to hold different lineages, different histories, different griefs in one body, whilst rooted to the land we find ourselves in. About the quiet, often unnamed longing for belonging that so many of us carry.

Again and again, we came back to this question of disconnection as something lived in the body, in the nervous system, in the way we organise our lives. The ways we’ve been taught to heal as individuals, while living in systems that keep us separate from land, from each other and often from our whole selves. Even the disconnection that happens between our many parts.

What Sima is building through Grassroots Village feels like a response to these longings as a living inquiry into what happens when we begin to orient differently.

There’s something in this conversation about remembering. About noticing where healing itself can become another identity… another thing to “do”… and gently returning to something more honest underneath. And also, something about grief. How it moves when it’s shared. How it softens when it’s witnessed. How much we’ve lost the spaces that know how to hold it.

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The music in this episode is from Cynefin, Bonnie Medicine and Ojhro.

Spring Equinox greetings dear ones,

In awe of the sun’s return, I’ve been marinating in the gusty sea breezes moving across the farm. Gentle wind with the occasional passionate gust has always felt like Spirit talking to place or talking to me. We named our lost baby Awel, which is the Cymraeg word for such a breeze as this. The air of spring is the kind that seems to rearrange our thinking as much as the hedgerows, blowing away the thoughts that no longer serve. After a dark, wet, harrowing winter, slow craft with hands in rhythm of thread, fibre, spindle and loom has offered a balm for my soul. Of remembering how to stay in relationship with time rather than racing ahead of it, helping me integrate the winter with tenderness.

In this Spring Equinox episode, I’m joined once again by ceremonialist Isla Macleod, with another immersive episode woven with music, ritual, lore and practice, as a way of honouring the turning of the Wheel of the Year.

The equinox is often spoken about as balance, as light and dark in equilibrium, but I’m not sure balance is ever still in that way. It feels more like a moment of active negotiation, a living recalibration. A threshold where forces are shifting, adjusting, testing each other.

And perhaps that’s the real invitation of this time of year: to stay in conversation with what is stirring without rushing toward emergence. To notice where the land is leaning toward light, and where winter still has a voice. To sense the subtle thresholds we ourselves are crossing, sometimes quietly, sometimes reluctantly.

This episode is an offering into that space of listening as a companion for attuning to the land, the body and the deeper seasonal intelligence moving through both.

You can learn more about Isla’s work here, and explore what we’re tending at Rooted Healing.

The music in this episode comes from the beautiful work of Bonnie Medicine, Cynefin, Telling the Bees and Ojhro - all artists who are also in conversation with land, memory and lore.

If the episode resonates, we’d love to hear what is stirring for you this season.

With heart,

Veronica

After another long pause, this episode arrives from a place shaped by profound loss. A convergence of grief has moved through our lives, and for those subscribed to the Rooted Healing newsletter, you’ll already have some sense of what’s been unfolding.

It is a true honour to welcome back the wonderful ceremonialist Isla Macleod. Isla returns now with something entirely new: an immersive, seasonal offering created to honour the Wheel of the Year through ritual, story, and practice - rooting us in the living seasons and landscapes, and the liminal thresholds within and between them.

For those new to Isla’s work, she is a renowned ceremonialist of these wise isles and the author of the beautiful book Rituals for Life. She also shares a beautiful newsletter on Substack.

This Imbolc also marks the opening ceremony of the final year-long programme, Deepen Your Roots. This is a profound, life-changing journey into your ecological body, bioregion, spirit, and the heart of your calling. Held in community, it offers space to explore your role in co-creating a more beautiful world.

You can support the podcast and receive many gifts in return through our Patreon community, and explore our gatherings and courses at rootedhealing.org.

Music in this episode is by Bonnie Medicine and The Children’s Forest.

In this powerful conversation, Veronica sits with Zeena Ismail - a Palestinian somatic practitioner, trauma educator and writer - to explore what it means to belong, to heal and to stay rooted in the midst of ongoing displacement and collective trauma.

Zeena’s work weaves politicised somatics with land-based practice and systemic literacy, inviting Arabs and diaspora communities into embodied repair through her six-month bilingual programme, Where Do We Begin. They explore the intersections of trauma, resistance and reclamation - how bodies hold the weight of occupation, and how safety, grief and aliveness can coexist.

This episode invites us to look beyond ideology and into the body as a site of truth, where liberation and safety must include everyone.

Rooted Healing’s year-long programme, Deepen Your Roots, is now enrolling for its third cohort. Acting as an incubation ground and compass toward a more beautiful world, Deepen Your Roots invites participants into a year of embodied exploration through place, body, spirit and calling - nourishing leadership and participation in the Great Turning.

This cycle leans more deeply into participatory, relational learning, with co-created practice, small-group inquiry, ritual and embodied exploration, and a renewed effort to gather elders and living-tradition keepers whose presence anchors the work toward humility, continuity and intergenerational wisdom. Learn more and join the next cohort at rootedhealing.org/deepen and use the code ROOTED10 for 10% off.
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In this rich and timely conversation, we sit down with legendary rainforest activist, eco-philosopher and elder of the Deep Ecology movement, John Seed. For over four decades, John has stood on the frontlines of ecological protection -spearheading rainforest-saving campaigns, offering experiential deep ecology workshops, and co-creating the powerful ritual known as The Council of All Beings with Joanna Macy.

We explore the concept of the Ecological Self - a radical shift in identity that sees the tree, river, stone and storm not as separate from us, but as expressions of a shared being. As John puts it, “I try to remember that it's not me, John Seed, trying to protect the rainforest. Rather, I am part of the rainforest protecting itself. I am that part of the rain forest recently emerged into human thinking." From blockades and biodiversity to reEarthing rituals and the resurgence of ecological consciousness, this is a conversation that bridges inner transformation with outer action.

This episode is an offering for all who are seeking deeper relationship with the Earth, and it speaks directly to the heart of our work at Rooted Healing. If you're drawn to this path, you may also wish to explore our year-long programme, Deepen Your Roots, which weaves together deep ecology, animism, and community ritual.

Join us at a gathering or on a course at rootedhealing.org. We have a space left at our signature Earth Medicine psilocybin retreat this September...

You can access our free hour-long workshop in Embodied Deep Ecology here.

The music in this episode is from Mae Bird, Eric Idle & John Seed, and Bonnie Medicine.

Thank you Niamh Murray of Enviromentality for sending John Seed this way.

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“We are rainforest people living on a rainforest island… and the greatest challenge is truly remembering that.”

In this episode, we sit down with Merlin Hanbury-Tenison, a rainforest guardian, author, conservationist and founder of the Thousand Year Trust - exploring the healing potential of restoring Britain’s ancient temperate rainforests.

From his home at Cabilla, a sanctuary on Bodmin Moor where native thousand year old Celtic oaks still grow, Merlin is leading a soulful mission: to reweave ecological resilience with cultural memory, and to bring people back into relationship with our Atlantic rainforests.

We also explore Merlin’s powerful debut book, Our Oaken Bones - an emotive reflection on place, belonging, healing and the intergenerational task of tending what remains.

This episode includes a book giveaway for our Patreon community - one listener will receive a hardback copy of Our Oaken Bones. Visit patreon.com/rootedhealing to enter and support the podcast.

Learn more about our offerings and join our free Embodied Deep Ecology workshop at rootedhealing.org.

The music stitched into this episode is from The Children’s Forest and Bonnie Medicine.

Please leave a comment, rate 5*, subscribe and review, to help others find these stories of healing and regeneration.

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In this episode, we welcome Maile Kalokura, a Somatic Educator, Shamanic & Evolutionary Astrologer and founder of Kalokura Astrology & the Golden Rose Temple. With a passion for deepening self-awareness and activating a sense of aliveness in the body, Maile guides us through the art of softening - into presence, authenticity and embodied truth.

She shares her personal journey of confronting power dynamics and radical initiations that led her to rediscover the strength in vulnerability, the power of boundaries and the beauty of slowing down, sensuously.

Through her studies in somatic healing, mystical traditions and sacred arts, she has cultivated a path of attunement to life’s deeper rhythms, where sensuous presence becomes a gateway to freedom.

Receive our free workshop in Embodied Deep Ecology.

Join us at Earth Medicine.

Listen to more of Maebird's music.

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