Welcome to The Hedge School Podcast. We’re dedicated to conversations about building a new folk culture – one which is deeply rooted in our native knowledge and traditions. The Hedge School was born from a belief that the personal, social and environmental problems we’re facing today have arisen not just as a result of our profound disconnection from the beautiful animate world around us, but a lack of rootedness in our ancestral traditions. So our work is about reclaiming ancient wisdom – not to try to recreate a long-lost past, but to use that wisdom to help us build authentic traditions for today.

In our podcast series, we’ll be offering you conversations with people who can sprinkle a few breadcrumbs to help us find our way back home through this dark forest of our forgetting. The wisdom contained in myth and folk tales; connecting with our places; reclaiming our indigenous roots, the practice of traditional crafts and old ways of knowing – and so much more.

 

Pat McCabe – Woman Stands Shining (E1)

In this episode, Hedge School founder Dr Sharon Blackie is in conversation with Pat McCabe. Pat, also known as Woman Stands Shining, is a Diné (Navajo) mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader and international speaker. The discussion focuses on the question of what it is to be indigenous, and how those of us in the West can reclaim a sense of our own indigeneity.

 

LISTEN HERE

Manda Scott (E2)

In this episode, Hedge School founder Dr Sharon Blackie interviews bestselling writer and teacher of shamanic dreaming Manda Scott. The conversation is focused on contemporary shamanic practice, and whether it is possible to recreate an authentic spiritual practice based on what little we know about the traditions followed by our ancestors.

 

 

LISTEN HERE