Beginning with Seán’s Irish ancestry and his childhood encounters with the Otherworld, we explore what it might mean to live in a world that is differently alive, animated and sacred. Seán reflects on his journey through activism and journalism, and the realisation that the problem of empire is not only something outside of us, but a deeper problem of consciousness. We speak about myth as a way of entering the deeper dimensions of reality; poetry as a language capable of reaching beyond the walls and fences of civilisation; and the older ways of knowing and being that still live within us and are seeking new expression.

At the heart of our conversation is the figure of the Wild Redeemer — the ancient, green force of life that rises through the cracks to reclaim what has been taken. Through his experiences with plants and stories from Robin Hood to Ned Ludd, Seán explores what it might mean to allow ourselves to be reclaimed by the living world: to recover relationship, meaning and a wild hope that exists beyond the stories of civilisation and empire.

Seán Pádraig O’Donoghue is a herbalist, writer, and teacher who weaves together the insights of traditional Western herbalism and contemporary science. A columnist for Plant Healer Magazine and founder of the Otherworld Well Hedge School, he lives in western Maine. His work explores herbalism, mythology, history, ecology, animism, and magick.

Dear Readers,

The past few years have seen the passing of a number of great pioneers and teachers of spiritual ecology. The coming few seasons at The Spiritual Ecology Book Club are dedicated to their work and are also an opportunity to honour, more widely, a generation who, over the last 20 years, have been so integral to laying the foundations– within science, activism, environmentalism, and faith communities – for a modern eco-spiritual consciousness in the Global North and beyond.

Among the selection are some of our recently departed ancestors: Joanna Macy (deep ecologist & Buddhist scholar), Thich Nhat Hanh (monk and engaged Buddhism teacher), Stephan Harding (ecologist and proponent of the Gaia hypothesis) and Jane Goodall (primatologist and anthropologist). I have also included the late Thomas Berry (Catholic priest and scholar of religion) and the still very much alive and strong Satish Kumar (spiritual teacher and activist), as they too have been foundational to the vision of spiritual ecology that has inspired my work. Of course, there are also others not named here.

For those of us new to the field, this is a wonderful opportunity to immerse in some seminal works in the genre. And for those of us already familiar with them, it’s a moment to revisit their wisdom, strengthen our ties to the living thread and lineage of spiritual ecology, and consider how this inheritance is being carried forward today.

The word lineage feels important. One of the things that I hear most often is how encountering spiritual ecology has given greater confidence and conviction to many of us who, in our own individual, often separate and lonely ways, have felt the call to this emerging seed of consciousness. Knowing that we’re not alone, but part of a lineage we can claim as our own, interwoven in a tapestry with many others across different times and places, can strengthen us in the values, vision and validation we need to stay oriented in a culture increasingly lost.

A pathway has been forged to a possible new and ancient future of spiritual and ecological wholeness. May we affirm this, and continue to play our parts in listening and shaping the way forward in service to the future.

We’ll journey through questions of ecological consciousness, inter-being, belonging and radical resilience, and encounter Gaia theory, deep ecology, Buddhist ecology and the intersections of science and spirituality along the way. We’ll consider the ways we can draw on these wells of sustenance in the face of a world in deep crisis.

I hope you’ll join us for a journey into the lineage of spiritual ecology with this truly revolutionary collection of teachers.

Book Club Calendar

September: World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Planetary Renewal by Joanna Macy

October: The Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry

November: Animate Earth: Science, Intuition, and Gaia by Stephan Harding

December: [Book Club Community Virtual Hang Out]

January: A Love Letter to the Earth by Thich Nhat Hanh

February: Soil, Soul, Society: A New Trinity for our Time by Satish Kumar

March: Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall

Practicals

We meet on the final Sunday of each month, from 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm GMT. You can view a full list of meeting dates here. Meetings are lively, contemplative, inspiring, and carefully designed with curated discussion prompts and other practices to deepen into the core themes of the book. Participants are international and from diverse backgrounds, offering a rich community space.

The link to register is sent out monthly via this newsletter. Currently, each session requires individual booking, but coming soon will be an option to sign up for the book club on a rolling monthly subscription.

August Book Club

This month we’re reading The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise by Martin Prechtel.

Date: Sunday 30th August
Time: 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm BST
Location: Online

Register Here

In gratitude,

Amrita

This book has been both challenging and rewarding, winding back and forth between Aboriginal spiritual worldviews and modern complexity science, with each chapter centred on a symbol and a ‘yarn’ to bridge the written word with older traditional modes of knowledge transmission.

Join us as we contemplate some of the key themes and concepts from the book, including complexity and systems thinking; spiritual and cultural laws within the Aboriginal tradition that enable radical sustainability, equality, and democracy; and how these perspectives could help us find new paths forward today.

Date: Sunday 2nd August
Time: 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm GMT
Location: Zoom
Register here.

Podcast Episode 04: The Wild Power of Poetry

With storyteller and poet Tom Hirons
Listen here.

What if it were possible to make spells with language that could oppose the forces of desecration and horror? In this episode, we explore poetry as a practice of truth-telling and deep listening; to the Otherworld, to the pre-modern voices within us, and to the powers within place in service to collective liberation.

The episode also features readings of two of his poems, The Worship of Place and Here’s How We Lie.

I loved this conversation, and hope you will too.

August Book of the Month

Title
The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise by Martín Prechtel

Genres
Spiritual Ecology • Philosophy • Nature Writing • Indigenous Wisdom

About the Book
Inspiring hope, solace, and courage in living through our losses, this book shares profound insights on the relationship between grief and praise in our culture. Drawing on Indigenous wisdom and rich storytelling, Prechtel argues that our ecological and cultural crises are inseparable from a culture that has forgotten how to grieve, praise, and honour what it loves.

Martín Prechtel is a Native American author, teacher, and cultural preservationist. Born in New Mexico with Pueblo Indian heritage, he lived in Guatemala as a member of the Tzutujil Mayan community, where he was trained in the traditional ways and became a spiritual leader. His work focuses on preserving indigenous wisdom and exploring the connections between language, ritual, and cultural vitality.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

Full details and registration.

Date: Sunday 30th August
Time: 5:30 pm- 7:00 pm BST
Location: Zoom
Price: £8*
*Please get in touch if the price is a barrier

Happy Wild Reading,

Amrita

I first came across Tom’s poetry in the midst of the ongoing tragedy in Gaza. His poems felt like more than simply words on a page; they struck a powerful note of truth in a time of utter inhumanity and denial. They felt like a form of sacred activism — channelling the power of the human voice and language to protect the sacred and move something deep within.

Since then, I’ve come to know Tom’s work more closely through his poetry cafés and workshops. I find his approach to poetry — “as a means of telling the truth using the subtle possibilities of language” — inspiring, illuminating and deeply needed in our world today.

About the Conversation

We explore the deeper power and purpose of language in dark times: poetry as an art of truth-telling, a practice of tracking the Otherworld in service to collective liberation.

Tom speaks about the two great streams from which his poetry arises: the pre-modern voices that live within the depths of us, and a homesickness for a time when we lived in deeper relationship with the land. We explore his writing practice, why being in the wild is central to it, and how listening to these older parts of ourselves might help us recover a language with power.

Tom also shares two poems during the conversation: The Worship of Place and Here’s How We Lie.

Tom Hirons is a writer and storyteller based on the edge of Dartmoor, in England. He is the editor and founder of Clarion and Feral Angels Press. His most well-known works are ‘Nettle-Eater’ and ‘Sometimes a Wild God’.

Wherever you’re up to in the book, you are welcome to join the conversation.

Date: Sunday 28th June
Time: 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm GMT
Location: Zoom

Register here.

The Great Whales and the Breath of the Ocean

A free webinar with conservationist Eleanor O’Hanlon

We’re delighted to be hosting this online event with the author of Eyes of the Wild: Journeys of Transformation with the Animal Powers, which was last month’s popular book club read.

With images, sounds and personal stories, Eleanor will take us travelling among the great whales who are breathing and singing the oceans alive.

Eleanor has journeyed among grey whales, blue whales, sperm whales, orcas and many other cetaceans from the Arctic seas to the Azores, and learned from the indigenous elders and researchers who know them best.

Register here.

July Book of the Month

Title
Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta

Genres
Non-fiction, indigenous philosophies, systems thinking, regenerative sustainability.

About the Book
In this paradigm-shifting book, Yunkaporta invites us to think and see from an Aboriginal perspective - one tied to the natural and spiritual world. Through images, symbols and the tradition of yarning, he explores how this ancient understanding can help us solve the complex challenges of our modern times.

Tyson Yunkaporta is an Aboriginal scholar and founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne. Tyson’s work focuses on applying Indigenous methods of inquiry to solve complex issues and explore global crises.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

Date: Sunday 26th July
Time: 5:30 pm- 7:00 pm BST
Location: Zoom
Price: £8*
*Please get in touch if price is a barrier

What we’ll explore
- How can Aboriginal knowledge help us respond to the complex challenges of our time?
- What models of seeing and being can we learn and apply to our lives?
- How can native ways of seeing physically and spiritually tie us to the living earth?

Full details and registration.

Upcoming

August: The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise by Martin Prechtel

Autumn reading list to be announced very soon.

Warmest Solstice Wishes,

Amrita

We will sit deeply with the work of reweaving a spiritual relationship with our wild kin, guided by the many great healing powers and teachings contained within this book.

We’ll read some stories and myths, and have the chance to share resonant quotes or excerpts — and I will offer curated discussion prompts to help us draw as much collective wisdom and nourishment from this important work.

No matter where you’re up to with the reading, you’re welcome to join us.

A reminder of the details:

Date: Sunday 31st May
Time: 5:00 pm-6:45/7:00 pm (please note slightly later end time as we’ll be a larger group)
Location: Zoom Link
Payment: £8, PayPal @amritakaur@bhohi.co.uk / Wise (best for international transfers), @amritakaurb2

Finally, you can now find the Spiritual Ecology Book Club homepage on my website, with a new booking system where you can join future sessions and see upcoming reads.

June Book of the Month

Title
Thus Spoke the Plant: A Remarkable Journey of Ground-Breaking Scientific Discoveries & Personal Encounters with Plants by Monica Gagliano (2018)

Genres
Nature Writing, Phytobiography (story written in collaboration between human scientist and plant subjects)

About the Book
By transcending the view of plants as the objects of scientific materialism, Gagliano encourages us to rethink plants as people - beings with subjectivity, consciousness, and volition, and hence having the capacity for their own perspectives and voices. The book draws on up-close-and-personal encounters with the plants themselves, as well as plant shamans, indigenous elders, and mystics from around the world and integrates these experiences with an incredible research journey and the groundbreaking scientific discoveries that emerged from it.

Monica Gagliano PhD, is Research Associate Professor of Evolutionary Ecology at the University of Western Australia. Her work has extended the concept of cognition (including perception, learning processes, memory and consciousness) in plants.

Meeting Details

Date: Sunday 28th June
Time: 6:30 pm- 8:00 pm BST
Location: Zoom
Price: £8*
*Please get in touch if price is a barrier

BOOK YOUR PLACE

A shorter read, this book is 131 pages, and as usual, we’ll take the month to read it.

On the final Sunday in June, we’ll gather in a facilitated space designed for depth, reflection and dialogue on the book’s key themes and ideas - and the wider work of healing relationships between people, the living earth, and the sacred.

I share ongoing reflections and quotes during the month via Substack notes and Instagram stories. You are welcome to follow along and join the conversation there!

Upcoming Reads

July: Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (2019)
by Tyson Yunkaporta

August: The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise (2015)
by Martin Prechtel

BOOK SUMMER PASS

Autumn-winter reading schedule to be announced soon. Find out more about the Spiritual Ecology Book Club here.

Happy reading!
Amrita

Title: Eyes of the Wild: Journeys of Transformation with the Animal Powers by Eleanor O’Hanlon
Genre: Nature Writing, Spiritual Ecology
Published: 2012

From Baja California to the Arctic pack ice, Eyes of the Wild takes readers on an epic, personal journey to meet whales and wolves, bears and wild horses, guided by outstanding biologists and other conservationists who are renewing an ancient connection with the wild.

Eleanor O’Hanlon is a writer and conservationist with a passion for reconnecting with the inner, spiritual dimension of our relationship with wild animals and the natural world. Eyes of the Wild was awarded the Nautilus Gold Book Award for Nature Writing.

Schedule & Meeting Details

The book is 275 pages, and we’ll take the month to read it. On the final Sunday in May, we’ll come together in a facilitated space designed to deepen our reflections on the book’s stories and themes, and the wider work of reweaving people, the living earth, and the sacred.

Meeting Date: Sunday 31st May, 5:00 pm-6:30 pm GMT (online)
Cost: £8 (please get in touch if price is a barrier)
Payment: PayPal @amritakaur@bhohi.co.uk / Wise (best for international transfers), @amritakaurb2
Link: Zoom

*Please let me know if you plan to attend by sending me a message or making a payment. I will send out a reminder with final details to those confirmed.

Staying in Touch: I share ongoing reflections and quotes during the month on Instagram and Substack notes, and you are welcome to follow along and join the conversation there!

Upcoming Reads

June
Thus Spoke the Plant: A Remarkable Journey of Ground-Breaking Scientific Discoveries & Personal Encounters with Plants by Monica Galgliano

July
Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta

August
The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise by Martin Prechtel

Find out more about the Book Club here.

Happy wild reading,

Amrita

After a short hiatus, I’m happy to announce the Spiritual Ecology Book Club reading lineup for the next few seasons.

Meetings take place on the final Sunday of each month, from 5:00 pm-6:30 pm GMT, and all are welcome, whether or not you have finished the book.

A reminder that official registration is not required; each month, you’ll receive a newsletter announcing details of the upcoming read, payment and meeting links, plus any other practical notes. You can confirm your spot by simply making the payment for the session, and/or dropping me a message or comment.

More information can also be found on the Book Club landing page, which is regularly updated - and you can also follow me on Instagram, where I share ongoing updates and reflections.

I look forward to what promises to be a very magical and inspiring reading season ahead!

SPRING-SUMMER 2026 — READING SCHEDULE

-May:
Eyes of the Wild: Journeys of Transformation with the Animal Powers (2012)
by Eleanor O’Hanlon

-Jun:
Thus Spoke the Plant: A Remarkable Journey of Ground-Breaking Scientific Discoveries & Personal Encounters with Plants (2018)
by Monica Galgliano

-Jul:
Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (2019)
by Tyson Yunkaporta

-Aug:
The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise (2015)
by Martin Prechtel

The Spiritual Ecology Book Club is a monthly online reading group focusing on ecology, culture, and spirituality. It is inspired by the call from many indigenous teachers that, at this moment of profound planetary crisis, we must respond by going deeper. In the words of writer Terry Tempest Williams, we are being called to attention, and we must turn not to despair, but to deep reflection. Through encountering the stories, teachings and diverse perspectives of leading thinkers in the field, the reading club is a space dedicated to conscious reflection — where we might, together, be guided to the deeper pathways of regeneration and real change.

“One of the many highlights of 2025 was joining Amrita’s book club” — Rosie G

THE MUSTARD SEED PODCAST

In parallel to the book club, The Mustard Seed Podcast explores the work of ecological, cultural and spiritual regeneration through conversations with artists, change makers, conservationists, indigenous and faith leaders (and sometimes with authors of our reading club reads!).

You can find previous episodes here, with new episodes released bimonthly.

As the decimation of cities and homes continues (and the possibility of the crisis stretching to apocalyptic proportions grows), and as landscapes of fire and ash seem to consume ever greater expanses of our inner and outer worlds, I wanted to share an old South American folk tale that I came across in Michael Meade’s Why the World Doesn’t End: Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss (2012).

It’s a story about the near-total devastation of life, and the magical, miraculous, creative (and sometimes destructive) process of manifesting new life out of the remains of ashes. Through the effort, imagination, devotion, and often unexpected instinctual responses of mortal beings, the first green shoot is reborn, and eventually the tree of life is restored.

Perhaps the story moves something in you in the way that it did for me in this time of great ravaging. In the words of Michael Meade: “People have always worried about the continuance of life on earth….and a tale like Ichanchu and the charcoal drum looks directly at the possibility of catastrophic environmental disaster and the mystery of regeneration, and the role people might play in the continuance of the world.

Some of the language has been adapted slightly to my own words.

Icanchu’s Drum

It started with the Earth heating up. The ice caps began to melt, and the deserts grew larger and larger. Eventually, everything started to become overheated, and the atmosphere itself caught on fire. Soon, this great conflagration started to spread throughout the world at such great intensity that there was absolutely nothing anyone could do to stop it. The flames raged unabated, night and day, consuming everything alive in their path. The green singing forests were reduced to cinders, and even the great mountains melted down. Nothing was left standing or moving. All that remained of the lucious earth was an endless sea of ashes, and one small thing that managed to avoid destruction.

It so happened that during this time, two beings, named Icanchu and Chuna, had been away visiting the Otherworld. When they returned to find what had happened to their beautiful planet, they were deeply shocked and grieved. As they looked out at the dark devastation left by the fire, they felt many feelings, but the greatest one was an unbelievable sense of homelessness. More than anything else, they longed to return to their original homeland. But as all the landscapes now looked the same, they could not differentiate where it was or which direction they should go to find it.

In their confusion and sadness, Trickster unexpectedly appeared before them. He greeted them and proceeded to give them instructions on how they could locate their place of origin, the home that they so desperately longed to return to. He told them that they should fly with their bird wings over the earth, and whilst doing so, point their index fingers straight ahead. Just as a pendulum moves in its own way while dowsing, Trickster told them that when they had reached their home, their fingers would move to point downwards.

The pair followed Trickster’s instructions as they trusted in him, because they knew that this old world had many tricks up its sleeve as well as many hidden resources that might only appear in times of duress. So they shifted into their bird shapes and took flight, travelling high over the ash-covered face of the earth, with their index fingers pointed outwards just as they had been guided.

Soon enough, their fingers began voluntarily quivering and moving downwards of their own accord, as they had been told to expect, and although the view below looked just like every other place they had seen, the two travellers followed their fingers and descended into the ashes of their home. Touching down, they had a sense that they had arrived back at their place of origin, but there was nothing that remained of it.

As if their instincts had been stirred by contact with the ground, Icachu and Chuna felt a hunger creeping up on them. They needed some food. Digging around in the ashes, they searched to see if they could find any scrap of something edible to eat, something that could serve as some kind of nutrition. They dug away desperately, but all they found was a single chunk of burnt-out wood. His eyes falling upon this single piece of charcoal, all that was left of their home, Icanchu was overtaken with a deep sense of longing for trees. Before the fire, he remembered how their home had been resplendent with dense forests with trees of many different species and wildlife. This little piece of charcoal must be a remainder of one of those trees, he thought.

Then another thought struck him: drums, too, were the remainder of trees. The drums his people used for their sacred ceremonies and celebrations were made from carefully harvested wood from specially chosen trees from the forests that used to be here. They would be played on special occasions throughout the year. Almost involuntarily, Icanchu started striking the piece of wood in his hands, and playing it as if it were a real drum. After some time, he got infected by his own rhythm, and naturally, he started to dance and then sing along to the primal beat. As there was nothing else to do, and since beating the drum and singing and dancing gave him a feeling of courage, Icanchu played on and on all day long in the middle of the ocean of ash, on his makeshift charcoal drum. Meanwhile, his friend Chuna simply sat and observed, almost meditating on all that was proceeding. By the time dusk arrived, in utter exhaustion from his activities, Icanchu dropped down to the floor and fell into a deep, long sleep.

The Green Tendril of Life

In the morning, he got up, still a bit dizzy, and searched around for his burnt-out piece-of-wood-drum. He was surprised to see a tiny, tender green shoot coming out of the blackened husk. He felt so inspired by the emergence of this tiny new green tendril that stood out almost neon-like against the endless expanse of ash, Icanchu began to sing again. Throwing all caution to the wind, he danced with abandon around that shoot and sang and sang with all his heart. As he did so, the tendril seemed to grow as if its tender life was being silently nourished by the song. Icanchu continued on devotedly singing and dancing around the green shoot, and it responded by growing larger and larger.

The tendril of life soon began to look like a slender tree. In no time at all, the trunk thickened and stood straight up and soon put forth long green branches that reached out in all four directions. What a sight it was, standing in the middle of the expanse of ashes, the only vertical expression of life, the only green intention in the world, the only tree on the face of the earth.

Witnessing how his song had transformed the shoot into a tree and awakened its life, he intensified his dance all the more. At one point, while dancing wildly around the tree, Icanchu’s foot struck a stone. He picked up the rock, and without consideration, he threw it right at the miraculous tree. It’s hard to explain this impetuous action and stark change in attitude. Perhaps the instinct for destruction is so closely tied to the creative impulse, or that the forces of creation and destruction are inextricably connected like beginnings and endings, that when one returns to the world, the other has to manifest as well. For one reason or another, Icanchu kept throwing stones at the firstborn tree.

When the dancer found another stone, he threw it again at the tree, and again and again from all directions with the same enthusiasm and abandon as when he was singing and dancing. Meanwhile, his friend Chuna, continued to sit and witness all that was transpiring.

What happened next was completely unforeseen. Each time the stone would hit the branch, and each time the branch was struck down, it fell to the ash-covered ground and immediately began to take root. Wherever they happened to fall, the branches would immediately begin to grow and soon multiply, so that each branch became not only another tree, but a new species of tree. Soon, there were countless species of trees and a full-blown forest swaying in the sunlight, growing in their green wildness towards the sky while their roots sank deeper and deeper into the old earth. It was almost as if the trees, too were dancing in the ashes in the aftermath of an apocalyptic fire. After the return of the forests, animals began to return, and eventually, people came back to the world again.

Reflections

This story contains much to chew on, with many potent lessons for our time, I think. I don’t want to overanalyse it, but there are many keys and symbols to sit with. Connection to the Otherworld as protection; finding our way back to the sacred centre or point of origin from where new life can be born; the one broken thing that remains, and the way, through imagination, it becomes a sacred object and evokes the power of longing and devotion. The rhythm, song, and dance that nourishes so that new life can miraculously be born and grow; the image of the tiny green tendril. And the instinctual counter movement of destruction that is also required for something to truly take root and grow, into the forest that it once was.

So much. I’d love to hear your reflections and responses in the comments.

About the Episode
In this conversation, we speak about the possibility of composting pain and recasting suffering within ourselves and the land, the interconnectedness of inner and outer landscapes, and the discipline of hope in dark times.

Yuvan Aves is a prominent Chennai-based writer, naturalist, educator, and environmental activist. His work centres on ecology, nature education, and defending the environment against industrial violence and ecocide in South India.

Chapters

00:00 Transforming Trauma into Beauty
06:57 The Power of Attention and Action
13:21 Hope in the Dark: Activism and Resilience
19:20 Interconnectedness of Inner and Outer Landscapes
24:45 Imagination as a Site of Recovery
27:05 The Co-evolved Psyche and Nature’s Influence

Dear friends,

In a recent interview, I heard environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert say she is often asked how she gets up in the morning, given the depressing nature of environmental affairs. Her response was: “I always say that the world is a terrifying place — and right now it is very terrifying — but the world is also a fascinating place, full of wonder and awe.”

Reading James Bridle’s Ways of Being this past month has felt like a steady drip-feed of shots of wonder and awe. To quote the perfectly succinct response of a fellow book clubber: ‘just wow’. The book has given me a great appreciation for the truth in Elizabeth’s words, how fascination is such a potent antidote to despair. Another reason why we should all be reading more.

And wow, is James’ book a giant compendium of fascination. From evolutionary biology, quantum physics, ecology, computational science, linguistics, genetics, archaeology, natural history and politics, he leaves no stone unturned in his quest to bring forth a powerful new vision for a world of non-human intelligences, re-entangling machines with the earth that they are born out of in what he calls an ‘ecology of technology’:

Radically (perhaps especially so for many of us technologically-averse nature lovers such as myself), he believes that artificial intelligence holds the potential to bring us closer to the earth, exploring what it would mean to build machines that were more like octopuses, fungi, or forests, and, going even further, arguing that doing so could even lead us to a more equitable and just world:

It was not technology that cast us out of Eden, or sent us fleeing from Babel. It was not technology which designated non-human life as brutish or mechanical, fit only for the slaughterhouse and the vivisection table. That was greed and hubris, Aristotle and Descartes, the edifice of human exceptionalism and Western European philosophy. Technology embodies the ideas and metaphors of its time.

Though quite a theoretical and technical read at times, I think the book’s impact is spiritual in several ways, most significantly for me, it has returned a certain spark of light — wisdom, possibility, beauty — to the otherwise dark and dismal discourse on AI and apocalyptic futures. There is another paradigm possible, one that doesn’t exclude the full power of technological intelligence from our lives, but that actually integrates it in a way that empowers and enables us in creating new systems and structures in service to the thriving of the whole community of life.

If the message of Rob Hopkins in last month’s read was the urgent need for inspiring visions of the kind of future that we want to live in, and to get to know what that world looks and feels like, then Bridle’s book answers this call spectacularly. I think it’s an important book for our time and urge you all to get a copy and read it.

I greatly look forward to discussing it together at our book club meeting this weekend.

Book Club Hiatus

The Club will be taking a short one to two-month intermission, so there will be no planned reads or meetings until further notice. I’m excited to relaunch later in Spring, by which time we’ll have the joy in the northern hemisphere of being able to return to our favourite outdoor reading spots! I’m looking forward to a picnic blanket by the river, or under the oak tree, or next to the little rose garden in my local park.

My thanks to all of you who have joined along the way these past six months, and as always, I look forward to meeting more of you in the future.

Amrita

When I listen to Tiokasin, beyond his words (and his frequent challenges with translating the Lakota worldview into English), it feels like stepping into (or at least closer to) that multi-dimensional, non-hierarchical, and relational world, inhabited by his people, the Lakota nation of the Cheyenne River, South Dakota. It can sometimes be confusing, often intentionally so on his part, but for a time, I feel unshackled from the Western mind and reminded of the radically other, ancient, and intelligent ways of being human on this wondrous planet.

I hope you enjoy this conversation.

About the Episode

In this episode, we speak about Tiokasin’s early experiences and traumas in the boarding school system, and how, through the violent methods of colonisation, his people (and others) were forced to assimilate and forget their languages and lifeways. We speak about the importance of intuition and listening to Earth as an antidote to the control and domination paradigm deeply embedded in modern ways of relating, even within the environmental field. We talk about the multi-dimensional Lakota language, a language of relationality that understands the world in terms of energy, and finally, the shared human language of awe that can help us to return to a relationship of respect and humility for the ‘ mystery’ or ‘creative force’ imbued within all life.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse is a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota and has a long history with Indigenous activism and advocacy.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Tiokasin Ghost Horse
02:16 Tiokasin’s Personal Journey and Indigenous Identity
04:40 The Impact of Boarding Schools on Indigenous Culture
09:30 Understanding Domination and Relationship with Nature
12:43 The Teaching: Earth Will Save Us
20:39 Decentering Humanity and Listening to Mother Earth
25:17 The Cycle of Life and Earthly Relationships
27:59 The Power of Language and Consciousness
31:32 Understanding Time and Ancestral Connections
35:04 The Language of Earth and Relationality
38:07 The Language of Awe and Innocence
43:38 Hope, Action, and the Future of Earth Consciousness

“If we are to address the wholesale despoilation of the planet, and our growing helplessness in the face of vast computational power, then we must find ways to reconcile our technological prowess and sense of human uniqueness with an earthy sensibility and an attentiveness to the interconnectedness of all things.”

About the Book

Recent years have seen rapid advances in ‘artificial’ intelligence, which increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined. At the same time, we are becoming more aware of the other intelligences which have been with us all along, unrecognised. These other beings are the animals, plants, and natural systems that surround us and are slowly revealing their complexity and knowledge - just as the new technologies we’ve built threaten to cause their extinction, and ours.

Ways of Being considers the fascinating, uncanny and multiple ways of existing on earth. What can we learn from these other forms of intelligence and personhood, and how can we change our societies to live more equitably with one another and the non-human world? From Greek oracles to octopuses, forests to satellites, Bridle tells a radical new story about ecology, technology and intelligence. We must, they argue, expand our definition of these terms to build a meaningful and free relationship with the non-human, one based on solidarity and cognitive diversity. We have so much to learn, and many worlds to gain.

About the Author

James Bridle is a writer, artist and technologist. Their artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. They are the author of 'New Dark Age' (2018) and 'Ways of Being' (2022).

Weekly Reading Schedule
w/b 2nd - Intro, ch 1-2
w/b 9th - ch 3-4
w/b 16th - ch 5-7
w/b 23rd - ch 8-9

Online Reading Group Meeting
Thursday 26th February
6:30pm — 8:00pm GMT
Cost: £8
Zoom link

Weekly Updates
You can follow regular updates and ongoing reflections over the month on both my Substack and Instagram stories.

Join the conversation!

I don’t think a non-fiction book about activism has ever made me cry, but the introduction to Rob Hopkins’ How to Fall in Love with the Future had this effect.

At a time when the light of possibility for what the world could be, for a wiser future, so often feels lost or extinguished, Rob’s book shook me awake to the dangers of losing that vision and giving over the sacred space of our imaginations exclusively to images and narratives of dystopia and extinction - something so easy to do, especially if you work in the sphere of environmental or social change.

After 20 years of leadership in the climate activism movement, and seeing things only get worse during this time, Rob has had a quietly growing feeling for a different kind of change-making, one that centres not on what we are running away from, but on cultivating a powerful sense of longing for the future we want to inhabit, recognising that, “real, lasting change in the world is often preceded by longing: a collective ache for a shared vision.”

It’s important for us not only to witness and grieve the loss and devastation taking place in our present time, but also to consciously nourish our souls and psyches with generative ‘memories of the future’ — through practices that harness the power of the imagination, and also by recognising that many signs and seeds of a different world already exist here and now. In Rob’s words, we can engage in ‘evidence-based dreaming’.

What hit me hard, though, (and something I want to write about in more depth), is the realisation that if we collectively lose the capacity to imagine a future we want to live in, then we also lose the possibility of that reality ever being able to be realised. Obviously, we can’t control how things unfold in the coming decades, but it seems to me that inwardly keeping alive a space of possibility for the future is perhaps one of the most vital contributions we can make.

Rob’s book is brimming with creative and experiential practices, and diverse examples of the incredibly inspiring ‘imagiation activism’ or ‘positive futurism’ movement that is building momentum around the world today. I’m so grateful to him for writing this book, and I'm looking forward to discussing reflections together with others at our Spiritual Ecology Book Club meeting taking place this week. Full details at the end of the newsletter.

INTRODUCING THE MUSTARD SEED PODCAST

I’m delighted to announce my new podcast, and for the inaugural episode, it was a joy to sit down with the man himself, Rob Hopkins, and dive into some of these ideas together.

It’s a bit rough and ready as I initiate into the art of podcasting, but I hope you find it a valuable listen, with both our passions for the topic coming through!

You can listen/watch the interview here.

SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY BOOK CLUB

Finally, I look forward to seeing some new faces at our Book Club meeting later this week! I want to reiterate that even if you haven’t finished the book, you’re still very welcome to join and participate as much as you like, and if you can’t afford the session fee, this also doesn’t preclude you from coming along.

Session Info
Date & Time: Thursday 29th January, 6:30 pm — 8:00 pm GMT
Payment: £8, PayPal Amrita Bhohi, amritakaur@bhohi.co.uk // Wise (best for international transfers), @amritakaurb2
Call link: Zoom

*If you haven’t done so already, please send me a message or comment below to confirm attendance, as it is helpful to know numbers in advance.

Session Format
Sessions are facilitated and informal, and usually begin with an invitation to share favourite/memorable quotes or passages from the book. I offer discussion prompts to help guide our exploration of the themes, including how we might practically integrate the learnings into our lives.

February Read
Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence By James Bridle

Full details will be sent out in the next few days.

All my best,

Amrita

We discuss his disillusionment with the dominant extinction and collapse narratives of the climate movement, and what it would be like if the primary aim of our activism was to cultivate a powerful sense of longing or ‘collective ache’ for the future. We talk about the Afrofuturism lineage that inspired his thinking on the power of the radical imagination, and explore why creating experiences of ‘nostalgia for the future’ are so important in making real change happen — as well as the simple practices that can help us all to fall more deeply in love with a future that is not only possible, but whose signs and seeds already exist in the here and now.

- Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

I was given this teaching more than ten years ago in the summer of 2014, during an interview I conducted with Sufi Master Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee. I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about these words again. Perhaps I needed reminding, in the liminal time at the turning of the year, as the page turns onto a new sheet of stories yet to be told and as I sit and think about my hopes and wishes for 2026, that the world, too, has a dream and a possibility for what it could yet be.

Yet I wonder whether, if asked, he would give the same message today. With each passing year, the distance between the world of our imagination and longing, and the world that is being shown around us feels more and more like a chasm. That potential which Llewellyn refers to seems hidden, perhaps even, sometimes, it feels lost.

How do we endure in our imagining? How do we keep trust and remembrance in the greater potential for transformation during this time?

From a practical perspective, maybe it’s good to recognise that timelines have shifted in the twelve years since my interview. As the pivotal decades that will dictate the degree of warming and severity of breakdown progress, and we witness continued loyalty to the path of desecration, we move ever deeper into the territory of the radical unknown. In the words of Rob Hopkins, if you’re not terrified about climate change, then you’re not paying attention.

It is evident today that the transformation from a life-destroying to a life-sustaining human culture is now a multi-generational epic that will likely involve some dark and dangerous chapters. We can’t even take it for granted any more that there will be humans around to live it.

I was pondering some of these questions when my thoughts were disrupted by an image from a poem that I happened to listen to on a BBC radio show about Winter poetry. A stanza from Ode to Winter by Gilian Clarke caught my attention, offering an image (or a response, in the way poems often do):

Under the stilled heartbeat of trees,
wind-snapped branches, mulch and root,
a million bluebell bulbs lie low
ready to flare in lengthening light,
after the dark, the frozen earth, the snow.

In more recent talks, I have heard Llewellyn describe our time, when the light of the old era has faded, but the light of the next era has not yet been born, as akin to winter. Perhaps we are at the start of a multi-generational long winter, and maybe this is why the practice of imagining a possible future sometimes feels hard to do; it is so out of sight.

Yet, this image is a powerful reminder. Above ground is death and dissolution all around, but below ground, in the invisible world, lies a hidden promise of beauty and joy, being silently nourished by the rot, ready, and waiting for the light to return, for it’s time to come. The future lies low in the dark, and we must learn to listen for its presence.

However things unfold in the world in 2026, when I look around at the world and the way feels lost, I will remember the invisible bluebell bulbs. I will remember that winter is a time to tune my ears to the flowers growing in the dark.

As all winters ask, I will practice faith and perseverance.

I will hold the hidden promise of the future waiting to be born.

As the first snowfall graces the city of London, I’m wishing you all a magical start to 2026. In our dark and trying times, may we continue, this year, to hold in our hearts the vision of a possible world, and continue to trust — like invisible bluebell bulbs lying low during a long winter, nourished by decay and dissolution — in the promise of a future yet to be born.

Prompted by the energy of possibility, visioning and dreaming that feel so prevalent at the start of a new year, and which the season is inspiring in me, I’ve made a change to our book club read for this month. I’m super excited for this playful, visionary and practical book, and you can find the updated details below.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to reintroduce the space and offering, and share a note of encouragement to those of you thinking about joining to come along for the journey in 2026. I know time is a scarce commodity, but if the power of stories, community, deep thinking and the work of spiritual ecology calls to you this year, I hope you will join us.

”One of the many highlights of 2025 was joining Amrita’s book club” — Rosie Gaunt

The Spiritual Ecology Book Club is a monthly online reading group that focuses on books related to ecology, culture, and spirituality.

The Club is inspired by the call from many indigenous teachers that, at this moment of profound planetary crisis, we must respond by going deeper. Taking the time to think and reflect consciously and in community on our relationship with the living world — outer physical as well as inner spiritual— is an important part of this work of regeneration.

The space offers the opportunity to read or listen to, and be led by the teachings of a diverse collection of indigenous and non-indigenous writers, thinkers and activists, both established and emerging, who are leading the way in the global movement for spiritual, ecological and cultural renewal.

Authors include ecologists, nature writers, indigenous thinkers, psychologists, climate activists and more. The books cover a range of themes from grief to the rights of rivers, decolonising storytelling, and gift economies — but all of them contain transformative power, taking us on journeys that provoke, inspire, educate, and ultimately move us to experience ourselves and the living world in new ways.

The format is simple: every month, we read a book which I announce in my monthly newsletter and on the final Thursday of the month, we gather online in a facilitated and intimate space to contemplate the ideas and insights encountered, and think about how we can integrate the learnings into our own lives and work. I offer guided discussion prompts and occasionally other practices to support engaging, thoughtful and meaningful conversations and connection.

Everyone is welcome to join, and all levels of knowledge and experience are valued. Group sessions cost £8 to attend; however, if price is a barrier, please don’t hesitate to get in touch, and we can make it work.

JANUARY 2026

How to Fall in Love with the Future: A Time Traveller’s Guide to Changing the World by Rob Hopkins

"The future sends clues back to you, in the here and now, ALL THE TIME. We're surrounded by proof of the possibilities: little seeds and notes and nuggets dropped like messages in bottles, for you to pick up, collect, collage with, and do everything you can to nurture."

There are an infinite number of possible futures that lie ahead of us—like threads stretching out into the distance. In his new book, Hopkins, cofounder of the international Transition Network movement, invites us to travel to future worlds we would actually want to live in.

How to Fall in Love with the Future dives into the people and movements throughout history who have used visions of the future to inspire positive change on a large and dramatic scale. From the life and writings of musician Sun Ra and the history of Black utopian movements to the latest neuroscience on what goes on in our minds—and hearts—when we “time travel,” Hopkins brings essential new thinking to anyone overwhelmed with dread and anxiety for the future. He asks us to consider: what would the world look like if we all got to work imagining—and then building—a world we were deeply in love with?

About the Author

Rob Hopkins is the co-founder of Transition Network and of Transition Town Totnes, and author of several books including ‘The Transition Handbook‘ and most recently, ‘How to Fall in Love with the Future: a time traveller’s guide to changing the world’. He is an Ashoka Fellow, has spoken at TED Global and at several TEDx events, and appeared in the 2015 French film phenomenon ‘Demain’. He holds a PhD from the University of Plymouth as well as 2 Honoris Causas, and hosted 100 episodes of his podcast ‘From What If to What Next’. His website is robhopkins.net.

Reading Goals
The book is 150 pages, so not a long read, with ten chapters in total. It is also available as an audiobook which can be a helpful alternative if time for reading is limited.

Online Reading Group Meeting
Thursday 29th January
6:30pm — 8:00pm GMT
Cost: £8
Zoom link

Please send me a message or comment if you are joining the read and planning to attend the meeting. A reminder will be sent as usual at the end of the month with all the final details!

Thank you for subscribing to The Mustard Seed and here’s to a year of listening for the signs and seeds of a possible world.

Warmly,

Amrita

DECEMBER READ

The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance
by Robin Wall Kimmerer

A short read for a shorter month, those of you familiar with Robin’s work will know of her lyrical and powerful storytelling, and the gifts of wisdom and compassion imbued in her writing. This book started out as an essay in Emergence Magazine, where, while harvesting serviceberries, Robin reflects on the contrast between our current economic system rooted in scarcity and competition, and the alternative ethic of reciprocity, abundance and gift modelled by the serviceberry tree. Guided by the teachings of this plant, as well as ancient indigenous wisdom, this book is a call to redefine wealth as relationships rather than accumulation - recognising that all flourishing is truly mutual.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is an indigenous plant scientist and author of the New York Times bestselling collection of essays Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.

Online Group Meeting
Thursday 18th December, 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm GMT

2026 BOOK PICKS

From a manifesto for a new ‘Green Enlightenment’ to a critique of Eurocentric modernity, and a pastoral novel about coming of age in a globalised world – I’m pleased to share the reading line-up for early 2026 (group meeting dates TBC):

Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence by James Bridle

Emergency by Daisy Hildyard

Wild Fictions by Amitav Ghosh

I hope you’ll join us for more stories and perspectives on the work of re-weaving people, the living Earth, and the sacred.

Warmly,
Amrita

In it, Macfarlane describes how the indigenous Sarayaku people of the Ecuadorian Amazon grew up knowing, as a given, that the forest and the river were alive, and that the different ecological elements - including humans - together, formed a ‘living, thinking being’.

It wasn’t something that they had to think about or understand, rather a simple inner, instinctive knowledge that was natural to them.

Then comes an acknowledgement:

To categorise this knowledge as a ‘belief’ or to class it as ‘animism’ would be inaccurate, because, “to designate the forests aliveness in this way would be to locate it inside historical formations (religious, faith, indigeneity, anthropology) with which it is incompatible.”

The Sarayaku people do not want to fit the forest, and their relationship to it, into existing categories or classifications, or within legal frameworks. They do not want to reduce their multidimensional, intrinsic, spiritual awareness into the limited, extrinsic conceptualisations of the Western mind. They don’t want their living, experiential, relational understandings to be shrunk to just a ‘belief’.

And I feel the same.

When I read about the rights for nature movement, part of me rejoices, while another part of me grieves. Is it a visionary thing? To bring an ecological consciousness into the legal system? To give a river ‘personhood’, and by extension the protection, rights and respect that other cultures have offered for thousands of years, not by enforcement, but as a result of an inner knowing that was just a given? Is it revolutionary to have to create a law as the only way to physically restrain (state backed) corporations from killing a river while the same system legally requires shareholders to maximise profits above all else in an economic system that rewards it?

“To designate a forest’s aliveness within a formation with which it is fundamentally incompatible.”

I understand the importance of this work, the way that the law can help to shift attitudes and consciousness over the long term, even if at the beginning it needs to be something that is enforced while the collective catches up. I understand the logic and importance of slowing if not halting the harm by working inside the system. But I grieve because of how far we are from what the Sarayuku people have: inner knowing.

When I was twenty four, I spent a summer working for the late environmental lawyer Polly Higgins. She was a pioneering voice in the UK earth rights movement, leading a campaign for an international law of ‘Ecocide’ to sit alongside the other existing crimes against humanity in the Rome Statute. She dedicated her life to this mission and to working through law to effect change. And she truly believed in its importance and potential, as did I. But I’ll never forget the time when she told me that her real vision was that some day there wouldn’t need to be a law of ecocide. ‘One day’, she told me, ‘I see a world where each of us feel a natural duty of care towards the earth, and an intrinsic sense of responsibility to take care of it.’

That, I think, is visionary.

Recently, I received the following comment on one of my Substack posts:

“The word spiritual gives me the ick. I prefer the term Deep Ecology to describe the wonder.”

I had two thoughts: first, the word ‘spiritual’ also gives me the ‘ick’. Second, this comment illustrates perfectly why it’s imperative that I use the term.

As with the Sarayuku people, I too feel resistance to trying to designate the earth’s aliveness into existing categorisations. The term spiritual is obviously laden with unhelpful connotations and associations, lacks weight and authority, and as this comment illustrated so well, is often reduced in the western mind to personal experience, rather than divine reality. I’ve great respect for Arnae Ness, and his philosophy, but what I’m talking about is more than the human-centred experience of wonder, or the intrinsic value of nature.

Just as the Sarayuku people know the forest is alive and inspirited with its its own form of consciousness made up of all the interconnections that give rise to it; so the earth as a whole, is a macrocosm of this microcosm, a living, intelligent, interconnected whole, of which we are a part. Conjoining the words ‘spiritual’ and ‘ecology’ is about uniting the seen and unseen dimensions of the earth, and our relationship with it. I also don’t like calling it a ‘belief’. For me it’s more a statement. A statement that gives voice to the root of possibly all the crises we are dealing with today: a lack of sacred relationship.

In the words of Terry Tempest Williams:

“It’s time to heal the earth and each other, by what? By calling them sacred.”

There was another pearl of wisdom Polly shared with me. She said how she felt her work was less about achieving the ambitious amendment of the Rome Statute, that she knew she would not be successful in her lifetime at achieving an international law of Ecocide. She saw the real work as seeding the idea into the consciousness of the people.

She spent most of her time giving talks on every kind of platform and in every place she could. By coining the term Ecocide and seeding it in the collective imagination, she believed, something new was already being made possible.

Perhaps the lesson here is not about fitting into existing categorisations or formations, but the importance of creating new ones, and maybe Spiritual Ecology is one of these.

I think the best description of Spiritual Ecology is a seed. One that can take root in fertile hearts and imaginations, that can be watered, grown, shared as we find new ways of being with the Earth. So that one day, all our children will grow up without ever hearing the term but knowing exactly what it means.

We’re approaching the end of October, and the end of our first book journeying with Rob and rivers. From waterscapes pristine to polluted, stories visionary and monstrous — this opus of a book has been an immense, tumultuous, and pretty profound traverse.

This week, we’ll meet as a spiritual ecology reading community for the first time!
We’ll give space for reflection on the powerful and pivotal ideas in ‘Is a River Alive’, and all that these stories have evoked for us.

We’ll hold the grief and the hope, listen for arising inspirations, and contemplate the diverse ways we can participate in the visionary movement of honouring the life of our wounded waterways in law, language, imagination, spiritual practice and more.

Whether you’ve finished, or are still reading, you are welcome to participate.

Full joining details here. *UK daylight savings reminder

What to expect: an international community, small and large group discussions, prompts, contemplation, some practices to take away.

What to bring: quotes, passages or reflections of significance, a notebook and pen, a cup of invigorating tea.

Payment options (£8): Paypal: Amrita Bhohi, amritakaur@bhohi.co.uk
Wise (best for international transfers): @amritakaurb2

I greatly look forward to being together soon.

November Read

In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul work for Times of Uncertainty
by Francis Weller

— “This is a season of remembering the ancient rhythms of soul. It is time to become immense.”

This book offers a collection of essays on grief, change, and sacred transitions, framing our current traumatic era as a ‘rough initiation’, and fortifying us to meet these unpredictable times with presence and faith.

About the Author
Weller is a psychotherapist and writer, best known for his work on grief. His writing explores the confluence between psyche, nature and culture and integrates the wisdom of indigenous cultures with the Western poetic, psychological and spiritual traditions.

Weekly Reading Goals

Mon 3rd — Introduction & Part I: When the Bough Breaks
Mon 10th — Part II: Care of the Soul
Mon 17th — Part III: Meanwhile, the World Goes On
Mon 24th — Part IV: Closing Thoughts

Online Reading Group Meeting

Date: Thursday 27th November
Time (GMT): 6:30pm - 8:00pm

Each week I will share ongoing prompts and reflections in my Substack chat. Join for ongoing community conversation as we progress through the book. I also post regular updates on Instagram.

Zoom link
(Meeting passcode: 877287)

Cost: Facilitated group sessions cost £8 to attend, however if price is a barrier, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Payment methods as above.

It’s been a wonderful month hearing from many of you in the chat, sharing in our passion for this work — and getting a glimpse of what an interesting and inspiring group this is. Thank you!

Drop a comment if you’ll be joining the November read!