Seeing Nature Whole

As a companion to the previous episode that shared a reading of Jon McAlice’s and Craig Holdrege’s article on plant intelligence, this episode airs a conversation with Jon, Craig, and podcast host John Gouldthorpe on this complex topic.

A reading of the article “Are Plants Intelligent?” by Craig Holdrege and Jon McAlice (from the Spring 2024 issue of In Context) is featured in this episode. This article is the first to arise out of our current research into the complex topic of assigning intelligence to organisms.

In a reading of Martin Wagenschein's essay "Two Moons?" he contrasts the view of the physicist versus the poet when considering the moon.

In a talk recorded at the institute, Craig Holdrege honors Earth Day with a presentation revealing some of the remarkable qualities of the plant world, the “mantle of the earth.” Craig showed slides to illustrate certain points. The images are not necessary to appreciate the talk, but they can be downloaded here if desired.

In this recorded live talk at the institute by Ryan Shea, he explores ways in which we might receive the capacity of presence directly from nature by working with lessons from plant and animal teachers.

In a rare interview, recorded in Brazil in 2019, Henrike and Craig Holdrege speak of their transformative work and the Goethean perspective that has long inspired it.

The final installment of our 3-part podcast on the American bison, Craig's reading focuses on the animal as a many-layered being with a web of both physical boundaries and expansive living relations. The bison is more than a  thing among things. A discussion follows the reading.

Following up on the bison's manifold ways of being highlighted in Part 1, this second episode portrays the relationship between the members of the Great Plains tribes and the bison. It offers glimpses of the continuity that can be experienced between a being’s physical and spiritual life.

Here is Part 1 of our three-episode podcast based on Craig Holdrege’s in-depth article, “Where Does an Animal End? – The American Bison” which first appeared in issue #45 of In Context, our biannual publication. Each part features a reading from the article followed by a conversation with the author. Part 2 will air in November, followed by Part 3 in December.

The Nature Institute co-founder and educator Henrike Holdrege joins podcast host John Gouldthorpe to discuss a unique demonstration she employs to reveal the wonderful relational aspect of visual experience in our world.

In a talk recorded at the institute in April 2023, Jon McAlice briefly traces the philosophical history of man’s relation to meaning in the natural world through the ideas of various 18th century thinkers. Jon then arrives at his central theme: In a world increasingly objectified by science and technology, are there ways of being that allow us to experience the presence of meaning in the natural world?

Welcome to our two-part podcast. First, we share a recording of Craig Holdrege reading his essay, “Where Do Organisms End?” (which first appeared in our third issue of In Context). Following this, our podcast host John Gouldthorpe and Craig discuss challenging our habitual way of making sense of living beings through their physical characteristics, and instead by way of their relationships.

From a talk recorded at the institute in November, Jon McAlice takes us through the biography and works of award-winning writer Barry Lopez, whose life was defined by a profound connection to the more-than-human world. Lopez died in 2020, bequeathing us a trove of essays, fiction, and non-fiction that invites all to understand and enjoy nature as he did — as alive and responsive.

Featuring the reading of remarks from a 2003 interview on Goethean science with Arthur Zajonc, professor emeritus of physics at Amherst College, this episode also includes a conversation about Zajonc’s central points between podcast host and institute educator, John Gouldthorpe, and Elaine Khosrova, editor of the institute’s publication, In Context.

Here we bring our focus to a plant that Craig Holdrege describes as both “effusive, yet also specialized. Milkweed invites life, but also holds it back. There is a fascinating tension in this plant.”  Reading from an abridged version of his whole-organism study of milkweed published on our website (The Story of an Organism: Common Milkweed), Craig brings together his observations with those of other researchers to paint a vibrant picture of the plant and its relationships.

When we give careful attention to what is actually happening when a new phase of life develops out of a previous stage, there are large implications for our overall understanding of developmental processes and evolution. That is the theme of Craig’s lecture, “Do Frogs Come from Tadpoles?” featured in this episode of our podcast. Click here for the accompanying illustrations that Craig refers to during the talk.

Craig Holdrege, director at The Nature Institute, gave this keynote address on the qualitative experience of nature as a conscious practice at the 2022 Annual International Conference of Biodynamic Agriculture in Dornach, Switzerland. Sharing this approach to nature has been at the core of The Nature Institute's work since 1998. Hear the full recorded talk in this episode.

Craig Holdrege in conversation with John Gouldthorpe Can we imagine the world from a mole’s perspective? In our latest episode, host John Gouldthorpe invites us to understand what this might entail by listening to a reading of Craig Holdrege’s book excerpt, “How Does a Mole View the World.” The reading is followed by a conversation with Craig about its central point: How to avoid mechanistic and anthropomorphic interpretations of animal life and instead apprehend each creature’s unique way of being.

For more than 20 years, our senior researcher — Steve Talbott — has been building a body of work that illuminates natural phenomena and calls for a qualitative approach to examining organisms. In this talk, given at the Institute in November, 2021, Steve describes his theme (with tongue-firmly-in-cheek) as an offering of "notes from desperately unsatisfactory encounters with the living interior of self and world, along with intimations of their meaning for science."

Inspired by the ancient Greek concepts of the four elements — Earth, Water, Air, and Fire — the German physicist Georg Maier wrote an essay in 1970 describing how we can work with these concepts to find expanded ways of scientific research and engagement with nature. Henrike Holdrege, co-founder of The Nature Institute, who translated Maier’s essay into English, speaks in this episode about his central ideas.