S4E4 - What Nature Can Teach Us About Our Bodies With Agnes Becker from We Are Stardust
Agnes is an artist, science communicator and creator of We Are Stardust - a place where art and science collide to enrich your experience of and relationship with our messy, beautiful universe.
She creates artwork that inspires connection with the more-than-human world and online adventures that encourage you to rewild your soul.
Based in Bedfordshire, UK, she works from a little office-studio in her home filled with sketches and books and sticks and pine cones and plants.
We talk about the synergies between the night sky and our bodies - We Are Stardust after all, but also knowledge vs. experience, information vs. understanding of this whole world - both human and planetary - we live in.
I see many similarities between climate change and chronic illness, especially in how we, as a society, believe we should ‘deal with them’. Agnes has a beautiful perspective on how to live in harmony with this planet, this universe, we are a part of, how to see beauty in the darkness and how, ultimately, this can all help with the way we approach things like winter and climate change, and in my mind, the relationship we have with our bodies and our chronic illnesses.
Other things we covered;
Resisting winter when it’s exactly what we need to feel and be in, in order to know what we need to know.
Healing productivity treadmill and how that links to the desire for an ‘eternal summer’
Surrendering to the fertile void and allowing yourself to stop.
The awe experienced when stargazing and the benefits of awe on the body.
Episode notes:
6:45 - The More Than Human world - what is it and how does it show up in Agnes’ life? Ref to David Abrahms.
8:30 - How the More Than Human world relates to the way we view our consciousness and our bodies and chronic illness. The separation of mind and body.
10:45 - Sophie Strand - I Will Not Be Purified.
14:30 - We Are Stardust - being connected to everything around us. Accepting the very difficult parts of being human.
15:45 - Growing to love seasonal winter - finding the beauty in something you might usually resist and embracing the darkness. Winter stargazing.
20:45 - How we know more about the nights sky than we have ever done in history, but our experience of the night sky is disappearing in comparison to our ancestors.
21:45 - The effect of feeling awe on the body as humans - how it can increase creativity, still our ego, connect with others, become more altruistic.
25:45 - Nature journaling - the process, the why, the feeling.
28:45 - Climate change, our connection with more than human beings, noticing how the changing climate is affecting other beings and then affecting you as well.
34:45 - Surrendering to winter - Safety/‘un-safety’, certainty/uncertainty - how nature journaling and a practice of gratitude helps with this.
44:45 - Winter as a dreaming space - bringing dreaming into our lives in a conscious way. Winter is the fertile void. Stars in the darkness and in the night sky being pin-pricks for the dreams to come through from the subconscious. A time for us to tell stories and open up that dreaming space, connect to our ancestors.
50:45 - Winter stargazing - how to start, even if you don’t want to get out of your house when you’re nice and cozy! Tune into how it feels to look at the stars.