Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.

Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.

I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New
York Times bestselling author of

The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.

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So now let's jump in.

Welcome back.

I've got such a treat for you all.

I've got the incredible Craig and
the incredible George who've ded to

be back on, which amazes me because
why should they, when they've got

so many other amazing things to do.

So, lucky us all right now,
Craig has just come back from

somewhere close to God physically.

Let him tell us about that.

And he's been teasing, I think me and
George with little snippets of where

he's been the last couple of months.

And we've been like, all right,
Craig, just fucking tell us more.

So he's gonna tell us more.

We're gonna hold a gun to his head.

George, if he doesn't make
animal sounds we'll cry.

So, and, and throw our toys
out of the, out of the cop.

But where we left the last conversation
off with Craig, if you, you listeners

remember was we, we were getting towards
the importance of journaling and also

the importance of trying to do things in
tribe and community when we're in nature,

because that's what our species is.

There's, I mean, solitude has its place,
but it's not really fully who we are.

And we also touched on the impact
on the, of the, of the mind

and the brain and the body of.

What does being in areas
of high biodiversity mean?

And you know, both Craig and Georgia,
lucky enough to live in such areas.

The Cape Peninsula of Africa,
Yellowstone National Park, and

I'm here in the forest of Germany.

So I want to kick off with Craig.

Where have you been?

Craig Foster: Yeah, thanks so much
Rupert and great to be here with you.

Joy.

I know you're

Rupert Isaacson: not
gonna tell us are you,

Craig Foster: mum?

Rupert Isaacson: All right.

Where's the place that you've been
that you're not gonna tell us?

So

Craig Foster: yeah, very fortunate to.

I visited this research island
which is 3000 miles off East Africa

in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Very remote area of a whole
lot of islands and atolls.

And it is what we call the
near pristine environment.

So not much fishing has, has,
you know, pressure there at all.

And it's absolutely startling because
literally everywhere you look there's

a shark and there's a ray, there's
a, you know, manter afin coming up.

They're, you know, just
birds soaring everywhere.

There's predations going on.

Huge fish in the shallows.

You know, you can see tuna snorkeling.

It is large numbers of predators.

And it's just as I was saying, you know,
earlier the, I, I live in an area, in a

beautiful area here, the kelp forest, and
there's a lot of life, a lot of animals.

But this is at another level.

And the, the sheer force of the
biodiversity, the life force that's

pumping through this place, it
does something to your, your being,

to your mind, your body, your
spirit that is hard to quantify.

I mean, it's hot, way
hotter than I'm used to.

There are a lot of biting insects.

You know, it, it's, it's, you'd think
it would be, it would deplete your

energy, but it actually just gives
you this incredible vital force.

And it's, it's fascinating.

I could do, you know, two or three times
more physically than I can normally do.

So it affects you in a deep way.

And it affects your whole being.

It's very, very hard to, to quantify.

And the only, what I can say, what,
what struck me almost as amusing

was, you know, we do all these
things to stay mentally healthy.

Like in a, I do this breathing
protocol and I do in a, the cold work

I do, you know, meditation, all this
kind of stuff to try and keep sane.

Me too, too,

in a place I couldn't resist in a, in
a place like this, I can, I just stop

all of that and I feel just way better.

And, and what it, what
it strikes me is that.

You know, all these things we try and
do to keep sane is just purely, all

we are trying to do is get back to
the state that our ancestors lived in.

Yeah.

Our, our, our design.

That's all we are trying to do.

We are just trying to feel human in
a, in a, in a, in the strange world

that we've created for ourselves.

Rupert Isaacson: George, you live in
one of the flagship biodiverse places.

Oh, look Craig got baboons walking on
his head, in his own, in his own office.

Yellowstone National Park.

Some people think of that.

Tourism traffic jams.

Some people think of that
pre-Columbian, you know, pre

Columbus American wilderness.

Of course it's both.

And of course it's very important
that the crowds can go there because

without access, similar to where
you live, Craig, you know, false bay

in in South Africa, people can go.

People, you know, surfers will
go camp, get in there, people

can go beach, C whatever.

And this, this thing of access and the
desire for access, remains deep in us,

even when we're urban and suburban,
as you say, Craig, there's this, all,

all these things that we do from mind,
body, and soul are simply just trying to

get back to what it feels like to live

in the state.

We're sort of supposed to, as our
species in the habitat we're supposed

to be in, that we now basically no
longer do live in and have lost an, an

almost lost the ancestral memory of, but
luckily it does still drive us there.

So George, before the we hit
record, you were talking about

revisiting paths that are known.

And I like that.

I like the fact, like I revisit
Yellowstone sometimes and I like the

fact that there are certain drives
and a obvious one is the Lamar Valley.

'cause one wants to go there and
see wolves or big herds of bison.

So, and every time you say the Lamar
Valley, there's almost a little party

goes, oh cliche, the Lamar Valleys.

Of course I'm gonna go to the Lamar Valley
for the people that know Yellowstone.

Of course, as soon as you go there and
it's just one road, it's the same road.

You always drive it.

It's never the same.

It's never the same.

The, the animal life that's going on,
the wolves, the bears, the the bison.

You made this point about taking
just hikes that are known hikes and

then just revisiting in different
ways, which I think is another way

of hunting out this biodiversity
that we need for our wellbeing.

Talk to us about that, but before
you do it, make a, could you please

make an animal sound that you might
encounter along that just, it's cool.

George Bumann: Actually,
I'll give you one.

I heard this morning, I was just walking
the dog and along the Yellowstone

River, and as you do, as we do,
there's a, there's a wolf out there.

I never did see it and we didn't have
time to drive across the bridge and a

couple miles back, but there was a wolf
over there to the south about a mile away.

And the way we knew was the coyotes, one
particular coyote was alarming for 20, 30,

40 minutes constantly while we were there.

And who knows how long before and
their typical call was when they're

saying, hi, this is our turf.

Is

that, that sort of lets the neighborhood
know that they're still at home and

stay on their side of the fence.

But it was, this call this
morning sounded like this

and it just went on and on and on.

And they don't do that
unless there's trouble.

That's, that's an alarm bark.

And over the years I've come to know,
even from a distance of three miles or

however far one could hear exactly what's
going on across the valley just by tuning

into the, the natural conversations.

And you're right, the, the goal
really is, is trying to shift our

perspective, even in commonly held
places to see what, what Craig is

talking about in, in common places.

You know, if you're, if you're super
motivated, you know, this might be the

summer of butterflies for you or, or
pick a, pick a topic, pick a location

and, and study it as much as you
possibly can and find those things.

But for us lately, we live here, you
know, and yes, Yellowstone is crowds.

It's, it's been mounting earlier
in the year as the years go

on, and they're staying later.

And, but that's one tiny
piece of a place that's 2.2

million acres in an ecosystem
that's approximately 18 million.

There's a lot of space that has no people
and, and a lot of people enjoy that

ability to get away from what is normal,
normal existence for us these days, and

find that little slice of themselves that
still yearns for this diversity, this

wildness, this freedom, true freedom.

Not freedom of press or not freedom
of, you know, religion, freedom

of being that these places offer.

And for us being here and it's like, oh
my gosh, we all, even living here, we

we're tied to the computer so much and
other things, but making a date on the

calendar and, and sharing it with my wife.

We're like, we're going Thursday.

I don't know where we're going.

We've always looked at this one place
and we haven't walked in there ever.

Let's just go, it might be a half
hour walk, it might be three hours.

And lo and behold, we, we
might stay six or eight.

We, but so often in spending time
with people who may have never

come here before, there is a very
profound sense that some articulate

as a feeling of coming home.

They've never been there before,
yet it feels like coming home.

And I think that space is available
to us, not just in places like

Yellowstone or, you know, the, these
far reaches of the world that, that

folks sometimes get to the best place
to step over that threshold is literally

out the threshold of your own door.

Rupert Isaacson: Well, Craig
made a really good point about

that when we were last talking.

Do you remember, Craig, you were,
you were saying that when you found

yourself in London the last time you.

We're needing to try to
ground yourself with nature.

And of course London actually
does have big parks and there is

quite a lot of wildlife in London.

I was just there last week and watching
the foxes playing on my mother's studio

roof again in the middle of London.

However, you know, when you're tramping
the concrete, like really, really in the

middle of London it's very good to remind
yourself that you're still on that, on the

same planet that yellowstone's on or that
that island in the Indian ocean is on.

Or it used to blow my mind when I would go
up to Scotland, for example, and you could

walk up in Scotland for like five days
and see like two people in certain areas

and say, shit, I'm on the same island
that London is on, you know, which is this

kind of oversized metropolis, you know,
on this small island, but yet it hasn't

actually conquered the island at all.

I do hear you with that
coming home feeling George.

And it can come when we get into the
deep wild places or it can come when we

find the deep wild in the non wild places
because of course it's still there.

And Craig's point about finding the
feeding sites of slugs and on algae,

on paving stones and being able
to see the little toothed edges.

Of how they've been feeding and then
looking at, okay, well what's the

story for the, who's coming now to
eat the slugs and who's coming now

to eat the bird that eats the slugs?

And there comes this, you know,
PID warbler or whatever it is

that we are now noticing, which
we might not have noticed before.

And now we notice, okay, well
there are foxes here and they

are predating on that burden.

Suddenly we're back in tracking mind and
we're doing it in the middle of the city.

That homecoming feeling.

Something that I wanted to ask you
guys, I think all of us often feel, and

I'm sure listeners do too, that when
you enter any real focused interaction

with nature, you basically go into
an altered state of consciousness.

Or do we, or is it only that we
are living in an altered state of

consciousness in the, what modern world
that we live in, so that when we go

back and we find the original state
of consciousness, we consider that

an altered state of consciousness.

Which is it?

Or is it both?

What do you guys think?

Craig Foster: It's such an
interesting question Rupert.

'cause it feels when, when we've
got so much distraction now, and

I, I can immediately go back to.

You know, month or so ago on the
island and no cell phone signal.

I was, you know, often alone for hours
and hours and tremendous quietness

and everything quietens down and you
feel like you in an altered state.

But that then you soon realized
that's the, that was the

normal state of our ancestors.

And while you were talking, I
was thinking, well, you know, our

minds, our minds are built, they're
built from the, the, the bricks

of the minds of our ancestors.

That's how we, we are only
thinking like we are because of

those who have come before us.

Mm-hmm.

So when, when I'm making a fire or
whatever, you know, that deep home

erectus ancestors right there doing it.

So, I think that we are in some sort
of altered state now that has been, but

it's kind of like it's a shallow state
because we've got so many distractions.

So we can't get into that deeper
state that you need for tracking,

that you need for understanding
animals because of all this

technology and all these distractions.

So it's a really interesting
question you ask.

I mean, it can be flipped either way.

What do you think, George?

Hmm.

George Bumann: I agree.

It's a wonderful question.

Because it's, I think it, it gets to where
we've come in the last few centuries,

which is a, a state of being that is,
that occupies a space independent of, of

that which our, our brains building blocks
were founded on, as Craig said, and, and

we're just sort of in this maelstrom of,
of activity and input trying to adapt

to this new situation that is so foreign
to the very substance of what we are.

And so, yeah, when we do get into those
spaces and states, it's, it seems altered

and yet those, those states are where
the greatest listening, the greatest

discoveries, the greatest creative.

We always say this.

My wife and I, Jenny will go
for a walk and we do it out

of exasperation sometimes.

Like just, we need to get away.

We need to get out.

We're gonna drive, not we
could walk at our back door.

We just to mentally create this
space, we drive somewhere and

instantly we're interacting

Rupert Isaacson: better, more genuinely.

Question.

That was gonna be my next question.

What do you guys think
about nature and conflict?

Resolution, high biodiversity.

And conflict resolution

just in your own lives.

Just go on with that, George.

Let's go back to your wife.

And she rises the pan
head from the corner.

If I

George Bumann: could make an
analogy, it's like the pores open

up, you know, it's this flow through
that those settings instill in

us like it, we're more creative.

We, we might be talking about
an idea for a program or an art,

you know, a piece of writing.

And these ideas just,
they start exploding.

Like, oh, we could include this
and do this, and yet sitting in

the house or sitting at the office.

It's just these, these, this
mental space that we sort of

build is, is not serving us.

What serves us is to, to be more
permeable, I guess, is the way that

it feels like to me when we're out.

It's not me, it's not you.

It's not even us as, as a
reference to the people.

It's, oh my gosh, did you just see that
bird rocket through after that other bird?

Oh my gosh.

The, the, there's a rabbit just jumped.

Did you catch that?

And you know, it's a great example.

A friend was doing a lot of
urban school children groups,

and they give them all a camera.

And the first three days,
all of the photos were of

themselves and their friends.

At about day three, there's a flower.

There's a mountain scene

Rupert Isaacson: that's interesting.

There's

George Bumann: a geyser, there's
a, a textured log on the ground.

And to me that speaks to this
inherent curiosity and, and, and

desire on our part to, to sift into
something bigger and more than us.

And as a result, we find, I feel
like I personally find more of myself

or step out of myself as often as
needed by entering those spaces.

Craig Foster: Can I add to that?

Yeah, please.

While I've, I've got the idea in my head.

So you're asking about the conflict
resolution in these spaces and

mm-hmm.

Craig Foster: For me, it's so
unnatural that we put so much

pressure on our human relationships.

It's just like that's
never happened before.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, in, in the world of our
design, we have these relationships.

With all the tiny creatures.

We've got relationships with predators.

We've got the relationships
with prey, hundreds and hundreds

of these relationships with
different forms of animals.

And a lot of our being
is taken up with that.

Now we sever that.

All those incredible threads, those
bonds are severed and all the pressure

is on these human relationships.

That's so true.

When you go into these spaces, it's
those threads start to, to reweave and

it, it just lifts all that pressure
on your wife or your children or

whoever, and suddenly you are working
with this pantheon of creatures

and humans are just part of that.

And that feels far, far more peaceful.

Rupert Isaacson: You know what, obviously
Craig and I, you share this we share

this experience in the Kalahari with
son Bushman who are non warriors and

appear to be the human blueprint.

So it would appear that humans are
not really warriors that this comes

in somewhere after agriculture and
it, so what is gets so confusing,

I think, is that if you're involved
in agriculture or herding, you are

involved in nature very deeply and
you still have these big relationships

with all these different species.

You still have.

The weather matters.

You know, you okay.

All of the things we know and yet out
of those cultures came, war and conflict

creation rather than conflict resolution,
overpopulation for some of the apocalypse,

all of that stuff, fam pestilence all
from overpopulation, you know, whether

it's in villages, whether it's in cities.

But that's 10,000 plus years ago now.

So for most of us, us, you know,
including the three of us sitting

here, we're inheritors in our immediate
DNA of that conflict warrior culture.

And, you know, you and I, Craig,
our forebears were colonial pirates.

You and I were lucky enough to get
involved in land rights restoration

of the indigenous, very indigenous
people that our ancestors had

a part in kicking off the land.

And it was good and felt good to pay
that karmic debt to a large degree.

You know, George, you are, you are
sitting there in Yellowstone, 19th

century earliest National Park formed.

Why?

'cause they kicked the people out
and you know, the Nez pe Indians,

I dunno if they were the only ones
there, but they're certainly the ones

that the stories are told because of
Chief Joseph running away from the.

The American Calvary hunting him
to, you know, pacify the West.

And now we come out of that conflict
society, that Viking society, Booman,

you know, your Germanic you know, Craig,
you are Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, Germanic.

I am too.

With that little bit of Ashkenazi
Jew that just won't go away.

And the Rabbi Rupert.

But nonetheless we haven't, us both the
ones who helped to Sav, as you said, and

the ones who wanted to remain connected.

And

so

we've been lucky to find ourselves
in these places of di biodiversity.

The human mind is biodiverse, right?

The human mind is like
a, it's like a forest.

No axons like trees, dendrites going
out to wire like branches, like twigs

branches and roots to wire with others.

And it seems that if we get rigid
in our thoughts, we become like a

plantation of eucalyptus or pines
that someone's gonna chop down or.

If their mind is allowed to do what it
needs to do, it becomes like a wilder

ecosystem with more possibility when given
that most people are going to be coming

out of this feeling of constant conflict.

This feeling of constantly being in the
amygdala in with cortisol, the stress

hormone, that we have this crazy tolerance
for it, it seems, but it drives us insane.

You are both in the business of bringing
the stories from the wild places to

people screens, to bringing people
directly out into it, to creating

art that tells the story of that.

How do you see your roles there
as conflict resolvers, whether on

the meta scale or the minor scale?

I'd like you guys to talk about what
you do from that perspective and

how can through that, how can people
listening pick up some tips about how to

resolve internal and external conflict
through direct, interactive with nature

and bringing the stories of nature
that they've tracked back with them.

Do you wanna kick off with that, George?

And then do you wanna.

Just Sure, sure.

I can

George Bumann: take a stab at it.

I, I think it's a, it's a very potent
question and and one that, that

needs to be worked on all the time.

I would say because we, by our very nature
have, have done a lot of things that,

you know, if mankind had its
chance to do over again, maybe

we would pick a different path.

But here we are, you know, and I
think one of the greatest services

to, to life and to community is,
is to tell this story and, and in a

way that includes all of the voices.

You know, I spent a lot of time
listening to wild animal conversations,

and in nature you quickly realize that
there is no Outlander, there is no

immigrant, it is only us in this moment.

You know, so poo-pooing the starling
because it's in your, it's European

ancestry poo-pooing the, the dandelion
because most of those species and or

variations were brought to North America,
you know, trying to eradicate these

things when in fact, you know, there is
a, certainly is a place for maintaining

native plant communities and so on.

But in nature, all of the conversations
and all of the speakers are valid.

Accepted and contribute.

Mm mm So true.

And so when we tell the story of
Yellowstone, you know, there on

record there's 30 ish, 35, you
know, tribes that had affiliations

here, it's probably closer to 50.

We do our very best in our programming
to bring those voices in, let them

speak for themselves, not tell their
stories for them, and, you know,

curate, curate the best we can.

A a, a re and a res sorting of
the deck so that we have a picture

that fits the current time.

It's, it's so easy and we do it
subconsciously, is to, to tell

the story from our perspective for
which that's all we have, right?

My Germanic ancestors were the first
settlers in the part of New York that

was cleared of the Haudenosaunee people
when George Washington cleared the entire

landscape of those tribal allies to make
way for, for our, my European ancestors.

And so I can't undo that.

But what I can do is make sure that
what's going on now is honest about that

and honest about what we've done to
the, the tribes of non-humans and, and

allow other people to the tribes of

Rupert Isaacson: non-humans.

That's a book title.

George Bumann: Hmm, perhaps so.

But, you know, it just diversity.

We crave that diversity.

You know, you, you, you want to get
all the baseball cards you want, all

the, the knick-knacks, you want all,
we, we crave that, that sense of,

of variety as, as the spice of life.

And we are not the keepers of
that as an individual being.

We must be in community.

We must be in association with others
to supply what we have our blind spots

for or have neglected or have missed.

And I dunno.

I'll stop there.

I'll, I'll let Chime
and Craig chime in here.

Craig Foster: So what came to mind
when you asked the question rep was

fundamentally what I am
trying to bring across.

And so the help of a, a wonderful
team is this very simple idea that

Mother Nature is the shareholder of.

Everything we do, all our
businesses, all our endeavors.

She is the, the foundation,
she's the life force.

She's everything.

Yet we've forgotten that.

I've said this before, but I
purposely say it again because

it's such a fundamental thing.

Like if you take away the biodiversity,
what we are talking about now,

every single thing will collapse.

We won't be able to breathe,
eat, function, and, and this

is what we've forgotten.

So

Rupert Isaacson: fire up all that ai.

Are we gonna power it?

Yeah.

Not through nature, it's just,

Craig Foster: it's just a joke.

Everything will collapse.

Yeah.

Ar ar go very fast.

So it's like, if we could just put
all this incredible mental force

we've got into looking after the
most foundational thing that will

affect every single human's life on
this planet more than anything else.

It seems the logical way to go, but people
have somehow conveniently forgotten this.

So it's trying to bring that
story back and how you do that.

I think, you know, ultimately
it's through storytelling.

'cause storytelling is this foundation.

For the way we operate.

So everything that we see
around us is based upon a story.

We are the storytelling

Rupert Isaacson: ape too, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

We have the larynx.

Yeah.

Yes.

Craig Foster: So, so we need to
change the story from this massive

extractive force to one of reciprocity.

And, you know, the, the, one of the
new and interesting ways we are trying

to do that is through this project
we've called 1001 Sea Forest Species.

And I dunno if you want me to go
into some of the detail now, or we

want you to go into not the detail

Rupert Isaacson: now.

Craig Foster: Okay.

So it's, it's taken many years to get to
the point we are, and it'll take quite a

lot or more years, but essentially what
we're doing is studying 1,001 animals

in the great African Sea forest and on
the, the intertidal shore, getting a

beautiful scientific page on each animal.

Its proper scientific name.

And then layering into that powerful
stories, like these incredible stories

that George tells us of these face-to-face
encounters with these incredible animals.

The, the, the personal stories
that pieces of their secret lives.

Then adding to that, these, you know,
high level photographs that are almost

like love letters to these animals,
beautiful images, short films on them,

anecdotes, incredible bits of behavior.

So suddenly you've got this
interwoven digital platform

that stores all the memory.

'cause I'm already forgetting half
of what I've already encountered.

It's too much.

But if I can store it in there, and the
prof we working with and Jannis, the PhD

biologist and all the other team members,
we put it in and we create this hive mind

of this incredible ecosystem hive mind.

It's like a

Rupert Isaacson: hive mind.

That's the follow up to
the tribes of nature.

Yeah.

Craig Foster: It, it, it's this incredible
pulsing beating heart of the, these

creatures and the smallest ones that you
can, you know, most people will never,

ever see, have stories, have a voice, and
then you can show other people in other

parts of the world they don't have to go.

And do it at this intense level.

They could just take 10 or 50 animals
that they're in their backyard

really, and do the same thing.

Build a a hive mind of them
and let them speak as well.

Let biodiversity speak.

Let the, the divine creation that
is manifest in nature have a voice.

It's a very, very powerful way of getting
this idea back that she is this thing

that's kept us alive from the beginning.

And if we, if we aren't careful with her,
we, we, we gonna be extinct, basically.

I mean, it's a horrible thing to say,
but she's holding us up every second.

Rupert Isaacson: Give us a story
on one of the things that is so

small that we don't even see it.

We'll notice it.

That's in your Thousand
One Species Project.

Craig Foster: I was just working on the,
it's called the Cape Marella this morning.

Rupert Isaacson: Cape Marella.

Craig Foster: Cape margin.

And these are tiny little predatory
snails, like a cleanup crew.

They live underneath the sand and they
put their little proses up through

the sand and they've got incredible
smell and they're just waiting.

And if any animal is dead or
dying or injured, they come out

on mass and they just envelop it.

And they, they consume it

Rupert Isaacson: in the kelp forest.

Craig Foster: Yes.

And you know, 99.9%

of people have died.

They've definitely never seen one.

So if an octopus makes a kill, they
just onto that kill immediately.

They clean it up, they clean the smell up.

And what's amazing is they have this
ability, and this is like the secret

life, if they get a piece of flesh or
a tiny animal that's died, they can

wrap it into a bundle and pop it into a
compartment on the back of the mantle,

and then they charge away to try and get
away with this thing that they can eat.

And I've got images and
pictures of this extraordinary.

Are there other trails

Rupert Isaacson: snails trying
to stop them when they do that?

Yes,

Craig Foster: yes.

They, they, they're all fighting like
rugby scrumming to get hold of this thing,

but it's so beautifully wrapped that they
can get away and then they go underneath

the sand and away and then consume it.

So, I mean, it's just there.

These hundreds and hundreds of these
incredible stories that have now.

They've just been sitting on this giant
hard drive, just, you know, what's gonna

happen to, how did you find out about

Rupert Isaacson: the Cape Marella?

Craig Foster: I've been, you know,
looking very, very closely at Octopus

and their kilts and then wondering what's
happening afterwards and looking very

just, you know, staying still okay after
a kill, just holding on underwater.

And then you see these tiny little
proses coming up, these tiny

creatures coming out, and some even
like coming down from the kelp.

And, and then they go inside the shell
where the, the predation being made.

And if you're not quick
enough, you don't see them.

And then suddenly the shell is clean.

They've just cleaned out everything.

So it's just from this fine observation
that you, you've see them and then it got

these incredible, you know, images and
video of this, of these amazing behaviors.

And you, you get this cent, this,
this smell, this just phenomenal.

Rupert Isaacson: Before we hit the
record button, you said that it

was gonna take about a decade to
get all this material together.

What's your a, do we have to wait that
long, or are, are you gonna release it

in sort of watchess that we can enjoy?

Yes.

Yeah.

So fairly soon

Craig Foster: the first layer
of the app will be available.

You don't need wifi, and people can
take it out into the field and literally

anything they see will be in there.

And it's a bit of a tracking
thing to find, find it,

Rupert Isaacson: anything they see in the
kelp forest or anything they see in any.

Craig Foster: Anything they
see on the shore or in the

kelp forest will be in there.

Okay.

Okay.

It's very unlikely they'll find
anything that's not and then that

you'll be able to get a sense for it.

But we are gonna add the layers and
layers and layers as as time goes past.

Rupert Isaacson: Craig, you know,
you've been one of my heroes since

I've known you, but you just confirmed
why you are one of my heroes.

It's like

one of the things which we do
in what we call movement method,

which is the way we work.

It started with autism, but now it's
schools or people with, you know,

looking to for a neuroplasticity boost.

Is this thing of, okay, fine, not
everybody can get into the forest of

Germany immediately or down into the cult
forest or into Yellowstone or wherever.

And yes, you can learn to see the
slug tracks where they've eaten in

the middle of London, but when you're
a kid who is born to be sort of awed

as much by the big stuff as by the
little stuff, you may or may not be

open to something so detailed at least.

You might need to go through
something a bit more obvious before I.

You can look for the fine detail.

And one of the things which we do
therefore, is because people are stuck

in classrooms because they're stuck in
therapy offices, which are just shit,

you know, they're just linoleum and
fluorescent strip lights, and so I'm

gonna hear it make you feel better.

It's like, no, you're not.

It's, there's no way you can possibly make
me feel better because look, you know.

No, but as you say, severed from the
ancestral connection with nature,

how would that therapist even know?

So we have this thing about just
bringing the outside inside.

So generally we do these classroom
makeovers where I'll say, I

just want to see antler in here.

I want to see bone, I want to see
sheepskin, I wanna see animal heights.

I wanna see sand.

I wanna see wood chips.

I wanna see different types of light.

I want to see stuff that would be
in a hunting and gathering camp

so that when the kids touch it, it
will trigger an ancestral memory.

And there's enough studies done now
just showing how, for example, toys

made out of natural objects, you
know, affect the brain better than

toys made outta plastic or whatever.

You guys do this on a meta scale, you
know, you bring back these stories, Craig,

that the films that you've made have
made peop millions, tens of millions of

people now look more closely at nature.

You've, you've really.

I've done an amazing job with this.

You know, George, your, your books
and the art that you do, I feel

composites of stories that bring
them into human environments,

that amazing place that you live.

And, you know, I said, talk to me, George,
about the process of putting natural

story into art and then giving the,
that natural story to people to bring

into their non-natural environments.

And what's that process for you?

Hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: From an
emotional point of view as well.

Yeah, I, I've seen you and, and
anyone listening should go and find

the YouTube video of George will put
a link to it doing a, a, a, a Clay

Wolf and a TEDx talk as, as he's
talking you should see him do it.

This is story.

George Bumann: Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's important
that we get away from

Craig's waving a, another one of my
creations in front of the camera.

Okay.

It's a Clovis reproduction a spearpoint,
one of the older technologies from the,

the, the, the prehistory of North America.

And ironically, one of the most
difficult points to reproduce is that

why is it so difficult out of interest?

Largely in Wow.

Because it can you see the fla that goes,
I would've thought that from the bottom.

A real

Rupert Isaacson: artifact.

George Bumann: Yeah.

That's why I sign them.

So if they somehow fall outta someone's
pocket, they don't get confused for it.

I've had some friends pull it over,
pull one over on their, their friends

with some of my reproductions.

But the, the, that, that about
a 12,000 year old type of point.

Correct.

Yeah.

Correct.

Yeah.

And this is the type of weapon
reused to hunt mammoths and wild

horses and camels and things
that existed in in North America.

At that time what makes it tough
is that flake that goes up the base

from the bottom toward that the tip.

And to get that to happen on both
sides, you break I've broken hundreds

to get to just a handful that I have
completed, and I only give them the

people I really appreciate in person.

So maybe I was gonna

Rupert Isaacson: say thanks
for the Clovis point.

Yeah.

George Bumann: Well you need to,
we need to meet up in, in person

and, and perhaps one will appear.

Craig and I had that on his book
tour as our mutual friend John

was kind enough to, to hook us up.

But back to the, the
topic of, of just art.

I think we need to step away from
the story as it, we've been referring

to it as a, a spoken word story.

Craig's doing it beautifully in
the digital realm with his films.

I'm doing it with my hands.

I'm, I'm making sculptures.

I'm actually.

I think I can show you one of these here.

This to me is a story.

This is a miniature basket I made from
a local plant for my wife for Christmas

and died some of it with black walnut.

But in this little basket is a story of

Rupert Isaacson: something
brilliant, George.

George Bumann: It it's, well, thank you.

But it, it has its own story.

There's a, I have the relationship
I have with this patch of plants and

I curate them and take care of these
plants and weed out the, the dead stems.

And I've learned so much about
my home through these plants.

And so it comes with this, this
experience of, of place that when you

look at a, sadly when they're in museums
and separated from the people and the

landscapes where they're created, these,
these historic works, you just feel,

maybe not the details of, but the thrust
of this, this relationship with the

landscape, with nature, with one another.

And when I'm working on a
sculpture, I don't use photographs.

I, I sketch either on paper or I
sketch in clay or wax, and I may

finish the piece in the field.

Although a lot of pieces, I have to wait
till that bison is back in that same

coat pattern next year to finish it.

But a lot of times those sculptures
might be 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 years in the

making because I don't want to create
just a representation that visually thi

makes you think of a wolf or a bear.

But these are, in essence my
travel logs from years and

years of really detailed study.

So I have my own data sheets.

I had a phishing tackle box and I threw
all the phishing tackle out and made

my own data sheets to take 50 plus
measurements on every mammal that I

find deceased and have tape measures and
calipers and dissecting knives and rubber

gloves and pencils and pens and, and all
of this making death masks, which was

a, a, a historic thing that artists did
of, of people when someone passed away.

It was a common thing in the, the 19th
century to make a, a plaster cast, a

death mask of their face, you know,
making those of animals that, that I'm

able to, deepens an understanding and
appreciation for them that I see in

the movement of the sun on a given day.

I spend the entire day watching elk
just to understand what their body

looks like and how it functions at
exactly this time of the year with their

coat pattern exactly the way it is.

And you don't see that subtle relief
of the ribs and that subtle push of

the ileal crest of the pelvis until
the sun gets just at a certain angle

and they turn at a certain angle.

And so what I create in clay, to
me, is the accumulation of just

mountains of time paying attention.

And the sculptures to me are
also an excuse to look deeper.

You know, Craig's collections and, and
his video and, and his journals function

similar to mine in that way, where they
help inspire more questions or, right.

Well, what you know, what if
this was an adult instead of

a sub-adult or a juvenile?

Oh my gosh.

Holy cow.

And then there's other elements
within there, like she's, she's

walking a little in funny, oh my gosh.

She, you can actually see the very subtle
bump on her metatarsal bone where she

must have broken her leg at one point.

So the stories in these layers,
like what Craig's would do, it's the

story helps build the next story.

The he, the story helps you look
further into the experience.

Rupert Isaacson: I so agree.

You know, when we signed off from
our last conversation Craig, you were

talking about journaling, so of course
I probably have to start journaling.

So I found myself very quickly after that.

It was journaling, but story,
it's just gathering story and

exactly as you just described,
George, you know, this observation.

So a friend of mine who runs a fox hunt in
Northern Germany, but it's not an actual

fox hunt because I don't do that anymore.

We lay a scent and we ride after
that, but it's still, the hounds

have to work it out and so on.

Asked me to come up and spend three
days hunting, three, three days in a row

hunting because they needed the support.

They were short of manpower
and I said, of course.

And not my horse though.

And normally when you go and you trust
your life to the unpredictable country,

you particularly if it's gonna involve
jumping, it's better to be on a horse

that you have a deep relationship with.

Because, and there's a story
there, but it wasn't, I, yeah.

And I was in an era of
Germany I didn't know.

And we're in this for us.

And you are, I've got Craig's
words going in my mind as we're.

Laying the lines and helping the
hounds find the lines and saying, yeah.

In this, in this highly human affected
landscape that we're in, it's still,

we are, we are now the Wolf Pack.

We're taking the place of
what the Wolf Pack was.

It's just a modified
human wood pack wolf pack.

And now that particular form of it that
we are doing is about 300 years old.

But, and we're, I'm, I'm on this
horse that's designed to run really

fast and jump these fences, which
was evolved at exactly the same

time 300 years ago for this purpose.

Which was taking stock from the original
step herders of Central Asia, what we

call the turman horse, which is now
the ancestor of the thoroughbred horse

and mixing it with the Arabian horse.

I'm on an Anglo Arab, as they
call it, very hot horse to ride.

And this has now come up to Northern
Germany, but actually they would've come

in here long before because the Goths
and the Lombards and the ards and the

vandals and Thewas and the alimony and
all these tribes that would've been pushed

into this part of Germany from the east
by the Huns because of climate change,

you know, 2000 years ago, established
these cultures of the horse here.

And that we are still actually kind of
the indigenous people that were always

here practicing the same culture.

And as I'm thinking this,
we, the hounds bring us past

these, this, these megaliths.

And these old burial mounds, these
old stone burial mounds, dolmans, you

know, with the, with the capstone on
top from five, six, 7,000 years ago, I

didn't even know were in this forest.

And I had had an experience
like that before.

In Cornwall, once hunting in the mist.

In the mist came up.

And I found out I was in the middle of a
stone circle on my horse and but alone.

And you feel that touch
of the divine comes.

It's like the, the old Celtic called
ano, you know, with you in that moment.

And you must give respect and ride on.

And so I get the sense of the story
of the horse that I'm on is being

brought in here by these tribes.

And then these were the same tribes
that would've had a common ancestor with

these guys thousands of years before
even that building, these grave mans.

And then, what are we?

But the human wolf pack.

Okay, but now that the, the
hounds which create the wolf

pack, where are the wolves?

And that is, ah, but the wolves are
coming back in all these parts of

Germany for the first time in 150
years, the wolves are coming back.

And not, in fact, we had been warned going
out that we could run into wolf and were

we gonna, would our hos be all right?

Were they gonna be all right?

Blah, blah, blah, blah bum in this
area that 150 years, years ago wiped

them out despite the fact that there
was this deep, connection with nature.

This is the area where all the
grims fairytales come from.

So little red riding with forest
is one hour north of air Wolves.

Don't get a very good
rap in that one, do they?

SEL and Gretel for it's an hour.

The other way, the sleeping
beauty castle is just a couple of

hours from me, blah, blah, blah.

And here we are in amongst all this,
in, in all this story, living this

story, still practicing the story
and the older story is coming back.

First these mega lists.

And then the wolf itself, not five
days ago in the same village that

I'm sitting in here, which is much,
much closer to the city where, pretty

close to downtown Frankfurt here.

Someone, my, my friend Philip, sends me
a picture of a big male wolf just walking

on the hills, just on the other side from
this window that I'm pointing at here.

And this thing of full circle and con that
is that not conflict resolution, right?

And to bring a story into oneself and
to sort of live it and ride it if you

like, and experience it as a living story
and realize this is what's going on.

And then think, oh my gosh, even that
comes from conflict and realize, because

why are all these wol here anyway?

'cause of Chernobyl, because of the,
the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl

in 1986 where they had to mark
off a huge area of central Europe

and say, no one can go in there.

So what happened?

Nature just reestablished itself.

And apparently there are these wolves
that are showing up here, have a gene

that's been switched on, which is anti
radiation, which is why they thrived.

And now they, they, they've overpopulated
that Chano area and they've gone out and

that's why they've now come to Germany.

And that's why they're now showing up
in the Netherlands and Belgium where

they, you know, have been gone forever.

Wiped out in the little red riding
hood time, so on and so on and so on.

And conflict and conflict resolution.

As you know, if you followed any of
my work, I'm an autism dad and we have

a whole career before this podcast in
helping people with neurodivergence,

either who are professionals in the field.

Are you a therapist?

Are you a caregiver?

Are you a parent?

Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?

When my son, Rowan, was
diagnosed with autism in 2004,

I really didn't know what to do.

So I reached out for mentorship, and
I found it through an amazing adult

autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.

Temple Grandin.

And she told me what to do.

And it's been working so
amazingly for the last 20 years.

That not only is my son basically
independent, but we've helped

countless, countless thousands
of others reach the same goal.

Working in schools, working at
home, working in therapy settings.

If you would like to learn this
cutting edge, neuroscience backed

approach, it's called Movement Method.

You can learn it online, you
can learn it very, very simply.

It's almost laughably simple.

The important thing is to begin.

Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr.

Grandin and see what results can follow.

Go to this website, newtrailslearning.

com Sign up as a gold member.

Take the online movement method course.

It's in 40 countries.

Let us know how it goes for you.

We really want to know.

We really want to help people like
me, people like you, out there

live their best life, to live
free, ride free, see what happens.

Do you feel guys, that what we're
having to learn how to do again in our

conflict culture is to learn how to
track, learn how to hunt nature itself?

Again,

George Bumann: that one's you, Craig,

that's a tough one.

I just wanna point out

Rupert Isaacson: to a long time, so
we had any animal sounds, George.

Yeah.

I am missing their sounds.

I, yeah.

George Bumann: And what is
that common Raven telling us

what my turf, this is my home.

Explain yourself because
you weren't invited.

Explain yourself,

Rupert Isaacson: Craig.

Are we having to, are we, are
we indeed having to learn how to

track nature again as a species?

Craig Foster: I think we have
we've definitely lost track.

I mean, to be this idea of being in
conflict with the great mother mm-hmm.

Which we are in now, is a, is
an absurd, absurd place to be.

I mean, why would you you know, wage
conflict against the very thing that's

nurtured you from the beginning of
your species and keeps nurturing you

despite everything is thrown into it.

It, it is, it unfortunately
is a definition of insanity.

But it's understandable given all the
pressures, you know, that the, this

shifting baselines and each new generation
gets forced into these strange places and

these linoleum covered environments where
there's no hint of ancestral connection.

You know, the knowledge of the elders
you know, no longer there to guide us.

It, I think it's absolutely critical
that we, we rarely start to.

Understand where we are sitting and
how, just how fragile our position is.

Because this great mother
that's, that's, that's there.

This, this biological intelligence,
this biodiversity is, is very strong.

We can push her down and she will make
you know, life impossible for us to live.

And then she'll bounce back in
a, in 10 million different ways.

Like she's done the before.

Just

like the wolf.

Yeah,

Craig Foster: yeah, exactly.

It's just like the, the
wolf from Chernobyl.

But I think, you know, it's easy to
see ourselves as a dark species, but

we are actually so beautiful in so
many ways, and we understand at such

capacity for this, you know, loving
the mother at such a deep level.

You know what George is talking about
this, the, the, just watching this elk

and understanding them over the years,
that's a form of deep love and respect.

Mm.

And in

Craig Foster: his art and this incredible,
like clover's point when he gave it to me,

I was just, you know, deeply emotional.

'cause you can feel if, you know,
napping and stone tool making

the tremendous energy, power and
practice it takes to do this.

I think it took him 30 years
to master these points.

Am I right, George?

Yeah.

The, the, the amount of the
capacity for the love we have is

just tremendous in all humans.

So we actually, I think, are
a very beautiful species.

Mm.

Craig Foster: And it's worth keeping
us alive, but we just have lost track

completely of you know, our, our
relationship with the bigger forces that

actually are in charge of our future.

George Bumann: And a lot of it's
distraction, I think certainly the

conflict and is in the background
working on us, but the distraction that

we referenced earlier is, is enormous.

Mm.

You know, so often I'll take students
or class out into Yellowstone and you

know, the intention is to understand,
you know, bird language for instance.

And we go out and we just sit.

And the only rules are no
watches, no phones, no nothing.

I'll keep track of the time.

You just sit and watch and listen
and to some people, so they're

like, we don't have to do anything.

So initially that, that and alone for a
lot of people is, is a, is a huge relief.

We're we're human doings.

We're not human being beings.

Well that can also be

Rupert Isaacson: very scary, can't it?

George Bumann: It can.

So you kind of curated

Rupert Isaacson: and your
mind I'm not doing something.

George Bumann: Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And, and that's, I struggle
with that very much.

Yeah.

You know, what, what
is this thing about me?

Working on, on something or just, just
reading a book for crying out loud.

I, I should not, is

Rupert Isaacson: that not because,
is that not because we actually ought

to be kind of tracking all the time?

Do you, do you remember which of
the guys was it in the Great dance

Craig, who said of the three son
hunters that you are always tracking?

Craig Foster: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: You are
never not tracking, right?

No,

Craig Foster: not, yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: And is our, is our desire
for distraction, simply our desire to be

tracking when we're cut off from that?

Mm-hmm.

Craig Foster: Yeah.

'cause it's, it naturally
just animates you and to you.

But now you take that away,
the mind is searching.

That's an interesting idea,

Rupert Isaacson: but I
guess you're right, George.

You have to have a certain quietude to
create the space where the white, we

have to give ourselves that greatest

George Bumann: gift.

That greatest gift is the time and space.

And sometimes you have to legislate it
for yourself, you know, put it on the

calendar like a doctor's appointment.

If you look at other species who
are contained and caged, they start

these repetitive behaviors and
self damage, inflicting behaviors.

We, we in many ways
resemble that caged animal.

We are not exerting ourselves in the
way that our nervous system needs.

There's been, I'm, I'm in the process
of, of correcting my own eyesight,

naturally wor glasses since I was 12.

And one thing I didn't write about in
the book with the magpie experience

that we talked about in the last
podcast episode was I had this moment

of that altered state, but I also, and I
didn't write about this, had absolutely

perfect vision for just a few seconds.

And what I've found is through this
process and this, this was a technique

developed and studied and figured
out in New York in the 19 teens,

late 1918 hundreds and early 19
hundreds, it was the end of glasses.

The eyes are an extension of
the brain's nervous tissue.

And when the brain is out of sorts, the
eyesight is out of sorts, quite literally.

You know, when I'm out in nature
and I feel that relaxation with

practice in this technique known as
the Bates method I get a lot more and

longer periods of clear vision now,
and as one keeps doing this, you.

You don't need your glasses anymore.

Whether that's nearsighted,
farsighted, I have astigmatisms.

I can see the top of
that mountain right now.

I can see individual trees

and they've done studies on
native Alaskans at the time.

They started educating those, those
native children in westernized schools and

their eyesight went down precipitously.

And yet in the native community
where the elders were taught in the

old ways and lived in the old ways,
they had perfect vision into their

seventies, eighties, and beyond.

What is the Bates method?

It's on the whole, it's a technique
that teaches you to relax.

It is the think of a water balloon is
what basically what the eyeball is in any

slight influence on that changes the shape
and hence the clarity that you perceive.

And we, we have these clench fists.

Yeah, some people keep them in their back.

Some people keep them in
their legs, their jaw muscles.

And those of us who have need
vision correction often keep them

in these muscles we don't even know.

We have in the orbits of our eyes
that are squeezing the eyeballs

in ways that distort our vision.

And as we learn to let those relax, the
eye takes its natural and healthy state

and we just see clearly, it then affects
our mental space, our mood, our, you know.

I've been going without glasses for a
while, and a lot of that early state,

I felt isolated from my community.

I wouldn't recognize people in the grocery
store and they'd have to wave, you know?

And I think a lot of things that
go through our minds, if they,

even if they don't distort our, our
actual eyesight, they isolate us.

These lessons of nature are to expand us.

And through the expansions, I
personally feel like it's, those are

the spaces where I'm my best self.

I'm healthier, I'm more creative,
more relaxed, you know, and we,

Rupert Isaacson: I was, I was doing a
podcast the other day with a neuro, a

neuroscientist called Cheryl Pratt and
University of Washington, and she made the

point of that when we are forced to have
focused attention for an unnatural period

of time, it's so exhausting for the brain.

It's, her book is the neuroscience of You.

It's really good.

And they look at not how all the
brains are the same, but how each

brain is different in her lab.

But that one of the generalities is that.

Forced attention school,
but also living in a city.

She said, because if you're in a
non-natural environment, you're actually

honing in constantly on these framed
points of attention because there's

nowhere to generally rest your vision
that in nature, because the lines are

soft, you can, you go from sharp, focused
attention and then immediately relax.

She was making the point that A DHD
is largely brought on by the mental

exhaustion of being forced to have
too much focused attention and the

fatigue that the brain goes through,
rather than the tracking skill, which

of course is what it is, of being able
to narrow in zip, but then softly focus

out again and z and focus out again.

It's always balanced and actually
you probably spend most of your

time being able to rest the brain
and as you say, rest the eyes.

Mm-hmm.

Craig Foster: That's, that's so
interesting because this, that's what

I've noticed and, and I know George has
noticed this too, in a, in a big way,

that when you are in these places these
near pristine places or places of, of.

What I call the beating heart.

When the biodiversity's in all in place

mm-hmm.

Craig Foster: You just
feel totally different.

It is just, and you feel sad that,
you know, so many people will

not be able to experience this.

You feel, so obviously we
are very privileged, but

it's, it's just so different.

The whole physicality, the
whole mental space is different.

Utterly is a different person there.

And what it does is it starts
to break down the self and you

start to feel part of everything.

And you don't feel that that, that
that sharp, nasty taste of the ego

in your mouth it, it naturally breaks
that down and softens everything.

And I love the way the, your
neuroscientist friend has, has articulated

that because it's exactly the case.

It, it, it fundamentally changes
one, and it's not surprising.

I mean Sure.

We've had you talk about, you know.

The last 10,000 years of this
sort of much harsher ancestry

post agricultural revolution.

But one doesn't think about the
3 million years of fully wild

living that comes before that.

That's a much deeper memory.

That's a much deeper in our psyche.

That's what we, who we really are.

Forget about this last few
seconds of 10,000 years.

That's really what we are about.

And that's where I think we
desperately need to draw our, our, our

inspiration from as we move forward.

Rupert Isaacson: Conflict resolution
again, because I, I guess if it's, if

it's healing conflicts within oneself,
whether it's the conflict of the self,

that horrible little voice always
telling you your shit, there you go.

Or the exhausted muscles around the
eyes squeezing the eyeballs because

they don't get a chance to relax even in
somebody who's grown up like George has.

You know, because long before George
got to Yellowstone National Park, he was

exploring the forests of New England.

You know, it's, it's not like George
wasn't in natural environments, you

know, and yet even those of us who can
access them we still suffer because so

much of our time is, has to be spent.

Engaging economically.

And isn't it interesting that, as
you say, Craig, the 3 million years,

and of course there are still people
on the planet who are living in that

3 million year old authentic way.

Yeah.

It's easy to forget that, you know,
we'll be often reading books, you

know, our hunter gatherer ancestors.

It's like they're still there.

Craig Foster: Yeah.

We, we un contacted wild people living.

It's, it's incredible.

They're still there.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

It didn't go anywhere.

We just stopped listening.

But the,

if they are conf, if the whole
point of that culture is conflict

resolution, because when you're not top
predator, your only hope is strategy.

Together, together,
together, love communication.

If you fragment, if conflict gets
beyond a certain point, everyone's

gonna get eaten by the ness.

Which is of course what we're
facing on a meta level as a

species now with our conflicts.

And we can all become extinct and
become eaten by the hyena, as you

say, different types of hyena.

So much of it still comes down to, to
this idea of conflict resolution and

what, what you were saying earlier
that love, if we're a species of love,

we talk about we're a storytelling
species, but what is story beloved?

I remember once I was on on Table
Mountain and this is when I was 25 and,

so obviously back in the Plato scene
and I, I came down with a fever and I

went up Tableman with my cousin Simon,
who's actually still a psychiatrist in

Cape Town area and his flatmate Lni,
who's a now psychiatrist in London.

And it was on a few times in my life
I've ever actually become delirious.

And then I was like, shit, how
am I gonna get down, right?

Because, you know, table mountain.

Okay, so I've gotta think now and
I've got to try to be, and I'm in an

altar state of consciousness before
I kind of knew what that word meant.

And as I'm coming down the mountain in
this altar set of consciousness, this

thought comes to me where I remembered
in the chapel at school, there was

this, why did it come into my mind?

Then in the chapel in school,
there was a inscription that one

often sees on the wall of a chapel,
God is love and love is God.

And I remember as a kid
thinking, yeah, that's true.

You know, just in the way
that, yeah, that's true.

That's true.

Dunno why.

I know that's true, but it's true.

This same thought comes to me as
I'm stumbling now down the mountain.

And as you know, that's a very
powerful place, dramatically.

Table mountain, the two tip
of the continent tip of where

humanity becomes two oceans Meat.

Yeah.

Whatever.

And I realize, oh, well if God
is love and love is God, then

everything is God, which means that.

The stones under me.

All matter must be God, which means the
shirt I'm wearing, which is created from

cotton, which is a plan, must be love.

And the paint job on the car down there
that we're struggling towards, which is

coming from chemicals that come from rocks
that are matter created must be love.

And the car door that I'm opening
now with the metal that it's made of

and the fossil fuel that maybe it's
not so good, but nonetheless is,

is is a carbon, is is a fossilized.

Forest is love.

Even the gas power in this car is love.

And I thought, well what
about, what about hate then?

What about torture?

What about atrocity?

What about war?

Where's that as?

And then this thought came, ah,
that's twisted forms of love

removed from the source, expressing
insane pain, but it's still love.

And with that, I passed
out, but I never forgot it.

Did I need to be on a place like Table
Mountain to have that revelation?

Talk to me guys about how you've
come to your view of nature and love.

Have you, are there some moments of
epiphany that stand out for you that way?

Kickoff, whoever can bring one to mind.

Quickest.

George Bumann: I talked last, Craig,

Craig Foster: your,

I was looking at you, George.

We make animal sounds
and then we'll forget.

Oh, that's so cool.

There you go.

George Bumann: You have to embarra.

What's that?

That's an elk.

Is it?

Is red stag?

Yeah.

Relative red stag.

Relative of, is it bugling

Rupert Isaacson: or is
it just No, that's a cow.

That's a female's vocalization.

George Bumann: That's a, yeah.

Calling her calf.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Can you just give us the
bugling of the male quickly?

George Bumann: If my
throat's clear enough,

Rupert Isaacson: I can now
see why they call it bugling.

So I often wondered that because you
know, with Red Deer, which is the European

equivalent, they don't make that sound.

It's more like a Yeah, they bark.

Sort of,

George Bumann: Yeah, they roar.

Yeah.

George Bumann: Very un unmanly sound.

When some people hear it for the first
time, they're like, we're, we're expecting

more Like that ro like the bison.

Do you know?

Like, no, that's, that's our a

Rupert Isaacson: You somehow
feel unmanned personally by that.

That's,

yeah.

Anyway.

Yeah.

I digress.

Okay.

Craig, it's all you.

That's a great digression.

Craig, falling in love
with, love with nature.

How did it happen for you?

Craig Foster: So, I think

you know, the, the, the, the, the natural
thing for me when I was younger was to

try and you, you feel that inside you,
you feel that three millennial ancestral

pull and because of the strange place
you grow up in, you've got absolutely

no idea really of how to find that.

So you go for a cliche, you go for it must
be in the wildest, most dangerous place.

So, you know, I started with big
sharks and then progressed to diving,

you know, in giant crocodile layers
going into the down the tunnels in

the avago to the place where these
massive reptiles drag their prey.

Thinking that that one might be a good
place to find what you're talking about.

But because you can only spend literally
minutes in these places, and we are

very lucky to make it out alive.

It's what, what George is saying, you
get absolutely, really no, you get

this unbelievable adventure and in,
in way too much adrenaline, but you

you don't get any of that incredible
detail that he's talking about.

So it was an amazing adventure.

But ironically, I came back here
to the great African Sea Forest and

started studying an animal that you
would think would be very boring

and wouldn't bring you anywhere.

And that's the humble limpet.

This is an animal that kind of looks
like a rocket, doesn't seem to move much.

Rupert Isaacson: Why?

Why did you choose that animal?

Craig Foster: Because
they're so accessible.

You can go down, I can go down every
single low tide and observe these animals.

It's so, so the world hotspot for
limpets, about 25 species or more

from the massive giant limpet to the,
you know, tiny little Yale limpert.

But I was like just watching these
animals day in, day out, day in

out, and not much was happening.

And then suddenly you get these epiphanies
and they take you into their secret lives.

Deeper and deeper, and you
think, okay, I've looked at

them now every day for a year.

That's it.

And then the next day, oh my
goodness, you knew nothing.

And it takes you deeper and deeper.

And they're fertilizing their
gardens at low tide, you know,

pooping on their own lgal gardens.

They're trimming the gardens
just to the right amount.

They're growing certain alies, they,
you know, tender gardens for years.

I mean, it is, you know, incredible
ways of trying to avoid predation,

extreme predators hunting them.

I mean, it's just, there's absolute,
but what is, what happens at a certain

stage, and this is the critical
thing, you suddenly feel like you are,

your consciousness is starting to blend
a little bit with a lipid consciousness.

As hard as that sounds.

This is a mollusk you know,
that lives in a shell.

It's like a snail an ocean snail
of a sort, highly modified.

And then you go into the, you
know, what's growing on the shell.

You've got these marine lichens boring
into their shells and they're building

them up to survive that each, you can
look at each shell and you can tell.

How that animal has lived
in what environment?

By the shape of the shell, by how it's
being carved by the rocks around it.

And what happens is you start to merge
to some degree with lier consciousness.

So, and the, the, the, the,
you feel like you're part of

that intertidal environment.

Somehow, somehow your mind is,
and you can figure things out.

You can think of what it might be like to
be in a storm as a limpert or what it's

like to feed, or how you're dealing with
the sun and the heat, and where all these

biotic pressures are moving you around.

And suddenly you are, you feel the
beating heart of the intertidal

in your own beating heart.

That's very different to going
into a crocodile there a few times.

You know, you, you actually
feel part of this thing.

And that's the critical thing, is
that the sense of belonging, this

is the most key word, belonging.

So you feel that you
belong on this planet.

You're part of it.

You are wild animal in a sense, living
the strange domesticated existence, but

you are actually a wild animal at heart.

And then you feel the, the, that.

It is hard to, it doesn't want to
sound like a cliche, but you feel

the, the immensity of the creation
of the biodiversity that's, that's

literally inside you and keeping
you alive from second to second.

And that it's like, you know, nature and
all this diversity and this incredible

detail and these lives of these animals
is the most cl closest thing I've

ever come to the divine manifest in
something you can actually witness and

feel and appreciate and understand.

It's manifested in a way.

It's so complex and so extraordinary.

So it becomes, the simple
creature is a limper.

It seems simple, but it's highly
complex becomes divine in a sense.

Rupert Isaacson: It's a big extreme
jump though, to go from going into

the crocodiles layer to the limper.

Was there a conscious, was
that a conscious thing to say?

I, I want to take it now
to the microcosmic level.

I, I, I, I need to do this.

That I, I feel that the crocodiles
less stuff, although yes, young men

need to do this sort of thing, testing
themselves, that's also part of our

300, 3 million year old history too.

But there's also, that's also ego.

I mean, everybody does it.

Presumably we're supposed to, presumably
we're wired to someone's, you've got to

steal yourself to put that spear into
the bison at a certain point and know

that it may well turn back and duff you.

Okay, but that sounds like a
conscious decision to go from

the crocodiles led to the Limper.

Where was that decision made?

Craig Foster: I mean, unconsciously, it
was made in the plaster scene when I was

your 25-year-old person in the Kalahari.

When I saw and felt those incredible
sound on trackers able to speak

with nature so fluently, and I also
wanted to speak with nature like

George does in the most profound way.

And then, then I suddenly, years
and years later, 20 odd years later,

okay, I'm stopping everything.

I'm stopping filmmaking.

I don't care about, you know,
I'm just gonna, if I lose money

or whatever, it doesn't matter.

I have to be able to speak the language of
nature and which is ultimately tracking.

And I think George probably came onto
that path a lot earlier than I did.

I don't know what, what is, what
would your answer to that question?

I'd be very curious to know, George.

George Bumann: Yeah.

I think a lot like you Craig,
I, I, I proceeded with deeds.

I.

You know, things, activities that I
thought put me in the space to know.

And I think when you first asked the
question, Rupert, that, that's what

initially came to my mind is the love
begins with the knowing and, and the

knowing can't take place without first.

And I hunted and I fished and I trapped.

I did all kinds of things
that I don't do now.

They're part of my ancestry and
I still know how to do them.

I dream, I do them in my dreams
more than I, I can tell you.

But they were all in an effort to, you
know, your kind of question there to

Craig about when did you pick the limpets?

And I, I kind of see that in myself.

The, the choices.

It's a deep seated one as well, but it's,
it's just something on a continuum where

subject matter doesn't matter anymore.

The real goal is the relational tie and,
and the desire to know another, another

across the species boundary that sees
and experiences this world in ways I

never will, but like all relationships,
they require time and putting in

that time, no matter what it is.

For me, it was ravens.

When we first moved to Yellowstone,

they taught me how to be a better person.

They, they showed me things that
no other human could show me.

And to the, the, the apex experiences
that come with that cultivation of

knowing even very simple, normal
standards, simple creatures, stories and

experiences I've had with butterflies
and, and beetle larvae and bison.

And wolves and anybody, and I say anybody
intentionally that I've had the pleasure

of spending time with to really feel them.

And it becomes emotional.

And when something happens to them, I
feel some piece of what they're feeling.

It, it's welling up in me now.

You know, I was trying to finish a
sculpture of this one alpha female wolf

that I'd known since she was so young,

and she went outside
the park and got shot.

Mm-hmm.

I couldn't finish the sculpture I got with
her in front of me, as I often try to do.

So I had to finish it from memory, but.

You know, whether it was Mama Dear
here, is you open to noticing.

Just start there.

You know, so many people don't
know or even begin on a path like

Craig's or Mine or yours, Rupert it.

It starts with just noticing, don't
do anything different than you already

are right now, but just look in the
grass before you get in the car.

Look in the sky.

What are the clouds like today?

How many birds do you see?

Let that be your stepping off
point to begin to know, to see when

something changes and it's different.

And you find that with that time, that
knowing soaks into you in that way.

Our ancestors knew implicitly
that you are of this place.

Yes, you're human, but you
are not separate from this.

You do not live just at an address.

You live of this place

and you treat it differently.

As a result, you react differently.

You experience more than you
probably ever thought possible

Rupert Isaacson: It, it sounds like,

and I wonder if our 3 million year
old ancestors went through this and

I need to go back and ask some of
my friends in the Kalahari, but.

Craig, and it sounds like you became
broken hearted somehow, even though you

were so, you know, living your life with
indi indigenous people and nature, but

of course you were having to film and,
you know, that's a, and sell those films

internationally and that's a hell of a
business and yes, it will exhaust you.

But at the same time, you were doing
it in these natural places with, and

yet it, you still became broken hearted

and that of course cracked
your heart wide open.

George, have you become brokenhearted?

Yeah.

And tell us about that.

George Bumann: I still am in ways.

Mm-hmm.

I think we all are.

It's different shades of it and it's sort
of our, our burden to bear, but also our,

our challenge to overcome by
just not dwelling on that, but

seeking those good things, those
really beautiful things in life.

Like Craig was saying, just how amazing we
are as a species, like our senses and our

ability to, to put two and two together
and find relationships is unbelievable.

I think this comes from tracking not
only the outside friend and I are having

a very deep, extensive conversation on
this that's lasted weeks visiting every

now and then and hitting this topic
of tracking outwardly and inwardly.

We deny the inward tracking
so much that I totally agree.

We do find ourselves broken
hearted and not knowing why.

Yes.

George Bumann: How the
hell did I get here?

That's, I'm in here with these people,
with these animals and I feel like shit.

Mm-hmm.

What is that about?

And so you start having to follow the bent
grass and the, and the pebbles kicked out

of their places within your own heart and
mind in ways that are not comfortable.

I think that's keeps a lot
of us from going there.

Is it to heal, requires some pain

and, and healing ourselves.

The, the ancestors of my lineage who
did the things they did to Native

Americans, they were hurting themselves
as much as they were hurting the

people they were doing things to.

Rupert Isaacson: And they were coming
out of a cycle of warfare back in Europe.

That an oppression Right.

That was, you know.

Mm-hmm.

George Bumann: And me banging my head
against a computer is doing harm to me.

That I need to repair.

And boy, nature is one hell of a sve.

It always has been.

And it's there for free to all
of us all the time right now.

Stop.

Put the video on pause and
just go out for five minutes.

Rupert Isaacson: Do you
hear that listeners?

Do it.

Stop.

Well, even though it's sacrilege to
stop George Boman and Craig Foster

and one gets fined for doing that.

But nonetheless, stop it and do that.

Go out and, and then
go out for five minutes

and then cut and write down what
you saw and then click restart.

You're probably gonna listen to
this in stages anyway because

it's a couple of hours long.

Yeah, the, I was just thinking, you
know, you could go through YouTube and

look for morning rituals, you know,
all of which are great meditations.

Meditations are gratitude.

I do think God wants us to appreciate
and enjoy and be grateful for.

But appreciate not just, you know,
not just thank you in that kind

of coward way, but no, really.

Thank you.

This is incredible.

God wants us to dance.

God wants us to rejoice.

The, this planet is so joyful when
one watches nature, one often is,

seems to be observing it at play.

And we know that we are
very playful species.

And it's interesting when I'm
watching my horses, and my horses

are the, probably my closest bond
with nature because they're family.

I, I, they're, we are a herd of
human, cross species, human horse

family and have been for years.

And some of my horses were born outside
my back door and used to come into the

kitchen and get a beer out of the fridge.

I'm not joking.

And

they, but they carry me and
they carry autistic children out

into the world and they allow
themselves to be interacted with.

And they're okay being in service,
but they're not in servitude.

And one is fulfilling and one is crushing.

And I think we've been in servitude
as a species for a bit that taming.

And when you were saying George,
okay, here I am in this beautiful

place among these amazing people and
there's a wolf over there and there's

this raven who's talking to me.

And yet I feel like shit.

It is almost like, I feel that when you go
into nature, there is, it does of course

bring to a head the infection that's
inside from the last 10,000 years that is

actually doing what it should do, which
is coming to a head a big pustule to be,

there's lots of YouTube videos on that and
jolly satisfying they are to watch you.

People getting bot flies out
of their hands and things.

Watch three hours of that.

But nonetheless, it, it's painful and the
pressure, the buildup of the pressure and

so, and, and it could kill you, right?

There is always that slight thing that
it, it could, if the pressure builds up

enough, and I know you've experienced
this Craig, you know, in the Kalahari

with the healers, that they, they
experience death when they heal sometimes.

And this happened when my son was healed.

He's sleeping downstairs now.

He just got off the plane.

Huge hulking guy now from Texas
this morning here in Germany.

Remember?

Wow.

You were that little kid who was
falling asleep in my arms at the

transpires, in the Kalahari peacefully
while we and Unter who were healing.

You were going into the spirit world and
suffering on your behalf and we died that,

oh, if you've seen that happen, Craig.

Yeah.

Where the.

The norm, the, the, the healing
energy becomes overwhelmingly strong

because they have to, they're now
facing something in the spirit world.

That's a such a huge challenge
that they have to deal with.

And, you know, these are guys in
their seventies, eighties, they're

dancing 12 out, and then, you know,
they have to attend it, me to bring

him back so that he can then continue
and then onto takes on here and row's

just sleeping through all of this.

But they're really expressing

our, our need to come to
a head and pop and burst,

but then come back to a
homeostasis again to harmony.

And we, we see this all the
time in nature, don't we?

You know, volcanoes and weather systems
and predator prey relationships,

but this deep broken heartedness.

I think everyone listening
probably goes, yeah,

what you just said, George,
just start noticing you.

What you don't see on those like morning
ritual videos is that get up out of bed.

Don't worry about deep breathing.

Don't worry about, just go
outside and look and write

down what you see and observe.

Do you feel better or do you feel worse?

I think you too, do it every day
just because of where you live.

I think back to the snail tracks on the
eating, the algae, on the paving stones.

It can be difficult
when it's less obvious.

And then it helps to have someone inspire
you to begin to notice the limpet,

the snail thing, the, the small stuff
as you said, George, the bank grass,

the pebbles kicked, who kicked them?

What animal kicked them, even
if it was a human animal.

What was the human animal story of that?

So to heal this broken heart,

you know, you, you, you are talking Craig,
about the thousand One Species Project to

make people fall back in love with nature.

Do we need actually to fall
in love with nature, to fall

back in love with ourselves?

Craig Foster: I think it's a
wonderful thing that you said there.

Because we are nature.

Yeah.

There's no separation.

Yeah.

So we, we, we do need to.

And love nature to love ourselves.

And we, our, our whole survival
depends on the natural world.

So if we don't love her, we don't
fall in love with her again.

We'll, almost certainly
that'll be our demise.

Mm-hmm.

So it is, it is, to me, it is the most
precious thing we'll ever encounter.

It's our life support system.

Everything we do depends on it so that
nobody can convince me that there's

anything more important than protecting
our mother of mothers, our great mother.

Nature.

There's no, it's a foundation of
every single aspect of our existence.

And somehow we just need to realize
that, and all of us have kind of somehow

forgotten just how critical it is.

So absolutely essential.

And to realize there is no separation.

And that's what's happening here in the
little death that you're talking about.

In the Kalahari.

You're dying, your ego is dying, and then
you are merging with all that there is.

And it's the same thing
that needs to happen.

We need to realize that we are
inseparable from this extraordinary.

Biological intelligence, not only on this
planet, but extends into the deep cosmos.

That is our, you know, deep, deep mother.

So it's a, it's a, I think, an absolutely
vital thing that we desperately need to

change the story to be on that track.

Rupert Isaacson: We talk about the
death of an ego, death of the ego,

and because of ego's gone wild,
gone nuts, maybe not gone unw,

egos now seem to cause great suffering
to the point that we always seem to

be trying to escape our ego, whatever.

But that's impossible because
it's part of nature now.

It must be or it wouldn't be in us.

So it can't be bad.

It's got to be there
actually for a reason.

It must have just gotten
outta whack somehow.

What do you think, George, in the natural
wild human context, what's the ego for?

Do you, and both of you,
what do you observe of ego

in animals in other species?

Is it solely human

or is it actually expressed everywhere?

It's just that we, what, what
and what is, what is its purpose?

What is the same natural wild?

What's the wild.

Expression of the ego.

What do you think, Georgia?

George Bumann: Great question.

Rupert.

I think it does exist in other species,
and like most things, there's a, a

continuum of, of how that's expressed.

And I think at the most basic level
ego, ego expressed in, in nature is,

I'm the best you wanna meet with me?

Look how shiny my feathers are, right?

Mm-hmm.

You know, I'm bigger, I'm stronger.

It ha it has a place to further
the species, to further the

strongest aspects of the species
into the unknown of the future.

And so there, I think it is a very
useful tool to, to help life perpetuate

itself, or I think it goes wrong, is
when it it's taken out of context.

It's, it's applied to, to everything or
in, in places that it isn't, doesn't fit.

And that's where we start
running into trouble.

You know, you can see Bull Elk number
six in his main adversary number.

10 in Yellowstone.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and vying for that one s
harem of females and fighting it out

a couple times a year, but doing a, or
during the breeding season and showing

off a whole bunch in between and as
a way to advertise to those females

and intimidate your, your rivals.

So that's where I think that's,
that's my initial snap response.

Craig, do you have other thoughts
on, on egos roll in nature?

Yeah.

Craig Foster: Yeah.

I think that it's not
always so cut and dry.

You know, the, sometimes it appears
as if the biggest, strongest and

tiniest can win out, but that's
often and sometimes not the case.

But I think it's an amazing tool.

It's a powerful thing.

It's incredible for survival.

It's absolutely necessary,
but it has its place.

And I think animals are very good at
finding that balance where we, we've

just got it completely out of balance.

And that's because our environment and
especially money, has turned us upside

down with trying to deal with ego.

So we've, we've got a environment where
it's very difficult to deal with it.

And we need to really draw on
our ancestral memory to find

the appropriate place for it.

So it's it's such a dangerous
thing when it's, you know,

out of control like it is now.

But there isn't, go ahead.

Sorry.

I was thinking of the story with wolves.

You know, the, the wolves that
were actually Mika and more docile

actually out one, the, the, the,
the meaner wolves because people

interacted with them And am I right?

George, there's some, yeah.

Ideas around that, that the,
the biggest, strongest, meanest

ones didn't actually survive.

It was the, the more social ones that did.

George Bumann: Yeah.

Some of Robert Sapolsky's research with
baboons in Africa show that very clearly

that they had a breakdown by virtue
of disease, where this safari camp was

throwing putrid meat out into the dump
and the most dominant males were eating

the meat and soon died of disease.

And you had this culture of male
dominance and suppression of through

violence, of, of other animals'
behavior within the troop turned

over to a, in essence, a matrilineal.

Control of the community and their
selection was for males who were nice.

Hmm.

You know, nature does that.

It, it balances out the, the, it, it
makes room for all the strategies.

Hmm.

But it

George Bumann: also makes room
for the best strategies for

that moment to come to the fore.

And I think because of money in
particular, you know, David Grabber's

last book, the Dawn of Everything,
is this beautiful analysis of this

kind of idea of mankind going from
hunter gatherer to metropolitan

living and the hunter gatherer, you
know, agrarian pieces all in between.

And one of the segments he highlights
in there is the first initial contact

in North America with Native Americans
and Europeans and some of the Native

Americans going back to Europe or going
to Europe rather, and seeing just how

horribly they treated the poor and the
indigent and, you know, literally laying

in the streets, starving, injured, sick.

That never happened in
their culture, you know?

And, and Conran, one of the, the, the
Native, native American emissaries

who was part of that, one of those
trips said, you've made a deal with

the devil in the form of money.

You would sell your, your mother,
your daughter for this, this surrogate

to power, control, ego, whatever.

You know, I'm, I'm paraphrasing now,
but that, that the world we've built

around ourselves is, is not balanced in
context to the natural order of things.

So these terrible things
happen much more readily.

And that's one of the things I've
found with just noticing and knowing

and loving, whether it was the mule
deer around the house or our mag pies

who others de despise because they eat
other birds, but then they're being

depredated by the ravens that are flying
up and down the creek this morning.

And you, you realize there's no
good or bad, it's ill in context.

Yet when isolated and set aside from the
natural order, some of these tendencies

of any species can become malignant.

Right.

And I think we're dealing with that.

I'm thinking of can I just,

Craig Foster: can I add
to that ru Yeah, sorry.

I think what just George has sparked
for me what is so apparent, and it's

kind of obvious in a way, but when you
in these wild, near pristine places and

you just feel that incredible natural
heartbeat everywhere, it's absolutely

astonishing to one at that time that we've
given up all of this magnificence for

this weird substance we call money and,
and the power and that comes with it.

But we've, we've diminished our
lives so much in that process.

We, we, we naturally want like, comfort.

But there, there's a huge
price to pay for that.

Of course one needs some level of of
comfort and security with, you know,

where you live and water supply and so on.

But it, it, it needs to be balanced.

And to give up these incredible natural
systems for these levels of comfort is

the worst deal that anybody has ever made.

It's just, and it's so obvious
when you're in those places.

It's just, what the hell have we done?

And this madness to, to know levels
of comfort actually create massive

discomfort in the wild animal that we are.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

What I think you put your
finger on there is suffering.

And so what I'm, and while you're
talking about the, you know, bull

elk fighting or that sort of thing
for the ego in a natural, in, in

the natural world, does the elk that
loses the fight suffer psychologically

or does it feel, is is the fact that it's
living in its correct context, in its

correct environment, in its correct way.

Actually mitigate that suffering so that
the ego can work to the degree that it

needs to, to say, okay, fine, we'll have
this DNA work in this way over here.

But then as you were also saying in
the context of those baboons then

the alpha males get to alpha male
and end up dying off in the females.

Choose the nice ones.

Is there suffering in the same
way that we as humans in our non

wild context experience suffering?

I would posit that.

I don't think so.

When I, when I, for example,
when I observe my horses, they

go through these ups and downs in
the horse politic that they have.

'cause they're an integrated
herd and have been for years.

And some were born into the herd.

And so they really know each other.

And my old horse zag, who was very,
very much the dominant horse for a long

time aged and two years ago, became
not so much unless he finds himself in

the pen without the new dominant male.

And then he kind of feels, okay, I kind
of have to sort of assert myself again.

But you can almost see him kind of
go and it's almost not an assertion.

It's he then has to be the one
that watches out for danger.

He has to be the one that
takes responsibility.

And that's, it's really exhausting
for horses when they do that.

So they'll often in the daytime,
'cause they have to remain vigilant

at night for the other ones,
they'll stretch out completely.

It looks like they're dead.

And actually it's hilarious.

You know, sometimes people will call
in the animal health department, say, I

think there's a dead horse in the field.

It happens like all the time.

Say, no, it's not a dead
horse, it's sleeping horse.

And the non-dominant horses will
actually stand watch for the sleeping,

supposed a dominant horse because
they know that he's got to restore

his energy to keep them safe.

So it seems to be that there's this,
and then of course, you know, this

Craig, you know, among, again, among
the bushmen that we've spent so much

time with, there's all these leveling,
again, conflict resolution strategies.

Like if you are the alpha male and
you, you are like the best hunter.

The, your kill is not yours because
all the arrows are made by women

and children in the village and it's
very, very clear whose arrow is whose

'cause they've all got, they will
put their signature on it somehow.

And the other people in your hunting party
will also know because they'll see the

arrow that you used if you made the kill.

And they go, oh, that's aren't Betty's.

So when you're allowed to eat the liver,
but you've got to take it back and

then you've gotta give that one, that
carcass to Aunt Betty and Aunt Betty

will be the one that distributes it.

And these are sort of 3 million year old
human strategies for making sure that the

ego can be used enough, but not too much.

I would posit that that plus the shamanic
washing of the psychic dirty laundry

every 10 days or so for wee funky
monkeys in, in those indigenous contexts,

mitigates that suffering and then allows
the ego to do its job, which is sometimes

to make us go a bit beyond our, the energy
level or the commit, you know, the comfort

level perhaps that we would like to go to
for the good of the survival of the group

is money.

Where we call it money, but
I feel that money's neutral.

Unless we can give it power either way.

But is it, what we are really
looking at is fragmentation.

And the idea of just
turning inward on the self.

I'm no longer working for
the good of the group.

I'm now working.

The group is only me, even
though I'm part of a group.

And is that when we actually then
suffer from our egos and that's

when the ego becomes unwed?

Is that, is that it?

If you made it this far into the podcast,
then I'm guessing you're somebody

that, like me, loves to read books
about not just how people have achieved

self actualization, but particularly
about the relationship with nature.

Spirituality, life, the
universe, and everything.

And I'd like to draw your
attention to my books.

If you would like to read the story
of how we even arrived here, perhaps

you'd like to check out the two New
York Times bestsellers, The Horseboy

and The Long Ride Home, and come on an
adventure with us and see what engendered,

what started Live Free Ride Free.

And before we go back to the
podcast, also check out The Healing

Land, which tells the story of.

My years spent in the Kalahari with the
Sun, Bushmen, hunter gatherer people

there, and all that they taught me, and
mentored me in, and all that I learned.

Come on that adventure with me.

Craig Foster: That's the
ultimate suffering is when

that, that loss of belonging.

I don't think there's belonging.

Right.

The greatest suffering because a
social animal, a tribal creature like

ours, the scariest, most terrifying
thing has been ousted in being alone.

That's the worst punishment.

And that's the punishment now that
we've thought it upon ourselves.

We are, you know, we out of the cycle
of all these other divine beings that

we've lived with from the beginning.

And it's a, it's a very, very painful

George Bumann: greed.

Doesn't make you a good neighbor
or friend or family member.

We could replace the, the word money,
and we probably should with greed.

How much do we need?

And it could be greed for

Rupert Isaacson: anything, right?

Could be greed for other people's
energy, other people's attention,

George Bumann: attention, food,
certain type of clothing, pick

Rupert Isaacson: validation.

George Bumann: Mm-hmm.

Prestige.

Prestige

and prestige.

In our wild condition.

I think you, you two have
experienced it firsthand.

That, that, that there is a
continual check on that sort of

stuff for the good of the group.

We don't depend on the group in the way
the wolves do here in Yellowstone that

I watch, and when there's a conflict,

they bite that yearling and pin
it to the ground and then move on.

Everybody moves on.

It's done.

It's over.

The point was made, you
know, Ecker totally right.

Writes about it in the form of ducks.

You know, ducks have a squabble on a
palm, and, but then after that they,

they go on, they, they aren't spinning
in, in the pond thinking, why the

hell did that son of a bitch do that?

I can't believe he did that.

You know, this, this is the, this is
the, the mine spinning of a caged animal.

We put ourselves in that mine
cage where we do that stuff.

And that's not how nature works.

Nature has, its off ramps to tension
in a group has, its off ramps to,

to greed and jealousy and, you know,
the, the desire to hoard things.

It, it just especially if you're a social
animal, you there is not room for you.

To do things your way all the
time, exactly the way you want.

If you do, you die or you're ex,
you know, you're excommunicated,

you're, you're ousted from your group.

If the species behaves that way
in its broader community, it dies.

And right now that's what we're doing.

We are behaving as if our
agenda is all that matters.

And this comes with a, a rub.

It's a, it might in our case
for most people, because of that

comfort, Craig refers to that comfort
that rub is, is not felt as much.

But spring's coming a little
earlier here to Yellowstone country.

Yeah.

Our tanager, Western Tanager just
showed up and they're two weeks late.

Why was there just a weather system?

But is that weather system
something that's been driven

by the warming of the climate?

Is there something happening in Costa
Rica where they winter that's prevented

them from having the resources to come
back to North America as they always do?

Usually in the mid to third week
of May, this rub is, it's building.

And before long, the, the comfort
walls that we've built around

ourselves, they already aren't enough
to keep the impacts from being felt.

But unless we, we begin to know
and to feel and to love better

on a daily basis as part of our
typical at Mo the ship's going down.

And that's a very interesting,
pessimistic way to look at it.

We're saying

Rupert Isaacson: that, you know,
they're building, we like more Dubais.

Have you ever been to Dubai?

I I don't want to go to Dubai.

You know, I suspect eventually
I'll find myself there somehow, you

know, for some reason terrifies me.

This idea that you can build these things
in places where people are not supposed

to live like that in these ways and just
say, no, you know, we can just create

all this artificiality for comfort.

I, but I think you put
your, your finger on it.

We talked, we said prestige.

It's, it's this desire for
prestige where it goes wrong, but

we're told that's what we needed.

I mean, when I, I was at school
in that same school that, that,

that had the chapel that said,
God is love and love is God.

We were also told you must be
in competition with each other.

It was instilled into us.

I know the school you went to, I know you
went to Bishops in South in Cape Town.

My cousin Simon went there and
Craig, I know they, they would've

told you the same thing, you know?

And I.

The sports we played, the way we
interacted with each other, the bullying

that went on psychologically and
physically, it was all about prestige.

And, but everyone in any level of our
society's experiencing that at any time.

Both of you though, have
said, and I think this is

what sometimes gets forgotten in
conversations like this, so I, I wrote

this word from both of you, which I've
heard you say several times in this

conversation and in other conversations,
and I think it's, it's the way out.

You talked about that.

It's a brilliant thing.

You talked about nature has, its
off-ramps, George, brilliant.

To the, to the negative.

Where do those off-ramps start?

Where does the healing start?

Where does the conflict resolution start?

I think you've both made the point.

I've drawn a box around this
word and the word is notice

you, you, the moment you start to notice
nature, you're outside of yourself.

You have perspective of yourself.

Prestige falls away.

It's the immediate antidote, the immediate
panacea, even when it's worrying,

as you say, why the tanana is laid.

I talked about that
hunting story in that same.

Three days of hunting where I was
noticing the megaliths and the human

story and the human wolf pack that we
were, and then now the wolf's coming back.

There were these yellow butterflies
appearing in February in the clearings

of the woods that should not be there
in Northern Germany in February.

And as we paused, letting the horses
breathe and letting the hounds cool

off and have water 'cause it was
un unseasonably, unseasonably warm,

beautiful, beautiful yellow butterflies
drifting through the clearing,

but they shouldn't be there.

But the very noticing of them

assuaged my pain of
worrying about climate.

Okay, I'm worried about it's getting
warmer, but these butterflies are very

beautiful and the planet will be fine
even if we make it not fine for ourselves.

It will, but, but that would be sad
because as you, so as you say with

creatures of love, but this word notice,
notice, notice it seems that what you

do is you notice things and you show
other people how to notice things.

And in your showing of other people how
to notice things, you help them to rewild.

And if you help 'em to
rewild, you help 'em to heal.

Is noticing really where it needs,
where it needs to start for everyone.

That simple act,

Craig Foster: Noticing, I think is
the fundamental essence of tracking.

High level noticing and tracking
is the oldest language on earth.

Tracking is our way of connecting
and belonging and feeling part

of this incredible ecosystem.

So you've hit it.

Absolutely.

You know, spot on.

Noticing at a high level and taking notice
is critical for this, this conversation

and this changing of the story that
will, you know, determine our future.

George Bumann: George,

I concur.

You know, just by noticing your
internal chemistry is already shifting.

Did you notice what so and
so did when you said that?

It's sometimes a hard pill to
swallow, but it's a beautiful gift

Rupert Isaacson: and

George Bumann: out of

Rupert Isaacson: those gifts Right?

We have to notice each other too.

It's so true.

Yeah.

'cause we are nature.

It's not just noticing
the nature around us,

George Bumann: right?

It's all the same.

It's all one.

Rupert Isaacson: Oh my God.

George Bumann: That's a.

As a good friend said he had a, a
tracking mentor who did a, spent

his career tracking mostly illegal
immigrants on borders, but a lot of

lost individuals and, and criminals.

And it just very high level tracking in
the context of the non survival world.

But in his, his little note to, to my
friend in the book he'd given him, he said

that tracker will never be limited by what
can be found on the ground or in nature.

It'll only be limited by
the mind of the tracker.

Craig Foster: Beautiful.

George Bumann: Yeah.

It's there.

Every single step of the way is
there, if we are of the mindset to

search for it and to see it and to
understand what that means for us

Rupert Isaacson: and in order to notice
each other in this way so that we can

not make each other and
therefore the planet suffer

and ourselves, do we again?

Does it start though with noticing
what is outside of ourselves?

Because if we can do that, if we can track
what is outside of us in nature, what

appears to be outside of us in nature,

is that our first step to being
able to notice the effect of what

I said on my wife or the effect
of what I said on my kid, or the

effect of my mood today on my horse.

Does it start with noticing the cloud,
with noticing the bit of grass around

the tree that's growing out of the
sidewalk of the house that you live

on, where the dog's poop, but is
there life in there and what life is

there and what life is in that tree?

What tree is it?

Does it still always, I I kind of think
it does have to be that, that there

has to be that external tracking that
allows the internal tracking to begin.

And

I think you guys help people with that.

I think you,

I think you assuage suffering.

You know, you, you, you studies are now
being done on the effect on the mind

and the endocrine system and the human
on, say, watching nature documentaries

and it's very, very good for us.

It is gotta be done.

Someone's gotta go out there, film
that thing and bring it in and show it.

If we're not in it, George, you know,
when you, you are creating the art that

you create and bringing the stories
that you create, someone's actually,

you actually gotta go out there and
do that, create that piece of art.

Even if it's a image of that art,

it assuages suffering 'cause you bring
the nature in, but you had to go out

and notice it first in order to do that.

There's something I'd like to ask you
as we sort of approach probably towards

the conclusion of, of where we are.

This conversation, we've
talked about deep, wild places.

The kelp forest, even though it's very,
very close to Cape Town, is a deeply

wild, seemingly quite intact ecosystem.

Yellowstone National Park, the same.

And these forests in Germany where I
live, even though they're work forests,

they still maintain an awful lot of life
and I'm lucky to spend time in them.

Do you have places that, you know,
what are your favorite places?

Maybe two or three that you can
tell listeners that are actually

in or really, really close to.

Really shit environments that we don't
have to go as far as the other, we don't

have to get on and play the Cape Town.

Think of cities that, you
know, that are kind of crap

and places that you found
in or close to them.

Not 3000 miles off the coast of Africa.

Craig Foster: What comes to mind was
when I did this book to her and, and

had such a great time meeting George
and some other special people I was in

this place near Miami doing one of these
talks, and I was, it was not easy for

me to be on a book tour and to be in
airplanes and traveling and big cities

and, you know, press and it's not, it's
not, doesn't come naturally to me at all.

And I remember walking along this
road and it was, it was, it wasn't

that far from Miami and there
were, it was right near where the.

These massive airplanes were taking off
and I managed to get off this sort of

highway, and the ocean was coming into
this shallow area and the tide was coming

up, and I just needed some nature time.

And I lay in this very shallow water.

And every now and again, this massive
airplane would come over my head and the

whole ground and everything would shake.

And it was incredible.

The animals there were quite used to
it, and they didn't even bat an eyelid.

And I found these beautiful,
beautiful crustacean, these

shrimps living in beer bottles.

And they, it was like a
perfect home for them.

And it was just, and then there
were these fish that came in, and

then I noticed these incredible
what looked like decorator crabs.

And then were Muller.

I was just lying still in this very
shallow, very warm water, these

massive airplanes coming over.

And yet these animals were there living
in these beer bottles and this life I

saw some extraordinary creatures and
it was just like almost more powerful.

So it, it's a funny thing when
you find these creatures in

these funny little places.

In these areas where there's so much
human dominance, it can be very powerful

and emotional and you think this is
a miracle how these things, and they

were horseshoe crabs there as well.

I saw these horseshoe crabs,
like in these ancient creatures

moving, but I'm keeping dead still.

So everything that sort of, you know,
was, was okay with me being in that space.

And then every now and again, this
airplane would come over and the

whole, everything would just shake.

And it was I think that the, you
can find these little pockets of

life and it very, very powerful.

More, more surprising than,
you know, finding something

in the middle of a wild place.

In a very wild place in many ways.

George Bumann: Yeah,

the dump

Rupert Isaacson: go on.

George Bumann: I spend more time at
the dump probably observing ravens

than sometimes than I do anywhere else.

Right?

You so social of a creature and so
many nuances to their behaviors and

their calls and their relationship
to us concentrated in that one spot.

That is just the last place most people
would ever wanna spend any amount of time.

Dump your trash and get
the hell outta there.

And the dump is, you know, I
almost lamented a little bit when

they started putting, they put in
a compactor unit, so not all the

trash was in these open dumpsters.

'cause it offered a lot more food
and there were a lot more ravens.

And now it's, it's more sparse.

But

that gift of seeing an animal make
its way in a landscape that we've

engineered around our preferences
and what suits us and they all this,

it's just the most tragic thing
for these creatures to be referred

to as vermin or dumpster chickens.

I heard ravens was called to before, you
know, and they're like, yeah, but is this

not amazing that this creature that we
thought lived on the edge of this most

amazing wilderness and none of 'em are
living purely off the wilderness land.

They're flying 20, 30 miles daily, one way
to take advantage of what we throw away.

Mm.

And then they fly that 20, 30 miles
home to defend their territory

until the next day when they fly.

And this idea that this bird I'm
seeing right here on the edge of the

dumpster watching me get rid of my
recycling and my refuse has commuted

here to be in this spot right now.

It has a story, it has a family, it
has, gosh, these life experiences

that I can't possibly imagine.

And yet we get to interface a little
bit right here at the dump for a few

minutes and yeah, I'll just love that
idea of these, these, these strings

of, of connectivity to yes, some
of these pristine places, but also

some of these most unlikely places.

And it takes all of it for this to exist.

Rupert Isaacson: Well, I think the
point that you're both making there

is that what reminds us the noticing,
what reminds us of our connection with

nature is when we see nature interact
with us, you know, it, you can go to

Yellowstone and think, well, I'm kind
of looking at a living museum here, or

the Serengeti, but I'm not part of this.

You know, I've flown here in
a plane, I've gone on safari.

But I think when you go to these
liminal places, the edges of cities,

the edges of industrial complexes, and
you see the coyote hunting, you know,

along the edge of the polluted, swampy
thing in New Jersey, or, you know, as

you come into Newark Airport, and it's
often those places, transportation

hubs, industrial places where
people don't actually want to live.

That's 'cause where the animals
come in and live, isn't it?

I would think about being in airplanes.

I was in, I flew to London recently
and we're coming down over it.

We're coming down and
I'm looking at London.

I'm looking at just how many big
green spaces there are in that city.

Huge.

And the one I know best is Hamstead
Heath, which is very central.

And it's about a thousand acres of ancient
woodland, huge oaks that are in the upper,

you know, hundreds of years old, some
of them pushing a thousand years old.

And then the plane flew to go into Heath
throat on the west side, but had gone

over the east side, which is the docks
and the old, you know, industrial areas.

And there's the Lee Valley coming
down and the River Lee, all

these beautiful wetlands on it.

They've reintroduced beavers
there to control flooding

because of climate change.

And then the plane swung to the west.

And I looked down, I said, oh, that's
Richmond Park and Bushy Park, these

old hunting forests that were there
because there were huge populations

of Red Deer, which are still there.

And I looked down and I saw this big
herd of Red Deer just moving across

the, this, this big open Glade,
but all the buildings, you know,

off over there and Sunrise rising.

Yeah, you can, you can.

Access any of those green
spaces, those natural spaces.

And as you say, you know, fro from living
in the middle of the city, and as you

say, these interactions, the, these
snails in the bottles and the crabs

and the fish with a plane coming over,
or the dump where you actually get to

interact with a raven because you're both
there, more or less for the same reason.

And where we think when we're destroying
nature, these industrial sites, these

liminal sites, often that seems to be
where nature finds its first foothold.

Is it, is it the, is, is it the
noticing of, of that in those places

that actually has the most power for us
because it serves as a metaphor for that.

Yeah.

We can rewild

if it's, if it's always got to be
Yellowstone or Mongolia, well, we might

see that as very separate from ourselves.

George Bumann: What I, I see them, I
see them as infinitely more important

than a Yellowstone and the Kalahari
and the Schatz followed, you know,

kelp forest in the societal sense.

Yeah.

To me that you cannot
sensitize yourself to.

Let's say you do go to one of
those places on a bucket list trip,

you'll miss so much if you've not
been doing your homework at home

locally.

Mm, mm-hmm.

George Bumann: Yep.

I had a friend who went to Zambia.

She'd never been there.

Total bucket list trip.

Wanted to see painted
dogs so badly it hurt.

And they went day after day and
couldn't find any, couldn't find any.

They're going along and they're
in the Landy, you know, and the

guide's in the front in the seat, and
she's in the, like toward the back.

She says, is there,
could they be over there?

And the guy turns and looks at
her and then he looks off and

they are, they're over there.

You know, it looks back
at, how did you know that?

Well, I don't, I don't know.

But those birds over there were kind
of doing what the birds in my yard do.

When the neighbor's dog's out,

these lessons transfer.

And if you're already practiced in your
own local language arts version of, of

nature's conversations, the ability to
notice and discover goes way, way up.

So as nice as it is to go to
Yellowstone and see a wolf or

something like that, actually I get
as excited or more excited when I see.

The equivalent in a suburb, you know?

Yeah.

Visiting my, my brother-in-law, and
there's just this for me, I, I can't

imagine living there is housing
development and tract after tract of

the same house built over and over
on these loops and, you know, there's

a seven, you know, it's called Seven
Trails and there's not a single

trail among any of them, you know?

Well, they usually,

Rupert Isaacson: they usually, I've
noticed in America name those housing

develops after the thing that they
destroyed to make it like Absolutely.

Fox crossing.

Absolutely.

It's like the fox that used to cross
here before we built this thing.

George Bumann: Totally.

It's so bad and it's so true.

But even in the context of that, I
could know that that woman who's walking

her dog is coming before she ever gets
there through what the birds are doing

between the houses and that one feeder.

I know that there's a
Cooper's Hawk coming.

Mm-hmm.

You know, probably from that
direction, you cannot get what

there is to receive from nature.

If you're not paying attention to
what's closest to you on a daily basis.

Those animals in your neighborhood
are your very best teachers, your

best guides, your best mentors.

I don't know.

How do you feel

Craig Foster: you'll that Craig?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, I think you
said it so beautifully.

They are, these creatures are
really, I mean, certainly for

me, my, my finest teachers.

Especially for me, the,
the underwater creatures.

But it's a place that I
do, I do visit every day.

But it's, it's the daily
interaction and that familiarity

with the, the wild language that
is actually critic wild language.

Ooh, much better to go to a local
place that's very close that has

just a few animals than go to
these bucket list places where

it's just a passing, passing cloud.

Rupert Isaacson: Alright, so what
are we gonna conclude this with?

I am going to, I'll tell
you where I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go do, I'm gonna go notice.

So I need to take my dog Axel, one
of my two dogs, my high maintenance

Doberman, who we rescued in Texas.

He'd spend his first two years in a cage
and is a neurotic to all sorts of degrees.

But very sweet.

And I live in fear of his bottom
because if you don't empty it

this is a relationship with that.

If you don't make sure to empty
that bottom before eight o'clock,

at nine o'clock at night,
it's going to empty itself.

Not where you want termed it.

And we actually take bets, my son
and I how many poos it will be.

On a given night.

And it will depend on how much
horse poop has been eaten earlier

in the day and such and such.

So it can goes by to six, it could
be as little as one, but it's usually

you're safe with three or four.

And whoever, whoever bets three or
four first usually will, will win.

So, you know, it adds a sporting element.

But what there is down in the al,
which is where I'm the park, I'm going

to walk him in al is an old German
word for water matter an owl au.

And you'll often see that alba al, you
know, and that in people's names as well.

And the ta just means a
valley, like a small valley.

And that on top is where
that wolf was the other day.

But it's here, it's in the village.

And but it's, it's very much
sort of a park, but it's June.

And I know that if I go down there
now at nine ish now as just as it

gets dark, the fireflies will be out.

I'm gonna go and notice the
fireflies first thing I'm

gonna notice if they're there.

'cause it's, I haven't
been able to get out.

And sometimes it's, I
think now is the time.

Sometimes I hit it just
right, sometimes I don't.

So are they still there?

And where are they and are there
more or less than they were?

And I'm gonna notice how they
make me feel because the fireflies

always make me feel transported.

I.

So that's the noticing in my
hood that I'm gonna do now while

I go and empty my dog's bottom.

By the way, you're welcome to lay bets.

And I'll be a gentleman.

I won't pick four or three.

You guys can have that.

So whoever does that and you
get it right, I owe you a euro.

Okay?

So dunno, if you do, you wanna take a
bet on it, George, take, pick a number.

Boy,

check in with your gut.

You're into it.

Your hunter's trackers.

Mm-hmm.

Mind inter I feeling, I'm feeling

George Bumann: four to five,
but a little closer to four.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

George is four.

Craig I'll go for two.

Woo.

Living dangerously, but
you could well be right.

A seasoned tracker amongst
us has spoken, so, okay.

Gives me pause.

So that means I've gotta
go for three or five.

George Bumann: Yeah, you
gotta report back now.

Rupert Isaacson: I,
I'm gonna go for three.

All right.

But I will honor the bet.

Alright, but what, what local
noticing are you gonna do now

when we close this conversation?

Craig, where are you gonna go?

Craig Foster: I go, I, I go to bed
quite early and get up very early.

I will be going probably into the
water quite early tomorrow morning.

There's a very interesting big octopus.

That I is getting quite
comfortable with me and allowed

me to film it, walking Biped.

Ooh.

And also was actually feasting on a small
shark recently, which is very unusual.

So when you say

Rupert Isaacson: it allowed you to film
it, walking byed, is that a behavior

that they're normally very shy about?

'cause it needs Yeah, well, you

Craig Foster: have to get very
close and look underneath the web,

because otherwise you can't see the
arms that have changed into legs.

So this, it'll only allow
you if it is not threatened.

So it's got it, you know, they
quickly realize who you are.

They know you as an individual,
you're not harming them anyway.

So, it's, it's, and it's a big,
large, quite confident animal.

So, I'll be going to look for that
wonderful octopus in the morning and

notice whatever she's got to teach me.

George,

Craig Foster: where are you gonna go?

Sounds

George Bumann: great.

Well, I haven't stopped.

I don't know if you've noticed
my eyes darting, hither and yawn.

We had an elk walk through and the
mag pies are either, I think they

may be making a false nest in the
spruce tree right outside the window.

Rupert Isaacson: Why are
they making a false nest?

What's a false nest?

George Bumann: They're tricky buggers.

They are,

Rupert Isaacson: but why,
why do they make false nests?

George Bumann: I think to lead
the nest predators astray.

Okay.

They will create multiple nests that
they seem to be active in and yet

only lay eggs in, in one of them.

And they actually been known to
move their eggs between nests.

Wow.

As well.

If there's trouble and maybe
just for fun, I don't know.

No one's interviewed them Mag magpie
to, to see, but they just erupted

here in a big fit of, of chatter,
which makes me wonder if the raven

is giving them difficulty again.

So my dog needs to go out.

He's been moaning here for the last minute
or two and we may go check the mag pies.

The one is going into the nest right now.

I'm curious if the, the ravens are out.

So many of our adventures start this way.

We'll be laying in bed and we can
hear something through the window

and skip breakfast and run out to
see what the heck's going on there.

And, so I'll, it's midday here in the
United States, so I'll, I'll probably

go out, might sit down and either on the
porch or in a little patch of cottonwoods,

literally right off the corner of
the house we call the Tree Palace.

I've got names for all of the
places that we've given them.

So, no one else knows these names, but
we know, and immediately in the family

when someone says the Winnie the Pooh
Forest or the Sitting Rock, or that,

Rupert Isaacson: that, that is a really,
that that thing of intimacy with the

landscape where you begin to name it.

George Bumann: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Even though,
of course it has its own

language as independent from us.

But that's a language of love, isn't
it, when you begin to name certain

rocks, certain trees, certain, yeah.

George Bumann: Yeah.

They're terms of endearment.

Yeah, for sure.

And they're part of our own story
of healing and just living here.

So I'm gonna go sit in
the tree palace and Okay.

See what the mag pies are talking about.

Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: All right.

I guess we should go do that.

I'll go get Axel.

He's revving up his bottom and
hopefully the fireflies will, will

add the sublime to his, to his

specializing of the plants
on which the fireflies

dance.

Craig, your octopus, please greet her
from me and tell her how grateful I am.

To her and her kind for letting you film
the film that you made, which I think did

create you, your, your charity Sea change.

I think, I think Mar to Besi did create
a sea change actually in people's

perception of nature through media.

I, I really do.

You know, well it, so, but the octopus
had to allow itself to be filmed that way.

So please thank her on my behalf George
the Magpie I love magpie and they have a

nest right outside this window here too.

And I've, now you've said falseness.

I didn't know this about them
and I've wondered why they seem

to spend so much time there, but
there don't seem to be any eggs.

So now I'm wondering if, if that's why

George Bumann: put on a monkey suit and
peek in the nest, because if they see you.

Going into the nest.

They'll hassle you from
here on, ever forward.

So put on a disguise, check the
nest, and then take off the disguise.

I, I'm gonna disguise myself as

Rupert Isaacson: George Boomer, I think.

Yeah.

George Bumann: Go, go

Rupert Isaacson: talk to him.

Yeah.

I

George Bumann: visited Rupert
and these birds are attacking me.

What's going on here?

Just rabble-rousers.

No,

you've just trained them.

This, this has been a pleasure.

Yeah.

It's such a joy to, to
share this with you both.

It's such

Rupert Isaacson: a, it's such a privilege
to be able to have conversations

like this about topics like this with
people that you love and respect.

So my utter gratitude to you guys for the

Craig Foster: work.

Well, thanks so much for all your
effort in, in doing this rut and keeping

going and your energy and everything.

So really, and your,
your, your way with this.

Thank, thank you so much.

Rupert Isaacson: Well, hopefully we can do

Craig Foster: this again.

George Bumann: Yeah, that'd be wonderful.

Okay.

Thank you.

Rupert Isaacson: All right.

That's, I'm gonna click that.

Bless

Craig Foster: you guys.

Bless you guys.

Bless you.

I made this one today, Georgia.

Then if you can see, oh,

George Bumann: look at that.

Whoa.

Oh, I don't have yours to show me, but I
drilled a hole in yours and I'm making,

I'm making a necklace to put it on.

Somebody could take that
out of context, Georgia.

We're among friends.

Among friends.

What is that?

That's beautiful.

That's so beautiful.

What is

Craig Foster: that?

This is a, this is a, a seed
that's come down from Mozambique.

Okay.

It's a Zulu love bean.

It's like a lucky seed.

And then I've just engraved this.

I dunno if you can see that
kinda shamanic octopus on there.

Yeah, if you can.

It catches the light.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it comes in on the ocean.

Rupert Isaacson: Alright guys.

Craig, I know you need to go to
bed and get up early for your

octopus, my dog's bottom, you guys.

Craig Foster: Lots of love.

Lots of love.

Bless you.

Take at you.

We'll be in touch.

Thank you.

Okay, wonderful.

Cheers.

Bye.

Bye.

George Bumann: Bye.

Cheers.

Is.

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